GPHC Blog 2020-2021

  Please use the four features of human rights - that they are universal, interdependent, indivisible, and inalienable - to analyze a historical or contemporary political case that violates or protects human rights. Please note at least one article of the UDHR that was violated or upheld.  The writing should be 300-400 words.  Known as "the island outside of the law," Guantanamo Bay is a detention facility located in Cuba on land that has been leased to the US for the past 45 years. As of June 2020 there are 40 detainees currently located at the facility, and in the recent years at least nine have died. The article that I read says, "Violations of international law at Guantánamo include illegal and indefinite detention, torture, inhumane conditions, unfair trials (military commissions), and many more.These human rights violations, however, remain unpunished or remedied."  Universalism: "Universalism refers to the notion that human rights are universal ...

Jack Gross The concept of  human rights being universal is a fairly recent idea only being codified on an International level (which is the level that matters the most if human rights are being talked about as a universal idea) in 1948 by the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document stating the basic human rights that ALL people should be given regardless of well, anything. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was wonderful in that it took the concept of “what human rights should everyone have” and formalized it in a written text (one that was distributed worldwide and translated into over 500 languages) this process is known as Codification and it is pretty much the first step towards solving any problem, clearly defining the problem and defining the intended goal. However, that is where codification’s usefulness ends as it doesn’t matter how clearly something is stated if no one has to listen to it. The unfortunate thing about the Univers...

  Blake Peterson  Mr. Roddy  GPHC  12 October 2020  California’s New Executive Order  The article I read about talked about a new executive order, signed by governor Gavin Newsom that states all new passenger cars and trucks sold in California must be emissions-free by 2035. The goal of the new mandate is to completely eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by passenger vehicles. There are many problems California has to overcome before they can fully implement their plan to have zero emissions from motor vehicles. One of the big issues they are facing is the question of whether the order is even legal. The Trump administration has challenged California in court, stating that only the EPA should be able to regulate auto emissions. If the EPA is the only one that can regulate auto emission it will most likely mean that the executive order will not be carried out. This means that California needs Joe Biden to win the election if they hope to eliminate their emi...

 A notable problem in the greater Houston area is a phenomenon known as food deserts, where large groups of people find themselves without easy access to healthy, affordable food and are stuck with the heavily processed but cheap products sold by chains such as McDonald's and Whataburger. Large communities simply have no easy to access grocery stores within their range. The US department of agriculture defines a food desert as "an area where at least a third of the population lives more than a mile away from a supermarket for urban areas and greater than 10 miles away for rural areas." The people living in such areas are deemed "food-insecure", as of now, 724,750 food-insecure people live in the greater Houston area. Houston is 4 percentage points above the national average for rates of food insecurity. Over 500,000 people live in these food deserts, most likely affecting those in poverty above those outside of poverty. This problem has been exacerbated by the p...

  HOW LONG BEFORE THE ENTIRE WORLD IS VACCINATED AGAINST COVID-19? ( https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-vaccine-covid-19-who-gavi-putin-trump-boris-johnson-health-economy-1524958 ) We still have a long road until the vaccine for covid-19 is complete and ready for the public. Countries need to work together in order to get there with over 750,000 people dead and the poor state of the global economy.GAVI, the vaccine alliance, who has been primarily focused on finding a vaccine for AIDs, has opened a facility where they will try to make the vaccine accessible for all countries, especially poorer ones. Their goal is to deliver at least two billion doses by the end of 2021. They hope to pool together the resources of wealthier countries to help the vaccine reach poorer countries so that it is available for everyone. Since the vaccine can’t ultimately reach everyone, they want to focus primarily on health care workers and people at risk. They aim to vaccinate 20% of the population sin...

Governor of California, Gavin Newson, proposed that all vehicles sold in the state would be emission free by 2035. California is allowed more independence over how it regulates air quality and auto-emissions since historically, it has produced significantly more emissions than most states and has had to manage their air quality since before the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) was established. California has benefited from this since they use generally stricter rules which have resulted in lower rates of childhood asthma and limits on sales of emitting vehicles among other things. Most of California’s waivers to reform air quality have been approved by the federal government, but they have faced some opposition from Trump who states that it’s only appropriate for the EPA to regulate air quality and auto emissions across the states.  While California has been trying to limit auto emissions by encouraging the sales of electric cars and limiting purchases on high emission ve...

