Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century

Remarks on the Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech in Georgetown University's Gaston Hall, Washington, DC on
December 14, 2009

Basic Course Book

Unit 40 Human Rights Ideals
Unit 22 A Reading History: Back to the Old Cooperation
Unit 24 Our Built-in Moral Sense is the Basic We Should Go Back to

Read the text paying special attention to the context in which the italicized word combinations are
used and suggest the way they could be translated into Russian

Europe Has to Guard Democracy Amid Crisis

By Anatol Lieven
December 10 2008 IHT

T he present financial crisis, together with the end of the Bush administration, draws a line
under the era that began with the end of the cold war. The terrorist attacks of September 11 and their
consequences notwithstanding, this was a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity, in which
great things should have been possible for the victors of the cold war, the nations of the west led by
the US. Now it seems likely that we will have to prepare for an age of much more modest horizons.
Yet compared with our hopes after 1989, the past 19 years cannot in fact be said to have been
a glorious era. Remember when we thought that freed from the cost, the hatreds and the obsessions of
the cold war, western nations would combine to tackle great problems and launch great projects?
A fraction of the trillion and a half dollars now spent on rescuing western economies from the
consequences of their elites’ greed and recklessness would have been enough to have greatly reduced
African misery, stabilised Pakistan and other Muslim states – or put a human being on Mars. In fact,
whatever was left over from the west’s relentless pursuit of material satisfactions has been largely
burned up by the Bush administration’s tax cuts and by misconceived and appallingly executed
American wars.
The European Union in this period does, however, have two substantial achievements to its
credit. The first is that, albeit far too slowly and inadequately, the EU has placed the issue of man-
made climate change squarely on the international agenda.
The second is the democratisation and economic development of eastern and central Europe.
Pray God that this is not endangered as a result of the present economic crisis. If we are lucky and the
latest actions by western governments take hold, the inevitable economic depression that we are
facing will be short and shallow.
We cannot reckon on this, however. It is worth remembering that it took more than two years
for the full effects of the US financial crash of 1929 to filter through to Europe and for the political
results to make themselves felt. While Roosevelt’s policies prevented further decline in the US, the
American economy remained severely depressed for the next six years, until the outbreak of the
Second World War renewed industrial growth.
The latest crisis has dealt the coup de grace to the Anglo-American economic model –
summed up in the “Washington Consensus” that was preached with near-religious fervour and
dogmatism in the 1990s. Given the damage that this ideology did when forced on the former Soviet
Union, Latin America and parts of Asia, it is easy to sympathise with the anger with which people in
these regions see the model being abandoned in its heartland.
The risk is that contempt for our discredited economic model will fuse in various parts of the
world with contempt for our political model, democracy. Indeed, if the global downturn is as severe
as most analysts predict, political systems in many economically fragile states will be in danger from
unrest – and the beneficiaries of this unrest are unlikely to be democrats.
There may not be much that the EU can do in the years to come to help stabilise – let alone
democratise – countries outside Europe. Similarly, if Europe does fall into severe economic
depression, then further expansion of the Union will be off the table for many years. It is essential,
however, that the EU use the widest possible range of both carrots and sticks to make sure that
former communist countries admitted to the EU do not slip into chauvinist authoritarianism.
This applies with special force to those EU members with unsolved ethnic tensions. In
Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and elsewhere, we have already seen disquieting signs in recent years
that large parts of the population have been by no means fully converted to pluralist democracy. Nor
can this be taken for granted in the older democracies, if growing economic misery drives still more
migrants into Europe and this is coupled with continuing fears of terrorism.
If this happens, the entire European democratic example will be undermined – and it is
through our example that we will maintain and spread democracy in the difficult years ahead. To this
end, il faut cultiver notre jardin.

The writer is a professor at King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America
Foundation in Washington, DC. He is currently researching a book on Pakistan

Word the message of the text that follows. Paraphrase the italicized parts of the text

