Week 15- Issues 2: Rights, Economics, the Environment and Sport . (Without Environment and Sport)

1. Week 15-Issues 2: Rights,Economics, the Environment and Sport. (Without Environment and Sport)

2. Human Rights The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)) is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 and entered into force in 1953. All Council of Europe member states are party to the Convention and new members are expected to ratify the convention at the earliest opportunity. The Convention established the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Any person who feels his or her rights have been violated under the Convention by a state party can take a case to the Court. Judgements finding violations are binding on the States concerned and they are obliged to execute them. The establishment of a Court to protect individuals from human rights violations is an innovative feature for an international convention on human rights, as it gives the individual an active role on the international arena (traditionally, only states are considered actors in international law). The European Convention is still the only international human rights agreement providing such a high degree of individual protection.

3. Human Rights • Right to Life • Prohibition of Torture • Prohibition of Servitude • Right to Liberty and Security • Right to a fair trial • No punishment without law • Right to respect for private and family life • Freedom of thought, conscience and religion • Freedom of expression • Freedom of assembly and association • Right to marry • Prohibition of discrimination • Derogation in time of emergency • Restrictions on political activities of aliens • Prohibition of abuse of rights • Limitation on use of restrictions on rights http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/D5CC24A7-DC13-4318-B457-5C9014916D7A/0/CONVENTION_ENG_WEB.pdf

4. Human Rights • As of January 2010, fifteen protocols to the Convention have been added (some have been signed and not ratified by some nations, some not signed at all). • These can be divided into two main groups: those amending the framework of the convention system, and those expanding the rights that can be protected.  • The former require unanimous ratification by member states before coming into force, while the latter require a certain number of states to sign before coming into force. • Protection of Property • Right to education • Right to free elections • Freedom of movement • Prohibition of expulsion of nationals and collective expulsion of aliens • Abolition of the death penalty • Equality between spouses • General prohibition of discrimination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights#Convention_protocols

5. Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (10 December 1948) The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. Even though it is not legally binding (more of an obligation), the Declaration has been adopted in or has influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as regional, national, and sub-national institutions protecting and promoting human rights. It is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments that violate any of its articles. 

6. Human Rights On 30 June 2000, Muslim nations that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari’ah", without any discrimination on grounds of "race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations.“ (Saudi Arabia did not sign, Iran did but refuse to implement it) In the Bangkok Declaration adopted by Ministers of Asian states meeting in 1993, Asian governments reaffirmed their commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They stated their view of the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights and stressed the need for universality, objectivity and non-selectivity of human rights. At the same time, however, they emphasized the principles of sovereignty and non-interference, calling for greater emphasis on economic, social, and cultural rights, particularly the right to economic development, over civil and political rights. The Bangkok Declaration is considered to be a landmark expression of the Asian Values perspective, which offers an extended critique of human rights universalism.

7. Suicide As a person suffering from a severe degenerative illness, THW commit suicide The Suicide Act 1961: Decriminalised the act of suicide so that those who failed in the attempt would no longer be prosecuted. Section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961, provided that it was an offence to "aid, abet, counsel or procure the suicide of another" and that a person who committed this offence was liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years. Although it is an offence to assist a patient in committing suicide, many doctors still assist their patients with their wishes by withholding treatment and reducing pain, “according to a 2006 article in the Guardian”.This, however, is only done when the doctors feel that “’death is a few days away and after consulting patients, relatives or other doctors”. In addition, 92 Britons who have gone abroad (often to Dignitas in Switzerland) for an assisted suicide. No family member has been prosecuted for helping them although some have been charged and have had to wait before hearing the charges have been dropped. Between 2003 and 2006 Lord Joffe made four attempts to introduce bills that would have legalized assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia - all were rejected by Parliament Euthanasia: Even though polling in Great Britain reveals that “80% of British citizens and 64% of Britain’s general practitioners” are in favour of euthanasia being legalised, Parliament has refused to pass any laws of the issue.In 1997, the British Parliament voted 234-89 to defeat the seventh attempt to legalize the act. The Church of England view is that “physician assisted suicide is incompatible with the Christian faith and should not be permitted by civil law.”

