III. Comment on the following quotations:

• It's the publicity function of Amnesty that I think has made its name so widely known, not only to readers in the world, but to governments - and that's what matters.( Peter Benenson)

• If you want to change the way people live, you have to use politics. That doesn't mean that idealism isn’t involved too. (Thomas McCarthy)

• The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting. (Justice William J. Brennan)

• Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself. (Robert Ingersoll)

• States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions. (Noam Chomsky)

• All men have an equal right to the free development of their faculties; they have an equal right to the impartial protection of the state; but it is not true, it is against all the laws of reason and equity, it is against the eternal nature of things. (Victor Cousin)

IV. Suggested activities for students:

1. In the text “Power of shame” there were mentioned some examples of the European Court of Human rights influence of the countries. Find and analyze other cases and examples of its exerting impact on the European governments. Do countries usually take into account or turn a blind eye to the decisions of the Court? Prepare a short report on this topic.

2. Plenty of human-rights bodies were mentioned in the text. Choose one to prepare a detailed report on its activity. Pay attention to its achievements as well as to its failures. What guarantees success of such organizations? What are the main reasons for failures?

3. The article was published in 1998 and it expressed doubts over the capacity of the European Court of Human Rights to promote firm rule of law and respect for human rights in Eastern Europe. Also the authors doubted the System’s ability to exert influence on Russia. Research and examine the contemporary situation on the given matter in the abovementioned region as well as Russia. Has anything change within the framework of rule of law and human rights? Can you speak about any progress?

4. The adoption of the Universal Declaration launched a revolution in international law. It may not be as famous as America's constitu­tion, the French revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man, or Britain's Magna Carta; but to­gether with the United Nations Charter (the UN's founding document), the Genocide Convention and the four Geneva Conventions updating the laws of war, all roughly contemporaneous, it marked a decisive change with the past. Study the situation on the international arena prior and after the adoption of these documents. What has altered with their adoption?

5. Can international law establish universal human rights? Why or why not? Give your arguments.

6. Here is a selective list of human-rights agreements:

June 1945	Charter of the UN
June 1946	UN Commission on Human Rights
December 1948	Genocide Convention /Universal Declaration on Human Rights
August 1949	Four Geneva Conventions governing treatment in war of the wounded , prisoners of war and civilians
November 1950	European Convention on Human Rights
July 1951	Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
September 1956	Convention Abolishing slavery
December 1965	Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
December 1984	Convention Against Torture
May 1994	International Criminal tribunal for Rwanda
July 1998	UN conference agrees treaty for a permanent ICC

Yet has it done any good? Abuses of human rights have remained widespread in the past 50 years. Governments have evaded or ignored their obligations under these treaties with depressing regularity. Even as humanitarian law has been refined, many armed conflicts have been waged as in­discriminately as ever. Interna­tional human-rights law did nothing for the post­war victims of the Soviet gulag, China's Cultural Revolution, Argentina's "dirty war" and Cambo­dia's killing fields. Express your opinion and give your reasons.

7. Sceptics (and there are many) could be forgiven for concluding that the frenzy of treaty-making which followed the Universal Declaration has mocked continued and widespread suffering. Indeed, they might ask, does it make sense to call these treaties "law" at all, if there is no direct way of enforcing them? For all the human-rights legislation now in place, they would claim, the only genuine guides to international behaviour are still national interest and military power. Do you find this viewpoint persuasive? Why or why not.

8. You are to take part in a conference devoted to promotion of human rights and rule of law by various human-rights organizations.

Divide into two groups. The first one is supposed to speak in favor of international bodies. Be ready to present an account of achievements and virtues of these bodies. Prepare statistics and a list of examples of their success. The second group is going to contradict, presenting data and facts on failure and weakness of human-rights organizations.

Discuss the situation and pass a mutual resolution on the outcome of the discussion.

9. Write an essay on one of the topics:

• No man is above law and no man below it (T. Roosevelt)

• The laws have got to be clear, credible and endorsable (Colonel Charles Garraway)