In the post-Cold War era, millions of people, mainlyin Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, were suffered from both intra- andinter-state conflicts such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, refugee flows (Dorn, 2003). Given thoseconflicts, many scholars highlighted the need to emphasize not only on states’security and on the human-centric security i.
e. individuals’ lives andwell-beings. In order to response these challenges, many conventions anddeclarations which address human security, were eventually developed. The mostobvious ones are UN Declarations of Human Rights, conventionsfor crime e.
g. Conventions for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime ofGenocide, the Geneva conventions and conventions to enhance rights forparticular groups e.g.
the Declarationon the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and armed conflicts andso on.UDHRwas adopted by UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. It includes 30 Articleswhich cover all fundamental human rights. Articles are classified as follow; Article1 and 2 as foundation principles, Article 3 to 21 as political rights andArticle 22 to 30 as economic, social and cultural rights (Universal Declararion of Human Right, 1948). All these rightsare to be universally protected.
Can different cultures or backgrounds go to auniversal standard? If I have to answer this question, I will definitely say’no’. I want to explain this answer referring to Article 25 which describes’Everyone has the right to standard of living adequate….. including food,clothing, housing….’. In my opinion,this means a person who may work for his life or not, a person who may be ableto work or not should have equal access to those rights.
Let person A who is able to work but doesnot work and person B who is also beable to work and really work. If both of them get access equal right, it wouldnot fair for person B. Person B’s effort for work may reward him like morewages. But he can’t enjoy this right more than person A. In other words, thedeclaration does give equality but not justice. So person A and B with differentworking background should not go to the same standard. In the case of rich andpoor countries, most of the poor countries could not fulfill this right when ittries to develop their country; it may try to re-build its sovereignty or itmay try to make economic or political reforms. But rich countries can fulfillthis right because of their strong economics.
So, both of them can’t go to thestandard which is universally proclaimed by UDHR.Secondconvention I would like to discuss is Convention for the Prevention andPunishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is adopted by UN General Assembly in 1948.The convention describes what is genocide, what constitute genocide and aboutthe punishment (Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948). Genocide, ofcourse, must be protected for human security and adoption of this convention isessential. But in the case of Rwanda, UN failed to involve. The anticipatedgenocide in Rwanda was ignored to prevent because of lacking clear evidence.After the outbreak of genocide, the taken actions by UN had many limitations.
Their actions for punishment were also ineffective. The cease-fire agreementwas also breached. The use of military was not allowed for investigatingbreaches, enhancing capital’s security. Although Rwanda had already ratifiedthe convention in 1975, UN can’t take any effective action on Rwanda genocide. Asa consequence, it becomes a contradiction that formal procedural steps make theactions delayed or ineffective and what if we take actions without formalprocedure.Asa conclusion, there is no denying that UDHR was a milestone from which otherconventions associated with human rights were developed.
The conventions areadopted for ensuring for security and well-bring. But there are also manycontradictions and weakness in the declarations and conventions as mentionedabove. So, not only international community but also individual states shouldgive a remedy by compromising these declarations and conventions in more clearand justice ways.