When Freedom Stumbles

Jan 17th 2008
The Economist

OVER the past half century, it often seemed that the advance of democracy and basic
freedoms—the right to speak and write without fear of persecution, to demand political change, and
so on—was ineluctable. First the Europeans let their colonies go. Then the Soviet empire fell, and
with it the communist monopoly on power in Eastern Europe. And apartheid ended in South Africa.
Recently, though, freedom's progress may have come to a halt, or even gone into reverse.
That, at least, is the conclusion of Freedom House, an august American lobby group whose
observations on the state of liberty are a keenly watched indicator. Its report for 2007 speaks of a
“profoundly disturbing deterioration” in the global picture, with reversals seen in 38 countries—
nearly four times as many as are showing any sign of improvement.
Using the think-tank's long-established division of the world into “free”, “partly free” and
“not free” countries, the planet is still a better place than it was a quarter-century ago. In other words,
there are still net gains from the fall of communism, at least in central Europe, and the decline of
militarism in Latin America. But the short-term trends seem worrying. Last year was the second in a
row when liberty, as defined by Freedom House, inched back.
An especially disturbing sign, says the organisation, is the number of countries in all regions
of the world where a previously hopeful trend has gone into reverse. They include Bangladesh
(where the armed forces took over last year), Sri Lanka (whose civil war flared up) and the
Philippines. Other backsliders included Nigeria and Kenya, accounting for more than one sub-
Saharan African in four between them, plus the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. In both Georgia
and Kyrgyzstan, former Soviet republics whose “colour revolutions” were warmly encouraged by
Freedom House, there was regression. Only two countries, Thailand and Togo, made a clear leap
forward last year, going from “not free” to “partly free”.
Of course, not all the targets of Freedom House's ire will feel embarrassed by their low
scores. For example, Cuba's envoys to the United Nations have angrily denounced the organisation as
a blatant instrument of “interventionist activities” by dark forces in Washington. And in slightly
more respectable quarters (on America's academic left, for example) the analysts at Freedom House
have been criticised for hewing too close to their home country's foreign policy.
So where exactly does Freedom House come from? It was founded in 1941 by Wendell
Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt, as a counter to Nazism. During the cold war it “fought the good
fight” against Soviet-backed tyrannies but also had harsh words for dictators on America's side of the
stand-off. Freedom House not only watches the state of liberty, it also calls itself a “catalyst” for the
peaceful advancement of civil and democratic rights through “analysis, advocacy and action”. But it
has firm ideas about which country is best placed to promote these ideals: it has formally stated that
whatever their differences, all trustees are agreed that “American leadership in international affairs is
essential to the cause of human rights and freedom.” When America attacked Iraq in 2003, Freedom
House wished the campaign well.
Nor does the organisation conceal its financial ties to the American government, which
supplies about 80% of its income. But it strongly denies that it acts as an arm of the government, or
that it holds back from criticising America and its friends when that is warranted. And it would be
hard to argue that diplomatic friendship with the United States has ever guaranteed a country a free
pass from the think-tank. Israel, a close American friend, used to get relatively poor grades—a 2 for
political rights and a 3 for civil liberties on a descending scale of 1 to 7. In recent years, Israel has
improved its scores, but only in 2005 did its civil-liberty rating rise to 2.
Insiders say that in years past, there was some internal debate at Freedom House over whether
or not economic welfare, which affects the range of choices people can make, should be included in
the calculus of liberty. But the decision has been to keep economic factors out. This helps to explain
why China, in the midst of the horrors of its Cultural Revolution when the surveys began, has hardly
managed to improve on its early, rock-bottom ratings. Its “civil liberties” are still assessed at a
dismal 6.
Russia, too, has been rated on the basis of its worsening human and political rights with no
account taken of rising living standards. It was awarded a relatively good 3 for both political rights
and civil liberties in 1991, bringing it within a whisker of membership of the “free” group, but is now
locked again in the “not free” camp.
How much freer do people feel when they have a few roubles or yuan in their pocket (and
access to other goodies like computers and compact discs)? That is an endlessly debatable question.
By contrast the sort of liberties and non-liberties measured by Freedom House (multi-party elections,
due process and so on) are relatively tangible and easy to assess. That alone may be quite a good
argument for having at least one index whose stated purpose is to assess formal freedoms—to vote,
speak, assemble and so on. That does not imply that other factors, such as prosperity, have no bearing
on how free people feel.

Proficiency file

Gapped Sentences

This type of exercises mainly tests collocations. There are six questions and each question contains three sentences. In
each of the three sentences, one word has been taken out. Only one word will fit all three sentences. The gapped word is
always in the same form.
 Do not attempt an answer until you have read all three sentences very carefully.
 Make sure that your answer will fit in all three sentences. Check that it fits both grammatically and
with the sense of the sentences.

1. Bill Clinton accuses Obama camp of stirring race issue in ………. of the Democratic primary on
Saturday, in which at least half the voters are expected to be black.
JAL, once the pride of Asia and a symbol of Japan’s global economic ………., today agreed to
file for bankruptcy.
Gerry Adams’ younger brother Liam traded on the Sinn Fein president’s name to ………. his
career.
2. It remains unclear what the Republicans will consider sufficient success to ………. bringing the
troops home.
Finkelstein continued to push the boundaries until his political activism prompted a judge to issue
a ………. for his arrest in connection with an old drugs charge.
The board concurred with the conclusion that there was insufficient evidence of his misconduct to
………. any further investigation.
3. America, which once seemed like a symbol of freedom, now ……… the policies of force.
 Animal-rights ………. in France are pushing for legislation that would outlaw the sale of
horsemeat, which they see as barbaric.
Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, who is concerned that inflation will become another serious
problem ………. a different approach.
4. When people are ……….the right to discuss their life on the parliament floor or in the media,
they're forced into the street.
Mr Ozawa has ………. the charges, insisted that the prosecutors are politically motivated.
The Indian middle classes ………. the pleasures of consumerism ever since independence in
1947, are making up for lost time.
5. The election's problems weren't confined to the validity of the vote — although evidence
abounded of ………. rigging.
Other conservatives are disgusted by what they see Avatar’s ………. anti-Americanism, claiming
the Canadian-born Cameron is offering a critique of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fact that Governor Sanford he went AWOL in South America for almost a week reflected his
………. disregard for the workings of government.
6. No ………. results have been gained during the Iraq adventure by either the Americans or the
Iraqi people except getting rid of the tyrant Saddam Hussein.
There should be some ………. evidence that the economy is starting to recover, not just words.
Mr. Obama will also have to demonstrate some ………. action to dispel the notion that his plans
to shut down the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, makes Americans less safe.

Multiple choice lexical cloze

The text contains five gaps and is followed by five four-option multiple choice questions which test your knowledge of
idioms, collocations, fixed phrases, phrasal verbs and semantic precision
Read the text carefully before looking at the options. When choosing the answer remember that you are often being tested
not just on choosing a word which is grammatically correct, but also one which best fits the sense or tone of the text.

Global Unemployment Rate to Climb in 2008

More people will be out of work in 2008 as a result of global economic cooling, and any
major slowdown could cause (1) ………. and further hike unemployment, the International Labour
Organisation (ILO) said.
In a report issued in the wake of heavy losses in world stock markets, and (2)……….growing
fears of worldwide recession, the United Nations agency said the world unemployment rate would
climb to 6.1 percent this year from 6.0 percent in 2007.
In addition to (3) ………. economic trouble, the ILO said rapid technological advances would
present a major challenge for workers in the year ahead, particularly in rich markets such as the
United States, Europe and Japan where jobs are increasingly being (4) ……….poorer countries with
cheaper labour (5) ……….