8. Suicide The first human rights challenge to s2(1) was mounted in 2001 under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in Pretty v Director of Public Prosecutions (2002) 1 AC 800 with the ECHR rejecting the application in Pretty v. UK (2346/02) shortly before her death by natural causes. Diane Pretty was suffering from motor neurone disease and was paralysed from the neck down, had little decipherable speech and was fed by a tube. She had only a few weeks to live, claimed to be frightened and distressed by the suffering and indignity, and wanted her husband to provide her with assistance in ending her life when she felt unable to bear it any longer, although she intended to perform the final act herself. Because giving this assistance would expose the husband to liability under s2(1), the DPP was asked to agree not to prosecute. When this agreement was refused, the case began. Article 2 of the Convention provides: “Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No-one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.”

9. Suicide Pretty's full capacity for informed, rational consent was not disputed by opposing counsel. In Re B (Adult: Refusal of Medical Treatment) (2002) 2 AER 449 the court had already decided that a patient could refuse treatment knowing that this would result in death. However, the court in this case drew a distinction between passively allowing death through omission and active assistance in suicide, as per R v Brown (1993) 2 All ER 75 (the famous Spanner case), which ruled that a person cannot lawfully consent to anything more than the infliction of minor injury. Thus, the standing adjudication in English common law is that, as dying is an inevitable consequence of life, the right to life under the Convention necessarily implies the right to have nature take its course

10. Bodily Harm THW allow people to consent to their own bodily harm. Operation Spanner was the name of an operation carried out by police in the United Kingdom city of Manchester in 1987, as a result of which a group of homosexuals were convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm for their involvement in consensual sadomasochism over a ten year period. The resulting House of Lords case (R v Brown, colloquially known as "the Spanner case") ruled that consent was not a valid legal defence for wounding and actual bodily harm in the UK, except as a foreseeable incident of a lawful activity in which the person injured was participating, e.g. surgery. Legal reform and review of the concern is ongoing and the convictions are controversial due to issues of whether a government or one's self is justified to control one's own body in private situations where the only harm is to consenting adults. Some legal experts and advocacy groups have noted why they consider the R v Brown judgement to be an example of homophobia in the English legal system.

11. Bodily Harm THW allow people to consent to their own bodily harm. An attempt to overturn the convictions in the European Court of Human Rights in 1997 failed (see Laskey, Jaggard and Brown v. United Kingdom). The legal rationale for the decisions was, in general: (UK courts) A person does not have the legal ability to consent to receive an act which will cause serious bodily harm, such as extreme activities of a sadomasochistic nature. (European Court of Human Rights) Whilst a person has a general right of free will, a state may as a matter of public policy restrict that in certain cases, for example for the general public good and for the protection of morals. The present case was judged by the European Court to have fallen within the sovereign scope of the UK Government's right to determine its legality, and current human rights legislation would not overrule this.

12. THW allow people to consent to their own bodily harm. • There are two opposing principles: • The state has no right in interfering in a persons freedom unless they cause harm to another person. • The state should prevent people from causing harm to themselves or others because to do so is an irrational action. • The second position can be summarised as the state acting in a paternalistic way, protecting its citizens from harm even from themselves. • The principle goes something like this: • The person can never be totally rational, they can always be coerced by temptations. • Taking certain drugs is inherently irrational, because of the massive harm they cause to the person. • The state is always best placed to decide what actions are irrational because it is never afflicted by temptation and has perfect information. • The state should therefore use this perfect information to prevent people from acting in a irrational way because they would never do so if they knew the consequences and had no temptations. • The state should therefore ban certain drugs. • A lot of debaters want an everyday example of where this is applied, a good example to use is that of seatbelts.

13. Entrapment A useful definition to have is that of entrapment: Entrapment is when a person is encouraged to carry out a criminal act by the law enforcement and is then prosecuted for it. Entrapment is not the same as providing the opportunity for crime such as a sting operation, there has to be active encouragement from the police. It is currently illegal to use entrapment, however there are reasons for and against its legalisation.

