Protecting Individual and Group Rights Homepage - Left Column

The Challenge

Strategies for dealing with violence and intimidation invariably require fielding powerful police and military forces capable of preventing other nations and criminal elements within a society from advancing their selfish interests through violent means. The problem, as history has demonstrated again and again, is that state power is all too often co-opted to serve the selfish interests of the few, rather than the more general interests of the larger community. The continuing struggle against tyrants and "tyrant wannabes" has, through history, been one of the central goals of those seeking to improve governance. 

The core of such efforts has been the granting and protection of individual and group rights that the state cannot abrogate. To do this successfully, a number of key challenges must be addressed:

• Defining Universal Human Rights -- There has been a long-term effort to articulate and seek support for a universally accepted declaration of human rights. However, this effort has yet to be fully successful. Those who benefit from denying rights to others oppose such designations, as do societies which conceptualize rights differently.
• Economic Versus Political Rights -- A major challenge associated with the articulation of such rights involves differing attitudes towards political and economic rights. Some countries, for example, the United States, preference political rights such as freedom of speech and political expression, over economic rights. Others, such as China, emphasize economic rights, including such things as the right to employment, health care, housing, education etc over political rights. Each side believes the other is guilty of human rights violations, because they define those rights differently. Some strategy is needed for dealing with these cultural differences in ways that respect cultural differences, yet protect individuals and groups from abuse and unfair treatment.
• Remedies -- Rights are meaningless if there are not effective remedies available to those whose rights have been violated. Efforts to strengthen human rights must be coupled with a corresponding strengthening of mechanisms to prevent and, when that fails, prosecute, people who violate protected rights. 
• International Enforcement -- Given the large number of cases in which states fail to successfully guarantee the most basic rights of their citizens, fair and effective international enforcement mechanisms are necessary. These have yet to be agreed to. Notable efforts in this regard include the International Criminal Court and the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Neither, however, is universally accepted nor acted upon.
• Sovereignty -- Another problem that must be addressed is that international enforcement strategies place limits on the principle of national sovereignty. This concept was long ago established as a peace-promotion mechanism, as it told nation states to state out of other states' internal affairs. Such non-interference promotes peace when the state in question protects its own citizens, but when it fails to do so, the notion of sovereignty becomes more problematic. What should be done--and by whom-- in such cases remains in dispute.