Human Rights Quote (71): Democratic Peace

“In an increasingly interdependent world, Americans have a growing stake in how countries govern, or misgovern, themselves. The larger and more close-knit the community of nations that choose democratic forms of government, the safer and more prosperous Americans will be, since democracies are demonstrably more likely to maintain their international commitments, less likely to engage [...]

Human Rights Story (3): Sex Strike

 
Abbreviated excerpt from Lysistrata by the Greek playwright Aristophanes (a comic play on the sex strike led by the women of Greece in a successful attempt to force their husbands to stop making war. The men, suffering from the absence of sex, agree to make peace):
Lysistrata (one of the women): “If all women join together [...]

Plato, Democracy, and “Human Rights” (4): Real Theoretical Life

(please read part 1, part 2 and part 3 first)
In the ideal Platonic society, led by thinking people who use force to train others to become like them, there will be wellbeing because spiritual life, free from the slavery of nature and desires, is the only good life. It means freedom, the satisfaction of knowledge, [...]

Human Rights Facts (22): Humanitarian Intervention

Humanitarian intervention is an armed intervention in one state by another state or states with the objective of ending gross violations of human rights, such as genocide or ethnic cleansing.
Whereas the moral case for such an intervention is very strong, it remains controversial because of the fact that violence is used and that the national sovereignty of [...]

What is Democracy? (20): Democracy is Peace, Continued

In a previous post, I discussed the democratic peace theory. This is a follow up.
Tyrannies, compared to democracies, are more likely to cause wars. Tyrannies violate human rights and these violations make it very difficult to maintain the rule of law (different human rights institute the rule of law, and the indivisibility of human rights [...]

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 [...]

What is Democracy? (17): Democracy is Peace

The democratic peace theory, stating that democracies do not wage war among themselves, is one of the main arguments in favor of the international promotion of democratic governance. It has been around since Immanual Kant who, in his essay Perpetual Peace, postulated that constitutional republics, or what we now would call democracies, was one of [...]

Human Rights Quote (36): Catholicism

In a speech on his U.S. trip, Benedict said that respect for human rights, not violence, was the key to solving many of the world’s problems.
While he didn’t identify the countries that have a stranglehold on global power, the German pope — just the third pontiff to address the U.N. General Assembly — addressed long-standing [...]

What is Democracy? (13): The Willingness to Live Together

Democracy is impossible when there is fundamental hostility between large groups in the state, when one group fears that a political victory of another group will harm its fundamental interests and when, as a consequence, groups are unwilling to live together. The tensions between communities resulting from this kind of situation makes the functioning of [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (49): Security

(by http://cartoonbox.slate.com/nickanderson/)
Those human rights that protect a person’s security, bodily integrity and life, and that prohibit physical assault, dismemberment, torture, cruel punishment etc., acknowledge deep-rooted needs such as the wish to survive and to avoid pain.
Now, if it is reasonable to presume that some or even all people will not always be able to avoid [...]