the role they play in the human rights movement
Background 2
Human Rights Movement 2
Type of Organisation 3
Role of Organisation 4
Outcomes 5
Bibliography 6
Background:
The politics of human rights are undertaken by various organisations and what they do in order to promote their ideological positions is important in their development. The mandates, or mission statements, of these organizations are important aspects in their ability to promote and carry out their goals. Through the implementation of these considerations, the organizations are able to provide moral and legal frameworks for the international community to develop a consistent rationale for dealing with these issues.
The Human Rights First Organization (HRF) is a group that has dedicated itself to the ideals and universal values of human dignity and freedom. The organization mandates the actualization of human rights policies in the will through the collective will of its constituent members. Their goals include the eradication of human rights violations throughout the world. Through these policies they hope to effect change in the real world. These changes are hoped to promote the development of human rights to citizens at home and abroad.
Founded in 1978, this organization is essentially an advocacy group that pushes for American leadership at home and abroad on a variety of fundamentally important human rights issues. These issues include human rights issues of all sorts, including genocide and slavery. Through the implementation of policies, the institution works to discover, analyse, and solve human rights issues throughout the world. These factors provide the framework necessary for promoting human rights throughout the international community.
These policies are put forward by strengthening their political platform and lobbying for change. Through the channels of activism and lobbying, this group attempts to put forward their agenda on the national and international stages. By doing so, the group can hope to extend their reach worldwide through the economic and political connections that the United States has with the rest of the international community.
The organization covers various issues concerning human rights violations, including torture, poverty, and corruption. They provide aid, legal advice, and law enforcement to those areas that need it throughout the world. The main efforts focus on the push for international human rights advocacy in areas around the world. Through the implementation of this policy, they hope to provide international leaders the ability to contain and prevent human rights abuses in their countries.
Through these efforts, the group hopes to lead the world towards change for the betterment of all of humanity. This goal is essentially the eradication of human rights abuses throughout the world. The idea is rooted in the human rights movement that has lasted for the past half century, following the Second World War. Their mission is, essentially, to, through their policies and vision, create the framework and setting for the protection of international human rights (Vashem, 2003, 1).
Give brief summary of their history and their activism
Historically, the group has been a part of numerous human rights movements over the past few decades. This includes immigration, torture, and detention programs. These movements have been a reflection of the ideological perspective of the organization. Through the advancement of their agenda, they have attempted to resolve these issues and make life better for individuals around the world. By doing so, the promotion of humanitarian rights in countries throughout the world can be achieved.
Recent campaigns that the group has been a part of include the closing of Guantanamo Bay, the issue of human trafficking, and the pressures facing LGBT individuals in Russia. These issues are examples of fundamental human rights problems that are faced by society, and reflect the types of ideological issues that the foundation deals with. Through political and social agendas, the organization hopes to alleviate these problems. This is the importance of their moral and legal frameworks in implementing their policies throughout the international community as well as in the United States.
The group drives towards specified results, rather than giving advice they prefer to act on those important issues that the country is facing. Instead of focusing on studies that are related to the problems, the organization goes further by implementing policies that will work to provide solutions to the problems that they have defined (Vashem, 2003, 1). Through these actions, the organization hopes to go beyond the academic and research focused idealization of human rights to actual real world polices that will hopefully affect some change.
Human Rights Movement:
The human rights movement began after WWII, when the international community combined their will in order to lay the foundations of human rights law throughout the world. These laws focus on the mandates of human interest, and were developed in the aftermath of the genocides of the early 20th century. Through the implementation of these ideological concerns, the HRS provides an organized effort to implement the will underlying the human rights movement and the progression of its goals.
The movement is essentially a push towards not only the education of people in society, but also the guarantee of specific rights that are deemed as important for individuals to lead a good life. These rights revolve around the idea that there should be a basic framework for what is considered fundamental to human freedom. This framework can then be acted upon through the implementation of policies set forth by the movement. In this way, the movement essentially hopes to help the development of human rights throughout the world.
The movement essentially addresses the need to distinguish those actions that can be considered in violation to the rights that the international community considers essential for the stability of human lives. “The attempt to define inalienable human rights includes an attempt to establish irrefutable moral and legal norms that provide a solid basis for differentiating between acceptable and unacceptable conditions and actions” (Huhle, 177, 1). Through this specification, a legal framework can be developed to address human rights abuses in countries worldwide.
