2000 word outline research proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

2000 word outline research proposal - Essay Example Till 9/11 happened, apparently US didn’t really catch up with the seriousness of the issue. There have been instances like the US embassy bombings in different parts of the world. But such instances were considered mainly as failure of those nations in safeguarding the interests of USA, and nobody actually thought that one day, two US commercial flights full of passengers will collide with its own twin towers and result in killing around 3000 citizens of the world. They were office workers, waiters, police, firemen, moms, dads, friends and neighbors. Thereafter began an era of hunting for the terrorists and their links. It involved gathering info from everywhere with techniques like cyber-snooping. Attention was diverted towards Afghanistan because there was no regime as such. The ruling combine called Taliban did not believe in human rights and controlled the country with terror at gun point. Women were treated like third class citizens, not allowed to attend public functions and schools. One prosperous sheikh from Saudi Arab called Osama Bin Laden was there to help the regime with finances and arms. He had his own set of people ranging from nuclear scientists, engineers, villagers and other trusted lieutenants around him. They had their own ideology of calling the countries like US, UK, India, Israel etc. as the enemies of Muslims. For this very reason they gave calls for Jihad against these countries in particular. Afghanistan has the misfortune of being in news for all the wrong reasons since the late 1970s. It was in 1979 that Soviet troupes from the then USSR invaded Afghanistan and engineered a regime change. These forces remained in Afghanistan for the next 10 years, b ut not before resistance forces were armed with lethal weapons and trained manpower. Thereafter began a bloody era of revenge when the erstwhile President was hanged in broad daylight in the middle of the road. This bloody has not stopped since then. The areas bordering

Corruption in Police Services Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Corruption in Police Services - Research Paper Example This paper tells that police corruption has augmented noticeably with the unlawful cocaine business, with officials acting on their own or in various groups to steal money from traders or dealing out cocaine themselves. Corruption inside police units falls into two essential groups, which are outdoor corruption and interior corruption. For a corrupt action to take place, three different fundamentals of police corruption must be present all together, namely misuse of power, misuse of official ability and misuse of personal achievement. It can be said that authority certainly lean to corrupt and it is yet to be acknowledged that, while there is no cause to presume that policemen as persons are any fewer imperfect than other people of the civilization, people are often surprised and annoyed when police officials are uncovered while defying the law. The reason is simple, as their deviance draws out an unusual sensation of disloyalty.  Nearly all readings sustain the examination that co rruption is widespread, if not common, in police units. The risk of corruption for police is that it might upset the official objectives of the society and may guide the employ of organizational control to persuade and generate crime rather than to prevent it. Common police deviance can consist of cruelty, unfairness, sexual stalking, intimidation and illegal use of armaments. However, it is not mainly apparent where cruelty, unfairness and bad behavior ends and corruption starts. Basically, police corruption plunges into two main groups, outdoor corruption, which consists of police links with the general public, and inner corruption, which occupies the relations amongst police official inside the police department. The outdoor corruption usually consists of one or more of the subsequent activities, payoffs to police by effectively non illegal factors who fail to obey with severe acts or city laws for instance, individuals who frequently defy traffic rules, secondly, payoffs to poli ce by individuals who repeatedly defy the law as a way of generating money for instance, prostitutes, narcotics addicts, dealers and skilled robbers, lastly, "clean graft," where money is paid to police for services they offer or where politeness concessions are specified as a matter of course to the police. A scandal is supposed for both as a publicly build up happening and as a driving force of alteration that can direct to realignments in the formation of power within organizations.  New York, for example, has had more than a half dozen foremost scandals about its police unit in a century. It was the Knapp Commission in 1972 that originally brought consideration to the NYPD when they unconfined the outcome of over two years of inquiries of supposed corruption.  

