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Compare and contrast the domestic implementation mechanism of Human rights between Bangladesh and USA
Abstract
Human rights are based on the principal of respect and freedom for the individual. Their fundamental assumption is that each person is a moral and rational being who deserves to be treated with dignity. They called human rights because they are universal. From the basic form of a Human Right every single person have equal right to live peacefully in society or a country no matter where they live because human rights are the right to which every single individual are entitled. But many people around the world are unaware about human right and significant number of population around the earth doesn’t know the law’s which are created to protect the human rights. Many Social Scientist’s and lawyers is says that actually human right means freedom of speech, freedom to get roper education, freedom to obtain job, security of citizens life, equal justices and fair & clear view by the sates towards a personal. Therefore the implementation mechanism of human rights USA and Bangladesh has far differences, both two countries have law to protect and save human rights but in reality specially in Bangladesh there is no human rights on reality but its exists only in word of mouth of the political leader.
Introduction
Human Rights
Human right means the right which a human carries from the day when he/she got birth in this earth. The term human rights is not the modern term from the ancient or history this term came to our life’s yes, there are some difference between the modern clauses and the historical but in every century the rights of the human maintained. For an example: in ancient times the leaders of the country like kings magistrates they are used to provide the rights to the citizens of their kingdom but now according to united nations every assigned country provides all kinds of basic rights to their citizens and if at any cost a single citizen doesn’t get his/her basic right under their national court or under international court they can claim for their rights.
Human rights are the rights of all human beings whatever our nationality is, our country, color, religions, language etc. it doesn’t means to have a human rights we have to demand it from our own country from any other country we can demand for our basic rights from the court. As human beings we are equally entailed to our human rights without any discrimination
According to the law of Universal Human Rights are often said and guaranteed to all human beings that all basic rights won’t be deprived from the any human from any nation.
Under international Human rights law is being clearly said and declared to protect the human rights and fundamental freedom of a human being that from any state a single citizen can fight for their basic rights.
o There are four characteristics of Human rights or principles of Human rights::
· Universal and Inalienable: Human rights are universal and inalienable cause citizens of any nation are under a universal basic rights no one is out from the same basic law whether he/she is rich or poor, black or white, citizen of other country etc. same judgment are given to all level of citizens under the same right
· Interdependent and Indivisible: Every human has the basic political, social and economical cultural rights whether he/she is Hindu or Muslim or any other religious he/she dependents to cause as a human he has the right to choose his/her own religious and culture and occupation they have the right to interdependent and indivisible as a free person for social security, education, collective rights like self- determination etc
· Equal and Non-Discriminatory: Equal rights are given to each human beings of all classes right to specially to women there are some super stations against women are seen in many Asian countries that women are deprived from their rights like education, right to get married a minimum age, selection of husband, right to give a minimum level of child etc. so to stop this discrimination under international Human Rights its written and said that all women must get equal right as men and if under any circumstances they doesn’t gets it under international court they can claim for it<href=”#_ftn5″ name=”_ftnref5″ title=””>[5].
· Both rights and Obligations: Every human beings can demands for their rights whether those are women or men, religious of different custom, different culture nature etc. every human has the same right to the earth for basic human rights.
The Implementation Mechanisms of Human Rights in Bangladesh:
National Human Rights Commission, such as Bangladesh Human Rights Commission (HRC), will play a key role in the application of human rights. Although certain fundamental human rights are justifiable by the Supreme Court in Bangladesh by virtue of Article 102 of the Constitution, the setting up of HRC is complementary to the powers of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court deals with enforcement of human rights while HRC promotes human rights, investigates into breaches of human rights and makes aware of human rights among all sections of community, including rural men and women. According to Human Rights watch,
Bangladesh’s overall human rights situation degraded in 2012, as the government constricted political and civil society space, continued to defences abusive security forces from accountability, and flatly ignored calls by Human Rights Watch to reform laws and procedures in flawed war crimes and mutiny trials. Civil society and human rights protectors reported increased governmental pressure and monitoring. (Watch, 2013)<href=”#_ftn7″ name=”_ftnref7″ title=””>[7]
Mandate of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Bangladesh:
The National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh was reconstituted in 2009 as a national advocacy institution for human rights promotion and protection. It is committed to the accomplishment of human rights in a broader sense, including dignity, worth and freedom of every human being, as enshrined in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh and different international human rights conventions and treaties to which Bangladesh is a signatory. The purpose of establishing such splendid institution is to contribute to the embodiment of human dignity and integrity as well as to the safeguard of the basic order of democracy so that inalienable fundamental human rights of all individuals are protected and the standards of human rights are improved in the country.