  Armenian-Azerbaijani Border Conflict      The Caucus Mountains have been a place of conflict for most of recent history. Beginning in the 1850s, aggressive Russian expansion into Europe led to a coalition war against them in 1853, where modern day Armenia was a ferocious battleground between the Ottoman Empire, France, Austria, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Russia. Russia ended up losing and giving back territory they had gained from the Ottomans, and they also suffered a lot of economic damage that led to a lot of Russian History that I'm not going to get into. Anyway, since Oil wasn't a sought-after resource yet, there were no border changes in the Caucuses. During World War One, however, there was another frontline in the caucuses (which is usually glossed over) between the Ottomans and Russians, and in 1915 the Ottomans began the Armenian Genocide which later ended in 1923. Racial and Political tensions had been mounting between Turks and Armenians since the O...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-encyclical-idUSKBN26P0E1      In his latest encyclical, titled "Fratelli Tutti," ("Brothers All") Pope Francis writes about human fraternity and the need for cooperation and equality. This is the latest in a sequence of moves by the Pope that have upset many Catholics, particularly conservative and traditionalist Catholics in the United States. Pope Francis has a history of criticizing President Donald Trump and his proposed border wall. In "Fratelli Tutti," Pope Francis takes his criticism a step forward, explicitly criticizing the failures of free-market capitalism to provide what it has promised.      The philosophies of capitalism and Catholicism, read at face value, have significant conflicts with each other. For example, Catholicism preaches selflessness, while neoliberal capitalism tells us that greed is a societal good. Nonetheless, The Catholic Church has maintained a neutral if slightly uneasy posi...

 Izabella Curtis  Mr. Zhou & Mr. Roddy GPHC 7 October 2020 What's the Deal with Mail-In Ballots?     Mail-in ballots are going to be crucial for the upcoming  local and national elections. Due to COVID-19, some individuals are unable to vote in-person because they are high risk so our government has created a system that allows those individuals to vote through the mail. Mail-in ballots come with one main concern of voter fraud. In the article, I read it talked about the state of Texas and how Governer Abbot is implementing mail-in ballots. The issue with Texas's mail-in ballots is that Governor Abbot has limited the ballot drop-off locations, Abbot has done this in an attempt the enhance ballot security protocols which is the right mindset except Harris County is 4.713 million people and there are only 12 locations where people can drop off their ballots. This is concerning because this has made a huge confusion and voter suppression for the mail-in ballots...

Emily Wilburn 12 October 2020 Food Security During COVID       This week I read the article, ‘ 500K+ Houstonians live in ’food deserts’ with little to no access to healthy food and the problem has worsened due to COVID-19 .' It looked at how the majority of Houston is struggling to access fresh and healthy foods right now.      I first want to talk about the term food desert because this is a term the author uses to describe the situation and I found it to be super interesting. The author defines a food desert as an area where stores with healthy food options don’t exist. I (and I assume many others) use the term food desert pretty regularly when referring to places like the suburbs where there are dozens of chain restaurants but there are still grocery stores and markets. I have never heard of the term used to describe an area with no access to any sort of food store because I guess it is something that many of us take for granted.     ...

Emily Wilburn 2 October 2020 Voting in Texas      2020 has been a pretty crazy year already, and to make it extra interesting it’s also an election year. There is a lot of discussions this year regarding how people will be voting: will the majority vote in person or by mail in? The current president, Donald Trump, has made his stance on voting via mail pretty clear and it has caused some pretty scary conversations. He believes that mail-in voting is voter fraud and that it could rig an election. He even tweeted out saying this, “Mail-In Ballot fraud found in many elections. People are just now seeing how bad, dishonest, and slow it is. Election results could be delayed for months. No more big election night answers? 1% not even counted in 2016. Ridiculous! Just a formula for RIGGING an Election...” Anyways… this has all led to some pretty crazy stuff. Right now in Texas, there is a limitation on the number of ballot drop-off locations. It is limited to one drop off locati...

Electric Cars & California The article I read was about the new mandate made by California to sell only electric cars by 2035. The article talked about the feasibility of this mandate. For example, the article had a section about whether or not California could do this legally. This section of the article talked about how California has been regulating their emissions since before the EPA existed, and because of this, California has been granted waivers from the federal government to pass their own air quality and emissions rules, which are often stricter than the federal government rules.  The Trump administration has been challenging California's waivers in court because they claim that only the EPA should be regulating auto emissions. The article said that lawsuits over the authority of the EPA are still under review, and that if either the EPA prevails in the lawsuits or the Trump administration has a second term, this mandate for electric cars could be nearly impossible to...

