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Welch says human rights are everyone's responsibility
By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer
While the second half of the 20th century was a time of great advancement in human rights, a UB expert on the topic said yesterday there remains a long road ahead when it comes to ensuring everyone across the globe experiences the equal treatment to which they're entitled.
"Human rights take as a starting point that each and every individual is equal," said Claude E. Welch, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences, during a UBThisSummer lecture entitled "Human Rights, Human Wrongs and How to Correct Them." Welch is co-director of the Buffalo Human Rights Center in the UB Law School.
"World peace is washed away when we don't think of the global implications and national effects of our own actions," Welch said. "Weaknesses of human rights in one or a few states can lead to dreadful things like terrorism or civil wars."
Experts on human rights refer to "three generations of human rights," Welch explained. The first is civil and political rights, such as the right to vote and the right to popular sovereignty; the second is economic and social rights, such as the right to food and health care; and the third is collective rights, such as the right to self-determination, peace and a clean environment.
Security is also a fundamental right, he added, noting that individuals have a right to expect "a court system that is honest and police who are not corrupt."
The era after World War II ushered in a wide range of organizations and institutions dedicated to global human rights, Welch said, including the United Nations, World Health Organization, International Organization for Migration, International Monetary Fund and World Bank. He also pointed to the subsequent proliferation of international treaties from 1948 to 1989 on such subjects as genocide, torture, discrimination, civil and political rights, economic and social rights, and the rights of women and children.
For these treaties to possess true significance, however, Welch noted that nations must embrace and enforce their ideals to ensure the principles become a part of the culture, as well as take on the weight of law.
"Treaties are pieces of paper unless implemented," he explained. "The United Nations has influence, but not power."
Welch said some of the greatest modern challenges to human rights across the globe include problems related to the unfair distribution of wealth—he noted slums in Mumbai, India and Mexico City could rival those of Paris before the French Revolution—as well as the unequal treatment of women in places like the Middle East and rural Africa.
"The average African woman works 16 hours a day," Welch said. "The average man about six."
He also said that deaths related to the Rwandan genocide equate to "a rate of killing that is higher on a weekly basis than the Holocaust during World War II."
The responsibility to act when it comes to spreading and upholding human rights falls on everyone, Welch concluded, encouraging those interested in the subject to suit their actions to their words through steps such as learning about their politicians' platforms on human rights issues, writing letters to the editor to raise awareness and supporting helpful organizations such as Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders and Human Rights Watch.
"I invite you to examine your conscience," he said. "Most of us have survived without war...without disease. We have not had to face the problems that a great majority of humanity does right now."