1. A. violation В. disruption С. break-up D. concern

2. A. against В. above С. afore D. amid
3. A. looming В. booming С. seeming D. looking
4. A. switched to В. moved to С. removed from D. returned
5. A. costs В. price С. value D. rate

Word formation
In this type of exercises the students will need to read a text and complete the ten numbered spaces with a form of the
word at the end of the line.
 Read through the text carefully and decide which form of the given word you need to use.
 Be careful, as sometimes you will need to use a negative prefix or another form of prefix.
 Human Rights in the 21st Century
Any discussion on the challenges to human rights in the 21st century are
(1) ……….. only as a part of a historical process wherein society's search for mean
prosperity and power or happiness and freedom remained (2) ………. desires fulfil
and half-finished tasks. The impulses for prosperity and power produced market,
nation state, and possessive individual. This also led to major breakthroughs in
science and technology. The combination of these forces (3) ………. enormous gender
wealth sufficient for need and even for greed.
The forces of equality and freedom beaten by the counter forces are
compelled to search for deeper meaning and content and new sources of
inspiration. There are a million mutinies. Untiring and (4) ………. struggles of compromise
human beings are there in every part of the globe. It is reported that there are
3,000 (5) ……….ethnic conflicts and 600 (6) ………. movements. Women - go, secede
half of the sky as Mao put it - are on the warpath all over the world. Children
today are better informed and are questioning and curious about the universe
than ever before. In the specific context of India, Dalits are challenging the
hierarchical and authoritarian stranglehold. Tribals decent and transparent human
beings are engaged in a (7) ………. struggle to protect and defend their lives, continue
livelihood and environment. There are amazing assertions of democratic minded
people from every walk of life in support of social causes. The (8) ………. lie
common thread in this entire (9) ………. is the deep urge of humanity to change rest
the context and content of human existence. The ideological propaganda that
there is no alternative (TINA) is a lifeless attempt to push the struggling masses
into subjugation. The successful (10) ………. of this impasse and the realization come
of this unfulfilled pursuit of equality and freedom constitute the greatest
challenge of the 21st century to the theory and practice of human rights.

Use of English (Open Cloze)

In this type of exercises you will have to complete a text which has several numbered spaces. The missing words
have a mainly grammatical focus, although there might be a few vocabulary items. Each space must be filled with one
word only.
First of all read through the whole article carefully and go back and decide which type of word is missing from
each space, e.g. a verb, a noun or a preposition, etc. It is very important to read through the whole text carefully before
you decide to write anything down. Some answers may be dependent on a sentence which comes later in the text. The
areas which are often tested are:
fixed phrases, relative pronouns, prepositional phrases, phrasal verbs, prepositions, collocations, pronouns,
articles, comparison

Freedom Marches Backward

You hardly need Freedom House in order to get the gist. Most people will already have
noticed that these have not (1) ………. the most inspiring of times (2) ………. democracy and
human rights. December brought the murder of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and (3) ………. was
almost certainly the stealing of an election in Kenya, one of Africa's relative successes, fast
descending (4) ………. a nightmare of tribal violence. And now (5) ……….. confirmation from the
American think-tank. Freedom House's closely watched annual review confirms that 2007 was the
second year in a (6) ………. during which freedom retreated in most of the world, reversing a
democratic tide that had looked almost unstoppable during the 1990s following the collapse of
communism and the (7) ………. of the Soviet Union
Undeniably, (8) ………. news is grim. But (9) ………. democracy is the issue, it can be a (10)
……….to extrapolate too much from the advances and retreats of a single year or two.
Read the extract from a book on human rights. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the
extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (1-7). Explain your choice
There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use

Values for a Godless Age

When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down
in 1989 so did the plaster cast which had kept
the idea of human rights in limbo. It was now
free to evolve in response to the changing
conditions of the late twentieth century.
1.
Of course, in one sense, the quest for
universal human rights standards after the
Second World War was an early attempt to
communicate across national boundaries,
albeit a rather faltering endeavour, with its
claims to universality challenged both in
terms of authorship and content. More
recently, a loosening of the reins of the
human rights dialogue has ushered in wider
debate.
2.
Perhaps the best known of these is Amnesty
International, established in 1961. Before
Amnesty, there were very few organizations
like it, yet now there are thousands operating
all over the world. Whether campaigning for
the protection of the environment or third-
world debt relief, any such organization is
engaged in the debate about fundamental
human rights. And it is no longer just a soft
sideshow.
3.
The fact that strangers from different
countries can communicate with each other
through the worldwide web is having a
similar effect in dealing a blow to
misinformation. During one recent major
human rights trial over sixty websites sprang
up to cover the proceedings, while sales of
the government-controlled newspaper in that
country plummeted.
A. The problem is that the growth of
globalization makes the protection of nation
states a pointless goal in certain
circumstances. Transnational corporations
with multiple subsidiaries operating in a
4.
The effect of increased responsibility at this
highest level has been to continually extend
the consideration of who is legally liable,
directly or indirectly, under international
human rights law. In part, this is an
acknowledgement that even individuals need
to be held responsible for flagrant breaches
of others' rights, whether these are preventing
protesters from peacefully demonstrating or
abusing the rights of children.
5.
It has been noted that paradoxically, in such
circumstances, it may be in the interests of
human rights organizations to seek to
reinforce the legitimacy and authority of the
state, within a regulated global framework.
6.
Part of the new trend in human rights
thinking is therefore to include powerful
private bodies within its remit. The
International commission of Jurists has
recently explored ways in which international
human rights standards could be directly
applied to transnational corporations.
7.
Whatever the way ahead, the lessons of the
past must be learnt. Any world view or set of
values which is presented as self-evident is
ultimately doomed to failure. The case for
human rights always needs to be made and
remade. In a world where globalization too
often seems like a modernized version of old-
fashioned cultural imperialism, it is
important to query the claim that human
rights are universally accepted
number of countries simultaneously wield
significant economic and political power
and it is often extremely difficult for the
state - both home and host governments - to
exercise effective legal control over them.

