As stated by Skelton (2018), “Justice and Peace is the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”. Right after the devastation and trauma of the World War II, the leaders all around the world unite with one another than never before, under the same charter of rights. On 10th of December, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed and adopted the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights (Friedman, 2018). However, a neglected feature of the very declaration was that it ends with the obligations and the duties upon a person to their community. Despondently, man has become obsessed with rights in absence of any sense of duty, responsibility or obligation. It is believed that along with rights, there comes the responsibilities as well and therefore, a balance in between them is very necessary. This paper is going to provide a literature review on the topic- “the need to balance ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ in the contemporary Australia.
As per Sen (2017), Human Rights refer to the fundamental rights and the freedoms that belong to each individual in this world, right from their birth to their death. In the contemporary Australia, most of the people have a wide range of several ideas regarding what human rights means to them. It is often noticed that the Australians generally agree that every individual has an inherent value and dignity and also, that the human rights helps them to respect and to recognise the key worth in one another. It is the same for every people, irrespective of their sexes, caste, creed, nationality, language, origin, ethnic, financial stability and religion and this is what makes the Human Rights “universal”.
As stated by Hodgson (2015), “Accepting a framework of rights cannot imply simply a selfish attitude on the parts of the individual, claiming his or her own rights while remaining indifferent to the rights of the others. There is a corresponding obligation on each members of the society to support and to respect the rights of the other people.” Rights and obligations are interlinked and they cannot be segregated from each other in any way. They are two different sides of a common coin. If a state gives its citizens the right to life, it also inflicts on them a responsibility to not to uncover his life to the dangers and to respect the life of other citizens. Jones (2017) in this context have stated that “Right of One is the Duty of Others”. The rights could be enjoyed only in the world of duties and obligations. For each of the rights there is a corresponding obligation and duty. When the citizen fail to release their duties and obligations in proper way, the rights become completely meaningless. As it is the state that safeguards and imposes rights, it becomes the duty of all the citizens to be true to the state. All the citizens have an obligation to obey the state laws as well as to pay the taxes lawfully. These rights come along with different responsibilities and obligations and are also compelled by respect for the rights of the others individuals. For instance, the right to free speech has nothing to do with getting the right to insult anyone. It does not mean that he or she can insult others for absolutely no reason.
The vitality in the Human Rights cases of “responsibilities” in the sense of obligations to the society is not at all controversial (Ghai, 2014). It is often stated that there is a need for a fair balance in between the rights of the individuals and the obligations that they have and it is generally “inherent in the whole of the Convention”. These issues of the rights and the responsibilities or the obligations have been central of many of the political debates on Human Rights Act. It is to state that Human Rights are both universal and inherent. The state does not give the individuals those rights, in fact, it is the duty of the state to recognise them. According to Matsuda (2018), Australians differ on the basis of understanding of where the human rights have come from. However, it is very important to mention that Australia has played a significant part in the making of the Universal Declaration of Human rights. In contemporary Australia, there are a huge number of important methods in which the rights of the individuals are protected and promoted and they include:
Today, the importance of protection of the human rights by the legal system of Australia and especially, by the federal statutory law has grown significantly in this area. Although, does not mean to diminish the vitality of the Australian common law, which too plays a very vital role in this area by the reason of its former regard for the key individual rights. One of the very significant examples of the impact of common law on the domestic human rights is the role that it plays in the development and acknowledgement of the rights of the native title of the indigenous Australians. However, there is an importance of both the rights and responsibilities for a citizen and a balance in between these two is hence very important (Lister & Campling, 2017). It is also to note that exercising of the democratic obligations and rights of the Australians as well as the service delivery are two different thought provoking notions- particularly in the present scenario of Australia. It is far from the reality and the services that are rendered to the Australians are still very poor. For example, the electorate in Australia is prone to the hand-outs and is also very easily manipulated into the participation. With the same, corruption and nepotism is also increasing side by side and is staining the political institutions and the politics. Furthermore, to certain limits, there is a sort of censorship of Australian press and also it seems to be in no separation of the powers.
It is also to note that the rights of human beings are not fabricate of the Western Civilisation. In fact, they are universal and each spiritual and cultural tradition has different laws and codes about the “rights of man”. However, Human Rights do not safeguards one’s culture but it protect an individual from the confinements and limitations of his culture. Human Rights are regarding the rights of humans. It is the responsibilities of human beings to encourage the individual to be more betrothed with global community as well as in the political processes and the social issues of the nation. As stated by Hoppe (2018), “The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, instead it comes from the hands of the God”. Notwithstanding this fact, these rights come along with different duties and obligations and are also compelled by respect for the rights of the others individuals. Every Australians have the right of demonstrating but it must be kept in mind that such actions should not violate on the rights of their peers. As per Richardson (2017), the rights without obligations and responsibilities are similar to wildfires, dangerous and fearful. The citizens who are irresponsible do not deserve these rights and instead, they are been controlled- by being imprisoned. Thus, Mill (2016) has state that the privileges of human beings could be no way more than of their obligations. The very first duty is of respecting the rights of the other individuals. For instance, the right to free speech that the individuals inherent does not mean that he or she can insult others for absolutely no reason. The ones who do so should face the full outrage of the state law.
Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis it is clear that in this contemporary Australia, the impact and influence of the universal human rights law is ineffective. The growing challenges of corruption and nepotism is staining the political institutions and the political environment of the nation. Although, the Australian are well-aware of the importance of human rights and the responsibilities that they hold towards respecting, still, there are several evident from which it is clear that the Human Rights and the obligations here, does not go hand in hand. Therefore, it is very important to have balance in the ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ in contemporary Australia.
References:
Friedman, E. (2018). Women’s human rights: The emergence of a movement. In Women’s Rights, Human Rights (pp. 18-35).
Ghai, Y. (2014). Rights, duties and responsibilities. In Asian Values (pp. 40-62).
Hodgson, G. M. (2015). Much of the ‘economics of property rights’ devalues property and legal rights. Journal of Institutional Economics, 11(4), 683-709.
Hoppe, H. H. (2018). Democracy–the god that failed: the economics and politics of monarchy, democracy and natural order.
Jones, P. (2017). Human rights, group rights, and peoples’ rights. In Human Rights (pp. 277-304).
Lister, R., & Campling, J. (2017). Citizenship: feminist perspectives. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Matsuda, M. J. (2018). Public response to racist speech: Considering the victim’s story. In Words that wound (pp. 17-51).
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy (pp. 337-383).
Richardson, G. (2017). The case for prisoners’ rights. In Prisoners’ Rights (pp. 165-176).
Sen, A. (2017). Elements of a theory of human rights. In Justice and the Capabilities Approach (pp. 221-262).
Skelton, A. (2018). Human rights and restorative justice. In Routledge International Handbook of Restorative Justice (pp. 60-70).
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