Research has found that the U.S. election system is less effective than other democratic countries. In 2019, the U.S. received a score of 61 out of 100 by the Electoral Integrity Project based on assessments of the quality of electoral laws, voter registration, voting process, etc. This score placed the U.S. second to last among liberal democracies. As outlined in the article, the U.S.’s distinct election administration which is more decentralized than most could be a window into the low integrity rating. Each of the 50 different states and sometimes even the counties within a state manage their respective elections resulting in slight differences in procedure. By comparison, all Canadian elections are uniformly managed by Elections Canada and Canada had the third-highest score among countries in the Americas. Other factors differentiating the U.S. include the lack of same-day voter registration, the size of American ballots, and turnout. Head of the United States Election Project, Mic...

 https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/03/cars/california-2035-zev-mandate/index.html california governer, gavin newton just signed an order that all cars sold must be emission free by 2035. there are many who think this goal is impossible but also many who think it is doable. there are so many challenges that must be dealt with like putting in charging stations all over the state and nation. in addition, these vehicles need to be more affordable. there are also legal issues especially as it related to the epa. depending on the outcome of the election, will depend on if newsome's order gets overturned. biden's platform is friendlier towards the making of electric cars. another issue is people buying their cars out of state. grid capacity is also an issue and can the california grid handle the demand of charging cars? they already are having black outs to save energy, so their power grid would have to be upgraded to handle electric cars. low gas prices do not incentivize people to buy ele...

 According to the article by Vox, a conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan has started up again. The original fight for the region ended over 30 years ago, with a ceasefire being signed after a war that caused 30,000 deaths. However, because of it being a ceasefire, the idea that the fighting could start up again at any time was always looming on the horizon. In the last week of September, both countries accused the other of unprovoked attacks against the other, which caused the fighting to start up again. Instead of it fizzling out like many of the previous skirmishes, this has only gained more and more intensity as the days went by. Now, many major cities within both countries have been attacked by heavy artillery fire. This has caused the days since then to be the most violent since the 1994 ceasefire, and some are even calling it the second Nagorno-Karabakh war.  Along with that, Turkey has only been making things worse by supporting Azerbai...

  Cidette Rice Mr. Roddy, Mr. Zhou GPHC A 10/11/2020 Chernobyl’s Wildlife At approximately 1:23 am on April 26th 1986, the nuclear power plant Chernobyl of Soviet Ukraine failed to perform a safety test that ultimately resulted in the combustion of their 4th reactor. The response of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (or the Ukrainian SSR for short) was slow and doubtful, albeit panicked. While not only being the first nuclear disaster recorded in history, Chernobyl also takes the cake for being the most deadly, political, and poorly maintained. By this, I mean that Chernobyl, like many other nuclear reactors that could be seen in Northern Eurasia, was built cheaply, with the idea of quick power over safety. This was ultimately Chernobyl’s undoing.  Meant to limit civilians from accessing Chernobyl or falling victim to it’s radiating effects, the Chernobyl exclusion zone was established. With Chernobyl at its heart, the Exclusion Zone is 1,004 square miles of uninhabi...

 Andreas Cantu  October 10   Foreign Criminal Networks  A few days ago over 2,000 classified documents regarding over 2 trillion dollars in bank transactions were leaked to the public, revealing how blanks have allowed criminals to move laundered money through the world. These files also exposed how Russian Oligarchs managed to get past certain sanctions and get their money to the west. These files are also known as the FinCen files were mostly being sent to US authorities through 2000 - 2017. Banks use them to report suspicious activities however, they are not proof of any illegal actions. These files were originally leaked to Buzzfeed News and an investigative journalist group that later distributed them to over 100 news organizations and over 80 countries. FinCEN stands for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and they are the people that combat financial crimes. Any and all concerns regarding financial transactions in the US Dollars have to go through th...