B. If the proliferation of pressure groups
has raised the profile of the human rights
debate, satellite television has reinforced
much of the content of their campaigns. The
fact that from our armchairs we can all see
live what is happening to others around the
world has had an enormous impact on the
way the struggle for human rights is viewed.
It would not be remotely believable to plead
ignorance nowadays, for 24-hour news
coverage from the world's hotspots reaches
us all.
C. This is, after all, a uniquely propitious
time, as the values and language of human
rights are becoming familiar to more and
more people, who judge the merits or
otherwise of political and economic
decisions increasingly in human rights
terms. Arguments seem fresh and appealing
in many quarters where once they sounded
weak and stale.
D. On a global scale, it is not strong states
that are the problem here but weak ones, as
they fail to protect their citizens from private
power -whether it is paramilitaries
committing murder and torture or
transnational corporations spreading
contamination and pollution.
E. One of the most significant of these is
what has come to be called 'globalization',
the collapsing of national boundaries in
economic, political and cultural life. From
the expanding role of the world's financial
markets and the spread of transnational
corporations to the revolution in
communications and information
technology, more and more areas of people's
lives are affected by regional, international
or transnational developments, whether they
are aware of this or not.
F. Not only must states not infringe rights,
and enforce those rights which fall within
their direct sphere (like providing a criminal
justice system or holding fair elections), but
they also have 'positive obligations' to
uphold rights enshrined in human rights
treaties, even when it is private parties
which have violated them.
G. The results of its investigations were
published in 1999 in a unique pamphlet on
Globalization, Human Rights and the Rule
of Law. The issue to be faced is whether to
treat these and other corporations as 'large
para-state entities to be held accountable
under the same sort of regime as states', or
whether to look for different approaches to
accountability 'that are promulgated by
consumer groups and the corporations
themselves'.
H. No longer the preserve of
representatives of nation states meeting
under the auspices of the United Nations, a
developing conversation is taking place on a
global scale and involving a growing cast of
people - for an increasing range of pressure
groups now frame their aspirations in human
rights terms.
Look back at the extract and find words or phrases which mean the same as a-f.
a. caught between two stages of development
b. a relatively weak attempt
c. a relaxing of the rules
d. a less important event
e. causing something or someone great difficulties
f. brief or scope

Replace these words and phrases in paragraphs A-H with suitable synonyms or phrases.
a. wield ... power
b. proliferation
c. raised the profile
d. propitious
e. infringe
f. enshrined in
g. promulgated by
h. under the auspices of

Now that you have read the text answer the following questions:
How do you view the future for universal human rights? Will increasing globalisation lead to
more or less freedom for an individual?

Women’s empowerment and gender mainstreaming are keys to tackling challenges, such as
poverty, discrimination, educational gaps, high maternal mortality, disease and other ills

Female power
Dec 30th 2009
The Economist
Across the rich world more women are working than ever before. Coping with this
change will be one of the great challenges of the coming decades

THE economic empowerment of women across the rich world is one of the most
remarkable revolutions of the past 50 years. It is remarkable because of the extent of the change:
millions of people who were once dependent on men have taken control of their own economic
fates. It is remarkable also because it has produced so little friction: a change that affects the
most intimate aspects of people’s identities has been widely welcomed by men as well as
women. Dramatic social change seldom takes such a benign form.
Yet even benign change can come with a sting in its tail. Social arrangements have not
caught up with economic changes. Many children have paid a price for the rise of the two-
income household. Many women—and indeed many men—feel that they are caught in an ever-
tightening tangle of commitments. If the empowerment of women was one of the great changes
of the past 50 years, dealing with its social consequences will be one of the great challenges of
the next 50.
At the end of her campaign to become America’s first female president in 2008, Hillary
Clinton remarked that her 18m votes in the Democratic Party’s primaries represented 18m cracks
in the glass ceiling. In the market for jobs rather than votes the ceiling is being cracked every
day. Women now make up almost half of American workers (49.9% in October). They run some
of the world’s best companies and earn almost 60% of university degrees in America and
Europe.
Progress has not been uniform, of course. In Italy and Japan employment rates for men
are more than 20 percentage points higher than those for women. Women earn substantially less
than men on average and are severely under-represented at the top of organisations.
The change is dramatic nevertheless. A generation ago working women performed
menial jobs and were routinely subjected to casual sexism. Today women make up the majority
of professional workers in many countries (51% in the United States, for example) and casual
sexism is for losers. Even holdouts such as the Mediterranean countries are changing rapidly. In
Spain the proportion of young women in the labour force has now reached American levels. The
glass is much nearer to being half full than half empty.
What explains this revolution? Politics have clearly played a part. Governments have
passed equal-rights acts. Female politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Mrs Clinton have
taught younger women that anything is possible. But politics is only part of the answer.
The rich world has seen a growing demand for women’s labour. When brute strength
mattered more than brains, men had an inherent advantage. Now that brainpower has triumphed
the two sexes are more evenly matched. The feminisation of the workforce has been driven by
the relentless rise of the service sector (where women can compete as well as men) and the
equally relentless decline of manufacturing (where they could not).
The expansion of higher education has also boosted job prospects for women, improving
their value on the job market and shifting their role models from stay-at-home mothers to
successful professional women. The best-educated women have always been more likely than
other women to work, even after having children.
The trend towards more women working is almost certain to continue. Women will also
be the beneficiaries of the growing “war for talent”. The combination of an ageing workforce
and a more skill-dependent economy means that countries will have to make better use of their
female populations.
Governments are also trying to adjust to the new world. Germany now has 1,600 schools
where the day lasts until mid-afternoon. Some of the most popular American charter schools
offer longer school days and shorter summer holidays.
But so far even the combination of public- and private-sector initiatives has only gone so
far to deal with the problem. The children of poorer working mothers are the least likely to
benefit from female-friendly companies. Millions of families still struggle with insufficient
child-care facilities and a school day that bears no relationship to their working lives. The West
will be struggling to cope with the social consequences of women’s economic empowerment for
many years to come.

