Talk:Human rights

reworking of the "currently debated rights" issues

I would welcome any comments from other editors as to how we could improve or ameliorate this section of the article - at the moment there appear to be real issues within the section, it reads like a disparate list of controversial issues within the human rights context and i am not convinced that it really helps the article as it currently stands Ajbpearce (talk) 21:07, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Human right abuse

Human right abuse is an important subject and it isnt exactly covered well here.--Penbat (talk) 14:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Downgrade to C class

Currently this article has major formatting issues, it is FAR too long, and in many places is not coherent, as a consequence I am downgrading it to class C, it could really do with some work! Ajbpearce (talk) 08:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Article Length

As part of dealing with the article length I am creating a new article on Philosophy of human rights, using the essentially duplicated content on this page and the "history of human rights" page, the page is available in my userspace if anyone else would like to help develop it before I release it Ajbpearce (talk) 09:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Property and Value

this section seems to have no place in this article. nowhere in the body of this section does it ever link back to human rights. While a case can be made that conceptions of property and value effect the social and economic rights that we deem universal, this link is never drawn. Additionally such a link would be unfounded in this article unless a citation was provided. If no one objects I will delete this section in a few days... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.133.124.87 (talk) 18:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Universalism vs. Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is a self-detonating position; if cultural relativism is true, then universalism must also be true. Relativistic arguments also tend to neglect the fact that modern human rights are new to all cultures, dating back no further than the UDHR in 1948. They also don't account for the fact that the UDHR was drafted by people from many different cultures and traditions, including a US Roman Catholic, a Chinese Confucian philosopher, a French zionist and a representative from the Arab League, amongst others, and drew upon advice from thinkers such as Mahatma Gandhi.

This statement most definitely not from a neutral point-of-view, and should perhaps be altered.

enjoymoreradio (talk) 08:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I second this - in fact the whole Universalism vs Cultural Relativism seems to be an argument against Cultural Relativism. It really needs some cleanup but I don't have the background to construct a proper section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.142.7 (talk) 02:47, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Lede cleanup

I recently made an attempt to clean up the lede. User:Yorkshirian tonight reverted the whole thing but only mentioned disagreement to one part, so I'm coming here to discuss it, in the meanwhile I've reverted back to keep the things not explicitly objected to.

My edit summary said "human rights aren't a concept, rather there are concepts OF human rights; if they're universalist then they're not relativist; nobody calls it the Liberal Enlightenment; etc". Point by point, to elaborate:

• The first is just grammar, and I see mistakes like this all over wikipedia a lot. "Subject is the question about..." or "Subject is the concept of..." or "Subject denotes..." whatever. A human right is just a right that belongs to all humans; there are many different concepts about human rights and plenty of people disagree about what counts as a human right or if there exist any human right at all or if the concept thereof even makes any sense, but the answer to the question "What's a human right?" (a request for definition, as in, "what does it mean for something to be a human right?") is "a right belonging to all humans", or at least something along those lines, not "the concept of..." something. The concept of a human right is that of a right belonging to all humans (or something like that), but the rights themselves, whatever their objects may be or whether they exist at all, are not "a concept".
• The universalist/relativist thing: just because a right is not enjoyed by everyone everywhere does not make it "relativist". To say that someone has a right to something is to make an "ought" claim, not an "is" claim; if there really is a human right to X, then even if nobody anywhere actually has X, they still have a right to it. In other words, saying "everyone has a right to X" does not at all imply "everyone has X", so the negation of the latter can't impugn on the assertion of the former. Even more simply: if human rights really are universal, then they logically cannot be relative, as "universal" and "relative" (in this context at least) are each other's negations: something is universal if and only if it is not relative.
• The last bit is mostly my political troll senses tingling; I've never heard anybody call it the "Liberal Enlightenment", and the way that "Liberal" (especially with a capital L) is bandied about as an insult these days, it makes me very wary to see it there, like someone is trying to impugn the character of the Enlightenment by associating it with those "dirty liberals". Granted, classical liberalism and the Enlightenment have a lot of history together, but that's not my point. I'd like to see a reference to some reputable source calling it the "Liberal Enlightenment". This wariness is heightened by the use of "relativist" in the same edits, as it is often used as an insult by the same people who use "liberal" thusly.
• The rest of my edit was just grammar/organization/misc.

