Essay About Social Conventions And Human Rights

International Law
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Although social conventions regarding a nations
conduct in war have no doubt been around for as long
as civilization itself, the present era of formal
conventions may be traced back to the first Geneva
Convention signed in 1864. With each major war, a new
set of conventions were signed that prohibited the
most flagrant atrocities committed, whether these be
pillage, poison gas, or torture. The term human rights
has evolved from these conventions and will be used to
refer to all conventions regarding the treatment of
individuals by a state. The extent to which these
conventions, as well as later ones drafted by the UN
and other organizations, have force of law has been
debated endlessly. The current violations of human
rights on the part of the United States in its war
against Iraq and radical Islamist groups are just the
latest permutation of this debate.
Three fundamental views on human rights may be
identified, both generally and in an international
context. Those who subscribe to the realist view might
say that human rights are a fiction with no basis in
reality. A state may choose to protect or violate
human rights as it chooses, and there may be occasions
where it must violate human rights for
self-preservation, which is seen as the primary driver
of all actions on the part of the state. This position
is closely linked to the beliefs of the current
administration, as well as to survival-of-the-fittest
Social Darwinist ideology.
A second view assumes the primacy of human rights.
This is the liberal view, which is based on the idea
of natural law, which humans (and institutions) must
obey whether we like it or not. In this view, human
rights conventions