Explain and expand on the following:

 Dramatic social change seldom takes such a benign form.
 Social arrangements have not caught up with economic changes.
 Many children have paid a price for the rise of the two-income household
 Even holdouts such as the Mediterranean countries are changing rapidly
 The glass is much nearer to being half full than half empty

Let them vote

Oct 29th 2009
The Economist
Even society’s worst offenders should not lose the vote when they lose their liberty
MOST rich democracies spend a lot of time and money trying to convince more people to
exercise their right to vote. So it might seem strange that some of the same countries take some
trouble preventing thousands of citizens from going to the polls. In 48 American states and seven
European countries, including Britain, prisoners are forbidden from voting in elections. Many
more countries impose partial voting bans (applying only to prisoners serving long sentences, for
instance). And in ten American states some criminals are stripped of the vote for life, even after
their release.
Liberty is by no means the only right to be squeezed in jail, where second-order freedoms
such as the right to privacy, to family life and so on inevitably take a battering. To some, the
right to vote belongs in this category of minor, unavoidable privations. But it is neither. Those
who believe in democracy ought to place the freedom to vote near the top of any list, and
consider its removal a serious additional sanction. And losing the ability to vote is no longer a
practical consequence of imprisonment, as it may once have been. Voting by proxy or post is
easy nowadays; indeed, prisoners awaiting trial in jail (who are not banned from voting in most
countries) do so already.
The principles retrospectively volunteered are wrong anyway. Some say that withdrawing
the right to vote teaches jailbirds that if they don’t play by society’s rules they cannot expect a
hand in making them. But it has yet to be shown that withholding the vote is an effective
deterrent against offending. If anything, it is likely to militate against prisoners’ rehabilitation.
One of the aims of imprisonment is to give miscreants a shove in the right direction, through job-
training, Jesus or whatever does the trick. Allowing prisoners to vote will not magically
reconnect them with society, but it will probably do more good than excluding them.
Serving prisoners are not numerous enough to swing many elections. But once a
government uses disenfranchisement as a sanction, it is tempted to take things further. Consider
those American states where the suspension of prisoners’ votes has morphed into a lifelong ban:
in Republican-controlled Florida, for instance, nearly a third of black men cannot vote—enough
to have swung the 2000 presidential election. Even those who don’t care much about prisoners’
rights should be wary of elected officials exercising too much say over who makes up the
electorate.

Given below are four arguments in support of the idea that people serving prison sentences
should be permitted to vote in elections. Study these arguments, elaborate on them and
suggest your counter-arguments

 Prisoners remain human beings. We should respect their human rights and should
infringe upon their liberty as little as possible, except for the protection of the public.
Denying prisoners the right to vote does not protect the public and is therefore an
unwarranted infringement upon the human rights of prisoners.
 Giving prisoners the vote would aid their rehabilitation, which is essential if they are to
avoid re-offending after being released. Voting encourages prisoners to take an interest in
current affairs, which will aid their reintegration into society.
 Few, if any, people are deterred from crime by the prospect of being unable to vote. The
effectiveness of a sentence can be measured by how well it protects the public, how well
it rehabilitates the offender, how well it reverses the effects of the crime committed and
how well it deters future offending. Banning prisoners from voting is either
counterproductive (i.e. in terms of rehabilitation) or has no positive effect.
 Linking a ban on voting to imprisonment is arbitrary. Many people who commit serious
crimes are not sent to prison, because of their age, the effects upon their dependents or
the likelihood that they will not re-offend. Others committing equivalent or lesser crimes,
without these special circumstances, may be imprisoned. To deprive people of the vote as
a punishment should not automatically be associated with imprisonment, but should be
decided separately, as in France and Germany.

Doctors Change Euthanasia Stance

Doctors from the British Medical Association have changed their position on the idea
of helping patients to die.
In a narrow vote last year, the BMA adopted a neutral stance on euthanasia and
physician-assisted suicide. The decision has now been overturned after 65% of the 500 doctors at
the BMA's meeting in Belfast voted against assisted dying. A bill to relax current law was
blocked by the House of Lords in May, but is likely to be reintroduced.
The bill, sponsored by cross-bench peer Lord Joffe, would give doctors the right to
prescribe drugs that a terminally ill patient in severe pain could use to end their own life.
However, many doctors were unhappy at the vote, remaining implacably opposed to any
form of assisted dying. They argued that improvements in palliative care meant that even the
most stricken of patients could be helped effectively through their final days.
 In a heated debate, doctors argued for and against. Dr John Fitton, a GP from Kettering,
said despite the "blanket cliche" of good palliative care "people still die in undignified misery".
But Dr Andrew Davies, from Cardiff, said terminally ill patients in his care had "a lot on
their minds" but for many, their main concern was the effect their illness was having on their
families. "My worry is that a right to die will become a duty to die, a duty to unburden their
families."
The vote lobbied by religious lobby groups found 30% of GPs would be willing, in
principle and if the law permitted, to write a prescription to assist a patient to die if their
suffering could not be relieved by palliative care.
Doctors are split and at the moment the religious lobby is winning the tactical battle, but
society should not allow religious views on the sanctity of life to trump the right to autonomy of
a patient who does not share those views.
Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship said that if good
palliative care is provided, requests for euthanasia are extremely rare.
"We should be doing all we can to make sure that his care is made more widely
available."