Please discuss. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The current intro is from here here a pretty bold change by User:Yorkshirian that i had missed. I think that it has been improved in some ways but i have merged back in some of my old one where i think it is helpful. though feel free to to revert / improve on it ofc. The main problem is the body of this article is so looooooonngg and disconnected though, the best way to imporve this article would be to merge sections 5 & 6 into a new article, cutting down what is here and merge 7 & 8 into a new article about human rights debates or something, but that is a huge job and I just don't have the time to do it at the moment ;( Ajbpearce (talk) 11:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The concept of "human rights" is specifically in implication legislative (ie - proposing a basis for legal rights, defended in courts) formed by ethical propositions of specific moral systems (pluralism, in which it is proposed that all people regardless of cultural, organisational or ethnic associations should be tolerated, based on the Liberal Enlightenment). This sytem and concept, isn't based on some sort of esoteric mystical automatic reception in the sense as proposed by Pfhorrest (do you have any scientific evidence from peer-reviewed journals to suggest otherwise?), this is gobbledegook. Such a presentation clouds the reality of the system and its real world application, taking the concept out of a grounded application and ethical proposal, transforming into something "all in the ether", in a sort of pretentious post-modern gas-letting which is not readable, comprehendable or mirrored by its application in legal practice (for instance in the legislature of the United Nations). As for the Enlightenment been Liberal and rationalist—this is in the classical sense—just because the term is used as an epithet by some in the United States doesn't change the fact that Locke, Rousseau, etc were classical liberals. - Yorkshirian (talk) 09:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not even sure where to begin here... there are so many POVs and so much conflation of concepts implicit in the above.

• You seem to disregard the possibility of natural rights entirely (surprising given your Catholic heritage; Aquinas is one of the most famous supporters of natural law), which is largely the basis of support for human rights (e.g. that people have rights naturally, in virtue of being human, without anyone having to grant them those rights). To flatly deny that is POV and thus not appropriate for wikipedia; we should state what the claim is ("human rights are..."), and then that it is controversial, rather than stating a controversial position (which yours above is) as uncontroversial fact.
• You seem to be confusing pluralism with relativism, and further still, still confusing relativism with universalism, which you haven't addressed above. A relativist claim would say something like "people in China have different rights than people in the United States", which is true in the sense of legal rights, but not in the sense of natural rights which most human rights discourse is about. When someone claims "X is a human right", they mean "all humans everywhere have a (natural) right to X", or in other words "all humans everywhere are (morally) entitled to X". That is the complete opposite of a relativist claim, and doesn't really have much to do with pluralism at all. Pluralism is the claim that there are incommensurable but in some sense equal values; which does not entail relativism. To use a silly example, one could make the universalist claim that "everyone has a right to their favorite flavor of ice cream" without saying anything about what flavor is best, or even saying "also, no flavor is really objectively best", which would be a pluralist claim. Whereas a relativist claim would be something like "Mexicans have a right to vanilla ice cream, where that is the best flavor, but not chocolate; and Brazilians have a right to chocolate ice cream, since that is the best flavor there, but not to vanilla; and people of other places have rights to the flavors which are best there, but none is really better in any objective sense").
• You are still conflating is and ought or facts and values. When someone claims "liberty is a universal human right" they are not claiming "all jurisdictions grant a legal right to liberty to all humans" (which is clearly false); they are saying all humans are morally entitled to liberty (which is debated). This confusion is further evidenced by your request for "scientific evidence": ethics, morality, norms, values, "ought" problems, whatever you would like to call them, are not even within the domain of science; science doesn't even try to answer those kinds of questions; science is only concerned with what is. I'm not claiming anything about any kind of "esoteric mystical" metaphysical facts either; I'm saying that claims of human rights are not assertions of fact at all, but assertions of value, in particular of universal value; they are not claims about what is, but about what ought to be.
• Once again I'm not disputing the association of classical liberalism with the Enlightenment, I'm only questioning the constant conjunction of the terms, and particularly the capital L on "Liberal". The Enlightenment involved a lot of ideas about liberty; and, like you mention, rationality; and also equality; and democracy; and science, and technology... so should we say "the Liberal Rational Egalitarian Democratic Scientific Technological Enlightenment" every time we mention it, or just "the Enlightenment"? Aside from that, liberty is not the defining quality of the Enlightenment as far as it's relation to human rights goes; if anything, equality is. Human rights claims don't always say things about liberty, but they all say that people have equal rights.
• More procedurally, your reverting in the middle of this discussion (especially since the still-emerging consensus does not really seem to agree with your edits, see Ajbpearce's comment above and his edit summary here) is a violation of WP:BRD, and further still, your reverts are undoing a lot more than just what you're edit summaries comment on (undoing undoubtedly valuable minor edits such as this in the process); and in some cases (like this one), your edits seem to have nothing at all to do with your edit summaries.
• Also, on the subject of that last edit... well for one it's "ethical" not "ethnical", but that implication is "automatic" as you put it, since human rights are a kind of right and all rights have something to do with legal or ethical considerations. However, since you seem to think that is not so transparent, I'm happy to include that with... well, that's on to the next point:
• Since this is still under debate and your reverting behavior is somewhat reckless, I'm partially reverting back to Ajbpearce's last version, keeping your sisterlinks addition and adding something about law and ethics per your edit summary. Addendum: actually I can't find anywhere that a mention of law and ethics doesn't sound awkward, and Adbpearce's version already mentions both legal rights and natural rights anyway.

