Peace Studies from
the Human Rights
Perspective
Introduction to Peace and Culture Studies
Professor: Dr. Fatuma Ahmed Ali
Student: Isabel Sorlózano Trigos
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Index
Introduction
3
Peace Studies though the Human Rights Perspective
4
Human Rights and the Right to Development
6
Conclusion
7
Bibliography
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Introduction
United Nations was created in 1945 in the global context of war devastation. It spurred
interest in ways of achieving alternatives to the terror of war.
In this context, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 in Paris. The
Declaration has been translated into 375 languages and dialects. It arose directly from
the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of
rights to which all human beings are entitled.
Human Rights are aimed at the promotion of well-being and freedom on the base that
each human being is equal and has her/his own dignity. To my view, the respect of
Human Rights is a key tool towards conflict transformation.
Why? Human Rights provide with the basic rights to construct peaceful societies. They
include the right to life freely and securely, with no possibilities of discrimination; the
right to mental and physical health; the right to work and to raise a family; the right to
education; the right of freedom of thought, faith and opinion; the freedom to participate
(…) (United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948).
It is therefore essential to start Peace investigation from a Human Rights perspective.
No context would have been better to learn and to reflect on the importance of the
Human Rights for Peace building than ours. Our classes help us to embrace this
reflection from an intercultural and interdisciplinary point of view. Reciprocity and
respect constitute our point of departure towards the learning of Peace Studies.
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Peace Studies through the Human Rights Perspective
We have had the opportunity to reflect on the importance of Human Rights within
Peace Research. Building awareness of the suffering of many human beings in our
world is a step towards our common goal of thinking about alternatives to “war,
marginalization and exclusion, the very expressions of human suffering” (Martínez
Guzmán, Philosophy and Peace Research: 1).
There are several perspectives from which Human Rights can be observed. Since the
World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna (Austria) in 1993, Human Rights
are confirmed to be universal. In other words, they are inalienably inherent to all human
beings. For the first time in history these rights must be conceded since the birth until
the death of all humans regardless of their race, sex, color, age, faith or gender.
In fact, up to this moment, Human Rights were highly violated, especially during the
war periods. And even if we could consider that a part of this violation finished with the
end of the Cold War, regrettably we cannot safely admit that there is one country in the
world free of Human Rights violations.
Human Rights violations are the cause of conflicts, but they are also their consequence.
At this point, it seems important to me to speak about the concepts that the Norwegian
Peace researcher Johan Galtung has been developing. We could possibly speak about
Peace in societies where no conflict or war is taking place. Nevertheless, in those
societies we are just able to speak about Negative Peace because other forms of social
repression might be taking place. We can only speak about Positive Peace when no
denial to the basic Human Rights is occurring.
In other words, this indirect and less visible structural violence –which is perhaps more
difficult to fight- is a serious form of social oppression which deflects us from our goals
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as peace-makers. However, structural violence “is regrettably widespread and often
unacknowledged” (Barash, D. and Webel, C., Peace and Conflict Studies: 7).
A narrower sense of Peace than this one proposed by Galtung and later deepened by
other Peace researchers would inevitably lead us to disrespect the basic thesis that I am
trying to support in this work: any kind of denial of Human Rights will lead society to
social injustice and economic exploitation. At the last term, this will lead to political
autocracy and possibly to the outbreak of conflict.
And now the question is whether it is possible to achieve Positive Peace. Following the
manual of Peace and Conflict Studies of Barash and Webel:
Despite the prevalence of structural violence, many cultural and spiritual
traditions have identified political and social goals that are closer to positive
peace than to negative peace. The ancient Greek concept of eireinei (English
irenic) denotes harmony and justice as well as peace. Similarly, the Arabic
saalam and the Hebrew shalom connote not only the absence of violence, but the
presence of well-being (…).
This leads us to reflect on past societies and the changes that have been achieved. In
fact, some ancient practices that would be unknown today, such as slavery, have been
abolished thanks to great peace-makers and revolutionaries. There are even more recent
agreements, such as the Seville Statement on War and Violence (1991), where scholars
from “relevant sciences” refute that violence belongs to human condition. They
proposed, on the contrary, that “it is scientifically incorrect to say that we have an
inherited tendency to make war (…)”. Should we then still accept inevitability of
violence? Or should we struggle to end its forms with all our energy?
As many Peace researchers say, Peace is “imperfect”; this means that we must consider
Peace as a process, an unending transformation of conflicts and of international
relationships by peaceful means.
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Human Rights and the right of development
Since the inception of Peace Studies in the 1950s until today, many topics have been
incorporated in Peace Research. International Relations and development theories are
amongst them and they are closely related to the possibility of creating a more peaceful
world.