This text is followed by arguments against the idea that assisted suicide should be legalized.
Look through the counter-arguments and suggest your arguments supporting the idea.

 There is no comparison between the right to life and other rights. To participate in
someone’s death is also to participate in depriving them of all choices they might make in
the future, and is therefore immoral.
 Modern palliative care is immensely flexible and effective, and helps to preserve quality
of life as far as is possible. There is no need for terminally ill patients ever to be in pain,
even at the very end of the course of their illness.
 Those who commit suicide are not evil, and those who attempt to take their own lives are
not prosecuted. However, if someone is threatening to kill themselves it is your moral
duty to try to stop them. In the same way, you should try to help a person with a terminal
illness, not help them to die.
 Demanding that family take part in such a decision can be an unbearable burden: many
may resent a loved one’s decision to die, and would be emotionally scared by the
prospect of being in any way involved with their death. Assisted suicide also introduces a
new danger, that the terminally ill may be pressured into ending their lives by others who
are not prepared to support them through their illness.
 It is vital that a doctor’s role not be confused. The guiding principle of medical ethics is
to do no harm: a physician must not be involved in deliberately harming their patient.
Without this principle, the medical profession would lose a great deal of trust.

Fear of Foreigners
Nov 22nd 2007
From The Economist print edition
A troubling upsurge of opposition in Western Europe to migrants from Eastern Europe

FEW people like change. So it is understandable if mass immigration causes concerns. It

is less forgivable if political leaders fail to address those concerns. And it is unforgivable if far-
right parties exploit them in a racist way.
All these things seem to be happening in Western Europe. In several recent elections,
anti-immigrant parties on the far right have done well. A stream of would-be immigrants from
Africa keep taking to leaky boats in the hope of reaching the Canary Islands or Malta. But the
latest hostility has been aimed at the far larger numbers who have moved westwards from the
new east European members of the European Union, notably Poland and Romania
The arguments over the benefits of immigration are fairly complicated. Immigrants
themselves clearly gain, since they move usually in order to work for higher pay than they can
get at home. There is some evidence that European economies that have taken in many migrant
workers have also benefited, not only in total output but also in terms of GDP per head.
However, some native workers, such as fruit-pickers, builders and waiters, obviously lose
because immigration holds down their wages. Even this has an upside, since it has helped to hold
down inflation in places like London.
In most of Europe there is another big reason for accepting more immigration:
demography. Most countries, in western and eastern Europe alike, face the prospect of
populations that will both age and shrink over the next 50 years. The implications for their
economies and their public finances are worrying. One obvious answer is to boost the working-
age population by admitting more immigrants. Eastern Europe, it is worth noting, will have to
make up for those going west by itself taking in more migrants from farther afield.
The political trick that is urgently needed is not to try to stop this process, but to make it
more palatable at home. That means not repeating the mistake just made by Italian politicians,
who have demonised Romanian immigrants as potential and actual criminals and passed a decree
making it easier to deport them. It means not asserting, as some British political leaders have,
that Britain, Ireland and Sweden were wrong to open their labour markets to east Europeans in
2004.
It would be better if politicians explained patiently why the influx of Polish workers in
Britain in the past few years has, on balance, done much good. As Britain's strong employment
figures show, far from stealing British jobs, they have helped to create more, a point political
leaders make all too seldom. Another thing they fail to say is that many immigrants from Eastern
Europe stay only for a short time. Already many construction workers from Poland and
elsewhere are returning, partly because hot housing markets are cooling fast, partly because
wages at home have risen in response to labour shortages.
On top of this, however, practical steps are needed to answer the valid concerns people
have about immigration from the east. More language tuition should be offered to help
immigrants to integrate. More money should be spent to improve infrastructure, such as schools,
hospitals and roads, that is being put under extra pressure by an upsurge of immigrants. More
work must go into improving education and training so that native workers can move more easily
into higher-skilled jobs. These are all hard things to do; but most of them are part of good
government anyway.
Enlargement at risk
Meanwhile, failing to tell the truth about immigration has another cost: it is stoking
opposition to any further expansion of the European Union. Until recently most opinion polls
were on balance favourable to the notion of further unifying the European continent by admitting
the western Balkan countries, at least. But if enlargement is sullied in people's minds by their
concerns about immigration, that balance could soon turn negative. One answer may be to
promise voters long transition periods before the EU's full freedom of movement of labour is
permitted for the poorest Balkan countries (let alone Turkey). But if more Europeans knew the
truth about the benefits of the current wave of immigration, such political precautions would not
be necessary.

In two teams develop and pronounce the arguments for and against the idea: Governments in
rich countries should relax the laws controlling immigration

