Monday, January 19, 2015

We Still Have a Dream!

Immigration is about human dignity and the nobility of parents of different tribes and nations facing the risk of coming to a foreign land, a land of opportunity, to work for a better tomorrow for their children…Dr. King invoked the truth, the truth being that all humans ought to be treated with a certain dignity. It would be natural for us to look to him as an example for fighting for a just cause. (Article written by Seth Hoy, in American Immigration Council Blog, Immigration Impact, January 18 of 2010).


Read More: Dr. Matin Luther King, Jr, and the Intersection of Immigration and Civil Rights

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Have Human Rights Treaties Failed?


To say that human rights treaties are too ambitious and even utopian, and that it overwhelms  governments with obligations that they can’t possibly keep, is like inviting the disobedience of every law which is arduous for us to compliance.
In fact, international law does not create fundamental rights but it just recognize them as existing. That is to say, human rights already exist in each person, they are inherent to human nature. Human rights are prior and superior to the positive law system.
The idea of discarding all international treaties dealing with human rights as suggested by Professor Posner does not make sense, because human rights would survive any attack.
Otherwise, the State as a political institution justifies its existence on respect, promotion and defense of human rights within their jurisdiction. Like Jacques Maritain said long ago, "The State is for man and not the man for the State ".
Certainly justice is an arduous good especially in our times, but to resign the search for a just social order is to deny the very reason of law.

(Debate between Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch and Eric Posner, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. Source: The New York Times , The Opinion Pages, " Room For Debate" December 28, 2014 ).


Read more: Have Human Rights Treaties Failed?