Sociology

Human rights cover the whole scope of human nature. Everything regarding the well being of human beings is referred to their rights. Policies both domestic and international seek to address human rights. Debates concerning genocide attempts, impunity and entrenchment of good laws are catalyzed by the notion of human rights. It is a normative drive that human beings cannot brush off as there exists a great relationship between human nature and human rights. This study shall look in depth the nature of human rights and their relationship to human nature, an understanding of a civil society. Genocide case especially in Rwanda and the role of United Nations played in it.

Q1.
Civil society provides essential balance to the rising power of national states and market economies. It consists of all the social groups and social relationships in which we are embedded families, communities, religious organizations, ethnic groups, schools, neighborhoods, sports teams, and voluntary associations, professional or occupational associations like the Eastern Sociological Society, political clubs, civic groups, and so forth. These nodes of civil society are seedbeds for the social values, norms, and practices that are essential to the operation of both states and markets as well as to the general functioning of social life (Persell, 1994). She also notes that in United States the economy and the state are squeezing the civil society, with negative consequences. The most key aspect of the society that is been greatly squeezed is religion. The Culture of Disbelief, Stephen Carter (1993) notes that liberal political philosophy and

The state are trivializing religious beliefs, treating them as little more than a hobby or a personal preference. Religion tenets are been made to conform to ordinary events. In other words its credibility is asserted from the concrete evidence and not for what religion is. In America, most workers feel a tremendous time squeeze. The values found in the traditional set of beliefs are also undermined. Social activities are minimal as commercial activities supersede them.

From the above viewpoint, squeezing occurs when the society is not able to truck its values, live its full potential and flexibility in all spheres of life. The state is downplaying all these important factors and putting in place its own measures. Squeezing can be regarded as an alienation of the self. Civil society, if not allowed growing and realizing its potential is said to squeeze. For example, any attempt to endanger it through colonial or foreign interference.

Human rights help us shape our nature as human beings. Human rights are, literally, the rights that one has simply because one is a human being. Just as how legal rights derive from the laws so do human rights derive from human nature. Human beings give rise to rights, in other words, they are the authors of their rights. Animals cannot give rise to their rights because they are not rational. Only human beings can discern what is good or bad. It is for this reason that animals acts cannot be considered as moral or immoral but neutral. Human rights define those things needed for a life worthy of a human being. Based on a moral vision of human nature, human rights set the limits and requirements of social (especially state) action. But the state and society, guided by human rights, play a major role in realizing that nature.

 When human rights claims bring legal and political practice into line with their demands, they create the type of person posited in that moral vision. Evil power is that which violates the interests and rights of a state. Rights determine the relationship humans have towards each other. For example, a parent whose duty is to educate her children accords to the child the right to education. In particular, the child enjoys a right to be educated by her parents. Human nature is regarded as moral and this is entrenched on their rights. For example, the right to life is an inalienable right. It is immoral to kill a human being.
The right to life makes killing immoral. Human rights therefore become the most determining factor in entrenchment of laws that govern any state. The whole human nature of a person, therefore, is understood, valued and elevated because of the rights that are intrinsic. Even in the social dimension, any set up must conform to the human rights. The political set up must also conform to the nature of human rights. This is the reason why the populace will mobilize demonstrations whenever they feel that their rights have been violated. Laws are put in place to ensure that human rights for all are safeguarded. Human beings cannot live worthy lives if their rights are not observed. The moment a human right is violated there you will find an oppressed human being.

Q2.
Civil society is defined as an aggregate of institutions whose members are engaged primarily in a complex of non-state activities-economic and cultural production, voluntary associations, and household life-and who in this way preserve and transform their identity by exercising all sorts of pressures or controls upon state institutions (Sachikonye, 1995).  In light of the understanding of what a civil society is United Nations can be regarded as civil society since its main aim is to promote the common good of all nations only that it bears an international face. Though a global institution it has the same objectives as those of a civil society in any given country.

