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The Realization of International Human Rights

As known by many, international human rights are the rights which are meant to fight for the rights of the people internationally whether they are poor or even tortured. These human rights also need to be translated into the transnational business logics. These international human rights are given permission to perform such duties of fighting for the rights of individuals by human rights laws and they consist of some treaties not leaving behind declarations, guidelines and principles which are in agreement with United Nations (UN) (Bansal, 2008). This essay critically looks at the realization of international human rights in the transnational production network and how and why it may damage the economies and firms of those developing countries. It tries to relate itself on how international human rights has entangled itself with the business globally as it triggers debate on the concepts of transnational production relations (Department for International Development (DFID)).

Globally, the transnational companies have taken over the economy and the political force in the world of economy. This has encouraged competition among the companies hence leading to the amounting pressure of the increase of profits. This has led to cheap labor search markets in business globally. With this kind of behavior, many countries coming from those developed countries and the Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC) have decided to invest there manufacturing products and services to those countries which are coming up or developing countries i.e. In India, there are several airlines there which are offered services like those of developed countries.And to appreciate this, these developing countries have decided to embrace this idea of the transitional companies and also decided to offer cheap labor to its citizens.

With this idea of globalizations, it has caused some impacts in this developing countries through which some changes have been witnessed such as lots of debts, poverty, violation of human rights, lobbying for and participating in manipulated international agreements, environmental damage and economic crisis in those firms and developed countries. This leaves a question that needs to be answered. That is the relationship between Globalization, development and the human rights (Hausermann, 1998).

With this question in mind, there is need to understand that, policies and legal questions are what are meant to be understood well In the 1990 UN Global Consultation on the Right to Development as Human right, it brought the relationship of the question asked above by describing development to be part and parcel of human rights with the focus being on the human being themselves who are supposed to be accorded with the rights especially those rights that contribute to development and this rights should be independent. The independent human rights should include civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights (Human Rights Watch World Report, 1999). By this it meant that the rights for development were supposed to be the rights for each and every individuals, groups and peoples to get involved in, contributing to, and enjoying continuous economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and essential freedoms can be understood or known fully.

What needs to be understood very well is that, nowadays, human rights have become a key point in the globalization market through so many ways. Most of the developed countries have taken advantages of using this idea of human rights to impose judgments on those countries which are developing and coming up with ways of dealing with the economic and trade relations so as to extend the development assistance even though (Leary, 2003). This might lead to poverty, insecurity, fragmentation of society and thus violating the human rights and human dignity of the millions of people.

Development aid to those developing countries has also been supported even though a number of questions about this issue have been raised from the perspective of the human rights especially from the Overseas Development Aid (ODA) (David, 1999). The ODA main reason for asking, is to find out  whether the aid given is meant to reduce issues concerning poverty in those developing countries and giving the social needs to those who need the assistance or whether the priority should be given to economic growth and strengthening infrastructure of those developing nations (Huq, 1999). In terms of legal political characteristics, what is worrying more is the concern about whether the recipient government or the donor state should air their views related to the matter.

With all the above happenings, this transnational issue has also resulted to the winning and loosing. By this, I mean, a wide gap has been developed between the developing countries due to this ideas of globalization (Department for International Development (DFID). Things that are leading to this widening up of the gap of winning and loosing are the expansion of trade, the market and foreign investments (Jenkins, & Goetz, 1999). Poor people have been affected due to the demand in the shrinking of state involvement in national life, producing a wave of privatization, cutting jobs, slashing health, education and food subsidies, etc. Meanwhile, unemployment has really gone up in those developing countries as never seen before and their income disparity to the heights which have never been recorded since the last century in many industrialized countries, for example, the Asian Tigers.

The issue of some developed countries in the world wanting to inter-relate in trade policy with the human rights policy can really damage the economy of those developing countries due to the mounting pressure on their policies that are likely to come up (Kumar, & Chockalingam, 2007). For instance, most countries have kept their policies due to whatever business interests they have towards those developing countries. This can be seen in countries such as the United States of America who have already offered some threats of withdrawing their preferences from some countries that seem to violate the human rights that are put in place. With this decision made due to the human issues, then it can be predicted on how it is going to affect those developing countries that rely in the USA in terms of help (Aziz, 1995).

With this issues raised by the USA, China also has disagreed on what USA is imposing concerning the issue of human rights. What they argue about is that, denying individual’s rights to trade across the borders leaving them to die of poverty just because of some imposed rules of human rights could seem to look like quite unfair and it does not sound either logic or moral at all. It is also the same as putting in place some polices that are meant to deny the USA the freedom to trade and invest in China. This is a way of also violating the USA those rights to liberty and property (MacKay, 2009).

Apart from that, there are those countries which are after the issues of trade sanctioning against those states found trying to commit or violating the human rights such as the human right standards which are meant for the conversations and Recommendations of the International Labor Organization (Bansal, 2008).  Due to the above sample, the international human rights have gone somehow far to some extend of damaging those economies and firms of the developing countries in such kind of ways of the Americans and Chinas due to their controversies. For instance, lack of those understanding of the policies and programmes that have been evolving in the context of network-based cooperation and conflict in the international institutions have contributed greatly towards this realization of the human rights which can lead to the economies of the firms and developing countries to be affected (Martin, & Schumann, 1998).