--Pfhorrest (talk) 10:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Natural law and the modern concept of human rights are not the same thing (in the context that they are popularly spread today, as ensrined in the legislature of the United Nations, this derives from specifically from Enlightenment sources and concepts). I will reply in full to you later on, got a bit on at the moment. However, I would agree with Ajbpearce that the body of the article itself is a mess and highly disconnected. It needs a lot of work and effort put into it to tie up the the loose ends and achieve something presentable. - Yorkshirian (talk) 13:01, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Natural rights (not the same as natural law, but a closely related topic) are very much an Enlightenment-era concept; perhaps not originating there but certainly very important within the discourse of that period. See philosophers like Locke and politicians like Jefferson... both (the former indirectly via the latter) highly influential on the US Declaration of Independence and thence on the US Constitution and Bill of Rights and thence on the UDHR.

I eagerly await the rest of your reply. --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

LGBT rights section

There's been a lot of edit warring around the LGBT rights section lately, particularly between User:Dougcweho and User:Schrandit, with discussion happening in the edit notes, but it seems appropriate to open up a proper discussion section on it here.

My position: Doug (if I may call him that) seems to be editing in a good-faith fashion and not intentionally POV-pushing, but his POV does show through some, and his edits need some tempering. In general I agree with Schrandit that the section on LGBT rights in this article should be brief, and main'd to the main LGBT rights article for more information. This article is too long as it is already, and is supposed to cover human rights in general, so we don't want to go into too much detail on one particular area of it.

(As an aside: there doesn't appear to be a main "LGBT rights" article at the moment, which is something I noticed a while back when organizing the Right sidebar and Rights-related articles around Wikipedia. Instead there is a list of current LGBT rights by country or territory, which LGBT Rights presently redirects to, and a history of LGBT social movements, along with many other more specific articles on various LGBT issues. Perhaps Dougcweho could focus his efforts in pulling information from those articles to create a proper article on LGBT Rights in general, which could then be main'd from here?)

Regarding the most recent edits, I disagree with Schrandit's rationale for removing the phrase "human and civil rights" from the first sentence of this section, though not with the edit itself. He wrote in his edit summary "if they were human rights they wouldn't be in this section, maybe some day, not today". That statement has an obvious POV against a natural rights account of human rights, whereby something either is or is not a human right and things don't become them over time just by agreement or legislation. However as the entire article is about Human Rights in the first place, I don't think it's necessary to restate in the beginning of each section that the rights being discussed are (at least controversially as in this case) human rights. On that grounds I support the edit.

--Pfhorrest (talk) 06:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Pfhorrest's assessment and advice of the situation. I welcome his edits without reservation. Meanwhile, I will further edit the entry according to his advice.--DCX (talk) 09:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Howdy, I do believe in Natural Rights and Natural Law, but when they are contested how do we agree on where to put them? I am fairly pro-life and believe with all my heart that the section below (fetal rights) are human rights but at present that is a very contested opinion and much legislation weighs in against it. Maybe it is one of those Truth v. Verifiability issues. When a right is contested and not included in legislation like the UNDHR I am inclined not to lable it as a Human Right.

I agree that at present the article "LGBT rights" is very lacking and thats why I put listed 2 other better articles as main on the top of the section. Doug pointed out that Sodomy Laws don't have the greatest connotations in the world and that they are mentioned later in the body of the section. I could go either way on that. - Schrandit (talk) 16:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

My general approach in philosophy articles (where there's rarely consensus in the field) has been to state a straightforward definition of the concept, sometimes with a qualifier like "supposed" or "purported" or "controversial", and then immediately state it's controversiality, then proceed to discuss the concept more, and then criticisms of it. So in the case you mentioned, I would write something like "Fetal rights are the supposed the rights of unborn children, including [right1, right2, right3, etc]. The existence of fetal rights is hotly contested by [parties X, Y, and Z]." for the beginning of the lede, then go on to discuss the concept in more detail for the rest of the lede and article, with a criticism section at the bottom. An alternate approach can be to say, for that second sentence, "[concept] is generally supported by [parties A, B, and C], yet is contested by [parties X, Y, and Z]". --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd also like to bring up the Yogukarta Principles for a bit. They just don't seem to be that big a deal. They were written in 2006 and really havn't gone any where. They have not been adopted by any body at all. There were some displays of support near their release but that was 4 years ago and nothing has happened since. Is is really appropriate to lend them such, in my opinon, undue weight? - Schrandit (talk) 16:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The importance of mentioning the Yog Principles it is the first international declaration to address LGBTI rights and to give background and relation to the French UN proposal. I do agree that the entry, as I originally wrote had too much information on the principles.--DCX (talk) 19:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool, perhaps some paring back is called for. Do we know that this was the first? And keep in mind, anybody can make an international declaration. - Schrandit (talk) 20:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I should say it is the first charter to be presented to the United Nations and an important milestone. I have been researching this and my claim that it is the "first charter" may not be verifiable. Probably a group such as Amnesty INTL had made one earlier but I haven't come across anything in any research. There have been various declarations against discrimination and homophobia for European Union countries such as 1997 treaty of Amsterdam and 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, there was talk of a "Gay Magna Carta", but again it was intended for US state, perhaps federal law only.--DCX (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

