Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Why are there human rights?

Human rights are rights that are though to exist solely on the basis of humanity. Because of this, these are rights that we all share without consideration of race, gender or any other quality. Human rights are the foundation of justice systems throughout the world and can be dated back to ancient Chinese and Babylonian cultures and though to today. The United Nations created the Universal Declaration of Human rights in 1948 including the rights to "life, liberty and security of person." The Horrors of World War II demanded that there be a formal declaration of conditions and actions that are wrong to subject a human being to. While some rights, especially the right to live, are almost universally agreed upon, some other rights such as political rights, are disputed due to culture and/or politics. 


Without holding that some rights exist solely because of someone's humanity, no behavior would be considered out of bounds. Without human rights, there would be nothing that indicated that murder, assault, sexual assault, abuse or neglect are wrong. There would be no standard of life because people would be free to treat anyone as they pleased, good or bad. Scientists could use humans as test subjects with no regard for the out come and serial killers could roam free because there would be no reason for anyone to intervene. Human rights set a standard for what will and what will not be acceptable in society. Also, human rights not only keep individual behavior from being destructive, but also that of governments and other authoritative offices. 

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