HR-2310 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Structural Violence, Code Of Hammurabi, Universal Declaration Of Human Rights
22 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
!!!!!Introduction
Human right principals dates back to the Hammurabi Code Babylon, C.1700BCE.
It continued over the years through the help of various others, Confucianism, Plato and Aristotle,
Askoa and some others..
!
This brought us to the ideals we know today:!
!
Liberalism: The inalienable right to liberty, freedom and property
Conservatism, and even Communism which brought economic rights to the forefront. !
!
As well as two main approaches to human rights and conflicts:!
Universalist approach: Conflict can only be avoided with a powerful universal system.!
Regionalist approach: The world and conflicts which plague them are too diverse to allow formations
of joint responsibility and common goals.
Preambles lay down the foundational principals in which the document was established
They are not binding, yet SOME of the operative statues are..!
There are various reasons for the upholding of the UDHR to this day still:
Article Two: Communist regimes coded freedom of speech, so in attempts to safeguard the
freedoms there was an implantation of reinforcement through this specific clause. !
Article Six: There was a law established in US after slavery was abolished, which established Africans
as sub-humans who deserves no rights; Therefore they technically did not have rights UNDER the
USA legal systems. !
!
!!!! Lecture Two!
Theories help us organize and think about situations by providing us some certain evidence to move
away from others. !
However, there is a lot of dilemmas between theory and practice.
There are not always similarities or patterns, yet sometimes we do have frameworks like “early
warning signs of genocide” which assist us
Nonetheless one can find a falsification of theories that tell us why the theory in question failed in a
particular instance or why it can be proven wrong!
!
!
Realism: Not everyone can win; the world is in perpetual conflict because there is no international
state to play leader and provide security. This idea is not always embedded in violence, it can be
achieved through sanctions or isolations.!
!
When looking at the cold war there are many incidents of democratically elected leaders who have
been taken out by other countries such as Chile. This was an act of realism - the maintaining of
power !