What Extent Are Human Rights Claims Culturally Specific Politics Essay

What Extent Are Human Rights Claims Culturally Specific Politics Essay The atrocities committed against individuals in events such as slavery, the two World Wars, the Holocaust, and the apartheid in South Africa caused the issue of human rights to become a major concern for all nations across the globe, particularly for the western nations. The issue of human rights, however, has its roots in natural law theories of the 17th and 18th centuries and was more firmly established contemporarily in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other covenants, conventions and declarations that were derived from it. At the core of this issue, is the controversy as to whether human rights are universal or culturally relative. Another area of disputation is the efficiency of the international community in the face of cultural practices that serve to discriminate against individuals, such as female genital mutilation, for example. The use of secondary data was applied in carrying out this research to address the above-mentioned issues. In this essay, I will attempt to find out how can universal human rights exist in a culturally diverse world. As the international community becomes increasingly integrated, how can cultural diversity and integrity are respected? Is the African Union Security Culture effective? There is no universal consensus on the definition of human rights because although human rights speak to everyone, different cultures have different concepts as to what human rights are and what they really mean. Universal human rights do not impose one cultural standard, rather one legal standard of minimum protection necessary for human dignity. As a legal standard adopted through the United Nations, universal human rights represent the hard-won consensus of the international community, not the cultural imperialism of any particular region or set of traditions. Jack Donnelly  [2]  defines human rights as a special class of rights, that is, the rights that one has simply because one is a human being. They are thus moral rights of the highest order. John Humphrey  [3]  states, when we speak of human rights [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] we usually have in mind certain rights which pertain to individual men and women because they are human beings and for no other reason. While it may not be true that all human beings are born free and equal, they are born with certain rights. Some of these rights, but not all of them are called human rights. Human rights are those rights without which there can be no human dignity. They derive from the inherent dignity of the human person as mentioned in the preambles to the two United Nations Covenants on human rights. It follows that every one possesses these rights in full equality. Human rights are intended for everyone, in every culture and are the birthright of every person. Human rights also hold that every individual has certain rights protecting him or her against the abuse of power by governments. CULTURAL RIGHTS Culture  [4]  can be defined as a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shape and influence perception and behaviour. Culture  [5]  is the totality of knowledge, skills, traditions, and customs, specific to a group of people or a civilization. It is transmitted socially from generation to generation and not by genetic inheritance, and largely determines individual behaviour. It encompasses a very broad aspect of social life: techniques, manners, morals, lifestyle, systems of values, beliefs, religious observances, family organization, etc. Every human being has the right to culture, including the right to enjoy and develop cultural life and identity. Cultural rights, however, are not unlimited. The right to culture is limited at the point to which it infringes on another human right. No right can be used at the expense or destruction of another, in accordance with international law. Similarly, cultural rights do not justify torture, murder, genocide, discrimination on grounds of sex, race, language or religion, or violation of any of the other universal human rights and fundamental freedoms established in international law. Any attempts to justify such violations on the basis of culture have no validity under international law. A Cultural Context These are some of the issues, concerns and questions underlying the debate over universal human rights and cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the assertion that human values, far from being universal, vary a great deal according to different cultural perspectives. Some would apply this relativism to the promotion, protection, interpretation and application of human rights which could be interpreted differently within different cultural, ethnic and religious traditions. In other words, according to this view, human rights are culturally relative rather than universal. Taken to its extreme, this relativism would pose a dangerous threat to the effectiveness of international human rights laws that has been painstakingly set up with international standards, and consequently widespread disregard, abuse and violation human rights would be given legitimacy. When a traditional culture does effectively provide protection, then human rights by definition would be compatible, posing no threat to the traditional culture. As such, the traditional culture can absorb and apply human rights, and the governing State should be in a better position not only to ratify, but to effectively and fully implement, the international standards. Traditional culture is not a substitute for human rights; it is a cultural context in which human rights must be established, integrated, promoted and protected. Human rights must be approached in a way that is meaningful and relevant in diverse cultural contexts. Rather than limit human rights to suit a given culture, why not draw on traditional cultural values to reinforce the application and relevance of universal human rights? There is an increased need to emphasize the common, core values shared by all cultures: the value of life, social order and protection from arbitrary rule. These basic values are embodied in human rights. Communitarians argued that rights and justice are culturally specific and cannot be applied across borders. For communitarians, human rights cannot be defined universally because they only have meaning in terms of the social fabric of a particular society and culture that proclaim them and does not apply in the real world. Human rights would be something different in Saudi Arabia compared to the UK. Cosmopolitans see rights to have universal meaning when they are based upon human reason and that universal rights prevail over particular values because they express universal reason.  [6]   Make Peace Happen In the last decade, the security culture of the African Union (AU) has developed in some relatively radical ways. There are also new opportunities to advance the responsibility to protect (R2P) agenda adopted by the United Nations General Assembly World Summit in 2005. This agenda commits individual states and the international community to protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. If successfully implemented in Africa, R2P would make a tremendous contribution to promoting stability and peace. The African Union (AU) has declared 2010 the African Year of Peace and Security with its campaigns slogan Make Peace Happen. Turning this statement into reality rests in large part on the members of the AUs Peace and Security Council, the most important African institution for the day-to-day management of peace and security issues. Within the AU, support for the responsibility-to-protect principle emerged from broader concerns with promoting human rights standards on the continent. If a government proves either unable or unwilling to protect its civilians from large scale loss of life [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] then international society bears a collective responsibility to protect them and can override the sovereignty of the state in question  [7]  . Security cultures are patterns of thought and argumentation [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] concepts of the role, legitimacy and efficacy of particular approaches to protecting values.  [8]  .  [9]   Moreover, security cultures help establish the core assumptions, beliefs and values of decision-makers about how security challenges can and should be dealt with, through the process of socialization. The African Unions Constitutive Act pledges respect for human rights and rejects the widespread impunity that has characterized armed conflict and political repression in many African countries. In grave circumstances such as occurred during the Rwandan genocide, the Constitutive Act authorizes the African Union to intervene. Leading African states in the African Union have also adopted a New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD), a program to lift Africa out of poverty that explicitly recognizes the importance of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law for economic development. NEPAD has also developed its own code of governance and system for peer review, but its pledges on human rights remain vague. The African Union will only succeed if it replaces the culture of impunity with the culture of accountability.  [10]   Indeed, the record of the AU was not much more impressive in the field of security-related activities. The organisation was mainly involved in setting norms and standards, but it was never effective in enforcing them. In the few cases of international wars (Somalia/Ethiopia 1977-78 and Eritrea/Ethiopia 1998-2000) the AU played virtually no role. The AU was also committed to the principle of non-alignment, but the fact that no member state ever joined any formal alliance with outside powers is probably mainly due to the fact that no alliance memberships were ever on offer, and the AU certainly failed in preventing the actual involvement of the great powers in conflicts on the continent. Without strong and interventionist versions of international distributive justice and measures associated with subsistence, economic and welfare rights, the AU will be powerless. The constructivists approach to analysing regional security dynamics as summarized by Hurrell, involves a number of central ideas: first, that, in contrast to rationalist theories, we need to pay far more attention to the processes by which both interests and identities are created and evolve, to the ways in which self-images interact with changing material incentives, [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] that both interests and identities are shaped by particular histories and cultures, by domestic factors, and by ongoing processes of interaction with others.  [11]   In order to guarantee human security at the personal, institutional, and structural-cultural levels, power relations and relations of power should be underscored within a socio-cultural context. In other words, emancipation or sustainable peace-building occurs when one understands the true nature of social-cultural categories such as class, gender, ethnic equality, etc. A great deal of peace-building deals with issues of security within a positivist-rational epistemology. Human security is therefore a situation or a condition free of injury or threats to an individuals, or communitys well-being, including freedom from direct physical attacks and psychological integrity. To ensure such security involves the understanding of human security located at the structural, institutional, and personal levels of society. It involves an attempt to understand human security or insecurity in terms of those who experience them. What motivates the dissatisfied to agitate and their beliefs as marginalized individuals should be seriously taken into account, instead of merely imposing policies on them. Constructivism as an approach is a useful theoretical lens in understanding the true nature of things such as collective violence, class, gender, and racial issues, among others. Within these units emancipation occurs when the accurate picture of the situation is understood. Constructivists operate on the ontological assumption that actors are shaped by the socio-cultural milieu in which they live. Constructivists try to go beyond the descriptive aspect of a situation to an understanding of the motives of a community in order to explain how they behave and what causes political outcomes. Constructivism is not only limited to the influence of norms and social understandings on different actors (individuals, groups, and states), it also investigates why the norms and inter-subjective beliefs often had different influences on different actors. Many constructivist studies have emphasized the ways in which ideas and norms become more powerful in their effect than conventional conceptions of strong state interests. In conclusion, this essay has considered many different arguments, cultures in the world are in many cases conflicting and the diversities in the world can make it difficult to have a universal consensus, especially when it comes to personal rights. While it is worth considering the western interpretation of human rights, the human rights doctrine should not have to make allowances for differences in morality. When it considers a right to be fundamental and important, this should mean it is universal. The function of Human rights is to improve the individuals life and the way it does this is not to make allowances for customs and traditions that should not be considered acceptable. For the time being it is a virtual impossibility to make economic compatibility a reality, as the differing political systems do not allow for this. However this does not mean that human rights in general are not compatible with multiculturalism. We are all humans, with basic wants and needs. Being granted these wants and needs does not take away anything from the differing cultures on the contrary the Human rights protect our right to be different, through cultural identity and religion amongst other rights. The basic rights of humans should not be based on culture but on what improves peoples life in the most effective way. Diversity does not affect human needs, and therefore should not affect, at least at the most fundamental level, the universal doctrine of human rights. 2194 Words