Notwithstanding the modern understanding of civil society traditional Africa had its unique approach which defined the civil society in their time. This has changed tremendously for the better. However, it is believed that in the African quest to shape their own destiny on the formation of civil societies a lot of influence has emanated from the Western world. Some Western social scientists expect African civil society to develop along the same lines that civil societies in Western liberal democracies have developed (1998306). Civic groups and organizations existed throughout Africa before the dawn of colonial rule. The colonizers destroyed these groups for fear of being overthrown.   Most African countries were under a colonial government. Civic groups and organizations existed throughout Africa before the dawn of colonial rule.

The colonizers destroyed these groups for fear of being overthrown. In most Sub-Saharan Africa formation civic groups were discouraged which could have participated in the political process in their counties. Only those civic groups whose membership comprised the white settlers and the colonists themselves took an active part in politics.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes a short but substantial list of rights that has been further elaborated, with modest additions, in a variety of later treaties, most notably the 1966 International Human Rights Covenants. They are as follows ( Universal) rightsentitlementsare the mechanism for implementing such values as nondiscrimination and an adequate standard of living. All the rights in the Universal Declaration and the Covenants, with the exception of self-determination of peoples, are rights of individuals, not corporate entities. Internationally recognized human rights are treated as an interdependent and indivisible whole, rather than as a menu from which one may freely select (or choose not to select). Although these are universal rights, held equally by all human beings everywhere, states have near exclusive responsibility to implement them for their own nationals.
The state is a mechanism to give legal form and protection to private property rights. The politics of economics and social rights has emphasized state provision where market and family mechanisms fail to ensure enjoyment of these rights. The state must also include protecting individuals against abuses by other individuals and private groups. The classic right to personal security, for example, is about safety against physical assaults by private actors, not just attacks by agents of the state. The state, although needing to be tamed, is in the contemporary world the principal institution we rely on to tame social forces no less dangerous to the rights, interests, and dignity of individuals, families, and communities.

Q3.
Genocide is the organized attempt to destroy systematically a politically or ethnically defined group (Wood, 2001). Rwandas genocide, like Bosnias, has deep roots in politically fueled inter-ethnic distrust and fear (Prunier 1995). The suspicious deaths of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in April 1994 triggered a sudden and massive bloodletting, primarily by Hutus against Tutsis. Lemkin coined the term genocide to describe the Nazi-led extermination of Jews. He argued that genocide is not only a war crime, but rather a more threatening crime against humanity itself (Destexhe, 1994). Rwanda and Bosnia bear a historical fact on genocide acts which provoked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to put in place extraordinary legal mechanisms to prosecute war criminals involved. UN members held the opinion that mass atrocities are a geopolitical threat to the UNs fundamental mission to preserve inter-national peace and stability. In a bid to ensure peace and stability among nations a resolution was passed calling for the creation of an international tribunal those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law. This was in relation to the killings that occurred in former Yugoslavia since 1991. The International Criminal Tribunal was established by the United Nations Security

Council (UNSC) allows the UN to intrude on sovereignty rights to safeguard regional peace and security. In the Rwandan case, the UNSC established the Inter-national Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) whose aim was to prosecute those responsible for genocide and other violations of international humanitarian law.  It was approximated that 800000 Rwandans had become refugees under UN patronage. UN peacekeepers were in Rwanda when the massacres began. UN considered not sending more peacekeepers but to reduce their presence and as result standing aside as more massacres took place.

Homicide occurs when killings are advanced to a particular race or group of people. It is culminates in mass murder. Demicide is when one kills his or ones allies, for example, ones family and eventually killing oneself. For example, a father kills his wife and children and then takes his own life. It is more inclined to domestic matters when one kills to attain a certain objective, for example, one may kill a family member to acquire wealth. Just as genocide inflicts suffering to the victims so does domicide.

Q4.
Impunity means, literally, freedom from punishment. To act with impunity means to act with the knowledge that one is above the law. In Latin America, impunity has come to have a specific meaning in political and human rights terms it means that acts of repression and abuse of power by the state against its citizens are shielded from judgment or accountability before national law (McSherry, 1992). When a people, regardless of the positions they hold in the society act contrary to the rule of law, is accused of impunity. Impunity manifests itself especially when laws as far as legality is concerned are overlooked.

