The UN which stands for United Nations is an internationally functioning body. It is responsible for maintaining peace and security within the globe. Human Rights on the other hand, are the fundamental and basic rights and freedoms that belongs to every human being from birth until death.
The UNs human rights agenda involves the sustenance of basic rights such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, freedom from slavery and torture etc. Now we are made aware of these rights and how the UN implements them but the limitations of these rights are usually overlooked. Limitations are the restrictions and constraints placed on these rights because of certain circumstances in which the rights are being enforced. The Human Rights Act states that human rights can actually be limited if there is a fair and valid reason for it.
Circumstances in which human rights can be denied or restricted is if a person is detained by the state in prison or for mental health precautions.
The UN has a human rights council dedicated to handling all socio-political and human rights issues. Their purpose is to protect and promote the rights of all human beings around the world irrespective of race, background, religion, culture, gender etc. The UN Human Rights’ Council (UNHRC)is responsible for investigating and analysing the misconduct or breaching of human rights. The UNHRC came into effect on March 15, 2006 after the initial Commission for Human Rights under the UN was accused of encouraging member states that disregarded human rights to be a part of it. As it stands currently, the UNHRC meet three times a year in order to discuss and resolve human rights violations and emergencies. The only other time the council is inclined to meet is if a third of its member states request a special session. This isn’t an effective method to resolving breach of human rights’ issues because if up to a third of the representatives of member states in the UNHRC don’t deem the human rights violation situation serious enough, then the issue is adjourned and overlooked which is a critical limitation of the UN’S human rights agenda.
For years without end, the UNHRC has tried to cleverly manoeuvre their way out of being associated with Israeli and Palestinian conflict. It’s a well-known fact that when it comes to human rights, a lot of the Arabian countries operate differently with their own religious or cultural agendas. It is because of this that the United States of America pulled out of the UNHRC on the 19th of June 2018, accusing the council of being biased towards Israel. The council was accused of not being able to hold their human rights abusers accountable substantially because of their financial gain from the state. “We share the view that a dedicated agenda item focused solely on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is disproportionate and damaging to the cause of peace’”. This statement was made by Boris Johnson, who was the then-secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs in alliance with the accusations of the council refraining from reprimanding human rights abusers because of their financial gain.
The UN’s specific Human rights agenda has a 2030 agenda for Human Rights in place. The implementation of the 2030 agenda would be fully aligned with international Human rights norms and standards. There would be Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs include the alleviation of poverty, the right to quality education, the recognition of gender equality across the globe, affordable and clean energy, climate action etc. The development goals are good to put in place to acknowledge rights but the big question is how are they being implemented? A number of African countries that are known for corruption in the developing world are major factors as to why it might prove difficult to achieve some of these sustainable goals such as alleviating poverty, gender equality and granting the right to quality education. Sexist beliefs in the developing country do not allow the girl child the right to an education and it is defended in the nations culture in which the UN is liable to respect. This is a huge limitation to human rights agenda of the UN.
If a state where the UN strives to alleviate poverty possesses a lot of corrupt politicians who cannot be questioned by the masses, the funds allocated to building the economy, creating infrastructure and setting up facilities will end up in the pockets of greedy men thereby making the rich much richer and the poor much poorer. This is another limitation in the human rights agenda of the UN. Although similar occurrences are heard of in the developing world as well, it’s not as rampant as it is in the developing world where majority of human rights are breached and remain unregarded. As I’ve demonstrated previously in my example, the UN has conflicting ideals relating to the fact that they cannot breach the ideals and culture of a nation where that would be deemed discrimination yet their purpose is to uphold the rights of every human being regardless of their gender, race, religion, background AND culture. According to the UNs 2030 Agenda in Paragraph 8 “we envisage a wold of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination; of respect for race, ethnicity and cultural diversity; and of equal opportunity”. This statement is an evident and conscientious objector against any breach of human rights in any circumstance or situation.
