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Introduction What are Human Rights?

The United Nations have promoted human rights since 1946. Until then, human rights have been developing, with novel concepts adopted and the international community forming around human rights promotion. Human beings brought about human rights to safeguard their dignity and adequately utilize their qualities concerning intelligence, talent, and spiritual viewpoints. Consequently, human rights demonstrate people’s recognition of one another’s worth and comprise part of ordinary humankind. In other words, these allow people to respect each other and live peacefully in particular communities, as these apply not exclusively to one individual but many others. In human rights denial, individuals might suffer consequences, such as socio-cultural unrest, political violence, and conflict within diverse nations and societies.

Human rights are vital to recognize the people’s qualities and protect their dignity. They are essential in treating them with inclusivity and putting an end to discriminatory practices against diverse people, considering their gender, race, or societal status and protecting them with the respective human rights treaties. The human rights defender acts toward promoting and protecting human rights across hundreds of states worldwide. They follow set conventions to address such issues in the system, like war crimes during wartime. The latter was in the 2020 Artsakh war, affecting many civilians and soldiers impacted by atrocious doings by the opponent side forces, who violated numerous human rights conventions in the period.

International Treaties Regarding Human Rights.

There are nine primary international human rights treaties. Each treaty has established an expert committee for proper monitoring of the treaty implementation by the state parties. Optional protocols apply to some of them, which also deal with human rights concerns. These treaties deal with discrimination, child and migrant rights, and economic and socio-cultural rights. The treaties are as follows, noted by Hurights Osaka (Hurights Osaka, n.d.).


 * International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)
 * International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
 * International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
 * Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
 * Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)
 * Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
 * International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICRMW)
 * International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CPED)
 * Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Nevertheless, there are a plethora of other universal instruments, which relate to human rights. Although these differ in their legal status, they have a moral force, which provides specific guidance to the states in their legal conduct. When countries sign the human rights treaties, the committees assigned by the United Nations system try to check if these comply with the standards of the treaties. These human rights treaty bodies consist of independent experts who yield to the provisions with the accordance they are assigned.

What are the Functions of the Human Rights Defender?

Human rights defenders are those individuals who act towards promoting and protecting human rights. They have a plethora of functions, which include addressing human rights on behalf of individuals and groups. They might address human rights concerns, such as discrimination, employment problems, healthcare issues, or environmental hardships (United Nations, n.d.). They are actively promoting the rights to life, adequate housing, food, and health. They also categorize the rights according to the various persons, their gender, and age, such as women’s rights, children’s rights, refugee, or displaced person’s rights.

Moreover, human rights defenders exist in each part of the world. Whether the countries are classified as developed or developing, human rights defenders promote the sovereignty of humans and adjust structurally to their needs (United Nations, n.d.). Human rights defenders also function to collect and disseminate any information on violations. Consequently, they investigate and gather the data to prepare reports and utilize lobbying strategies to draw attention to the public and political representatives (United Nations, n.d.). Essentially, human rights defenders support the victims affected by the violations in taking their cases to court and preventing future breaches from repeating. Some also provide legal assistance to them. Also, the defenders focus on promoting good state governance, advocating for democratization, and the end of corruption practices. Overall, they support better governance policies. Notably, they contribute to implementing human rights treaties through their organizations. These include nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations. These organizations help and provide housing, care, and income generation for marginalized communities. Furthermore, human rights defenders educate about the human rights standards by training professionals in law and militia. Or in schools or higher education institutions and to the vulnerable communities.

What is a War Crime?

Per the United Nations, one can define war crimes as consequential violations of international humanitarian legal standards, which perpetrators commit against civilians or enemy service members during global or local armed conflicts, during which the one might hold the perpetrators liable on a criminal basis (United Nations, n.d.). These violations and crimes derive from the 1949 Geneva conventions, 1977 2 protocols, and the 1899 and 1907 Hague conventions. Furthermore, Hathaway and others note four kinds of war crimes: violations of set warfare rules, committed without orders, malevolence committed by persons outside the enemy armed personnel, spying and betrayal, and stealing and attacking people recklessly. (Hathaway et al., 2019).

Study of the 2020 Artsakh War Crime.

During the 2020 Artsakh war, the opponent Azerbaijani side violated certain human rights and committed several war crimes. One of such was the bombings of the civilian areas, intentionally directing attacks on the populations, and causing loss of lives and injuries, and, in turn, damaging the environment. Despite the distant location of the Armenian armed military equipment from the civilian areas, the Azerbaijani striking drones and missiles targeted the latter, such as damaging civilian living property and properties, such as a maternity hospital, and civilian transportation modes. Azerbaijan also utilized striking munitions, which the 2008 convention bans regarding production, transfer, and usage (Nazaretyan, 2020). Cluster munitions pose a significant threat to civilians and can have lasting effects. Under the laws of war, the officials restrict the use of cluster munitions in residential settings. Incendiary munitions, which the opposite side also used, were banned from service during the war, as the white phosphorus can have mass destruction effects on the environment. International law forbids this use under the “Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons” (Nazaretyan, 2020). Next, other war crimes recorded during the 2020 Artsakh war were the crimes against the prisoners of war and the captured civilians that subjected them to death under atrocious conditions. For instance, the enemy soldiers killed a civilian with disabilities in the city of Hadrut, while they also killed civilians in Martuni and other surrounding towns and villages. Other instances included the beheadings of soldiers that the enemy side posted on social media platforms and different types of executions again recorded on camera. These are all violations of severe degree, defying numerous Geneva conventions and international human rights.

References

Hurights Osaka (n.d.). Principles, Rights, Duty, and Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://www.hurights.or.jp/archives/other_publications/section1/pdf/Principles%2C%20Rights%2C%20Duty%20and%20Pedagogy.pdf

Hathaway, O. et al. (2019). What is a War Crime? Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1695&context=yjil

Nazaretyan, H. (2020). Azerbaijan’s War Crimes. Retrieved from https://evnreport.com/magazine-issues/azerbaijan-s-war-crimes

United Nations (n.d.). Human Rights Defenders: Protecting the Right to Defend Human Rights. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet29en.pdf

United Nations (n.d.). War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/CD/FS-2_Crimes_Final.pdf