283 TWO POSSIBLE STYLES OF DEALING WITH THE ISSUE OF THE RIGHT TO HEALTH.
1. As a general comment on the Readers, I would contrast two possible styles of dealing with the issue of health rights: a. Taking the human rights (HR) approach as…
282 AS A HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST, EVERY DAY, I BELIEVE LESS IN FORMAL REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
1. Political pressures from the powerful and the abuse of public office affect a government’s commitment to human rights. This is especially true in the arbitrary world of autocracy (the…
281 IT WILL ONLY BE THROUGH THE VIGILANCE AND MOBILIZATION OF THOUSANDS OF CITIZENS-WHO-CARE THAT WE WILL EVER WREST FROM OUR GOVERNMENT(S) ANY DECENT HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY OR ACTION.
In development work, ‘advocacy’ is a word in everybody’s lips. But what is it really? 1. Advocacy can be defined differently depending on the context it is being used-in. One…
280 HUMAN RIGHTS-PROOFING DEVELOPMENT PLANS.
1. We have a tremendous underutilized accumulated knowledge on the past and ongoing ‘development processes’ that, for the most part, have been human rights-blind. Allow me just a few examples.…
278 JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE STATE: TO HAVE A RIGHT IS TO HAVE SOMETHING THAT SOCIETY OUGHT TO DEFEND ME FOR. (John Stuart Mill)
1. Mind you, we have duties towards people we never know… and they have similar duties towards us. The human rights framework thus basically looks at people in societies with…
277 AS WE ALL WELL KNOW, ETHICS IS ONE OF THE ROOTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS. WHAT DO PHILOSOPHERS HAVE HAD TO SAY?
Good moral rules help us act in the most rational way possible 1. Human rights (HR) tell us we should take into account others and not only our own interests…
276 DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION* CLAIMS ALTRUISM AND MORALITY, BUT IS DRIVEN BY AN IMAGE OF MORAL SUPERIORITY.
To be effective in reducing poverty, foreign aid must first and foremost be disbursed in good faith for that purpose –without political naiveté or double talk Unfortunately, aid is still…
275 THE HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IS NOT A CONTINUOUS STRAIGHT LINE OF PROGRESS. IT IS MARKED BY PERIODS OF ADVANCE, OF MORE OR LESS INTELLIGENT REFLECTION AND OF DEAD STAGNATION.
Understanding history for what it is 1. As individuals, we do not really create the historical times in which we live-in. But what we have to do is to understand…
274 DO WE DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS OR DO WE DEFEND OURSELVES FROM THEM? (P. T. Delgado Palacios)
1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 assumes humankind agrees with the institutions of a bourgeois society. According to the Declaration we are entitled to protection under the…
273 THE CHALLENGE IS TO GO FROM RATIFIED TREATY TO LAW OF THE LAND. AT THE END OF THE DAY, NATIONAL LAWS PLAY THE FINAL CRITICAL ROLE WHEN ASSESSING A GOVERNMENT’S REAL COMMITMENT TO HUMAN RIGHTS.
Background 1. On December 10, 1948, 48 countries signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The rest is history –history not to be taken lightly since human rights (HR) are…