Free «Terrorism and Human Rights» Essay

At a time when the news reports inform about terror attacks or related issues, and the all the airport safety checks seems to become even more exact, it is clear that the terrorism threats are close to us as never before. It should be mentioned that this threat is the top priority of the United States agenda on national security. The United States is quite familiar with terrorist threats and actions, and it has responded appropriately through military action and foreign policies.

An increasing development of weapons of mass destruction has emerged over the whole issue of worldwide terrorism. Iran, which is viewed as the most active national sponsor of terror, has been clandestinely carrying out the programs on uranium enrichment. North Korea has also admitted to having nuclear weapons as well as divulging information that proves they are running uranium enrichment programs. The Al Qaeda group has made attempts to get hold of chemical and biological weapons (Perl, 2007).

Terrorism is a threat that aims directly at the destruction of human rights, rule of law and democracy. It assaults the ideals that are promoted in the United Nations Charter on the protection of human rights, laws protecting nations from armed conflict and the protection of civilians, rule of law, and peaceful conflict resolution.

Terrorism has a direct impact on curtailing a number of human rights, particularly the right to life and liberty. As a result of acts of terror, governments can be destabilized, peace and security put into jeopardy, civil rights undermined and certain groups of people severely and negatively affected. All these end consequences have a direct impact on denying basic human rights.

It is clear that the human rights framework is far from being tolerant to terrorism. It identifies that states must take exceptional and sometimes drastic measures to ensure national security. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008) expected that the sensitive nature and complexity of the international terrorism witnessed in recent times, such as the biological and uranium programs, will only serve to frustrate human rights campaigns on platforms of right of freedom and religion. Discrimination will be at a high solely on the grounds of social origin, religion and race. These actions will be deemed necessary by most countries in order to cover all bases on the protection of the public.

International politics is exhibiting new phases as time progresses, and intellectuals have certainly not been left behind in proliferating visions of what future international relations will lead to. In 1993, Samuel P. Huntington posed the hypothesis that the basic source of international conflict in the new world is based on cultural origins, as opposed to economical or ideological roots. He further reiterates that nations will remain as the primary players in global affairs, but the principal source of conflict on international politics will be groups and nations of different civilizations. Recent history has shown that the major terrorism attack the world has witnessed has been based on the cultural and religious conflicts. Although this stand was famously challenged by Fukuyama in his essays “End of History”, the September 11^th attacks certainly proved Huntington’s position. His book, The Clash of Civilization, has been hailed as visionary and somewhat prophetic (Sacks, 2002).