The Truth About Happiness May Surprise You

November 20, 2006 David Martin CNN
The next time you are deciding between ice cream and cake, buying a car or taking a trip
to Europe, accepting a new job or keeping your old one, you should remember two things: First,
your decision is rooted in the desire to become happy -- or at least happier than you are now.
Second, there's a good chance the decision you make will be wrong.
Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert summed up our failings this way: "People have a lot
of bad theories about happiness."
It's not for lack of trying. The Declaration of Independence affirms that we have an
inalienable right to pursue happiness, and it's something we do with a vengeance. With all the
available resources focused on achieving happiness, now we should all be brimming with joy.
 So where do we go wrong? Gilbert, author of the recent book "Stumbling on Happiness,"
blames our culture, our genes and our imagination.
Our culture implores us to buy bigger, newer, better things, but research shows "stuff"
does not buy happiness. By and large, money buys happiness only for those who lack the basic
needs. Once you pass an income of $50,000, more money doesn't buy much more happiness,
Gilbert said. Our genes hardwire us to reproduce, but children have a small negative effect on
happiness, research shows. If you're a parent reading this, you're most likely shaking your head.
But Gilbert said the findings are clear when parents are asked about their level of happiness in
the moment.
"When you follow people throughout their days, as they're going about their normal
activities, people are about as happy interacting with their children, on average, as when they're
doing housework. They're much less happy than when they're exercising, sleeping, grocery
shopping, hanging out with friends," Gilbert said. "Now, that doesn't mean they don't
occasionally create these transcendent moments of joy that we remember as filling our days with
happiness."
Finally, our imaginations fail us, Gilbert said, because when we envision different futures
we see either perpetual gloom or happily ever-after scenarios. In fact, neither unhappiness nor
joy last as long as we expect. As you've probably guessed, winning the lottery will not guarantee
a life of bliss. By the same token, becoming disabled does not relegate one to a life of
unhappiness. The disabled spend their days about as happy as the general population, according
to Gilbert.
So what makes us happy? In general, the older you get the happier you get -- until you
reach very old age. According to a Pew Research Center survey, the happiest age group is men
65 and older; the least happy: men 18 to 29.
The survey also found:
 Married people are happier than singles.
 College grads are happier than those without a college degree.
 People who were religious are happier than those who aren't.
 Sunbelt residents are happier than other U.S. residents.
 Republicans are happier than Democrats -- but both are happier than independents.
Nancy Segal, a professor at California State University, has spent her professional career
studying twins and happiness. We all have an innate level of happiness, Segal said. The best we
can do is boost our happiness a little bit above this natural "set point."
With that in mind, Segal said we should pass on buying lottery tickets and find small
things we can do every day that bring us joy, whether it's going for a walk or cooking a meal or
reading a book.
Robert Biswas-Diener is called the Indiana Jones of positive psychology because he has
traveled the globe looking at happiness in different cultures.
"There is good evidence that people express at least some fundamental emotions like
disgust, anger and happiness in a very similar way all around the world," Diener said.
Diener, who also is a life coach, says happiness from the most traditional cultures to the
most modern depend heavily on close family and other human relationships.
If you want to do a better job predicting how happy something will make you, said
Gilbert, the Harvard professor, you need to remember we are not so different when it comes to
happiness.
"If I wanted to know what a certain future would feel like to me I would find someone
who is already living that future," he said. "If I wonder what it's like to become a lawyer or
marry a busy executive or eat at a particular restaurant my best bet is to find people who have
actually done these things and see how happy they are.
"What we know from studies is not only will this increase the accuracy of your
prediction, but nobody wants to do it," he said. "The reason is we believe we're unique. We don't
believe other people's experiences can tell us all that much about our own. I think this is an
illusion of uniqueness."
And if you're trying to decide between the new car and the trip to Europe, Gilbert said
take the trip.
 "Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that's the
worst thing about the new car," he said. "It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to
Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but
a wonderful memory.

In class discuss: “What makes people happy?” List the factors that add to person’s happiness.
At home search the Internet and/or books/dictionaries of quotations for “ Quotes on
Happiness” Choose those that come closest to your own views on the nature of happiness

Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of
tranquility and freedom from fear as well as absence of bodily pain through knowledge of the
workings of the world and the limits of our desires. The combination of these two states is
supposed to constitute happiness in its highest form. Although Epicureanism is a form of
hedonism, insofar as it declares pleasure as the sole intrinsic good, its conception of absence of
pain as the greatest pleasure and its advocacy of a simple life make it quite different from
"hedonism" as it is commonly understood. The fundamental obstacle to happiness, says
Epicurus, is anxiety. No matter how rich or famous you are, you won't be happy if you're anxious
to be richer or more famous. No matter how good your health is, you won't be happy if you're
anxious about getting sick.

In class write a paragraph “Prosperity has no bearing on how free people feel” (150 words)