The national security state is defined here as a type of authoritarian state, associated with a dependent and internationalized capitalist model of development, which was governed directly by the military as an institution (McSherry, 1992). The military in the context of national security state dictated on the dynamics of the society and used its objectives to chat the destiny of the society. Anti-communism was the order of the day for the national security state. It was against any sector that enjoyed popularity both politically and economically and ensured that it is not a threat to the status quo. The national security states utilized the dual mechanisms of economic restructuring and coercion to terrorize and exclude the subordinate classes, demobilize and destroy organized labor and preserve the system from challenges (McSherry, 1992).

After the Cuban revolution and its challenge to the hegemony of capitalism in the hemisphere, a series of coups brought military regimes-national security states-to power throughout Latin America. Their societies suffered, through the widespread use of state terror, gross human rights
violations of unprecedented proportions from the 1960s through the 1980s.In country after country, a major obstacle to unfolding democratization processes has been the military, or significant factions within the military institution. The military regimes often established laws giving the armed forces extraordinary powers, andor appointed civilian allies to government positions, thus attempting to institutionalize permanently their power in anticipation of the eventual transition to civilian rule. At the moment of relinquishing government power, the major demand of the military in virtually all states was for guarantees against accountability-widely called impunity in the region-for human rights crimes, a demand that implicitly places the military above the law (McSherry, 1992). Impunity empowers the military and they act in total disregard of the rule of law and civilian authority. In Chile, Pinochets national security state passed a self-amnesty law in 1978 which forgot all crimes committed by the military after September 11, 1973-the day of the coup against (McSherry, 1992)

Impunity occurs when legality is undermined. This is a lot of legal injustices occur to individuals. Due process of the law is undermined and in such a circumstance guilty offenders are left to go scot free. Rural homicide was on the rise over the 1990s as the result of the disruption of PRI patronage-client networks caused by rising electro competition. Before 1994, electoral courts served at the mercy of the status quo authority. They could not punish offenders. In the specific states where the PRD most contested the elections, such as in Michoacn and where the most PRD militants (27) were killed by 1994, postelectoral legal complaints during the period between 1989 and 1992 were handled by the Michoacn Electoral Commission, an arm of the PRI-controlled state executive (Schatz  2008265).
This was also the pattern in the states of Guerrero, Hidalgo, and Puebla where a number of the political murders of PRD members also occurred and where state PRI-controlled executive electoral commissions were unable to quell electorally related violence. Nor were those institutions set up to curb state crime in general able to punish offenders (Schatz2008266).

The realist rejects a concern for international human rights because foreign policy ought to be about the national interest defined in terms of power. The statist considers an active concern for the human rights practices till others states inconsistent with the fundamental principle of state sovereignty. The pluralist views international human rights policies as moral imperialism.   For realists, foreign policy must safeguard and promote the national interest and according to the power system of the state. Human rights should be used as instruments to promote the national interest and inculcating them into foreign policy would amount to errors. For the statists, the fact that a state is sovereign there should be noninterference in its internal matters. Human rights, therefore, must be excluded from the foreign policy as all matters regarding this phenomenon should be left to the sole discretion of the state. The state must be autonomous in all its decision process regardless of the demands posed by the foreign policy. Internationality must never replace sovereignty of any state. The pluralists are of the same opinion that domestic jurisdiction must always surpass the international one. In the case of human rights any foreign policy should conform to the professed rights domestically.

Conclusion
Sovereignty is a serious issue for most nations. There are is no nation that is ready to forego its
sovereignty and hard reactions evolve whenever a particular state feels threatened either by foreign policies or foreign countries. The struggle for independence has sovereignty as it major fruit. This is the a possible reason why it is not easy for most most countries to conform to foreign standing orders, for example, human rights. Sovereignty brings with itself pluralism or relativism. Major issues such as amnesty continue to crop up in many countries across the board and I believe that it is associated with the armed forces because of the close relationship with the executive body of the government. The role of the United Nations should be strengthened and able to punish law breakers who walk scot free to corrupted legal systems of a given country. It should serve as a watch dog against bad laws.