![]() ![]() Many of the UN member states began adapting their legislature to reflect this new opinion. In 1971, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly reached the opinion that capital punishment no longer served as an acceptable exception to the right to life guaranteed in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Death Penalty as an Obstacle to Foreign Relations,” Mark Warren details foreign perceptions of the United States concerning its continued use of the death penalty. In “ Death, Dissent, and Diplomacy: The U.S. Gaining a fuller understanding of why many nations have abolished the death penalty, makes it easier to understand how the United States’ commitment to the death penalty has such strong implications on the international stage. ![]() To put it simply, the United States’ use of the death penalty hurts its diplomatic relations and reflects poorly on the nation’s values.Ĭapital punishment’s role in United States foreign affairs is severely affecting its image on the world stage, given that much of the world is opposed to the death penalty. Nations that have abolished the death penalty see this as a sign of ignoring basic human rights and group the United States’ human rights index with that of nations like Sudan and Iraq. It is one of the only nations to still do so. Despite the constant backlash throughout recent history, the United States continually uses the death penalty and defends it on the international stage. International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the United Nations have called upon their member States to abolish the use of the death penalty, stating it violates the “ right to life, liberty, and security of person” guaranteed by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s surprising how a country like this can become associated with authoritarian regimes with horrible human rights records such as China or Iran, yet its continued use of the death penalty demonstrates how its so-called commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness might not even include the right to life after all. ![]() It prides itself on being a paradigm of human rights and individual freedom, founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Come to think of it, while Filipinos associate rallies with radicalism and communists, we actually learned to organize such mass actions from the Americans.“Land of the free and home of the brave.” That’s how the United States describes itself. ![]() There is, in fact, this sense of civics in many American institutions, from a strong sense of volunteerism to town halls (public fora organized at local government levels) to the many marches and rallies they have for all kinds of causes. US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy did try to remind Americans, in a lecture in 2005, that the pursuit of happiness was not self-gratification, but was about what an individual could contribute to society. So I was surprised to read an article by Adriana Cavarero, an Italian philosopher, in the New York Times pointing out that “happiness” had another meaning in the 18th century, a meaning used by the framers of the American Declaration of Independence.Ĭavarero refers to political scientist Hannah Arendt’s works on the American Revolution and what she calls “public happiness.” She contrasts this public happiness, which is in the “inner realm into which men escape at will from the pressure of the world,” from a “public space or marketplace … an area where freedom appears and becomes visible to all.”įor those involved in the American Revolution, this happiness came from an “experience of being free,” including an “ability to start something new.” Arendt said this public happiness was to be repeated in many social movements I thought, too, of our Edsa revolt-alas, how distant it seems now in history. ![]()
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