If it is the first to be presented at the UN that would be worth noting. - Schrandit (talk) 18:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Redirection from "Rights of man"

The Rights of man page redirects to Human rights, but there is a different article called Rights of Man.

It can be confused too with Men's rights, looking like an androcentric redirect.

What can be done? Change the redirection of "Rights of man" to Rights of Man? Or put on the top of Human rights article the relatively long warning below?

"Rights of man" redirects here. For the book by Thomas Paine, see Rights of Man. For the rights of male people, see Men's rights. For the document of rights published on French Revolution, see Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Robfbms (talk) 06:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Reality check

Closing this discussion per wp:NOTFORUM. No actual changes to article being discussed.

I had not seen this article until now, but it seems to be written like a visit to Disneyland. It seems to have been written by a PR agency. It misses that minor concept called REALITY. E.g. Are the Burakumin subject to human rights violations in Japan just because they manufacture leather? Sadly so. What did these people do that was so terrible? Their major crime is that their parents made shoes - really, read the article. Why no mention of that? And of course, the Caste system in India continues to date. Love the Tata Nano? - check the news on how they got the land for it. It is all in the news, but only if you read the news. So the case of Suu Kyi is highly visible, but there are huge issues beyond that. I was surprised to read that there are slave in Italy and even Wikinews carried that, but no mention of these things in the article. Of course there are big quotes from the UN, but then, that is just like posters for Disneyland. Time to fix the article, whoever maintains this article. History2007 (talk) 20:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC) No set group of people "maintain" any Wikipedia article. If you think this article needs a section on contemporary, ongoing human rights violations (and you have reliable sources to back any claims made there), then please go ahead and make one. I'd actually be rather surprised if there wasn't such an article somewhere on Wikipedia already; perhaps you could find and improve said article and {{main}} it from here, since this article is already excruciatingly long and needs to be broken up into smaller articles anyway. --Pfhorrest (talk) 21:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC) I do not know the topic well enough, but on most pages there are a group of locals who hang out and know the topic. None owns it, but they usually hang around. I was just really surprised to read this press release (...excuse me article) and thought I would make a comment. Making another article does not solve the problem here, for this page will continue to remain as unreal as Disneyland. It may need a NPOV flag I think anyway. 22:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC) By the way, POV tag was also based on the rosy tone of the article. Please do not remove tags without discussion. History2007 (talk) 22:47, 20 June 2010 (UTC) History2007, a dispute does not exist when one editor enters an article talk page, states that they have little knowledge of the subject and then decides that the article must violate "neutrality" because he considers it to be "as unreal as disneyland". If there are specific sections of this article or wording that is unsatisfactory, then feel free to bring it up however such vague broad-brush mere assertions are not sufficient grounds on which to base a dispute on the neutrality of the article.Ajbpearce (talk) 23:21, 20 June 2010 (UTC) Sadly, editing Wikipedia does not require an academic degree on the topic. I would like to see a change to that policy, but until that happens anyone can edit anywhere. A tag may be placed by any editor who thinks a subject is not being treated in the NPOV manner. I do think that this article looks at the topic with rose colored glasses. And I would like to see changes to its tone. Hence the flag. History2007 (talk) 05:34, 21 June 2010 (UTC) Heavens. If I understand you correctly, you are claiming this page is not neutral because you agree with the concept of human rights as the article explains it, but are upset because the real world doesn't seem to respect your high-minded ideals. Or are you a pragmatist who thinks that the idea of human rights is stupid because no one respects them anyway? Either way, this article seems to accurately portray the norm of human rights as it has played out in international law and philosophy - t might use some broadening to include events where human rights are not being respected, but that might risk a bunch of political battles on the page. what do others think? Either way, I see no real reason to keep the NPOV tags, so I'll remove them. --Ludwigs2 16:51, 21 June 2010 (UTC) Now that there are two people against it, it may come off for a while, unless someone else thinks it is needed. I do not think human rights are stupid, but I think the large style quotes etc. seems to imply that human rights are taken seriously in the world - they are not. So the article does seem like a press release to me. As for this article seems to accurately portray the norm of human rights as it has played out in international law and philosophy that is certainly your viewpoint, and given that Wikipedia is a "numbers game" its truth has almost no bearing on the POV tag, for the haphazard nature of consensus depends on who happens to look here on what day. I will gradually try to add facts and references to the article as time goes on. That is less of a numbers game. History2007 (talk) 16:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC) I think user History2007 confuses crime with policy: slavery in Italy or caste discrimination in India do occur but are prohibited by local law and actively prosecuted and that's really all you can ask from a state. So these things should definitely not be filed under "human rights abuses by Italy and India", it's just crime. There could be a section about most forms of crime being a violation of human rights (that's why they're called crimes), but it should be separate from abuses by states or terrorists. A reality check would be nice though: specifically in the "Asia" and "Africa" sections it wouldn't hurt to state that many countries violate the treaties they signed and that a significant portion of the UN membership comes nowhere near living up to the charter. 