All this happens because there is a lot of time wasted to persuade those issues of adopting the right-based-approaches to development in the UN and apart from that, strengthening them is also another impact experienced. To avoid this from happening, what need to be done is to prescribe the international human rights standards especially those concerned with labor standards, in a statutory form and these needs to be directly imposed on private companies engaged in such transnational activity (Richard, 1999).

Apart from that, lack of the world’s market access so as to achieve the sustainable growth as the implementation of domestic policies take place to cater for the rights of people, have also contributed to the damages of the economies and firms of the developing countries (Aziz, 1995). This is due to the restrictions of trade access for those countries with poor labor standards which marginalizes those poor countries hence going to an extend of locking them from those benefits which are brought about by the globalization of the world economy (Mick, & Putzel, 1999).

Another change which can be brought to damage the economy through the means of human rights is the consumer pressure in the firms and developed countries in which there is need for adoption of voluntary codes of conduct and those accepted international standards of social auditing so as to avoid these damages from happening hence affecting the economies (McCorquodale, & Fairbrother, 1999).

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Lack of government contribution towards translating the national level agreements about the levels and standards established in the human rights treaties may lead to the damage of the economies and firms of those developing countries (Aziz, 1995). This normally comes due to the interferences from the civil and political issues of which the government needs to put them aside and focus on the promotions and protection of human rights. With that put in place, the human person is considered to be the central part of development so as to improve both the socially and economic rights (Mohameden, 1994). This will prevent the market failure, promote stability and long-term investment and will ensure there is fair competition and ethical conduct, to harmonize the economic and social development in the economy of both the firms and developed countries.

To avoid the above issues concerning the reasons for failure of economies and firms of developing countries from happening, there is need for corporation especially those that involves transnational corporation which are meant to respect the human rights with their fundamental freedoms in those countries in which they tend to give most detailed provisions on observance of laws on labour relations and involvement of trade unions (Bansal, 2008).

This was as a result after the observation which proved that most of the violators of human rights are the global players. Issues such as “the strikes” which are meant to pass a message of the worsened labor conditions have been everywhere and it is because of this reasons that the political individuals have decided take this advantage by imposing more restrictions on civil and political rights even to some extend of basic rights like the right to life so as to control the labor force hence going against the cry of human rights (Rosalind, & Karen, 1998). Also contributing to the labor conflict, is the rise of the ethnic and religious conflict and violence. This normally done to prove before the eyes of globalization the powers they posses but when it comes to religious and ethnic, all this depends on the class categories they belong such as ethnicity or religion belong.

Violating the human rights can create a bigger impact on the social changes due to the globalization issues hence it can lead to a bigger shift when it comes to societal cultural values and norms of the human rights of which it impact may end up being difficult to determine in particular the transformation of behavior and vales of those communities involved in humanity in developing countries (Aziz, 1995).

Nevertheless, there are other few impacts which may affect this subject of the international human rights to be implemented when it comes to globalization. The subject of completion and the economic development has been a greatest contributor towards negative effects especially when it comes to those groups which are vulnerable due to them being migrant workers, indigenous persons and migrant women (Aziz, 1995). Also these human rights have been known to be the biggest contributors to the basic human rights such as the rights to life, the right to protection of health, the right to safety and healthy working conditions and finally the freedom of association among many countries (Gaventa, & Valderrama, 1999).

The Pressure from the other competitors due to the new international economy have also contributed so negatively in the firms of those developing countries especially when it comes to the rights of the workers and the location they want to invest in. Some other important elements such as the low labor costs and the low labor standards are some of the contributors to the choice one makes when choosing the location of branches or subsidiaries of transnational corporations or choice of suppliers for industrial development (Bansal, 2008).

It has also been discovered that most of the developing countries do not agree with those principles and regulations linking of this labor standards when it comes to trade issues claiming that if they allow such things of linkage to go through their countries, then they would have allowed their competitive firms or companies by giving them some advantages to be taken over through cheap labor and low labor standards. Looking at their sense of the argument, it looks quite acceptable and understandable since their main aim of these developing countries is to increase the trade of those developing countries even though some risks have to be taken which includes the reducing of some costs of their investment to achieve the set goals of developing and investing even more (Bansal, 2008). Both unskilled or semi skilled laborers have got their rights of which their rights to are to organize labor unions, to engage in collective bargaining or to protest against unsafe working conditions if they are denied since this will look like violation of human rights.

With many years of neglect, there has been concerns from the international human rights about the violation of the rights of the indigenous hence also contributing to the fact that this behavior has really damaged the economies of this developing countries (Dow, 1996). It is believed that this behavior has been on for many centuries especially when it comes to economic developments and international competitiveness and that is why it has become a concern to the international human rights.

To conclude, when it comes to the human rights and how they protect an individual to avoid the damages that may be caused to the economies and firms of developing countries, some few factors have to be looked upon to enhance the improvement of human rights. The more the aids offered to the developed countries, the better the result of improvement particularly when it comes to the issue of poverty. This encourages the issue of communication among the countries i.e. either through the website being involved in globalization of which these nations are likely to learn about important issues from each other hence avoiding the violation of human rights.