Death Of A Salesman :: essays research papers

In the first B.C dramatist known as Aristotle started to write a series of plays called the tragedies. They were as follows: the play revolved around a great man, such as a king or war hero, who had a tragic flaw. This flaw would eventually become his downfall and he would fall from his glory. In the case of obvious it was his hubris; and Oedipus, his pride and curiosity. Through out the play the hero has many opportunities to overcome his mistakes. On the other side, the reason that his nature he sarcomas to it and deals with a sever punishment. Even though these types of plays are still written today most authors have varied their loom of writing a tragedy. An example is Author Miller. He attempts to illustrate the misfortune in the common man; he shows this in â€Å"Death to a Salesman.† According to Arthur Miller, "the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who ready to put his life aside, if necessary, to secure one thing - his sense of personal dignity." (Tragedy and the Common Man p.1) He is saying in this quotation is that even that the common man can even be tragic because occasionally the one thing that she prizes the most, his sense of self-dignity, can be so jaded that he will sacrifice his own life to secure this dignity. In â€Å"Death to a Salesman†, Arthur Miller successfully shows that you do not have to be someone important or king to show that. The classical model of a tragedy is that of someone of a high position contains superior qualities such as leadership for instance a king. However the hero always has a flaw, which may be an excess of one of these qualities such as hubris. This hero while trying to accomplish a goal such as a quest will eventually be dealt punishment, which is usually death. One could argue that not only Aristotle’s definition of tragedy is true but that there can be many different kinds of tragedies. From the tragedy of a common man to that of a family or group of people. In opposition to Aristotle's view one could argue that any type of man could show tragic qualities, no matter what social environment the man comes from. The hero could range from a highly intellectual and educated man with great potential but whose flaw is lack of motivation, to a crack addict living on the street who refuses to enter rehab. The fate of people such as this might not be as appalling as death; however may be economic failure or social rejection.

The epic date

Coming up with an unoriginal date idea is never hard. Simply look around you, see what everyone else is doing, and copy that! While some people enjoy the traditional standby of dinner and a movie, others are looking for ways to spice up their love life and find themselves searching for fun date ideas to accomplish that. An always unique and slightly more active outing, creative dates tend to be more exciting, interactive and, most importantly, far from the norm.Some of the most fun date ideas are the ones that challenge us to do things that we might otherwise not do. Not for the weak of heart, fun, exciting dates are more appropriate for those who know each other fairly well rather than a couple on a first or blind date. Try doing something extreme that not only creates a great time but brings you closer to the one you're with. For outdoor excitement, go white water rafting, bungee Jumping or, for the super brave, skydiving. Looking for a more relaxed yet equally thrilling date idea? Rent a hot air balloon at sunset and enjoy wine and snacks as you glide through the clouds and admire the view below. Just keep in mind that the balloons tend to drift with the wind and are actually a lot maller than they seem, so if you're afraid of heights, hot air balloons may not be for you. While exciting date ideas tend to be the out of ordinary, fun dates dont necessarily need to be extreme and there are plenty of creative dates that can be taken with a few less risks.No matter where you live, there's bound to be a wine vineyard or brewing factory nearby. Grab your partner and take a day trip to the site to enjoy their wine or beer selections and take a tour of the grounds. Most vineyards and breweries have restaurants on the premises, so make it a day trip and enjoy a relaxing dinner together in the evening. For those who aren't quite used to drinking throughout the day, you may want to arrange tor transportation to and trom your destination since the wine or beer samples ar e likely to be abundant.If drinking isn't your thing, head to the nearest city to take in a theater or comedy show. Unsure of which you'd prefer? Analyze your preference by basing it on your favorite movies. If it's drama or romance you like, the theater is your best bet. From musicals to plays, there's always something going on at a performance center and, even if it's not Broadway, it's likely that a local theater group is performing each eekend.If you prefer watching films that make you laugh, such as Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler or even the slapstick of the Three Stooges, a comedy show could make for a really fun night. If you dont live near any large comedy clubs, go online or search through the local newspaper to learn about any comedians visiting local bars or nightclubs. No matter what your energy level, there's always a fun date idea for everyone. Whether you prefer roaming through the great outdoors or staying in, a creative date makes for a fun date and the more unique, the better.