This is the fundamental consideration of the ideologies of human rights. The movement is based on the ideas of democracy and underscores the importance of sovereignty of its members. The universal declaration of the UN’s humanitarian policies are Non-discrimination, respect for family life, privacy, and freedom from torture and abuse. These policies focus on issues concerning racial discrimination and human trafficking. They develop the methodology for addressing these types of issues and promote the consideration of the international community in regards to human rights those who abuse them.
Type of organisation:
The HRF undertakes various forms of activism. Through the implementation of volunteers, political lobbyists, and legal advisors, the group not only undertakes political activism, but also social, and legal activism as well. In this way, the organization is multifaceted, and represents the full dynamics of the human rights organization. In this way, the group is essentially an implementation of a framework for the advancement of the movement. This is the type of organization that they can be categorized as.
Organisation’s Role:
The HRF plays an organizational and executive role in the human rights movement. Through the implementation of its objectives, the group not only provides a framework for the development of lobbyist and volunteer networks, but also provides insights into the legal and academic aspects of human rights. Through the studies that have been done by the group, various human rights issues have been addressed (Amnesty International, 2006, 2). These issues have been, in many ways, alleviated in some areas, however, there are many issues that the group hopes to provide focus toward in regards to the international community.
Through undertaking these forms of activism, the organization is able to achieve its mandate through the implementation of policies and setting out of goals that provide guidance, as well as moral frameworks, for the human rights movement to carry forward. These policies are able to guide the movement through the organization of ideologies as well as the implementation of specific steps in order to reach those ideologies. In this way, the group is able to work towards the mandate that they set out to achieve.
Outcomes:
In this respect, the group seems to have been successful. Their efforts in the international community as well as through local activism have helped to spur the human rights movement to work towards ending these issues. Not only has the group helped to alleviate issues concerning human poverty but of human slavery and trafficking as well. In this way, they have been a guiding factor in the international humanitarian movement and its ability to affect positive change worldwide (Kaplan, 2014, 2). This ability is the strength of the organization, and the positive influence that it has had on the worldwide community.
The growing number of refugees around the world is seen as a big human rights concern throughout the international community. By providing support to international workers, the organization has helped to provide relief to refugees around the world. By doing so, the HRF has increased the amount of effort that is put towards this issues by individuals and countries around the world. These efforts have had some impact on the issues that the group has focused on, however, there are many factors involved in these issues, and it is difficult to make progress on such as scale.
Through political organization, lobbying, and activism the group was able to help to hold the United States government accountable for increasing their efforts to end human trafficking. Through the implementation of their policies they were able to provide a legal framework for the accountability of agencies in the United States to resolve these issues, thereby supporting the international community (ABA, 2010, 9). However, the organization understands that these issues are ongoing, and there must be an effort by the international community as a whole to end these problems before anything can really be done.
The organization has measured its success on its ability to adhere to the goals that it has set forth for itself. In this way, the organization’s success would be dependent on how well they are able to implement their policies in the world, as well as how well those policies would be successful in progressing the human rights movement for the international community. Furthermore, the organization has measured its success on its ability to provide the moral standards of its framework in society. In this way, the ability of the organization to challenge the international world to provide better human rights efforts to its citizens is one of its greatest achievements.
Despite the success of the organization, there are still many challenges facing the international human rights movement. The organization is pursuing various human rights endeavours currently, including torture, human sex trafficking, and racial discrimination in the United States itself. These issues present the organization with many problems that it still must face going forward, however, its endeavours are believed to have a positive and profound impact concerning human rights on the world stage (Rugha, 2006, 3).
Through these efforts, the group has worked to alleviate injustices worldwide, and promote the fair advancement of human rights in the international community. By doing so, they have organized and promoted their agenda through not only political lobbying and volunteer efforts, but have also pursued the academic challenges regarding international issues. In this way, they have enveloped the underlying elements of the movement and acted to promote its humanitarian objectives in the real world.
References
American Bar Association, Reforming the Immigration Detention System 2010. 2-16.
Amnesty International, Glimpse of Hell: Reports on Torture Worldwide. Forrest Duncan. 2006.
Huhle, Rainer. Human Rights and History: A Challenge for Education. 2008. Foundation for
Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future. 1-194.
Human Rights First, Renewing U.S. Commitment to Refugee Protection Recommendations for
Reform on the 30th Anniversary of the Refugee Act. (New York: Human Rights First, March 2010), p. 14.
Kaplan, Michael. “Some Question Methodology in ADL Study of Global Anti-Semitism.” The Jewish
Daily Forward. 14 May 2014.
Ruga, Glenn. Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risks of Criminality.
(2007). Human Rights First.
Vashem, Yad. The Righteous Among Nations. (2003). The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’
Remembrance Authority. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/statistics.asp