Established by the National Human Rights Commission Act, 2009 in consonance with Bangladesh’s commitment to international human rights law, the Commission serves as a mechanism for the enrichment of the realization of human rights. Its journey is aimed at creating a culture of human rights through public enlightenment on diverse human rights issues so that the people of the country can contribute to larger peace and security keeping in pace with the ‘progressive aspirations of human kind.’
· An effort to establish a human rights overseer in Bangladesh was initiated in the late nineties. Successive governments tried to launch such a body at the urge of national and international agencies.
· On 22 June 2010 the six members’ Commission was reconstituted with its present Chairman Dr.MizanurRahman, a veteran Law Professor of Dhaka University and a leading human rights educationist of the country.<href=”#_ftn8″ name=”_ftnref8″ title=””>[8]
· The public desire to establish such an institution got momentum in 2007. As a result, National Human Rights Commission Ordinance 2007 was promulgated by the Honourable President of Bangladesh with effect from 1 September 2008. The Commission was constituted through appointment of one Chairman and two other members on 1 December 2008.
· In the process, the National Human Rights Commission Act 2009 was passed by the parliament on 14 July 2009 and a retrospective operation of the Act was given from 1 September 2008.
Current Human Rights Situation in Bangladesh:
Extrajudicial Killings, Torture and Impunity
In 2011 Human Rights Watch also documented RAB involvement in illegal detentions, killings, and torture of suspects in the 2009 mutiny by the Bangladesh Rifles border guards (BDR). During the mutiny, 74 people were killed, including 57 army officers. Thousands of suspects were rounded up by the security agencies soon after the mutiny ended and there are credible allegations of torture of these suspects by RAB and other forces. When Human Rights Watch published these allegations, the government refused to engage in any meaningful response to the reports and several ministers dismissed the allegations immediately
Labor Rights
Workers in Bangladesh regularly face poor working conditions, low wages, and excessive hours. Government repression prevents them from being able to organize effectively. Weak enforcement of labor laws by the government contributes to pervasive impunity for employers to harass and intimidate both workers and local trade unionists seeking exercise their right to organize and collectively bargain. Over a dozen labor rights leaders currently face criminal charges on a variety of spurious grounds, including under the Explosive Substances Ordinance Act, which carries the death penalty as a sentence. Labor rights groups are facing registration problems, which in turn affects their funding and operations.<href=”#_ftn9″ name=”_ftnref9″ title=””>[9]
Restrictions on Civil Society and Political Opposition
The government was increasingly hostile in 2012 to civil society group. Many NGO’s, such as BCWS or Odhikar, have already been facing years of delays in getting critical foreign funds released for their projects.<href=”#_ftn10″ name=”_ftnref10″ title=””>[10]If passed this bill has the potential to legalize the already arbitrary and non-transparent process by which the government regulates the distribution of NGO’s foreign funds. In August 2012 the government announced plans to establish a new commission charged solely with regulating NGO activities, in addition to the already existing NGO Affairs Bureau.
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
The government’s response in 2012 to the influx of Rohingya refugees fleeing sectarian violence in Arakan state in Burma has exposed the Bangladesh government’s assertions of respect for the Refugee Convention as false. Not only did Bangladesh push Rohingyas back at the border, regardless of the risk to them on return to Arakan state, it also began denying critical humanitarian assistance to its long-term Rohingya population in a bid to deter other refugees from entering. The long-term Rohingya refugees in the country live in some of the poorest provisioned camps in the world. Government assurances at the last UPR to “provide improved facilities and upgrade protection measures” for them, have amounted to little.
Women’s and Girls’ Rights
While Bangladesh has a strong set of laws and judicial guidelines to tackle violence against women and girls and their discriminatory treatment under personal status laws persists in Bangladesh. While Bangladesh has a strong set of laws to tackle violence against women, the implementation remains poor. Violence against women including rape, dowry-related assaults and other forms of domestic violence, acid attacks, and illegal punishments in the name of “fatwas,” and sexual harassment continue. The law commission of Bangladesh researched and recommended reforms to these laws in 2012.
International Community
The international community continued to press the government to respect civil and political rights in the face of increased restrictions on political opposition groups and civil society. The donor community was particularly vocal in calling for swift and meaningful investigations into the murder of Aminul Islam and the disappearance of Elias Ali, as well as calling on the government to give Rohingya refugees sanctuary. The government often responded by suggesting that critics were part of a conspiracy against it. Under persistent pressure from Bangladesh, Indian authorities committed to end all unlawful killings at their shared border. n June, the World Bank announced that it was withdrawing its US$1.2 billion credit assistance for building the Padma Multipurpose Bridge across the Padma River due to evidence of serious corruption by senior government officials. In September, the government agreed to put in place conditions that the World Bank had demanded when the deal was suspended, including placing all public officials suspected of involvement in the corruption scheme on leave from government employment, appointing a special inquiry and prosecution team, and granting an external international expert body access to investigate the corruption charges and advise the bank. When the government announced in September 2012 that the Padma Bridge deal was back on track, the World Bank issued a public rejoinder stating that the project would resume only once all its conditions had been fully and unconditionally fulfilled.
