Throughout the course, I feel like I have learned a lot about Human Rights theory, and abuses in their various contexts. One factor which keeps standing out in my mind is the agency of publicity. It seems to me that human rights written down in a formal document by the UN only serves a symbolic purpose. Human rights as a single entity are not very useful; saying that they exist or publishing a piece of paper with them on it does not keep people from being tortured.
Publicity is what seems to either keep people from having their human rights abused or ‘at least’ engender punishment for those who have abused human rights. In examining the cases we have studied, going public is what has created some change or reprimand. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo stage visual demonstrations in order to gain publicity for their personal cause. If they would have stayed quite and not gotten international media attention would the Dirty War in Argentina be as well known of an example as it is today?
In examining various news and academic articles about Human Rights for this course, the ‘champions’ of human rights seem to be those who can gain international media attention. For instance, the indigenous people of the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil have managed to (kind of) stop the construction of a dam on their land because it would destroy their livelihood. However, I would argue that their success is based less upon the destruction of the Amazon and Indigenous Rights, and more upon the fact that the lead singer of U2 and his sunglasses made an appearance at the protest. If you look at mining in Guatemala, the indigenous people there have not had nearly as much success, nor have they had nearly as much press. The same right is being violated the major difference is disproportionate media attention.
This also makes me wonder what would have actually happened in the cases of Human Rights abuses like Guatemala and Argentina had there been more international awareness of what was going on. Perhaps there would not have been any change, but perhaps international media pressure could have shamed governments into halting their actions against various peoples.
Cases like the Dirty War and the United Fruit Company have become rather well known in university settings, but they still are not ‘common knowledge.’ I think that if Human Rights protection were to be a legitimate force then such past cases of abuses do need to be well known in order for the general public to understand the actual importance of these symbolic Human Rights. For as long as violations of human rights stay out of view of the general public, no one is going to care. If not many people care about human rights not many people will be fighting for them either. Let’s be honest, pieces of paper are not going to fight for themselves.
Therefore, I would say that declarations of human rights are an important symbol because that symbol creates a launching point for publicity on these issues. However, without publicity to create action declarations of human rights are not very utile.
