Mediterranean Sea, Sidi Bousaid - Tunisia

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña (2019)

Comprehending Human Rights

Are they legal, political, moral, or natural?

“All human beings have the rights that are enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights” (The Open University, 2020a), but are all individuals
enjoying what each one of these rights entail? The fact is that even though the
UN is upholding the fact that all humans have these rights, some people enjoy
them plentifully, but others look like they have despised some of their rights
because they only enjoy a handful of them.

Why is it that some people have all or just a portion of them? The
explanation can be simple if we focus on a nation’s legal or political structures that
support them. As pointed out by The Open University (2020b), this “depends on
certain legal or political frameworks respecting and upholding them.” The absence
of this type of enforcement means that citizens do not have those rights legally or
constitutionally extoled in their magna cartas. “Governments enshrine certain
rights by passing laws and police forces and courts enforce them” (The Open
University, 2020b). North Korea’s political framework, e.g., does not support the
freedom of speech enshrined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the legal
upshot of this is that the North Koreans have the very same right as a calabash to
publicly disagree with governmental decisions. Yet all individuals living in
repressive regimes are entitled with this speech right but in their own countries.
This sounds rather contradictory, but it is the reality they have to live. This is like
a working horse being held from its hind legs when plowing the land.

Human rights are moral rather than legal. The question then lingers: Are
human rights for all individuals? Sure; this is a resounding yes! However, it needs
to be understood that “human rights are fundamental moral rights that any and
every human being has and which we should seek to uphold, establish and defend
everywhere, at all times” (The Open University, 2020b). In the eyes of politicians,
-for instance-, moral rights do not and should not interfere with a nation’s legal
system. Take the case of the United States in 2017 when “Amnesty accused the
U.S. government of setting the tone for a year of ‘hate-filled rhetoric’ that fueled
bigotry and persecution across the world” (Meredith, 2018) when six Muslim-
majority countries’ citizens were banned to travel to the United States. Based on
this example, no human being should be discriminated because of its creed or
religious beliefs. Morally speaking this can be labelled as an unethical decision yet
legal.

To end up, human rights should also be considered “natural rights.” A

natural right “supposedly transcends any political or historical situation and does
not depend on being established by any legal or political institutions” (The Open
University, 2020c). Human rights predate the foundation of civilizations; “natural
rights are thus rights that morally ought to be respected, even if in practice, they
sometimes are not legally or politically respected” (The Open University, 2020c).
Human rights are natural, moral fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, but that are unfortunately not backed up by legal or
political structures in all countries around the globe.

References
Meredith, S. (2018, February 23). 10 Global Hotspots for Major Human Rights Violations in 2017.
Retrieved November 9, 2020, from CNBC.Com: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/amnesty-ten-
global-hotspots-for-major-human-rights-violations-in-2017.html

The Open University. (2020a). Global Ethics and Human Rights. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from
FutureLearn.Com.

The Open University. (2020b). What are Human Rights? Retrieved November 7, 2020, from
FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905606

The Open University. (2020c). Natural Rights. Retrieved November 8, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905607