213.93.101.238 (talk) 14:32, 22 June 2010 (UTC) Thank you for clarifying that "caste discrimination in India is actively prosecuted". Ignorant me was under the impression that the authorities looked the other way in most cases. And by the way, how do you spell lip service? Your comment is an example of how human rights get lip service around the world, but if you are from a lower caste in India, you would either laugh or cry if someone told you that caste discrimination in India is actively prosecuted. By the way did you know that some Burakumin in Japan just commit suicide because they are so fed up with discrimination against them? I guess they must also be misinformed. History2007 (talk) 14:40, 22 June 2010 (UTC) This is a grey area and you know it: every country knows discrimination and other forms of crime and every country has corrupt officials. Caste discrimination is against the law in India, it has been for 60 years so the government of India does not condone it, although corrupt local officials could. It doesn't get prosecuted every time, but the fact that it did result in more than one conviction means discrimination is not part of government policy, just as running drugscartels isn't part of Mexico's policy, even though plenty of officials have been bribed. Or to give another example: child abuse is rampant all over the world but even in "perfect" countries in northern Europe only a fraction of molesters ever get convicted (just look at all those priests), this is not because governments condone the abuse but because victims are being pressured into remaining silent and when they do speak out it is very difficult to get enough evidence for a conviction, the latter is also the reason why so few people are being convicted for money laundering even though every government hates money laundering because it means less taxes are being payed. This isn't "lip service": I'd be the first to help you campaign for more accountability regarding caste discrimination but I'm not falsely accusing the Indian government of condoning discrimination, just as I'm not accusing the government of Germany of condoning pedophile priests or the government of the United States of condoning money laundering. 213.93.101.238 (talk) 16:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC) That again goes to show how ignorant I really am. I was totally unaware of the fact that there are "perfect countries" in Northern Europe. I was under the mistaken impression that perfection was manufactured in Culver City by the studios. Thanks for informing me. The IP pref 213 traces to a perfect location I guess. But anyway, our thoughts are so far apart that I will not respond further. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2010 (UTC) I put the word perfect in quotation marks for a reason. These countries set the standard when it comes to human rights and are currently the closest to what is realistically possible. They do of course have some minor flaws but where you and I disagree (I think) is that I don't believe a world without injustice is possible, no matter how strictly human rights are protected: I think it is impossible to have laws that make sure all the bad guys are locked up and all the good guys are safe and free. It's because rights often conflict: an Indian company that can choose between a Dalit and a Brahmin, both having the same resumee could choose the Brahmin because they are prejudiced against Dalits, they can do this a million times over, and the Dalits can go to court when they suspect discrimination, but the court will have to rule that they cannot force the company to fire their non-Dalits and hire the Dalits because the non-Dalits, having the same resumees, have just as much right to work at the company. An atheist can call a Muslim names on the street but he cannot be convicted for it because of free speech (after all, people get criticized for their ideas, and religion is an idea, all the time). A child molester can intimidate his victims not to report him so he gets away with it. You can see with your very own eyes a terrorist loading a nuclear bomb in his car, but you can't torture him to find out where he hid it and thus save a million lives (well you could, but not without breaching his human rights). I believe these "intersections of rights" are a fundamental flaw of every legal system. As far as I can tell you believe however that injustice can always be tackled through better human rights laws. We disagree on that but I'm not calling you ignorant for it, maybe you're right and I'm wrong, I don't know, I'm not god. 213.93.101.238 (talk) 17:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC) Geez, History2007, can you cut the sarcasm before I have to go find a gas mask? You seem to be missing the value of international norms. 