Human rights and their universality are discussed a lot in our society. However, more importantly than even if they should exist, are they upheld by governments and should governments even uphold them? Is it in their interests to do so?
Ever since 1945, the creation of the declaration of human rights and the end of the most devastating war the world had ever seen, filled with some of the most disgusting, obscene treatments of people that had been witnessed in the modern world, human rights and their role in our society have been heavily contested, by many diverse parties. Some governments seem to find it hard to enforce even the most basic human rights in the declaration (Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan), whilst others enforce all of them to their best ability and continue to prosper (every country in Scandinavia). As I was researching human rights and the countries in which they are enforced and not enforced as much, it became evident that the countries with the most breaches of human rights are not as successful as the ones that enforce them. This fact seems to point towards the conclusion, that it is indeed in the interests of governments to promote, enforce and protect human rights.
However, history shows that if you do indeed breach your civilians' human rights, you are unlikely to be punished and can usually just fade back into the crowd with little to no repercussions, at least not until years afterward. The most extreme breach of human rights is murder and this has been done many times by many governments. For example, Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, who are responsible for about 2 – 3 million deaths from 1975 -79 died in his sleep at the age of 72. Few Khmer Rouge leaders have been convicted even by a United Nations tribunal, dedicated to bringing justice. Further proving this point, Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, the leaders of Serbia during the Bosnian genocide which claimed over 100,000 lives only a year ago were brought to justice as war criminals. It took the International Community over 20 years to bring these men to justice. The Armenian Genocide which is thought to have killed 1.5 million people, is not even recognised by the United States of America and Australia as have happening. It has been over 100 years. In perhaps the best example of people and governments not just getting away with human rights breaches, but in fact thriving from them, you can look to the Japanese human experimentation and biological warfare that took place during and before World War Two in Unit 731. The experiments conducted in this unit alone caused more than 3,000 deaths, furthermore the number of people killed by Japan's use of biological warfare and human experiments is about 580,000. The top officers were not only NOT prosecuted after the war, in exchange for giving their results to the American government, they were in fact offered positions in Japan's pharmaceutical industry, medical schools and health ministry. Many went on to become millionaires.
Therefore, I believe that if a government or individual with a lot of power, has an idea or ideology that could cause the deaths or tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of their own people, or just breach all of their human rights to any degree, using historical and current events as an example, the benefits from this could definitely outweigh the risks and certainly give a government short term if not long term benefits. The fact is, even in the face of overwhelming evidence and the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of people, the International Community is very unlikely to intervene, unless they face a direct threat by the country involved. Because of this lack of action from the International community, if the possible benefit is great enough, I believe that it is indeed in the interests of government's to breach human rights.
Governments must and will respect human rights if they prioritise democracy, the rule of law and the respect of human dignity. All three of these things are vital to the protection of human rights. If the people of your country do not have political rights, then democracy doesn't exist because democracy is defined as a form of government in which the people have a right to govern themselves. The rule of law requires a government to be subject to certain legal limits which they may not breach or alter. Human rights are also necessary for human dignity. When a government systematically violates human rights, it treats human beings as objects or animals, able to used and abused, rather than a human with the right to be morally entitled to treatment with dignity.