Human rights are considered to be the fundamental rights, that every individual is considered to have asses too. Some of these are the right to liberty, the right to life, the right of the freedom to think and express oneself, and finally the right to receive equal handling as regards issues relating to the law (Manul 56). These rights are considered to be entitlements to humans or a group. Ensuring the respect of human rights can be said to be the responsibility of the government and its citizenry. The rights are meant to be attributed naturally, that is to say, they are not meant to be worked for (Purkitt 34). Based on this fact, no individual, therefore, is supposed to be deprived of these rights on whatever ground, be it color, sex, or religion. Different regions in the world have different interpretations of what human rights are, that is to say, the interpretation varies. Irrespective of the variance in the interpretation the values are shared.
Interventions to protect Human Rights
Humanitarian Intervention
Humanitarian intervention came about as a result of the obvious need to secure the rights of humans and at the same time uphold peace and tranquility. Internationally, evidence shows that the world is moving in the direction of thinking that regard for human rights, is the negative duty of the Government to uphold, and not just that but also the positive responsibility of the government to ensure the defense of these rights. And also to ensure that the rights of some people are not violated by others. The humanitarian intervention comes in two forms, unilateral and collective intervention (Ahane 68).
The topic of “interventionism’ has generated so much debate that the direction of shift of which can hardly be pointed at. Most of the small or weak states see intervention by the Big or powerful states as “colonialism”. It is thus right to say that governments that are weak need to start taking responsibility for their states “interventionism”. These will be for their good. Most of the major instances of “interventionism” that created controversies internationally, in most cases come at a time they were not useful, and at the same time they did not provide enough reason to handle principle issues, the role of the UN and what can be said to be the limit of the sovereignty of a state. In a speech delivered by Kofi Annan in 1999 and 2002, to find a solution to this problem stated “…if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica—to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?”( Manul 57)
Human Rights and State Sovereignty
Human rights can not be said to be undermining the sovereignty of a state, but both are said to be rooted inside sovereignty (Manul 14). The understanding of what human rights and sovereignty is all about has in the present day been reshaped by the ideals of different schools of thought. In another vein, if human rights are described as rights that are universal, and available to every individual, how can these rights not be described as being contrasting to the authority of states? The answer that can be given to this is, human rights and the sovereignty of the states have been made by the political and legal practices to be compact (Ahane 34). This notwithstanding there is every possibility that shortly the sovereignty of the states will be of uttermost concern to most nations, this will not go unchallenged by the citizenry clamoring for the protection of their rights (Manul et al 32).
Human rights and sovereignty are view by most people as been opposed to each other. Or simply put the right of the citizenry rutted against the state rights. But in the real sense, they both go hand in hand. It is the people that protect the rights of the state and the state in return protects the people.
Works Cited
Ahane, Bill. Challenging the Sovereignty Norm, Istanbul: CDM, 2002.
Baylis, John, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens. The Globalization of World Politics. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Manul, Jones. Human Rights and the Law, Maiduguri: Achan, 1996.
Purkitt, Helen E. World Politics 09/10.Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009.