The Human Rights Implementation Mechanisms of United States of America:
According to the US department of state, the protection of fundamental human rights was a foundation stone in the establishment of the United States over 200 years ago. Since then, a central goal of U.S. foreign policy has been the promotion of respect for human rights, as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United States understands that the existence of human rights helps secure the peace, deter aggression, promote the rule of law, combat crime and corruption, strengthen democracies, and prevent humanitarian crises.
Current Human Rights Situation in USA:
Secure Communities and other federal programs involving local law enforcement play a major role in the increase in deportations. The federal government has portrayed these programs as focused on dangerous criminals, but most immigrants deported through Secure Communities are categorized by the federal government as “non-criminal” or lower level offenders. These programs may exacerbate distrust of police in immigrant communities, and thus may deter crime victims from seeking protection and redress. Some local and state governments have sought to limit the reach of these programs.
In fiscal year 2012, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported a record 396,906 non-citizens. A dramatic increase in federal prosecutions of immigration violations and in the number of immigrants in detention has fed a nationwide detention system comprised of over 250 facilities
Labour Rights
Hundreds of thousands of children work on American farms. The 1938 Fair Labour Standards Act exempts child farmworkers from the minimum age and maximum hour requirements that apply to all other working children, exposing them to work at far younger ages, for longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions. As a result, child farmworkers, most of them Latino, often work 10 or more hours a day and risk pesticide poisoning, heat illness, injuries, life-long disabilities, and death. Of children under age 16 who suffered fatal occupational injuries in 2010,<href=”#_ftn11″ name=”_ftnref11″ title=””>[11] 75 percent worked in crop production. Thousands more are injured each year. Federal protections that do exist are often not enforced.
In April, the Department of Labour withdrew new regulations proposed in 2011 that would have updated, for the first time in decades, the list of hazardous agricultural tasks prohibited for children under age 16. (Federal law bans hazardous work for children under age 18 outside agriculture). Several members of Congress claimed, inaccurately, that the rules would hurt family farms and agricultural training, and introduced bills to block them.
Health Policy
In June, the US Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, which significantly expands many citizens’ access to health insurance and medical care. HIV infections in the US continue to disproportionately affect minority communities, men who have sex with men, and transgender women. Many states continue to undermine human rights and public health with restrictions on sex education, inadequate legal protections for HIV-positive persons, resistance to harm reduction programs such as syringe exchanges, and failure to fund HIV prevention and care.
Death Penalty and Excessive Punishments
In 2012, Connecticut joined 16 other states and the District of Columbia in abolishing the death penalty. Thirty-three states continue to allow its imposition. In November, California voters narrowly rejected Proposition 34, which would have abolished the death penalty in that state. At this writing, 42 people had been executed in the US in 2012. There has been a downward trend in executions since 2000.
Almost 20 years ago, California was among the first states to pass a punitive “three-strikes” law, mandating lengthy sentences for repeat offenders. In November, California voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure eliminating mandatory life sentences for certain nonviolent third offenses and allowing prisoners serving life for such nonviolent third strikes to seek resentencing. Massachusetts moved in the opposite direction, becoming the 27th state to enact a three-strike law.
Women’s and Girls’ Rights
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the primary federal law providing legal protection and services to victims of domestic and sexual violence and stalking, faced an uncertain future. At this writing, the congressional renewal process had stalled due to disagreements over protections for immigrant victims; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) victims; and victims on tribal lands. Department of Defense statistics indicate that out of an estimated 19,000 sexual assaults in the military each year, only 3,192 were reported in fiscal year 2011; just 240 of those resulted in military prosecution. Recently announced initiatives to address the problem include removing investigative responsibility from frontline commanders; however, cases would remain within the chain of command. State anti-abortion laws passed in 2012 included limits on insurance coverage for abortion, medical abortion restrictions, and bans on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Non-Citizens’ Rights
There are approximately 25 million non-citizens in the US. The government estimates that 10.8 million of them are in the country without authorization. In 2011, prosecutions for illegal entry and reentry into the US surpassed 34,000 and 37,000 respectively. The federal government has portrayed these programs as focused on dangerous criminals. These programs may exacerbate distrust of police in immigrant communities, and thus may deter crime victims from seeking protection and redress. Some local and state governments have sought to limit the reach of these programs. In September, ICE said it would reconsider its policies on transfers of detainees between facilities. Human Rights Watch documented in 2011 how high numbers of detainees were subjected to chaotic and frequent transfers between facilities, hampering detainees’ access to due process and family support. Alabama’s immigrant law, like Arizona’s, denied basic rights to unauthorized immigrants and their families, including US citizen children.. Hundreds of thousands of immigrant woman and girl farm workers face a high risk of sexual violence and harassment in their workplaces.
