Human Rights

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a wide-ranging look at human rights around the world today, showing the key themes and issues currently affecting the international community. The introduction explains key terms necessary for the paper and gives a history of the development of human rights. The paper focuses on two case-studies (though numerous other examples are cited where applicable): South Africa and Japan. South Africa is used as an example of a developing country whose human rights issues have been identified internally by the South African government as well as externally by the international community and then acted upon to some degree of success. The author of the paper goes undercover in Japan to show that, despite apparent "successes" such as in South Africa, shocking human rights violations still occur today worldwide even in developed countries and need to be exposed and then dealt with.

From the Paper:

"The word "apartheid" was used as the National Party's political slogan in the 1940s but the policy of "separate development" extends back to the beginning of white settlement in South Africa in 1652. When the Afrikaan Nationalists came to power in 1948, the social custom of apartheid became institutionalized under South African law. The 1950 Population Registration Act categorized all South Africans into three racial categories: Bantu (black African), white or Colored (if mixed race); with a fourth category, Asian, added later mainly for Indians and Pakistanis. The system of apartheid was developed by a series of laws in the 1950s. The 1950 Group Areas Act allotted races to different residential and business sections in cities. The Land Acts of 1954 and 1955 restricted nonwhite residence to specific areas and limited ownership of land."

More papers on Human Rights:

• Term Paper # 57846 : "Human Rights in China: A Misnomer?"
• Research Paper # 57471 : "Human Rights Violations in the U.S.A."
• Term Paper # 114172 : "Human Rights and International Relations"
• Persuasive Essay # 134050 : "Should Human Rights Be Practiced Around the Globe?"

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