Emerging Technology and Its Implications Essay

With the increasing attention being accorded to climate change in the mainstream media these days, there is also an increased attention being given to technological solutions to assist in combating the problem. While such solutions are admirable in that they go above and beyond the usual calls for recycling and the purchase of ‘green’ products – which have been proven to be of trivial impact upon the large scale flaws in systems of production and consumption that characterize industrial modernity – not all of them should embraced uncritically. It is only by subjecting every proposal to save the planet to scrutiny that we can determine a truly sustainable future. One of the ideas that has been receiving increasing currency in environmentalist discussions are large scale planetary ‘technofixes’ collectively referred to as geo-engineering or planetary engineering. These include mirrors in space designed to reflect excess amount of sunlight, artificial trees designed to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, and managed release of sulfates into the atmosphere, and many, many other epic plans to manipulate the ecological fabric of our planet.   Here’s the rub: The term geo engineering is a rather questionable one, as it implies that it has the same kind of empirical or mathematical certainty as engineering when it doesn’t. It smoothens over many of the bumps and curves that characterize our problems and demand creative solutions. In effect, planetary salvation becomes as easy as building a tunnel into a hill or a bridge across a river, when in fact our collective understanding of the systemic impacts is far less than the geo engineering promoters would have us believe. One might as well call it ‘planetary experimentation.’ While the potential benefits proposed are of an epic magnitude, this magnitude would also apply to the potential consequences. Take for example a proposal to suck carbon dioxide into the planet’s oceans by seeding it with iron deposits. Many, including the Scientific Steering Committee of the Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) have observed that this has the potential to worsen ocean acidification and lead to catastrophic results for marine ecology: â€Å"The oceans are complex, dynamic, unpredictable and already vulnerable †¦ We need   [to] build their resilience, not undermine it [not] quick fixes to this global problem that may [cause far more long-term harm] than good.† (Gjerde) Additionally, the historical track record of large scale intervention in the name of environmental concern has never been very good to begin with, asserts Alex Steffen of Worldchanging: â€Å"From damming rivers to fighting forest fires to eliminating pests †¦ efforts have †¦ in hindsight [been] so overrun with unintended consequences as to become full-blown disasters, often †¦ worse than the original problems †¦. [And the] cost of errors [increase] with the magnitude of the attempted solution.† (Steffen) Geo engineering is essentially a ‘silver bullet’ solution, one which reduces the political will to creatively retrofit our present lifestyles in such a manner as to be sustainable and environmentally sound, while still being able to enjoy the luxuries of post-industrial advancements. In essence, the tools for a greener world are already here and their downsides are negligible in the face of overwhelming benefits both environmental and societal. In any case, discussion over geo engineering merely provides a distraction from mustering the political will necessary to effect true change. It provides climate change skeptics a justification for political indifference to redressing our present way of life: Why opt for better designed cities, fuel efficient vehicles and profound infrastructural rethinking when we can merely ‘erase’ the effects of our problematic systems? One’s stance on geo engineering is not a question of whether you are a techno utopian or a complete Luddite. However, there is a major distinction to be made between technology that is transparent in agenda, collaborative in nature, and egalitarian in application as well as easy to remedy and technology that is centralized, expensive and difficult to reverse. Between â€Å"Star Wars† –   a missile defense system saddled with so much corruption that does nothing to provide for homeland security – and nuclear power – a promise of perpetual source of energy whose failures wreaked massive consequences – we ought to regard geo engineering with suspicion: dangerous until proven safe. Geo engineering is unnecessary. â€Å"Fixing† the planet in such a manner is turning a blind eye to the way we live: it shows a lack of innovation and political courage that is necessary to the bright green future.   Works Cited Stiles, Lori. â€Å"Space Sunshade Might Be Feasible In Global Warming Emergency.† NASA Earth Observatory. 3 November 2006. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2006/2006110323537.html Bentley, Molly. â€Å"Guns and sunshades to rescue climate.† BBC News. 2 March 2006. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4762720.stm Gjerde, Kristina. â€Å"Hold back the geo-engineering tide.† BBC News. 11 December 2007. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7133619.stm Romm, Joseph. â€Å"Rule three of offsets: No geo-engineering.† Grist Magazine Online. 27 July 2007. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from:   http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/27/144848/844