In general, the objectives of the UNs human rights agenda are clearly highlighted in the SDGs and is what the framework is made up of. The new agenda is made up of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the UN. This includes the utmost respect for international law. It’s rooted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR). According to the Danish institute for Human rights, over 90 percent of the 169 SDGs targets are somehow connected to the global human rights and labour standards. The agenda is to provide more effective and sustainable results by promoting equality, empowerment and inclusiveness. The structure of equality is reportedly not practiced in a lot of member states in both the developing and developed world of the UN not to mention other nations that do not buy into the idea of equality and fairness. Currently there is an uneven progress across the SDG indicators. Investments are needed in rights based data and government statistic systems. This would curb the limitation on the statistics development in order to gather data on a nation.
Part of the agenda is to ensure management of water and sanitation for every human being. Once again, in underdeveloped or developing countries, basic necessities like these are lacking due to the high state of poverty in these nations. The aim is to make safe, affordable drinking water and a sanitised environment to reduce pollution and fervently increase water use efficiency. In this instance. It may be hard to maintain these sanitary conditions if the people the these facilities are being created for don’t know how to sufficiently manage it or if they’re just granted these facilities without being taught about its proper use and management. The promotions of vocations, skills and education are also emphasised in the SDGs for Human rights developments. These involve the issuance of scholarships, training of teachers and expanding educational facilities in order to make the idea of education more appealing and to further emphasise its impact on lives and most importantly how beneficial it would be to the nation to have educated citizens. This agenda can prove to be limited due tor he fact that in developing countries the boys are more likely to be encouraged to go to school unlike the girl child who would usually be brought up to be a domestic housewife whose goal in life is how to make good use of the kitchen and laundry room.
Although the UN has been highly praised in the past for helping along and progressing developmental cooperation, it’s still stands as a conflict subject that Human rights is a global issue and is not treated as such. Even in the developed world, problems arise over the situations of the likes of prisoners and mental health patients who are denied rights that aren’t so basic but are considered necessities. Giving credit to the fact that the law is usually revised and re-assesses every so often, it’s a negative on the part of the UN who’s have seemed to overlook the fact that aliens, prisoners and patients are example of multiple people who’s have their human rights breaches daily because of the circumstances they’ve found themselves in. For example, people that have migrated from one country to another rarely have the opportunity to vote in elections or participate in referendums in which the outcome would affect their lives as well. Speaking from a personal point of view, I believe this should be classified as a breach of human rights and would be classed as a limit on the UNs Human rights agenda pertaining to the fact that even human being has the right to vote and to be voted for.
In the case of state of emergencies such as an outbreak of war, insurgency or a national dictatorship, the UN might need to use force to subdue any outbreak of violence and leave the situation diffused as much as possible. In the past, the UN has authorised the use of force or torture on innocent citizens caught in the crossfire to take unwarranted punishments and injuries to be issued as a warning and prey on the lives of innnocent citizens in order to make a scapegoat out of them. It can be argued that in this regard, the UN is also guilty of limiting its own human rights agenda and preaching a “do as I say” rather than “do as I do” forum to its member states. Victims that have been inappropriately or illegally mistreated during a state of emergency should be granted a clear means of relief through administrative and jurisprudence measures.
In conclusion, protecting and promoting human rights is not an easy job for any organisation. The UN being at the hub for all if not most resolutions conflicts in the world have to adopt more decisive and concise measures for properly respecting and protecting human rights as much as possible while also maintaining regular societal, working and living orders. While it can be argued that a state of emergency is an internal issue for the states in which it affects, it can’t be denied that human rights are a global issue that affects every human being on the face of the earth. There are global standards set on monitoring the efficiency of human rights which is meant to be a tug on the tail for any country under the UN to be aware that it is under a global oath to fulfil its societal and governmental obligation of upholding the basic human rights meant for every human. This will aid the country in proving to its people that it’s a trustworthy, fair and progressive government. With regards to the UNs human rights agenda, it can’t be said for sure how many of the human rights are limited and where exactly they are limited to. It can only be enforced by the government of the member states who are expected to uphold their obligations to the UN and the their citizens by seeing that basic human rights are catered for not breached. In the case that they are breached, there should be a suitable punishment allocated to the breacher and a suitable means of relief allocated to the person whose rights was breached.
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