Conclusion:
Despite being a third world country the human rights implementation is not so worst as it should be. In Bangladesh there hasn’t any emergency service like “911” which is available in USA. if they had this kind of emergency service then human rights shouldn’t be violated as much as today. Labor rights are becoming more strong day by day in Bangladesh. Women are getting their rights everywhere in Bangladesh. In the parliament of Bangladesh they have secured women parliament membership, women are getting priority than men in job sector, in the school of villages attendance of female children are increasing and also in politics the importance of women can’t be neglected as the chairperson of two main political parties in are women in Bangladesh. So at this point we can see that the rights of women in Bangladesh are far better than USA. Bangladesh also have strict law against “eve-teasing” which is not so strict in USA. If we look at the crime rate of Bangladesh and USA we can observe that the crime rate in Bangladesh in relatively slow than USA just because of the cultural and religious values. Despite USA being the first world country and having highly secured security system. If we look at drug dealing and smuggling records for the past few years, Bangladesh is in a very well situation than USA. The police service in Bangladesh is full of corruption than in USA.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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5. Hein Onlineis a collection of links to treaty sources on the Internet and Treaty Research Basics, 89 L. Libr. J. 407 (1997). Hein Online New York University School of Law Library, International Treaties, and , New York University, Hauser Global Law School Program, GlobaLex, An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research,
6. New York University, Hauser Global Law School Program, GlobaLex, An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research, New York University School of Law Library, International Treaties is a collection of links to treaty sources on the Internet and Treaty Research Basics, 89 L. Libr. J. 407 (1997). Hein Online
7. World Report 2013: Bangladesh | Human Rights Watch. (n.d.). Human Rights Watch | Defending Human Rights Worldwide. Retrieved June 18, 2013, from http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/bangladesh.
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<href=”#_ftnref1″ name=”_ftn1″ title=””>[1]Positions of Aliens in Relation to the European Convention on Human Rights (No. 10, rev. ed. 2001)
<href=”#_ftnref2″ name=”_ftn2″ title=””>[2]Equality Between the Sexes and the European Convention on Human Rights (No. 14, 1995), Freedom of Expression in Europe: Case Law Concerning Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (No. 18, rev. ed., 2002)
<href=”#_ftnref3″ name=”_ftn3″ title=””>[3] New York University, Hauser Global Law School Program, GlobaLex, An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research, New York University School of Law Library, International Treaties is a collection of links to treaty sources on the Internet and Treaty Research Basics, 89 L. Libr. J. 407 (1997). Hein Online
<href=”#_ftnref4″ name=”_ftn4″ title=””>[4]GlobaLex, An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research, New York University School of Law Library, International Treaties,New York University, Hauser Global Law School Program, is a collection of links to treaty sources on the Internet and Treaty Research Basics, 89 L. Libr. J. 407 (1997). Hein Online
<href=”#_ftnref5″ name=”_ftn5″ title=””>[5]is a collection of links to treaty sources on the Internet and Treaty Research Basics, 89 L. Libr. J. 407 (1997). Hein Online New York University School of Law Library, International Treaties, and , New York University, Hauser Global Law School Program, GlobaLex, An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research,
<href=”#_ftnref6″ name=”_ftn6″ title=””>[6]New York University, Hauser Global Law School Program, GlobaLex, An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research, New York University School of Law Library, International Treaties is a collection of links to treaty sources on the Internet and Treaty Research Basics, 89 L. Libr. J. 407 (1997). Hein Online
<href=”#_ftnref7″ name=”_ftn7″ title=””>[7]World Report 2013: Bangladesh | Human Rights Watch. (n.d.). Human Rights Watch | Defending Human Rights Worldwide. Retrieved June 18, 2013, from http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/bangladesh.
<href=”#_ftnref8″ name=”_ftn8″ title=””>[8]http://www.nhrc.org.bd/About_NHRC.html.
<href=”#_ftnref9″ name=”_ftn9″ title=””>[9]FRIEDMANN, W, Legal Theory, Universal Law Publishing CO. PVT. LTD, India, 1999.
<href=”#_ftnref10″ name=”_ftn10″ title=””>[10]https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2013_web.pdf
<href=”#_ftnref11″ name=”_ftn11″ title=””>[11]World Report 2013: United States | Human Rights Watch. (n.d.). Human Rights Watch | Defending Human Rights Worldwide. Retrieved June 18, 2013, from http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/united-states?page=2