ib global politics

1. The Ethics of
Intervention: Human
Rights vs. States Rights
IB Global Politics
UWC Costa Rica

2. All members of the UN have signed
the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights…
• UDHR commits states to promote respect for
human rights and freedom including:
– Right to life
– Liberty
– Freedom from torture and arbitrary detention
– Equality before the law
– Freedom of movement
– Freedom of opinion and expression
– Right to work
– Right to education
– Right to an adequate standard of living

3. Yay!
Human rights for
all?
Not quite…

4. When the declaration was
adopted…
‘virtually all governments said standards were
not legally binding on them. At that time, no
specific human rights violations, apart from
slavery, genocide, and gross abuse of aliens,
were effectively proscribed. Virtually all states
shielded themselves happily behind Article 2(7)
of the UN charter arguing that human rights
was a strictly internal affair for the state
concerned’
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5. Numerous
governments
violate the human
rights of their
citizens

6. How?
• Some governments stay in power without
elections
• Some follow unwise policies that perpetuate
needless suffering among their citizens
• In a just world, governments that do these things
should be subject to corrective and beneficial
influence of countries of people outside the
country
• In principle, a lot of problems and abuses of
human rights in many countries could be solved by
outside intervention. Right?

7. Interference in the internal affairs of
sovereign states is against one of
the most important principles of
international law

8. Nowadays, idea that states can use
sovereignty as justification for
human rights abuses has lost much
credibility

9. Why?

10. ‘the increasing acceptance of the
protection of individual rights as an
international norm’
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