Segment 1: Human Rights Education Associates. Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is Dr. Felisa Tibbitts, Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and founder of Human Rights Education Associates (HREA), an internationally recognized organization dedicated to human rights education. When Felisa was still a graduate student the Berlin Wall came down, and she decided to go study the implications of this event in Europe. Dr. Tibbitts found herself hired by a Dutch Helsinki human rights group and ended up devoting herself to the work of human rights for the next 20 years. She has worked in human rights education in over 20 countries, including Croatia, Gaza, Romania, Ukraine and the United States.
Segment 2: Universal Declaration for Human Rights. The Universal Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR) was written by the United Nations and passed in 1948. It is not a well-known declaration. The verbiage “human rights” didn’t come into our vernacular until after WWII. The UDHR is a beautiful document that includes civil and political rights as well as social, economic and cultural rights. Felisa says on one hand the human rights system includes legally binding treaties, but on the other hand it’s also a value system. The heart of human rights is simply human dignity. What does it mean to enjoy your human dignity? And what are the conditions that help to bring that about?
Segment 3: Sovereignty and Natural Law. Regarding sovereignty, Dr. Tibbitts says the questions we need to ask ourselves are: Under what conditions do we justify humanitarian intervention? And how long is the sovereignty going to last? If you think about human rights as a manifestation of social change, we’re not restricted exclusively to having to change laws. Yes, governments are responsible for ensuring the human rights of all those on their territory, but if you think more broadly about social change, those processes are not defined by government involvement. So to what degree does the Western Euro-centric view of human rights have to impose values and beliefs on a culture that does not want to accept them? The philosophy of human rights is that we possess human rights even if they are not reflected in the laws or the practices of our country. This is called Natural Law and it comes from the West.
Segment 4: It’s a Vision. The United Nations, in promoting human rights, decreed that all human rights are universal, interrelated and indivisible. Dr. Tibbitts reminds us that every culture has values that are at least partially reflected in the human rights framework. Societies do this naturally. Ultimately, in order for you and I to feel that the specific language of human rights rings true for us, we’ve got to break it down. We need to look at it, critique it, internalize it. Human rights is a vision. It’s a utopia and an engine for social change. It requires patience, persistence and introspection.
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