14. Entrapment Opposition When you carry out a crime you should be punished for what you autonomously did, if you are coerced through entrapment it isn’t your choice. By doing this you create criminals, once you put a person in prison with only slight criminal tendencies they will pick up skills and criminal behaviour. Proposition You were predisposed to doing the crime anyway, the fact that you did it just shows you had the intent and will to do it in the correct situation. Encouragement is the same thing a criminal would give, for example a drug dealer encouraging you to buy their product. If you do carry out the crime then the legal system will have caught you before you could do a similar crime in an uncontrolled situation.

15. Economics Most economics debates boil down to one thing, scarcity. That there are limited resources on the planet and lots of people want them. Debates on economics usually have a lot to do with who gets those resources. The aim in an economics based debate is to show that your method or desired location of allocation is the best. You can do this by showing that it is either the fairest or the most efficient.

16. Economics If a debate requires you to prioritise one service over another: THW prioritise the funding of certain university subjects over others. You are well within your right, and in fact it’s encouraged, to explain how universities can only afford so many lecturers (scarcity) and therefore you need to prioritise the ones that are more important to the state. A medical lecturer is a rival good to an arts lecturer, the state would prefer doctors to artists therefore it is fine to prioritise. People are fairly predictable, they respond to incentives and try to avoid things with disincentives. When you want to ban something you attach a disincentive to it. When you want people to do something you simply need to attach a large enough incentive to it, for example if you want people to eat healthier foods you can subsidise them.

17. Economics Adam Smith was a philosopher/economist who had two important ideas (he had others): The self interested nature of people. The invisible hand of the market. His ideas were developed upon at a later date by Friedman at the Chicago school of economics, but debaters only really need the basics so we wont go too far into all of this.

18. Economics Adam Smith’s theories required people to always act in their own self interest, he required them to be driven by the desire to gather more money to themselves. He believed that this nature of the self led to good outcomes: The more efficient services and companies survive. The removal of state control, he believed people could do a better job in a lot of areas. Finally he believed that people acting in their self interest is in the interest of others, more money = more taxes. This is the most famous part of Smith’s theory. Smith advocated a lack of government control and interference in markets. Smith suggests that markets always regulate themselves, and that the government has to avoid doing it for them. Smith continues by saying that government intervention is the cause of economic failure.

19. Economics A number of economists have suggested that capitalism is always exploitative, most notably Karl Marx. Marx suggested that labour was always exploited by capital. He suggested that the more a worker produces the larger the division becomes between those with the means of production and the workers. He suggested that the worker is exploited in this system for one key reason…

20. Economics Workers in a capitalist society have no choice but to work. It is not possible to survive without taking a job, and once you do it is undesirable to leave the work place due to the knowledge of the unemployed workers that will replace you. Clearly the workers have no choice in society but to be slaves to those with capital and the means of production. Because those with capital know this they can exploit the workers by giving them unfair wages and no stake in the products they produce.

21. Alternative and problems Nationalised industries generally perform worse than a competitive capitalist market. A lack of competition leads to industries not being as efficient or innovating as they would be if they had to fight to survive (Self interest). Cooperatives are unfortunately led by a group of self interested workers who will want the company to pass profits to them. This leads cooperatives to run at break even, which is bad for the country because a break even company creates no growth. Under a socialist structure Marx believes that the state will function in a way which is fairer. He believes the best way to achieve this is through nationalisation of certain industries and the rest should be made into cooperatives. Cooperatives are when the workers own shares (usually a controlling share) in a company and therefore get to choose their wages and the direction of the company.

22. Economics Marx's theory of alienation: In the concept's most important use, it refers to the social alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature" He believed that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. Marx's theory of alienation is founded upon his observation that, within the capitalist mode of production, workers invariably lose determination of their lives and destinies by being deprived of the right to conceive of themselves as the director of their actions, to determine the character of their actions, to define their relationship to other actors, and to use or own the value of what is produced by their actions. Workers become autonomous, self-realized human beings, but are directed and diverted into goals and activities dictated by the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production in order to extract from workers the maximal amount of surplus value possible within the current state of competition between industrialists. Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because the worker can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not collectively, but privately owned; a privatized asset for which each individual functions not as a social being, but as an instrument.

23. Today’s Debate:

24. THW apply Entrapment laws toJournalists.