THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND PEACE
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND PEACE

Summary/Abstract: As sets of values, human rights and peace can be treated as complementary, totally separate, or opposed. Most frequently, there is the tendency to grade them as higher or lower, more or less desirable values. This affects political programs, nationally and internationally. For a long while the predominance of peace over human rights, and vice versa, was characteristic of the East-West and North-South divide. However, except in the most radical circles, there is agreement that peace and human rights are important values. Peace can also be expressed as a right. The collective right to peace was promulgated in 1984 by the UN General Assembly in its Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace. This poorly prepared and hastily written document was adopted by an unconvincing majority and has had no discernible legal effects. More meaningful are those individual rights that help promote and preserve peace and prevent war. Human rights are a component of peace, at least for those who insist on a meaningfill, positive concept of peace. If kept apart, peace and human rights, are in a causal relationship: the observance of human rights increases the probability of peace, and vice versa.

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