100 years ago, if a country wanted to execute large numbers of its citizens (for whatever damned reason: genocide, political purges, population control, the premier waking up with a hangover) then every other country in the world - assuming they noticed at all - would shrug and go back to business as usual. now, at least, there are norms so that other countries can stand up and say "This is wrong!". There are still tremendous problems to be overcome (mostly in the forms of state sovereignty - it takes a lot to muster enough support in the international community to collectively violate a state's sovereignty for the protection of its own people), but it's a step. what we have is better than what we had, even if its not very good, so if you want to continue bitching about how bad it is, you'd best recognize what progress has been made. --Ludwigs2 20:31, 22 June 2010 (UTC) Sarcasm? Moi? Never crossed my mind. But I am not complaining about the world, I am commenting on the fact that the article seems to look mostly on the bright side of the feeble progress that you mentioned. And I would never advocate the use of force as you suggested. I was commenting on the neglect within the article about the "let us look the other way" attitude on local human rights issues across the globe, somewhat akin to the fact that at one point voting rights existed for blacks in the southern parts of the US, but it took a lot of effort for them to be granted in practice. But anyway, all this talk does not give me a chance to research and edit the article, so let us talk less, edit more. History2007 (talk) 21:30, 22 June 2010 (UTC) Ludwigs, on a less-sarcastic note, I added the fact that if someone in one of those "perfect" Euro-countries has a human rights problem, they can quickly run to a beautiful building in Strasbourg, designed by Richard Rogers, and the honorable judges will immediately listen to their problem in about 46 years. Is that reassuring? History2007 (talk) 21:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC) Or they can just call a random tv-station or newspaper and their problem will be fixed within weeks if their problem was real. Most of the time though the people taking the Strassbourg route are illegal immigrants who know their request will eventually be denied by the honorable judges but hope the lengthy procedure will keep them in their host country long enough that they can conceive children and apply for a visa on "humanitarian" grounds and then sponge off their host country's welfare system for the rest of their lives, and then there are the tinfoil hat conspiracy nuts who send thousands of requests to Strassbourg each year about chemtrails and last but not least the "sensitive types" (the types who forget that people also have responsibilities in addition to rights) who think their rights were violated because the police had the audacity to arrest them for committing a crime... If people stopped abusing the system it would be a lot faster. Special:Contributions/213.93.101.238|213.93.101.238]] (talk) 12:59, 27 June 2010 (UTC) Translation: The court of public opinion is their only hope. Of course, in places in Europe such as Italy, the truly diverse ownership structure of tv and media will facilitate the airing of issues, wink, wink. History2007 (talk) 13:15, 27 June 2010 (UTC) Is Italy in Northern Europe? Last time I checked it wasn't... P.S. there are various courts of appeal on the national level, the system has to screw up really bad before you have to take a legitimate claim to Strassbourg. The chances of that happening are a lot smaller than the chances a dangerous criminal gets away with his crimes because gathering the necessary evidence would compromise his human rights, ergo you'll always have some filth slip through the cracks, even in the most perfect of systems (though you'll never hear Amnesty make a fuss when a murderer gets to walk free and starts killing again during the time he could've been in prison). 213.93.101.238 (talk) 13:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC) Translation: You are admitting problems in Europe. Anything south of Hamburg is 2nd rate? Only those who speak Hochdeutsch have rights? Any way, enough of this. History2007 (talk) 13:37, 27 June 2010 (UTC) I do admit problems in Europe, that's why I only mentioned Northern Europeans countries as setting the standard, there are plenty of problems in countries like Italy or Turkey. There are also problems in Northern Europe, but few to none of those problems can be traced to human rights. 213.93.101.238 (talk) 13:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC) Is there a statistical correlation between the ability to cook and the availability of human rights? The Italians can cook, but have problems, the Dutch can not cook but are perfect? Is there no human right to decent cuisine? Just kidding, I will really have to stop now. History2007 (talk) 13:49, 27 June 2010 (UTC) The Dutch are more open/less religious: in the Netherlands (or Scandinavia) anything goes, in Italy or Turkey (or pretty much any other religious country) anything goes as long as no one sees you (only appearances matter). If something in the Netherlands is prohibited you can be pretty sure it's because the Dutch think it's just wrong, anything they don't think is wrong is allowed. In more religious countries anything that you don't want your neighbor catch you doing is prohibited (because if you vote for them to be allowed people will think you're doing those things) but of course both you and your neighbor will still be doing it behind closed curtains and there's no one you can turn to if something goes wrong, that's really a culture of self-denial and leads to illogical restrictions on human rights. I guess the Italians spend so much time behind closed curtains they have more time to practice cooking... 213.93.101.238 (talk) 14:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC) Look, I really want to stop, but you are making it hard. That is not true because there is a deeper law: the Chinese (not to mention the Mexicans) can also cook but have no rights. So perhaps if all Chinese decided to stop and only cook Knackwurst, then they might suddenly get human rights in 30 days. Let us suggest it to them as an experiment. History2007 (talk) 15:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Has the following view been treated yet?

