Social justice and Human rights are interrelated, and they are working together towards a common goal of promoting the well being of all human beings. Human rights are essential to the social justice advocacy because they both foster compliance with attributes like dignity, respect, and self-determination. Just like human rights social justice plays a vital role in the challenging oppressive practices, inhumane treatment of the people who are vulnerable and helping this group of people to get a voice. The concepts of human rights and social justice are connected however the former is more focused on the rights instead of needs while the later advocates for fairness and equality. This paper will look into the need for balance between rights and responsibilities.
Key word: human rights, human responsibility, social justice,
Literature review
The role of human rights in achieving social justice
The study by Sara Burke looks into how human rights influence the achievement of social justice. According to this study, the human rights approaches are emphasizing legal method by the nations and other institutions like UN as well as the formulation of conventions, charters, treaties and rights laws by legal experts (Burke, 2014). For the written human rights laws, conventions, charters, and agreements to be put to practice the diplomats in various sovereign states have the responsibility of negotiating their implementation. There is an assumption that these governments will enforce and guarantee their citizens rights. However, this is not the case since the social justice advocates are the ones fighting and pushing the governments to implement the human right. For this reason, the social justice will remain elusive in such cases. This study found out that “The Universal declaration of human rights” does not emphasize the social justice; in fact, in this declaration social justice is mentioned only once.
The assessment of social justice relies on individual behavior. However, Pogge has a view that social justice should encompass the global justice and this implies that it should be judged based on rules and institutional social impacts. For this reason, the assessment of prospects and conditions for the social justice focuses on how the present institutions and systems can provide world people with social justice. In the study by Pogge, he argues that the arrangement in the global institutions is causing more troubles by bringing about rules whose avoidable and foreseeable outcomes leads to poverty and as a result innocent people lose their lives (Pogge, 2002). This scenario is evident in many nations where there has been shrinking in pensions and a decline in wages, and as a result, there are few opportunities for jobs that are decent to the youth causing inequalities.
Although the universal declaration is acceptable by most nations, these same governments like China, Russia, and the US does not conform to these international regulations. The human right activists as well as those social justice advocacy movements share the same goal of achieving a peaceful and just world. “There are numerous problems with framing the link between them as causal, implying that human right is a language, or mechanism, for achieving social justice” (Davis & Reber, 2016). The problem arises because the human rights lack a unified approach and the first generation rights that include right to speech; religion and assembly rely on the availability or absence of adverse outcomes. The determination of whether there is a violation of political or civil freedoms that make up the first generation human rights is an ambiguous process as compared to second generation human rights that involve cultural, social and economic rights.
The social movements have adopted the “no justice no peace” slogan to fight for accountability from the responsible bodies like the state, the powerful corporations and the financial institutions. The social justice and human rights activists do not support the international systems in accepting the need for the capitalist market economy. “Since orthodox economics promotes imperatives like the need for economic growth, deep involvement of the private sector in development, and for discounting the social outcomes of increased financialization, it also remains unchallenged in the dominant discourse on human rights” (Burke, 2014). The economic injustice according to Sara Burke is as a result of the high corporate power which creates inequalities in the society.
From the report by Malcolm, the riots, and protests that arise as a result of high prices of food work better in communicating people’s grievances to the government, and in most cases, lead to an action that solves the problem as opposed to the approach of politely using the legal instrument used by the human rights movements (Malcolm, 1998). This situation leaves a question of whether human rights play a role in achieving social justice.
The study by Heller uses the case of the Brazilian doctors and nurses’ movement to conclude that to achieve social justice there must be a collaboration between the human rights and the social movements’ activists. By using the militancy and participatory process, the Brazilian movement for doctors and nurses was able to establish universal primary health care. By basing on the experience in Brazil Heller argue that social movements can develop new institutions that will provide social justice by scaling up their work. However, this can only be possible if they have platforms for organization and action (Heller, 2013). For this reason, the human rights movements will be necessary because they will challenge the international human rights systems to align their agendas with the grievances of the protestors and this will be a vital move in helping the realization of social justice.
