2. Speaking.
3. Writing.
4. Current events.
Using informational internet sites find and render the information about current political events.
Unit 6 Human rights Reading and translating.
A
right may
be defined as something to which an
individual has a just claim.
The American Declaration of Independence states
that “all men are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit
of Happiness.” This is a brief
statement about human rights in contrast
to civil rights. Human rights are those
that individuals have by virtue of
their existence as human beings. The right to life itself and the
basic necessities of food and clothing may
be considered fundamental human rights.
Civil, or legal, rights are those granted
by a government. The right to vote at
age 18 is a civil right, not a human right. In the course of the 19th
and 20th centuries there was a
broadening of the concept of human
rights to include many rights formerly regarded
as civil.
Read the text below, translate it and learn the new words:
Text 1 Historical Background
The term
human
rights
came
into common use
only after World War II. It was
made
current by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
published
in 1948. As a term human rights replaced natural rights, a very old
concept,
and the related
phrase
rights of
man, which did not necessarily include the rights of women. Most
scholars trace
the origin
of the concept of natural rights to
ancient Greek and Roman thought. In the literature and philosophy of
both Greece and Rome there are abundant
statements
acknowledging
laws
of the gods and of nature, and such laws were
understood
to
take precedence
over laws made by the state. The human-rights concept, however, can
actually be traced to an earlier period. The Hebrew Bible (called the
Old Testament by Christians) relates
the story of ancient Israel, and in it are abundant inferences
about human rights. There is no well-developed statement on the
issue, but there are significant
scattered passages
that give clear evidence
of a point of view at least as advanced
as Greek and Roman philosophy. The Ten
Commandments,
by the prohibition
of murder
and theft,
give
implicit recognition
of the right to life and property. This recognition is considerably
broadened by later elaboration
of
the laws and by the passionate
discourses
on justice by such prophets
as Amos. If the concept of human rights is very old, the general
recognition of their validity
is not. Throughout most of history, governments failed
to accept the notion
that
people have rights independent of the state. This is called statism,
and it implies
the supremacy of
the state in all matters
pertaining
to the lives of subjects. Statism is still a potent
concept in the 20th century. Germany under Adolf Hitler and the
Soviet Union during the rule of Joseph Stalin are prime examples, and
there are other equally valid
instances
that still exist. The modern development of the human-rights concept
began during the late Middle Ages in the period called the
Renaissance,
when resistance
to
political and economic tyranny began to
surface
in Europe. It
was during the 17th and 18th centuries, a period called the
Enlightenment,
that specific attention was drawn by scientific discoveries to the
workings of natural law.
This, in turn, seemed to imply the existence of natural rights with
which the state should
not be allowed
to
interfere.
By the time of the American and French revolutions, a complete
turnaround
had
taken
place in the relationship
of governments to
human rights. The point of view elaborated
by the American
Founding Fathers,
as well as by the French revolutionaries, is that government's
purpose is to
protect
and defend rights, not to dispense
or exploit them. James Madison went
so far as
to
assert
that “as a
man is said to
have a right to his property, he may equally be said to have a
property in his rights.” And further, “Government is instituted
to protect property of every sort.” The Declaration of the Rights
of Man and of the Citizen (France, 1789) states that, “Men are born
and remain free and equal in rights,” and “The aim of every
political association is the preservation of the natural and
inprescriptible
rights of man.” Such advanced views of human rights were not
without
their 
critics.
From the end of the 18th century through the third decade of the
20th, outspoken
and influential
theorists attacked the human-rights concept. Edmund Burke in England
denounced
what
he called “the monstrous fiction” of human equality. Philosopher
Jeremy Bentham stated that only imaginary
rights
can be derived
from
a law of nature. These thinkers were joined, in the course of 100
years, by Bentham's disciple
John Stuart Mill, the French political theorist Joseph de Meistre,
the German jurist
Friedrich
Karl von Svaigny, the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and
others. By 1894 the British writer F.H. Bradley could exalt
the concept of statism by saying: “The rights of the individual
today are
not worth consideration. . . .
The welfare
of the community is the end and is the ultimate standard.” The
critics, however, were going against the
tide of history.
In the United States and many parts of Europe, there was distinct
progress in the development of human rights. These instances might
not have been sufficient
without the laboratory of human rights abuse
that Nazi Germany provided for all the world to see. The appalling
crimes
against humanity, most evident in the extermination
of
millions of people in concentration
camps,
horrified
the
civilized world and helped
bring
human rights to their present level of acceptance. The general
acceptance of human rights led to a widespread
agreement
on certain fundamental
assumptions
about them:
If a right is affirmed as a human right rather than a civil right, it is understood to be universal, something that applies to all human beings everywhere.
Rights are understood to represent individual and group demands for the sharing of political and economic power.
It is agreed that human rights are not always absolute: they may be limited or restrained for the sake of the common good or to secure the rights of others.
Human rights is not an umbrella term to cover all personal desires.
The concept of rights often implies related obligations.
Thomas Jefferson noted that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Therefore, if individuals would maintain their freedom, their duty is to guard against political, religious, and social activities that may restrict their rights and the rights of others. Acceptance of fundamental assumptions has not lessened disagreement on which rights can be classified as human rights. Historically the debate has been carried on about three categories: individual, social, and collective. Individual rights refers to the basic rights to life and liberty mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Social rights broadens this concept to include economic, social, and cultural rights. Collective, or solidarity, rights has come into prominence since the end of World War II, the collapse of old colonial empires, and the emergence of many new nation-states. These particular forms of rights are best described by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Individual
rights. These rights were
best described by the 17th- and
18th-century political theorists—such men as John Locke in England,
Montesquieu in France, and Jefferson and others in the United States.
They are the rights to life, liberty,
privacy, the security of the individual, freedom of speech and press,
freedom of worship, the right to own property, freedom from slavery,
freedom from torture and unusual punishment,
and similar rights as spelled out
in the first ten amendments
to the United States Constitution. Basic
to individual rights is the concept of government
as a shield
against encroachment
upon the person. Little is demanded from
government but the right to be left alone.
Government is not asked for anything except vigilance
in safeguarding
the rights of its citizens.
Social rights. This concept of rights grew out of the socialist and Communist criticisms of capitalism and its perceived economic injustices: low wages, long working hours, unsafe working conditions, and child labor, among others. Social rights make demands on government for such things as quality education, jobs, adequate medical care, social-insurance programs, housing, and other benefits. Basically they call for a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and the family.
(From: Britannica Student Encyclopedia 2004 Children's Edition. 1994-2003)
Exercises:
1. Translate the words in bold.
2. Explain the underlined grammar phenomena.
3. Render the text.
4. Define the italicized notions.
5. How do you understand the fundamental assumptions, mentioned above?
6. Ask problem questions.