This article has a section about philosophers laying the foundation of human rights by coming up with "natural rights", while others (usually those who don't know what it's like to live in a state without human rights) contend that human rights are a Western invention. I propose the following view, but I do not know if it has already been thought of by philosophers or anyone else, so maybe someone on Wikipedia could tell me if it has.

1) It costs a society considerable resources to maintain the law, resources that could've been spent on something else.

2) People do not want their rights (whatever they may be) violated, more specifically people do not want to be harmed and they do not want other people to have more rights than they do.

3) Religion cannot be agreed upon through rational means: there is no way of proving a religion is right, or "more right" than another religion that may hold very different, even opposite, views.

4) Because of 1) and 2) it doesn't make sense to have laws that cause irrational restrictions, in other words: if there's no rational way to show a certain practice causes harm to the rights of people, security or the economy then there is no point in spending resources to maintain a ban on that practice. Because of 3) religious reasons don't count.

I believe that from this you can construct most, if not all, of today's human rights. Because this process excludes religious and cultural components (they cannot rationally be defended) it leads to a set of universal human rights. 213.93.101.238 (talk) 16:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

It is almost all WP:OR. History2007 (talk) 16:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry, I wasn't planning on putting it on Wikipedia, not unless some famous philosopher had thought of it before me, if I'm really the first then it is all original research. 213.93.101.238 (talk) 17:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

So, anyone else wants to call "original research" on this one? Am I really the first person on god's green Earth to think of this simple rationalization of human rights, somehow I find that hard to believe. 213.93.101.238 (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Human rights not being upheld

The regional sections say things like "A number of Asian countries are accused of serious human rights abuses by the international community and human rights organisations." This seems a bit weak to me: although discussions on human rights violations often dive into morally grey areas there are a number of countries who openly disregard the human rights of the UN charter and by openly I mean they actually legalize these abuses in their laws, such as Islamic countries with laws that openly discriminate women and non-muslims, no morally grey areas there and no state of emergency or lack of evidence either. Can we say something like "A number of ... countries commit human rights abuses"? 213.93.101.238 (talk) 00:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Cyrus cylinder vandal

Abj, no worries about that IP. I warned and if he does that again, will get him blocked, and will be easy because uses a fixed IP - and guess where it geo-locates to: land of cyrus. History2007 (talk) 03:18, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, its a very frustrating issue for the article because It seems to be a perpetual whackamole topic for this article every few weeks, mostly from iranian IP addresses. Though I doubt it will help stop them it might be an idea for us to put up an FAQ box on it or something Ajbpearce (talk) 20:19, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Now that the pending changes feature has been implemented, why not ask at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection for this article to be given pending changes status? That would enable such edits to be caught before they get into the article text. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:08, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It would be ok with me, although I have seen worse cases of vandalism. Much worse. History2007 (talk) 21:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Abj, I suppose something should be said about the cylinder as the United Nations has declared the relic to be an "ancient declaration of human rights". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.71.185.151 (talk) 04:14, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a long discussion about this on the talk page from last year, because consensus used to be that the discussion on Cyrus_cylinder#Human_rights precluded it form inclusion here, and for that reason I have kept reverting additions of it when I notice them. i still feel its inclusion probably violates WP:UNDUE but I wasn't around at the time and it is an irritatingly persistent issue. I suggest if editors really want it added they, first ensure that they are doing so not because of their personal views on the issue and second, come up with a proposed addition and get support for it through an RFC or similar from editors who would not be naturally inclined to show it support. What is no good is another talkpage discussion as fractious and bad faith as the last one, or random unexplained and poorly sourced additions to the article that appear as WP:POV pushing when added in isolation Ajbpearce (talk) 10:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Property rights?

Where does the China property rights] issue fit in this article, based on the categorization?. People are setting themselves on fire now, so it should probably go in. I am not sure where, but if someone wants to add it, it shows a new angle. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Admin detention

Are there admin detentions elsewhere in the world now. To my surprise, the Swiss were using it up to the 1980s. Others now? Does it need a section? Link = [1] The question is despite all the UN hoopla in Geneva, how was this kept quiet in the 1970s. Is it ongoing in Europe? Asia? History2007 (talk) 10:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Human right abuse

"Human rights abuse" redirects here but this article desnt cover human rights from the abuse perspective and it should do.--Penbat (talk) 18:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Article Structure

