Human rights and good governance

PETER BWANALI
AS MUCH as a large segment of the Christian world is currently taken up with matters to do with the joys of Christmas, we should not lose sight of the fact that December 10 this year marked the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). No doubt, the day passed without ceremony for many.
Yet it has become fashionable for people who are upset to announce, “I know my rights.” But I think it is questionable whether such people are also aware of the correlative duties that go along with the rights they claim to know. Of specific interest here are human rights. Who should guarantee these rights?Regardless of what course I’m teaching at the Copperbelt University – be it Introduction to Philosophy, Contemporary Political Thought or Introduction to International Relations – I never miss the chance to discuss human rights and good governance.
I emphasise that a right is a justified demand for the actual enjoyment of a good; a good that must be provided by someone else. In other words, when I claim to have a right, I am placing a burden (duty) on someone else. Precisely because the demand is made on someone else, it is imperative that the one claiming to have a right must have a convincing reason as to why the other (i.e. a fellow human being) must concede to providing that good. Rights are about logical thinking and responsibilities. Now, if the right is qualified by the term “human” as in “human rights”, the demand would refer to that without which I would not be human.
Indeed, at this point we begin to talk about a human right as a basic right, a “morality of depths” or “a rationally justified demand against standard threats”, as Henry Shue puts it. We are talking about something without which I would not be a human being.
In fact, the United Nations itself describes human rights in this way: “Human rights are rights we have simply because we exist as human beings – they are not granted by any state. These universal rights are inherent to us all, regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. They range from the most fundamental – the right to life – to those that make life worth living, such as the rights to food, education, work, health, and liberty.”
To put it differently, human rights are not a favour that can be granted by someone to somebody. They are universal and inalienable; by which is meant all human beings are all equally entitled to them and they should not be taken away from them, “…except in special situations and according to due process. For example, the right to liberty may be restricted if a person is found guilty of a crime by a court of law”, according to the United Nations.
This is where good governance comes in, i.e. where the UN says, “…except in specific situations and according to due process”.
Only a truly well-governed state can determine this “exception”. Strictly speaking, good governance is associated with a political system whose primary goal is to ensure the well-being of citizens in a state. Such a political system tends to be democratic. And so it is worth noting that behind the popular democratic ideas of “majority rule” and the “separation of the three arms of government (executive, legislature and judiciary)” is the assumption that human beings ought to be free.
Freedom is understood to be a birthright that must never be taken away.
However, as human beings, we live in a society (community) which must be organised to avoid anarchy.
The organisation of people in a society, i.e. in a specific geographical boundary is what we call politics. And by nature, any organisation requires rules, laws. Rules constrain people. They chip away at freedom. This freedom is the same one which the United Nations calls a human right which is both universal and inalienable. It follows, therefore, that good governance (politics) should include the respect of human rights. It also follows that any governing body (state) which is a signatory to the UDHR must guard itself against any abuse of human rights. This is where good governance links with human rights. And it is the failure to guarantee (not to grant) such human rights that has led scholars to tackle the controversial topic of humanitarian intervention.
Thus, any signatory country to the UDHR, including Zambia, needs to be sensitive to what it signed up for.
The UDHR is made up of thirty (30) articles. They are too many to list here.
However, even though December 10 is now in our rear-view mirror, as it were, there is no excuse for not taking the time to learn about them. For if we are going to ask for a political morality from our state, how can we opt for ignorance of the UDHR?
The author is the head of department of governance in the School of Humanities and
Social Sciences at the Copperbelt University.