Human Rights Cartoon (96): Modern Slavery

(copyright Monte Wolverton)
Slavery was officially abolished worldwide at the 1927 Slavery Convention. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms”.
Slavery is illegal everywhere and yet it still exists everywhere. Experts estimate that today [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (95): Waterboarding

(copyright http://www.rall.com/)
Waterboarding is an old torture technique from the Spanish Inquisition. It consists of immobilizing the “target” on an inclined board, head down, with cloth covering his or her face. Pouring water over the face simulates drowning. The victim inhales water, and is convinced that he or she is drowning and about to die. As [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (90): Tolerating Intolerance?

Some people urge us to accept and respect other cultures, other practices and beliefs unconditionally and without exceptions. Every cultural practice, whatever its content, is valuable and should be protected, even if this means giving up certain or all human rights. This means that rejecting intolerance in a certain culture is intolerant and rejecting discrimination [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (89): Privacy

(source: www.boligan.com)
I’ve written about privacy before on this blog (here, here and here), with a particular attention to the importance of private property for privacy. The current post deals more generally with privacy.
There’s no light without darkness. By recognizing the right to keep certain thoughts, relationships and communications secret, one automatically recognizes the right to [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (83): Habeas Corpus

(copyright http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html)

(copyright http://www.ucomics.com/patoliphant/)
This post gives some more detail about one element of our system of “fair trial” which I discussed here.
It’s the very important principle of Habeas Corpus, litterally (from Latin) “(We command) that you have the body”. This is an important legal tool to defend oneself against arbitrary or unlawful arrest. Habeas Corpus is [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (82): Overpopulation?

A few cartoons about overpopulation. I’ll try to show in this post how this is related to human rights.

(copyright http://www.claybennett.com/)

(copyright http://www.greenberg-art.com/)

(copyright unknown)
Some blame overpopulation for many of the world’s problems such as poverty, famine and war (which are obviously rights violations). There are supposed to be too many people for peaceful coexistence and sustainable food [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (81): Rotation in Office

One of the arguments against democracy and in favor of authoritarian forms of government turns to the economy. Economic development requires consistency, coherence, long term and central planning, all of which is said to be incompatible with democracy. The rotation in office typical of a democracy puts always other people in power, with other priorities [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (80): Child Labor

Three cartoons about child labor:

(copyright Fredrikke Palmer & unknown & Robert Minor respectively)
Child labor not only keeps children from attending school. It often harms them physically and mentally. It is therefore a double problem from the point of view of the human rights of children.

It denies them the education that they need for the exercise [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (79): Fair Trial

(unknown artist)
A characteristic element of modern democratic states is their ability to offer fair trials to those accused of crimes. We try to treat everyone, even suspected criminals, with fairness, and we have two principal reasons for this:

We only want to punish real criminals. A fair trial is one in which everything is done to [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (78): Life Expectancy

(copyright Ron Tandberg)
Life expectancy, or the average length of life in a given population (mostly a country), is of importance to the issue of human rights. A low life expectancy means shorter life spans. Now, it’s not because a life is relatively short that is has to be less fulfilling, less happy or less meaningful. [...]