Human Rights
Reading about Evidence of Russia Using Starvation as a Weapon in its War on Ukraine
"New Report: 'Deliberate Pattern' of Starvation Tactics against Ukrainian Civilians by Russian Forces in Siege of Mariupol City" by Global Rights Compliance, June 13, 2024. (Summary in Ukrainian followed by English)
Full report in English (PDF) — "The Hope Left Us": Russia’s Siege, Starvation, and Capture of Mariupol City
Full report in Ukrainian (PDF) — "Надія залишила нас": Облога, моріння голодом і захоплення Маріуполя Росією
I still need to process this report, but its outline already lines up with the reporting presented in the prize-winning Frontline/AP documentary, “20 Days in Mariupol” (available in full on the Internet Archive). Its chapters include:
Reading Aryeh Neier on Israel, International Humanitarian Law, and Justice
Aryeh Neier, “Is Israel Committing Genocide?”, The New York Review of Books, June 6, 2024.
The author, who has seen much as one of the founders of Human Rights Watch, has long been “sparing” in his application of the term “genocide” to state-committed atrocities over the past several decades. Initially he did not think of Israel’s indiscriminate, even criminal violence against civilians as genocide, because Israel had a clear right to defend itself against the barbarous acts of Hamas.
I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."
Riots
Minnesota Governor Walz’s assertion that ongoing riots are no longer about George Floyd ring true in a way. But were they ever about one man? Floyd’s death was certainly no one-off. The protests—and the participation of so many young people—should give pause to those leaders who would gloss over this society’s brutal injustices and disparities.
An Encounter between our Enslaved and our Immigrant Pasts
I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go to the side of humanity.
– Frederick Douglas, quoted in Patrick Young, “When a Ban on the Chinese Was Proposed and Frederick Douglass Spoke Out,” Long Island Wins, February 8, 2017.
Bloggers Unite for Iran on June 29th
There is a Bloggers Unite campaign for Iran on June 29th.
I doubt that a bunch of outsiders blogging for Iran will make any difference in the outcome of the immediate conflict, but I do believe that all the attention we in the West are paying to the Iranians is proving beneficial for the West in general and the United States in particular. No longer abstract Others that are easy to contemplate bombing because we are worried about their country’s nuclear program, the Iranian people have faces, hopes, and dreams with which we can identify and immense amounts of courage that we can admire.
Received Rights versus Human Rights in the 'Declaration of Independence'
Featured image: The famous "Declaration of Independence" painting by John Trumbull
Today citizens of the United States celebrate Independence Day. On this day, 232 years ago, thirteen American colonies proclaimed their independence from Great Britain in a famous document that Thomas Jefferson wrote, the Declaration of Independence. As a history teacher, I find this document fascinating, because it fuses together two different political traditions. On one hand, it recalls seventeenth-century English constitutionalism and its arguments about what had supposedly always been the rights of Englishmen. On the other hand, it advances the kind of powerful and universalizing claims about natural law and human rights spawned in the Enlightenment and given their most dramatic expression during the French Revolution. These connections make the document an interesting object lesson for the history classroom. They also can act as a healthy reminder to Americans that our Declaration of Independence displays not only differences from European political traditions, but also powerful affinities for them.
The Responsibility to Protect
This is a post related to a bloggers human rights campaign. I'm merely leaving the Internet Archive link here because the link-heavy post makes more sense with that context. – MRS, 10/27/2024
Human Rights in the History Survey
I have been teaching History 100, the one-semester survey of Western Civilization that is required for all students at George Mason University. Yes, really. One semester. As I mentioned earlier, this semester I decided to abandon the old chronological approach and follow a thematic one instead. I organized the course into six major themes, plus an introductory unit on historical thinking. One of those themes was "Politics and Human Rights."
If one looks at Western Civ textbooks or the reading lists from my days as a graduate student, human rights are not going to be an obvious subject of study, especially not for a history survey that can only afford to choose six major topics. Yet they are not only important to learn about, they also offer a powerful integrative vehicle for talking about a variety of issues that have been central to the history of the West since the eighteenth century.