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Human Rights Violations in War: The Struggles of Protecting our Humanity

11:49 AMUnknown



Image Source: https://consumer2savlives.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/the-federal-governments-humanitarian-crisis-trickling-down-to-all-states/
The emergence of the first war in the history of the world is still vague, though many historians say that war did not start before 2700 B.C.E.. However, war is not a new issue in our modern society and people acknowledge its existence is regularly caused by political, ideological, geographical border, or cultural differences. War is defined as a battle of armed groups of people who fight for certain objectives, these objectives can be various: from wanting to get more land, defending one’s own land, fighting to obtain natural resources, attempting to religiously control occupied spaces, to fighting for economic strategy and so on and so forth as history has shown. Not only that, wars have caused the loss of many people’s lives, the creation of weapons and the rise of technology, and as time has gone on, with the advent of such technology, there has been an accelerated  number of people’s death in modern era wars, which includes not only soldiers, but also many civilians. Therefore, after the end of World War II in 1945, the most inhumane war in history in which a total of over 60 million combatants and civilians were killed, a new adaptation of the Geneva Conventions was created in 1949 in the form the protection of human rights to protect civilians during wartime, essentially, rules of war. While the Geneva Conventions had existed since 1864, it was only after a long series of revisions that the rules were finally added, and only after a serious amount of human tragedy. These rules became necessary after certain evils prevailed in not only World Wars I and II, but in the many that preceded and lie in between these large-scale wars.  These evils manifested themselves in the forms of various types of human right violations such as genocide, sexual violence, torture, deliberate starvation, and discrimination. 

These violations can be seen through some examples such as the American Civil War, World War II, Syrian Civil War, and Libyan Civil War, yet perhaps the most terrifying thing is, that even though these rules of war are in place, they are continually being broken up into this modern day and age. Although we have, as a world community, established a set of definitions and rules for protecting human rights with the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we have largely failed in enforcing these rules and human rights as evidenced with the inability of local government to mirror international standards and our flawed UN security voting system.

In wars, however, human rights are often ignored as certain persons or groups of people strive for their own purposes and goals violating human rights without so much as an afterthought of the consequences to others. These violations may occur for reasons such as a form of threatening enemies, getting attention from the world, or even just simply attempting to get into power. According to the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 3, it is mentioned that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”, yet numerous civilians frequently are the targets to fulfill some people’s self-interests in ongoing wars especially if the victims are from the opposing group. Within the multiple versions of the Geneva Conventions, as well as the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there have been many signatories and participants, however, not all countries have contributed to, or joined the international treaties. Furthermore, it says in the Geneva Conventions Article 13, Part II that “The provisions of Part II cover the whole of the populations of the countries in conflict, without any adverse distinction based, in particular, on race, nationality, religion or political opinion, and are intended to alleviate the sufferings caused by war.” Thus, it is expected that these international standards of human rights go beyond mere signatories, or extend to all of those feeling the violation of their own human rights. The creation of laws protecting human rights throughout history has shown that we are a species that is able to show compassion and understanding; furthermore, we are a species that is able to differentiate, to a certain extent, what is morally acceptable and what is not. The creation of these laws, principals and ideas is a noble start for our species, however, the insurance of each and every person’s human rights has proved difficult for our society for a number of reasons, and while we have started addressing these problems in an appropriate manner, we are still far from preserving the rights of each and every human on the planet.

Although a majority of the world has gathered together and discussed preventing the violations of human rights and created necessary agreements, there are still a few lapses in enforcing the protection of these human rights, namely when it comes to local enforcement of human rights protection. Local governments, as the center of local state power, must also help their citizens in pursuing their rights. By applying and creating local laws that align with international treaties local governments would be taking steps towards protecting human rights on a national level, but sadly, because many local governments have failed to realize this, sometime in war crimes often governments are also the actors behind the occurring of violations of human rights. 

