Theology, Law & Human Rights

Göran Gunner

Nuremberg Trial1945 - 1949

1) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace.

2) Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crime

against peace.

3) War Crimes

4) Crimes against humanity.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965)Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984)Rights of the Child (1989) Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990) Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006) Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006)

No religious tradition speaks unequivocally about human rights; none has earned an exemplary human rights record over the centuries. Religions’ sacred texts and canons devote much more attention to commandments and obligations than to rights and freedoms. Paradoxically, their prelates, supreme guides, theologians, and jurists have increasingly cultivated human rights norms even if their application has suffered from inconsistency. Whatever the record reveals, human rights discourse has become the moral language of cultural modernity, in part as a result of its justification and advocacy by members of different religious traditions.

R. Scott Appleby

Eleanor Roosevelt O. Frederick Nolde

“As Christians, we are concerned with all human rights and freedoms. We are particularly interested in religious liberty because we believe it is basic to all other rights”

Freedom

Human Rights

Fairness Harmony

All people are created in God's image and that is reflected in human rights;’

God has placed human rights in the nature of man;

Human rights are a gift of God by grace;

Human rights is man's responsibility as a servant of God;

Human rights reflect the fundamental values of God's kingdom ideal

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

Matt 7:12

‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

Matt 22:36-37

(a) There is a basic human right to life – inclusive of the entire question of survival, of the threats and violations resulting from unjust economic, social and political systems, and the equality of life.

(b) There is a right to enjoy and to maintain cultural identity.

(c) There is a right to participate in the decision-making process within the community – which comprises the entire issue of effective democracy.

(d) There is a right to dissent – which prevents a community or a system from hardening into authoritarian immobility.

(e) There is a right to personal dignity – which implies, for example, the condemnation of all torture and of prolonged confinement without trial.

(f) There is a right freely to choose a faith and a religion – which encompasses the freedom, either alone or in community with others, in public or in private, to proclaim one’s faith or one’s religion by the means of teaching, practice, worship and ritual.

WCC, St. Pölten 1974

(a) That all men are equal in nobility, dignity and nature, without any distinction of race, sex or religion.

(b) That everyone therefore has the same fundamental rights and duties.

(c) That the rights of the human person are inviolable, inalienable and universal.

(d) That everyone has a right to existence, to bodily integrity andwell being, to everything necessary to maintain a decent standardof living, such as food, clothing and shelter, means of subsistenceand nay other services indispensable to social security.

(e) That everyone has a right to a good reputation and respect, toprotection of privacy and to an honest representation.… …

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace,

To deny anyone human rights is to be against God's dealings with the world

Violations of Human Rights reminds us of the human failures and sin;

If God stands with the vulnerable and marginalized - where is the church?;

What do human rights tell about my own sin and the judgment falls on society and the Church

·    A theological silence in the face of human rights violations can only be constructed as morally repugnant and socially irresponsible.

·    There is consensus within the major Christian traditions that the rights identified in most human rights declarations are worthy of theological support

·    The church’s primary task is clearly to facilitate Christians to promote and appropriate the values of a human rights culture.

·    The task of theology is help locate the human rights struggle at the centre of the debate on what it means to be human and therefore also at the centre of social and political pursuit.

Charles Villa-Vincencio

Act now! Stop turning a blind eye!