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Rights
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Human Rights and State Crimes
In this course, Dr Hamourtziadou (Birmingham City University) explores human rights. In the first lecture, we think about the concept of a right, from its origin in Ancient Greece to its development from natural to human rights. In the second lecture, we think about the origin of human rights in the 20th century, with the 1942 signing of the original United Nations declaration. In the third lecture, we think about the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its contents. Next, we think about the ongoing impacts of the universal human rights on modern conflicts and the concept of human security. In the fifth lecture, we look at three key arguments against the current implementation of human rights. In the sixth and final lecture, we think about how human rights theory and practice is often misaligned and depends greatly on the nationality of the defendant in instances of human rights violations.
Rights
In this lecture, we think about the concept of a right, focusing in particular on: (i) the origin of the word right, rooted in the Greek word for justice, demonstrating that rights have always been about what is fair and what someone deserves; (ii) defining rights as entitlements we have as human beings to have access to, or be safe from, certain resources/events/factors; (iii) some key examples of rights and types of people and animals who have these rights; (iv) differentiating between positive and negative rights; (v) John Locke’s proposed natural rights, which were formulated in the 17th century, as a God-given precursor to human rights; (vi) natural rights including the right to life, liberty and property, as well as the right to choose and look after our own wellbeing/happiness; (vii) John Locke’s proposition, that the purpose of a government is to protect its citizens’ rights, with the other direction of that social contract being our obligation to follow our government’s rules; (viii) the universality of these natural rights, which is reflected in the universality of human rights; (ix) the right of the people to respond to any abuses of those rights by their government, by overthrowing the current power and replacing it with one which respects those rights.
Hello. My name is Doctor Lily Jamz,
00:00:06and I am a senior lecturer
00:00:09at Birmingham City University.
00:00:11I lecture in security and international relations as well as policing.
00:00:14Today I'm going to talk to you about human rights. What are human rights?
00:00:18What is the right?
00:00:23Um
00:00:25how and where did they originate?
00:00:26Um, all the way from ancient Greece to the 21st century.
00:00:29I will start by talking about the concept of right What is a right
00:00:35now?
00:00:40A famous Greek philosopher called Aristotle a long time ago spoke about rights.
00:00:41Now the word for rights
00:00:47in Greek is the
00:00:50has a root
00:00:53of the
00:00:55which means justice.
00:00:56So from the very beginning, the concept of right was about what is just what is fair,
00:00:58what somebody deserves.
00:01:04So justice and the concept of rights are still
00:01:06very much linked
00:01:09rights.
00:01:12To put it simply, our entitlements,
00:01:13entitlements we have as human beings primarily,
00:01:16although there are other kinds of rights as well.
00:01:20Rights dictate what is permissible and what is not permissible. Uh, what is moral
00:01:22and what is legal
00:01:30or, on the other hand, immoral and illegal?
00:01:32There are various kinds of rights that you may have heard of, for example,
00:01:36the right to life.
00:01:39This is often a right that comes up when arguing, for example,
00:01:41against the death penalty,
00:01:44the ability or right of a state to take our life away.
00:01:46There's the right to choose the right to vote the right to work the right to strike
00:01:50We in
00:01:57the 21st century talk about Children's rights, animal rights,
00:01:58workers' rights, property rights,
00:02:03the right to remain silent when you're under arrest,
00:02:05as well as
00:02:08the right to privacy or minority rights.
00:02:10Also,
00:02:15there are negative rights and positive rights.
00:02:17Now a positive right is a right that you have to be able to receive a certain good
00:02:19or a certain privilege. For example,
00:02:26um, a negative right is one where you have the right to be free from interference,
00:02:29for example, the right not to be assaulted, the right not to be tortured.
00:02:36So negative rights and positive rights are both part
00:02:40of the rights that we enjoyed as human beings.
00:02:46Rights are very much connected to freedoms,
00:02:49so something that may be a freedom can also be a right.
00:02:52At the same time, it's about things that we are free to do. We have the right to do.
00:02:57We are free to do and,
00:03:02uh, the limit of those rights.
00:03:04And those freedoms are where someone else's rights and freedoms begin.
00:03:06So
00:03:10how did we come to then have what we call human rights? Human rights are very modern.
00:03:11They haven't even existed for 100 years. They they're quite young.
00:03:16Um, but in the 17th century, there was something called natural rights,
00:03:20which was, uh, I suppose, a precursor to human rights.