Image Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26917419
For example, it is shown on the lack of involvement of government in interstate conflicts such as genocide in Rwanda 1994 and the shooting of innocent people in fighting for their freedom in West Papua. The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 killed over a million Tutsi people and sympathizers by the Hutus, in only 100 days. Many Tutsi men, women, children and babies were slaughtered in the public places, such as schools, street and churches, by their own neighbors, colleagues, or even relatives who were originally Hutus. The Hutu people were instead deliberately incited by the Rwandan government to kill the Tutsis based on the long historical, ethnic and political causes. This Rwandan genocide violated human rights through discrimination based on race, though the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights has stated the protection for this matter in Articles Two and Seven. Another case human rights violations is the ongoing conflict in West Papua, where over 500,000 West Papuans have been killed, tortured, and raped by Indonesian security forces. Some of the members of Free Papua Movement (OPM) are even arrested, by Indonesian police, on their own land for raising their independent flag. The West Papuan people have been struggling for freedom for decades, though Indonesian government does not seem to care, largely in part to gaining profits from a foreign company that has been exploiting the natural resources in West Papua. In this modern era, the realization of, not only the right to life, but also to freedom of expression and speech is still far from sight. The local governments in both countries have not only not helped the civilians in the conflicts, but in fact, they have even perpetrated human rights violations in their own right, in order to achieve the local governments’ self-interest, even though in common law tradition, one of the government’s duties is to enforce one’s right and obtain a remedy for their violation. 

To combat these violations, citizens of each country have asked for support from other countries through the U.N. community, but the intervention from the U.N. cannot be recognized if there is one or more countries that do not agree to vote on pursuing peace by protecting human rights of civilians.

Although the U.N, as the world community, has created a global structure for protecting human rights, it has not been effective as even when the U.N. Security Council proposes the mandate to protect human rights, it is not always implemented because of an overly-burdened and flawed voting system. The U.N. state members that act on the Security Council are five: the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, and these five are the permanent members which hold veto power.  However, this system has been very controversial, as only five countries, and perhaps only one in a veto situation, determine the decision that would be made by the U.N. Security Council to accomplish the amendment of perpetuating the human rights of civilians in war. For instance, Russia, as one of the permanent members of the U.N., has been blocking the resolutions by the U.N. Security Council to fulfill the basic human rights in the Syrian Civil War. According to the U.N Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, the reason of rejection of Russia towards the mandate is stated as “the resolution was more balanced than previous resolutions on Syria but still contained unacceptable provisions.  

In the list of human rights violations on the side of the Government, there were no provisions relating to the violence committed by the fighters described in detail by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which included groups which made up the Free Syrian Army.” The use of chemical weapons and inhumane methods of warfare in Syria have not convinced state members that rejected the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry to prevent continuation of violation of human rights. Russia aligned with China, Cuba and Venezuela which all voted to go against the mandate and it has resulted in extended periods of human rights violations. Not surprisingly, Russia has also been a longtime ally and weapons supplier to Syria. Unfortunately, situations such as these show that simply one country on the Security Council, whether its decision is based on economic or resource-based motives, has the ability to veto the intervention into situations which are causing grave human rights violations merely for independent furthering of state. It is clear that this flawed voting system leaves too much room for political pettiness in regarding human rights; when people are being subjected to human rights abuses and violations, it shouldn't take the whole world to agree, especially a world entangled in backroom deals, alliances and agreements. It is clear that the system of vetoes and permanent powers on the Security Council need to either be reshaped or a watchdog system needs to be implemented, without it, human rights violations may continue around the world for the sake of simple national, political or economical interest, and it seems ignorant to ignore the basic rights bestowed upon all people for the increased global power of one or more countries.

Image Source: http://acelebrationofwomen.org/2014/
08/culture-of-peace-consistent-with-womens-movement/
The basic idea of human rights is that humans should be protected from inhumane treatment and are deserving of respect and dignity, whether it is in peace or war time. But to realize the human rights, the world does need the commitment from local governments and the aid of other countries through international forums, by enforcing and mirroring the international standards to pursue international and universal peace. Thus far, with the death total of civilians and combatants and many cases of human right violations in war, it has made people wonder if the efforts in international community, such as the creation of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions, which are supposed to defend human rights, have been effective at all. These documents are more a proof of failure of standards not met by many types of rules, documents and even organizations to protect basic human rights and to maintain world peace.


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