The present perspective considers Human Rights and development as the two faces of
the same coin. They relate to each other in such a way that they become interdependent:
peoples cannot achieve a sustainable and beneficial development if their rights are
violated.
For that reason, Human Rights overcome their conception as a mere moral or ethical
tool to become an active and necessary part of peoples’ development. Cooperation and
aid achieve better results when Human Rights are completely respected, too. Therefore,
we are assisting to a conception turn, through which “Human Rights are an important
tool towards freedom, development and even world security” (UN Secretary General, In
Larger Freedom: Towards Security, Development and Human Rights for All, 2005).
Of course, this assumption is extended towards all human groups. Children, women and
disabled people suffer the most in conflict situations or wars. Therefore, their Human
Rights defense is a very important task.
As Martínez Guzmán affirms in his essay Philosophy and Peace Research, “all human
beings have the capacities or competencies (…) to create institutions built upon
commitment, good governance and justice” (p. 6). In other words, we need find the way
to exercise our competencies for making Peace. In his essay, the author explains why
frailty, humility and terrestrialness should characterize humans. In his opinion, it is
basic that humans act in accordance to these characteristics, though they have usually
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gone beyond the limits. I would like to add a well-known quotation from the great
Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore: “The more humble we are, the
nearest we are to the essential”.
Conclusion
In order to conclude this dissertation, I would like to make my modest contribution to
the topic: lack of the right to development in one society also constitutes a violation of
the Human Rights. As we have seen, these rights are interdependent. Though the right
to development is not observed from an individualist perception, it is clearly part of any
human’s rights.
If the community disregards Human Rights no development is going to be achieved,
and as a consequence no peaceful society is going to be constructed. The Millennium
Development Goals constitute a milestone towards the consecution of economic and
social rights. Therefore, their achievement is vital. For only those people who live
safely and healthily will be prepared to transform any type of conflict they might
encounter.
To our regret, poverty and scarcity are interconnected to Human Rights violations and
conflicts or wars. People in a poor country suffering a conflict will undoubtedly have
less access to their rights as humans.
The Human Rights Declaration proclaims that “all human beings are equal in rights”.
However, 82% of the disabled people in developing countries live in poverty (UN
Preguntas frecuentes sobre el enfoque de los Derechos Humanos en la Cooperación
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para el Desarrollo, 2006). Their condition as well as their social exclusion implies huge
survival difficulties. They do not normally have the access to the necessary services
(high illiteracy and health vulnerability being the consequences). Moreover, they are not
able to fight for their rights and then they become invisible within society. Most of the
times these sad story ends in misery and exploitation.
On the other hand, women and children also suffer the most from Human Rights
violations. They are sexually violated through prostitution or human trafficking. They
constitute the most vulnerable group and their rights –especially to basic health services
and to education- are often disregarded. In we take into account that women are in many
cases maintaining their families and children, it seems obvious that their rights to
resources are highly important.
It seems like if there was a vicious cycle which is very difficult to break. Weaker
peoples have always been subjugated by those who are more powerful. Nevertheless, let
us just remember again the great advances that Peace leaders have attained throughout
the centuries. This will comfort us and bring us the necessary energy to apply all our
resources to achieve our common goal of Peace achievement. The International Year of
Human Rights Learning in 2009 may be a departure to advance critical,
transformational thinking, too. As Martin Luther King said: “Even if I knew that the
World will end up tomorrow, I would plant a tree today”.
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Bibliography
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BARASH, D. and WEBEL, C. (2002), Peace and Conflict Studies, Sage, Thousand
Oaks and London.
LEDERACH, J. P. (1996), Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation across
Cultures, Syracuse University Press.
MARTÍNEZ GUZMÁN, V. (unpublished), Philosophy and Peace Research, original
version in MARTÍNEZ GUZMÁN, V. (2005), “Filosofía e investigación para la
paz”, Tiempo de Paz, no.78/otoño.
OFICINA DEL ALTO COMISIONADO DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS PARA LOS
DERECHOS HUMANOS (2006), Preguntas frecuentes sobre el enfoque de los
Derechos Humanos en la Cooperación para el Desarrollo, United Nations,
Nueva York / Ginebra.
REARDON, B. A. (2010), Human Rights Learning: Pedagogies and Politics of
Peace, Puerto Rico, Cátedra UNESCO de Educación para la Paz, Universidad
de Puerto Rico.
UNESCO (2007), The Seville Statement on Violence:
http://www.unesco.org/cpp/uk/declarations/sevile.pdf (checked on the 20st
October 2010).
UNITED NATIONS (1948), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, PARIS.
UNITED NATIONS (2005), In Larger Freedom: Towards Security,
Development and Human Rights for All,
http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/contents.htm (checked on 19th October 2010).
WEBEL, C. and GALTUNG, J. (2007), Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies,
Rotledge, London/ New York.
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