00:03:25Uh, a famous English philosopher in the 17th century called John Locke
00:03:29said, um
00:03:34and and argued in his writings that every single person has a natural right,
00:03:36OK, just by virtue of being human, we have natural rights
00:03:41and we are born with those rights. They're fundamental, we are born with them.
00:03:45And he argued that God gives them to us.
00:03:49Those rights can never be taken away. And they can't even be given away.
00:03:53It's not up to you to give your right away.
00:03:57Those natural rights are many.
00:04:01But the basic ones that he spoke about are the right to life,
00:04:03the right to liberty and the right to property.
00:04:08He argued that the most basic law of nature is the preservation of mankind,
00:04:13and each of us each each human being has the right and the duty to preserve life,
00:04:19both our own lives and the lives of others.
00:04:24So that is the most fundamental right that we have the right to life.
00:04:27We also have other rights.
00:04:33He said that again, a natural inalienable rights, as he called them.
00:04:34And one is the right to choose the right to choose the life we
00:04:39want for ourselves and also the right to look after our own well being
00:04:43and our own happiness in every society, he said.
00:04:49Every human being has the right to be happy,
00:04:53to choose the life that will give them the happiness that they deserve.
00:04:57And again, this this idea of us deserving our right is very important.
00:05:02Um,
00:05:07and what is the purpose of a government then?
00:05:08Because we all live in states and societies?
00:05:10The the purpose of a government, he argued,
00:05:12is to make sure that our rights are secure and protected.
00:05:15That is the whole purpose of a government to protect the rights of the citizens.
00:05:20On the other hand,
00:05:25we as citizens have a duty to obey the laws.
00:05:26So it's a two way relationship.
00:05:29And John Locke said,
00:05:31there is something called the social contract that we don't actually sign.
00:05:32But just by virtue of being born in a society,
00:05:37we are part of a social contract.
00:05:40And based on that contract,
00:05:42the government protects our rights and freedoms while we
00:05:44obey the laws of that country of that society.
00:05:48What, um,
00:05:54what we see already is the idea of equality and universality built into these
00:05:56rights in the sense that just by virtue of being a human being,
00:06:02you are equal to all other human beings.
00:06:06And those natural rights that you and I have are the same
00:06:08as the natural rights that everybody has anywhere in the world,
00:06:12regardless of their age, their gender,
00:06:15their political affiliations, their abilities, their intelligence.
00:06:18We all have the same rights.
00:06:23So there's this idea of equality,
00:06:25but also universality because they apply to everyone everywhere.
00:06:27So although John Locke was British,
00:06:31the rights that he was talking about the natural
00:06:34rights are not British rights or even European rights.
00:06:36They are universal,
00:06:40so equality and universality are two key,
00:06:42um, concepts within rights, whether we call the natural rights or human rights,
00:06:46which wasn't the language yet. It was natural,
00:06:53Uh, and they helped us develop the human rights, Um,
00:06:56in the 20th century.
00:07:00Now, what is important here
00:07:01is
00:07:04to note that this social contract that citizens have with their government means
00:07:05that if the government breaks that contract by, for example, abusing
00:07:11the citizens, violating the natural rights of the people who live in that state,
00:07:15then these people
00:07:22have the right to
00:07:24overthrow that government, to rebel, against the government,
00:07:26to get rid of that government and replace it with one that respects their rights.
00:07:29That is a very, very important concept. Uh, because up until then,
00:07:35uh,
00:07:39that didn't exist.
00:07:40In a way, um,
00:07:42the the There is a theory that I will speak about later called realism.
00:07:44Uh, that was again developed by a British philosopher,
00:07:48whereby a state has to be powerful. The government has to be powerful.
00:07:52Uh, all the power needs to be in the hand of the government
00:07:57and therefore that government can
00:08:01do whatever it needs to
00:08:04to protect itself. The state needs to stay strong.
00:08:06But for the first time,
00:08:10with John Locke we have this concept of the
00:08:11power being also in the hands of the people,
00:08:13not only but also in the hands of the people.
00:08:16And therefore people can actually demand
00:08:19that their rights are protected not just from outsiders who
00:08:22may be enemies but also from their own state,
00:08:26who is supposed at least to be on their side
00:08:29and to be the guardian of their rights and liberties.
00:08:32So that was a crucial time in history in terms of rights, the 17th century.
00:08:35
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Hamourtziadou, L. (2023, April 06). Human Rights and State Crimes - Rights [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/human-rights-and-state-crimes
MLA style
Hamourtziadou, L. "Human Rights and State Crimes – Rights." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 06 Apr 2023, https://massolit.io/courses/human-rights-and-state-crimes