<Author>Michael</Author>
<Topic>Human Rights</Topic>
<Source></Source>
<Nationality>USA</Nationality>
I have given many speeches on human rights, so I have a special interest in this highly significant international subject. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan has often said that the two greatest violations to human rights in the world today are war and abject poverty. In the late 1990's, the United Nations General Assembly agreed that the major issue facing the third millennium of the common era and the twenty-first century would be human rights. Pope Paul VI made popular the saying, "If you want peace, work for social justice. " Human rights activists like to extend this saying, "If you want peace, work for social justice. If you want social justice, work for human rights. " I tend to be a universalist on the issue of human rights. That is, I would argue that basic human rights generally belong to all human beings, at all times, in all places. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the major documents of the twentieth century, indicates that. there are civic, social, political, economic, and political human rights, as the prerogatives of all people in all societies.
Culturally, however, while many societies agree on this basic set of rights in the broadest sense of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and succeeding international treaties and protocols, they stress that within their own societies certain rights are culturally specific, while other rights are a part of their value systems. Annually, the United States Department of State produces human rights statements on virtually all countries in the world. Many governments, including China, reject these documents as demonstrating a double standard and as interference. in internal Chinese affairs. The Chinese Foreign Ministry claims that the United States human rights document ignores American governmental human rights violations while stressing human rights violations other countries which have different societal values and beliefs. An example of what China feels is impractical as a political right is the universal franchise as a direct election of its leaders would be almost an impossible burden on the society.
It is clear that while I may believe that human rights should be universally applied, culturally specific rights might be accepted in different ways by different societies. Many human rights scholars would agree with this position. Who is correct? What do you think about this question?