Evaluate to which religion organisation that deal with human right
Answers
In a Western historical context, human rights developed as a protective concept to defend the autonomy of individual citizens against threats coming particularly from sovereigns (states) that would try to over-extend their power into the realm of the private citizen. In the cultural context of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, however, the human rights idea is of a much more emancipatory character. There, it constitutes a struggle for truly universal human dignity through realised rights of the have-nots. Furthermore, while human rights are highly action-oriented in general, this applies particularly to the situation in developing countries. “Human rights have often been functioning as the rights of the privileged both at the world level and also in national and local societies. But the dispossessed, the underprivileged, and that is the majority of the world, they regard human rights as instruments of liberation and emancipation” (Leary 1990: 30). In such a context, human rights are used as a transformative legal resource as well as a political instrument for social change while playing their part particularly in the struggles of social movements. Obviously, it is culture that plays a primary role in this respect.
From a human rights perspective, culture acts as both a resource and a constraint. On the one hand, the cultural filter through which people experience the outside world is an indispensable resource for sustaining the globally proclaimed faith in universal dignity and equal rights. On the other, it may double as a serious constraint to that faith. Let us now examine the former aspect of culture, with special focus on the role of religion.
Why Human Rights Need Faith
The issue here is whether human rights might be regarded as self-driven and sustained in the sense of a connected worldview in which the belief in universal human dignity is grounded. In this regard, a distinction may be made between religion and faith. The term religion stems from the Latin religio in the sense of a bond. While religion may manifest itself as doctrine, rules and hierarchies, faith refers to authentic conviction and concrete commitment. It is the Muslim scholar Abdullahi An-Na’im in particular who has suggested shifting the debate on “religion and human rights” from textual interpretations of prescriptions and proscriptions to the actual understanding and practice of belief (2004). In this respect, two distinct meanings of faith may be discerned. First, there is ‘faith’ as proclaimed in the foundational human rights documents such as the Preamble to the United Nations Charter of 1945 in which the “Peoples of the United Nations … reaffirm faith in fundamental rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small” (emphasis added). This global faith may be written with a small f, whereas ‘Faith’ (with capital F) signifies a transcendental belief to drive, sustain, and inspire that faith in human dignity and its associated values of liberty, equality, and solidarity, which were proclaimed in Article 1 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
While with the United Nations Charter of 1945 the universality of human rights was firmly grounded in international law – and a great deal of political consensus on the human rights idea exists – there are still serious difficulties in realising these rights. Obviously, their inclusion in legal texts is in itself insufficient (ironically, it is often precisely in states with the most serious human rights violations that we find the most elaborate and high-sounding constitutional clauses on fundamental freedoms and entitlements). What really matters is accessible procedures of a supra‑national nature. These have been effectively created only in Europe: But in order to bring a case before the European Court of Justice, all national remedies must have been first exhausted. Hence, contentious action, however important as a remedy for human rights violations, has to be accompanied by socio‑cultural and political action aiming at cultural receptivity (De Gaay Fortman 1995).