For EU, Rights Falling Victim to Convenience

By Judy Dempsey
December 13, 2007
BERLIN: For the European Union, which so much likes to take the high moral ground
on human rights, it has been a pretty miserable month. Last week, EU leaders and their African
counterparts held a summit in Lisbon, the first in seven years. But it was marred from the
beginning. Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, was the only leader to take a principled
stand. He stayed away after Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, had been invited by
Portugal, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency.
The rest of the EU seemed to have forgotten that the member states had imposed a travel
ban on Zimbabwe's top leadership because of its appalling human rights record. But when
African leaders threatened to boycott the summit without Mugabe's presence, the EU caved in
and declared that it was more important to have a public dialogue with Africa.
The Africa summit, along with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to name just a few other
cases, shows just how difficult it is for the EU to find a common stance on human rights as it
weighs the price of such a policy against trade and security considerations. Indeed, these
examples also show just how agile the EU is in finding excuses. Yet when the 27 EU member
states actually take a common stand, diplomats acknowledge that the bloc is not only much more
effective, but also is in a much stronger position to prevent one member being played off against
the other. Despite that, national considerations often get in the way of a European common
interest.
Take Kazakhstan. Ruled by Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has created a cult of personality
equal to North Korea's Kim Jong Il, this Central Asian country has been awarded the annual
rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The 56-member forum makes human rights one of its guiding principles. The EU
members dominate the organization, so it could have blocked Kazakhstan's application. Instead,
it agreed that Kazakhstan would take over the chairmanship in 2010, arguing that Kazakhstan
would come under great pressure to prove its human rights credentials. To the question of what
happens after 2010, EU officials have no answer. They do, however, say that if Kazakhstan had
not been given the chairmanship, its foreign policy would shift eastward to China - and so would
its vast energy resources and business contracts.
 That is the same argument German industry has leveled against the German chancellor,
Angela Merkel, who has taken the lead in the EU in criticizing human rights violations in Russia
and China. When she met the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, in the chancellery in
September, China reacted by canceling high level meetings. German industry then claimed that
Merkel was damaging the country's trade ties with China. Yet so far, not a single prominent
contract has been stopped and Merkel has stuck to her policy. "Human rights policy and
representation of economic interests are two sides of the same coin. They should never be
opposed to each another," she said recently.
Then there is Uzbekistan. The EU foreign ministers want to lift sanctions against the
leadership of Uzbekistan, another Central Asian country with a wretched human rights history.
The EU claims that Uzbekistan is improving its human rights record, contrary to the evidence
provided by independent organizations monitoring developments there. Journalists have been
murdered or sentenced under trumped-up charges. The EU has been cowardly in demanding
the truth over the shooting of hundreds of protestors in Andijan in 2005.
In this case, Germany is not consistent, either. Berlin has lobbied especially hard to
reduce the sanctions against Uzbekistan, with the Foreign Ministry in Berlin suggesting that its
human rights record had improved. But human rights had little to do with the issue. Germany
and other NATO countries need Uzbekistan for logistical and security reasons since it provides a
vital base for supplying the NATO bases in neighboring Afghanistan.
Neither Germany nor other EU countries will say this because they do not want to be
seen to be linking their implementation of human rights, or lack of it, to the war on terror. "The
events of September 11, 2001 show that security and the war against terror trump everything
else," said Tom Porteous, UK director of Human Rights Watch.
In the case of Zimbabwe, Merkel had to explain why she was going to attend the Africa
summit meeting: she would use the occasion to speak out about human rights. More revealingly,
she said that if Germany and the rest of the EU did not engage Africa in a serious way, then
China would set the agenda there. "But China is already present there and in such a big way,"
said Porteous. "It is now one of the biggest donors, if not the biggest in Africa. Is the EU really
going to dislodge China?"
With its insatiable appetite for commodities and energy, China has adopted a policy of
pouring in aid to Africa, without strings attached. "The Chinese do not impose conditionality,"
said Porteous, which makes such a donor very attractive for the recipients. If the EU claims that
it is competing with China for influence in Africa, the first thing it should do is break down its
protectionist trade barriers and then speak up much more forcefully for human rights, which is
crucial for civil society.
So far, the EU, despite its rhetoric on human rights, has not decided on its priorities. "The
whole EU policy on human rights is so ambiguous," said Walter Posch, Middle East expert at the
EU's Institute for Security Studies in Paris. "It is more than ever a melting pot when it comes to
trying to forge any kind of common policy over security interests and human rights issues."
This muddied thinking in Brussels sends entirely the wrong signals to those campaigning
for freedom. "In the long run, dictatorships do not last," said Posch. "The people will demand
good governments. Western leaders should remember that." In that case, the EU, which generally
puts its economic and security interests before freedom, should start to take human rights much
more seriously.

For many Turks, head scarf's return aids religion and democracy
January 30, 2008
The IHT
The Turkish government's decision this week to lift a ban on women wearing head
scarves in universities raised a troubling question: Is Islam starting to erode Turkey's secular
democracy?
But in Turkey, looks are often deceiving. A majority of Turks see the measure —
submitted Tuesday to Parliament, where it is expected to pass — as good for both religion and
democracy. Here, the country's most observant citizens have been its most active democrats,
while its staunchly secular old guard — represented by the military and the judiciary — has
acted by coup and court order.
The paradox goes to the heart of modern Turkey, a vibrant Muslim democracy of 70
million people between Europe and the Middle East. Its elected governments have never fully
run the country. They are watched — and blocked — by an immensely powerful coterie of
generals and judges who inherited power from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the former general who
created modern Turkey in 1923 from Ottoman remains.
The system he set up was secular but divided by class, with the urban elite, known as
"white Turks," intervening when they thought political leaders elected by the poorer, observant
heartland were veering off course.
Now, for the first time in Turkish history, that underclass, represented by the Justice and
Development Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is challenging the old order and, at
least for now, getting away with it.
Turkey is like a restless expatriate that spent most of the past century in the West trying
to escape its previous six centuries as the capital of the Muslim East, and the challenge to the old
guard over an item like the head scarf is, in many ways, Turkey becoming more itself.

Look back into the history of church and state relations in the US, Great Britain and Russia

Before Olympic Games, China quells dissent

January 29, 2008 The IHT
On Dec. 27, 2007 Hu Jia, human rights advocate, was detained on charges of subverting
state power. State security agents burst into his apartment when he was chatting on Skype, the
Internet-based telephone system, his most potent tool. He disseminated information about human
rights cases, peasant protests and other politically touchy topics. His wife, Zeng Jinyan, and
daughter Qianci who is barely 2 months old are now under house arrest.
For human rights advocates and Chinese dissidents, Hu's detention is the most telling
example of what they describe as a broadening crackdown on dissent as Beijing prepared to
stage the Olympic Games in August. In recent months, several dissidents have been jailed,
including a former factory worker in northeastern China who collected 10,000 signatures after
posting an online petition titled "We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics."
With fewer than 200 days before the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies, Beijing is in the full
throes of preparations. Roads and subway lines are being completed, and the city's new sports
stadiums are nearly finished. But with more than 20,000 journalists expected for the Games,
Beijing is also tightening controls over information.
Early this month, the authorities announced that only state-sanctioned companies would
be allowed to broadcast video and audio files on the Internet, although the practical effect of this
edict remains unclear. China has also extended a crackdown on Internet pornography and
"unhealthy" content that some rights groups consider a tool for arresting online dissidents. China
has jailed 51 online dissidents — more than any other country — and last year blocked more
than 2,500 Web sites, according to Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom advocacy group.

Do you think tightening controls over information is necessary to ensure stability and
continuity in the society? Give your reasons.