Currently imho the biggest problem with this article is that its structure is a mess. It desperatley needs pruning but its difficult to do that when the structure is lacking in real coherence. I have made several attempts offline to reorganise it, but never produced something satisfactory. Anyway, posting this here in the hope that someone else will have some suggestions on how to reorganise and trim the article, or to highlight it as a big "to-do" that someone could hopefully tackle! Ajbpearce (talk) 21:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Highlighted. --M4gnum0n (talk) 19:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Further to this, i have come up with a "goal" structure to work towards that I think would move the article forward in a positive direction. I think it has some significant weaknesses in that much of the "practise of human rights" is relegated reasonably far down the page, but it is bourne from thinking hard about how we can retain the breatdth of this page while reorganising it to give it a much more comprhensive and ordered feel. Comments and suggested improvements would be most welcome! Ajbpearce (talk) 23:51, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggested Structure

• - [ ] Introduction
  • - [ ] History
    • - [ ] Philosophical foundations
    • - [ ] Enlightenment
    • - [ ] Modern Human Rights Movement
• - [ ] Human Rights Theory
  • - [ ] Philosophy of human rights
    • - [ ] Anaylisis
    • - [ ] justifications
    • - [ ] Criticism
  • - [ ] Substantive Rights
    • - [ ] Introduction
    • - [ ] Classifying Human Rights
    • - [ ] 3 generations
    • - [ ] other classifications
    • - [ ] Links in to some prominent rights articles (e.g freedom of speech)
  • - [ ] Evolution of rights
    • - [ ] here some of the current "are they rights questions"
• - [ ] Protecting Human Rights
  • - [ ] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • - [ ] The other bits currently at the top of the article e.g international organisations ect ect would go here, with some further rejiging- but that can be worked out later
  • - [ ] Section on Human rights violations
  • - [ ] Possibly something on notable human rights defenders e.g Mandela, Aung Sung Su Kii ect
• - [ ] End

Looks pretty good to me. --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:32, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Nongovernmental organizations

What are you looking to get across in this section of the article? I notice that it stated that this section requires expansion. Do you plan to expand on this particular section of your article? To me it seems a little unfinished and not very organized or thought through. I noticed that in this section you had spelling issues that need to be corrected. I also noticed your wordage and I think you could have pick better wordage in some places.

In this section of the article I read where you stated that sometimes some organizations move away from there original ideals. I like that you put that in your article, but would have liked it more if you had maybe put an example for this. Sometimes this happens with organizations because of many reason for example as the times changes they might want to associate themselves with a new, but they still want to keep or say that are still upholding their original views that the organization was built on.Kaeleomel (talk) 15:30, 30 November 2010 (UTC) Kaeleomel

I found no spelling errors in that section. However I have cleaned it up a bit and made it more neutral. Who is this "you" that you are addressing? -- Alarics (talk) 20:11, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

i might be the 'you' that kaeleomel was talking about since i did do a previous edit to this section. anyway, i have added an example. i can add more, but i am afraid that it will then be too weighty to the criticism and not balanced. Soosim (talk) 08:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it already reads to me as unbalanced now that you have added more about Prof Steinberg. We need some opposing view to balance his views in order to make it NPOV. -- Alarics (talk) 09:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Water Rights

This article states that there is no human right to water, but in July 2010, the UN declared access to clean and safe water and sanitation a basic human right. This clearly needs to be incorporated into the "water" section.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35456&Cr=sanitation&Cr1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.109.103 (talk) 04:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Las Casas

No mention of Bartolomé de Las Casas or the Valladolid debate?·Maunus·ƛ· 16:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don;t know anything about those subjects, but if you feel they would be appropriate, they may fit within the History of human rights article.Ajbpearce (talk) 17:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of CMI external link

Hi

I added a link to the research institute CMI yesterday on the human rights page, and it was subsequently deleted as spam, or as unsuitable for the page. This link was not intended as any promotion of the institute (it an independent research centre funded by research grants and does not work to maximise profits of any kind). I thought the link to both the institute and its work on Rights and Legal Institutions highly relevant to the topic and very useful to readers. The information on the site is of high academic standard and is therefore considered unbiased and consequently suitable for an encyclopedic site such as Wikipedia. I therefore hope you will allow the link to remain on the page. Fay.farstad (talk) 07:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Replied on your talk pageAjbpearce (talk) 15:17, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

No mention of Persa

It's kind of weird that there is no mention of Persia, Cyrus the Great, and the Cyrus Cylinder anywhere in this article while there are many mentions of Greek historians (not sure why?). Pictures/explanations of the contributions by the Persians and a section just on the Cyrus Cylinder/Cyrus the Great should definitely be added along with the incident of the Jews being freed. It's well known that Cyrus the Great was the first ruler who believed and practised human-rights.