The Need to Balance the Rights and Responsibility in the Human Rights Discourse
There is a need to create a balance between human rights and responsibilities to promote freedoms. The InterAction council had a mission of balancing social duties with human rights since its members believed that laws could not achieve “a better social order nationally and internationally by prescriptions, and conventions alone, but needs a global ethic” (Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, 1998). However, their “Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities” did not receive much acceptance from the general assembly of the UN (Moyn, 2016). The refusal to adopt the proposal from the InterAction council was because the human activists who believed human responsibilities would come to dilute the human rights.
According to Giacomazzi, the human responsibilities are not substitutes for the human rights as seen by the human rights activists but they complement each other. Giacomazzi further argues that responsibilities are necessary for implementing the rights. During the development of human responsibility, the council had their focal point on the enhancement of human rights since the two concepts have a shared goal of promoting and protecting humanity (Giacomazzi, 2005). Since the UN’s core mission is developing and protecting human rights, adopting of human responsibilities will further enhance the realization of this goal to a greater extent.
To uphold the human rights, the citizens must have respect for these rights, and this solely depends on the fulfillment of duty instead of entitlement. Jim Ife argues that “There is a corresponding obligation on every member of the society to respect and support other people’s rights” (Ife, 2010). Every human right corresponds to human responsibility; according to Mahatma Gandhi as quoted by Malcolm, he said “I learned from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world” (Malcolm, 1998). A world where there is a demand for rights and neglecting responsibilities is dangerous, discordant and unequal. Incorporating human responsibilities with human rights brings about a balance between responsibilities and freedom and also act as an avenue for the reconciliation between political views and ideologies (Eric, 2017). These responsibilities help human beings in the realization of the full development of their personalities. Every citizen has a fundamental responsibility to the society of “obedience to the law, the exercise of useful activity, acceptance of the burdens and sacrifices demanded by the common good” (Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities).
The states’ compliance with the UN’s universal human rights can be enhanced by imposing affirmative duties on them to strengthen the understanding of cultural, social, economic, political and civil rights. The human activists have raised concerns on the issue of responsibilities that include misuse by oppressive regimes, who are the people charged with complying with the human responsibilities and the feeling that it is against the media freedom. Hans Kung argues that both human responsibility and human right can also be misused in the same way and therefore that should not be an excuse to the adoption of human responsibilities (Kung, 1998). According to “the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibility,” the media must respect the freedom of the press by being truthful in their reporting and avoidance of any activity that could be damaging to the human dignity. “The freedom of the media to inform the public and to criticize institutions of society and governmental actions, which is essential for a just society, must be used with responsibility and discretion” (Universal Declaration of Human responsibility).
Conclusion
Social justice and human right both advocates for a similar agenda of peaceful and just society that is free from any inequalities. By incorporating the two concept and having human rights movements and social movements working together, social justice can be achieved. Similarly, human rights and responsibility complement each other as they try to promote and protect human dignity. The UN assembly should, therefore, reconsider the universal declaration of human responsibility because these responsibilities have a fundamental function in the implementation of human rights and their adoptions will be useful in the achieving the UN’s core objective.
References
Burke, S. (2014) ‘What an era of global protests says about the effectiveness of human rights as a language to achieve social change,’ Sur. International Journal of Human Rights 11(20)
Davis, A. & Reber. (2016). The Rights of Social Work. Springer International Publishing. 1: 143.. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-016-0016-x
Eric B. (2017). Human Duties and the Limits of Human Rights Discourse. The Philosophy of Law. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319669564
Giacomazzi M. (2005). Human Rights and Human Responsibilities: A Necessary Balance? Santa Clara Journal of International Law https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=scujil
Heller, P. (2013), ‘Challenges and opportunities: Civil society in a globalising world,’ UNDP-HDRO Occasional Papers No. 2013/06, July 8
Ife, J. (2012). Human rights and social work: towards rights-based practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kung, H (1998). “Human Responsibilities Reinforce Human Rights: The Global Ethic Project,” A Fiftieth Anniversary Anthology, Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague. www.interactioncouncil.org.
Malcolm F (1998), “A Declaration on Human Responsibilities,” Address given to the UNESCO Conference
Moyn M. (2016). The Rights vs. duties. Philosophy and religion. http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/samuel-moyn-rights-duties
Pogge, T. (2002). World poverty and human rights, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities.(1998). InterAction Council, www.interactioncouncil.org
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.(1992).United Nations council. (1992)