Armenia and Azerbaijan Conflict:  Background :  The states of Armenia and Azerbaijan lie on the borders of Russia, Iran, Georgia, and Turkey. The two have been fighting over a disputed area of land called  Nagorno-Karabakh that is placed in between their countries that is roughly the size of Delaware.  The area is recognized internationally by  Azerbaijan, however the majority of people that live there are Armenian.  This area of land has long been disputed, and the last conflict in 1994 ended with the deaths of approximately  30,000 people. However, recently the fighting has erupted again leaving both states vulnerable  to attack again.  On September 27th of this year bombing began in the region, and the 10 days afterwards have been very violent in the region to the point where people are calling it the "Second Nagorno-Karabakh War." The surrounding regions are also taking sides in this, with Turkey fully backing Aze...

  John Mazziotti Mr. Zhou GPHC October 8th, 2020 California’s Electric Car Only Policy by 2035 Earlier this month, the governor of California Gavin Newson signed an order saying that California would only sell zero emission cars from the state by 2035. Although it is seen as a very strict maneuver in order to reduce emissions in the state of California, it’s not what most people think. The order doesn’t mean that you can’t drive combustion vehicles in California, it just means that you can’t buy them there(loophole #1). Another loophole into this ordinance is borders. Brian Maas of the California New Car Dealers Association says that "If I can just drive to Tahoe, cross the border and buy the truck or SUV that I want, the mandate that the governor's asking to develop isn't going to be very effective"(CNN). Maas says that when this bill is passed it actually might not be that effective towards people who don’t want to succumb to the bill’s requirements. Next, this st...

  People are recommending that the disney live action movie, mulan, is boycotted because the movie thanks the organizations in china that are responsible for the human rights violations of the muslim uighur residents of china. In this area, Xinjiang, where the movie was filmed, there have been Uighur residents who have been forced into internment camps where they are forced to work as slaves and are even being sterilized. They are also trying to push chinese cultural norms on the Uighurs and indoctrination. People are saying it is unethical that Disney would support an area of China that is doing these things. Not only that, the starring actress also tweeted in favor of the police in Hong Kong putting down democracy protests.  China is targeting a specific group, the Uigirs, but other citizens have more rights.  So their human rights are not being applied universally. This goes against articles 1-30 of the UDHR. by detaining, imprisoning, and enslaving a group of people ...

          An example of a violation of human rights is Child Slavery within the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Human rights are the basic rights that every human on this earth is entitled to no matter their gender, age, race, or social class. Child Slavery is an example of a violation of the freedom from torture.  The Lord’s Resistance Army was created about twenty years ago and is lead by Joseph Kony. It justifies its horrifying violence by its cultic ideology that states that anyone outside of the LRA is impure and deserves nothing short of death and that severe punishments are the standard for any disloyalty or indiscipline. In the 1990s, the Lord’s Resistance Army is 95% abducted children, the other 5% being senior officers. The LRAs leaders decided that the policy of forced recruitment of children was the best way to grow their following. The children are abducted and then beaten until they submit. The girls are used as cooks, porters, and sexual slav...

  Cidette Rice Mr. Zhou, Mr. Roddy GPHC A 9/28/2020 Features of Human Rights Blog Many Americans involved with politics know that President Trump has been accused of being racist more times than U.S citizens can count. From his avid disapproval of BLM to his ignorance towards Hurricane Maria’s impact on Puerto Rico, the 45th President has made his subtle (and not so subtle) views about people of color quite clear. In one instance, Trump declared executive order 13769, which banned travel to and from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for roughly the first 2 months of 2017. In addition to the travel ban, Trump suspended the U.S Refugees Admission Program for 120 days, and the Syrian Refugees program indefinitely. Most importantly, during this time period, over 60,000 visas were revoked.  Out of the seven countries banned, six countries had over a 95% Muslim population, with Syria, at 70% being the exception. While the order 13769 was executed to prevent terrori...

One persistent example of the violation of human rights is within the fast fashion industry. In recent decades, fast fashion has taken over much of the fashion industry as companies have come to value quick mass-production over quality. This unfortunately is costly for both factory workers’ human rights as well as the environment. Universal: There are an estimated 40 million garment workers in the world today, of which around 85% are women who lack rights and protection. This gender disparity reflects the exploitation of women’s work and infringes on article 3 of the UDHR which states everyone is entitled to without discrimination equal protection of the law. Ethnic minorities and children also form a good part of this workforce and are another reason to question the implementation of this right. Interdependent: These women are often the main source of income for their children and families. They are forced to work in unethical conditions–regularly exposed to chemicals from toxic tex...

Several African countries to this day outlaw homosexuality, while some are even to the same extent as the middle east in terms of criminalization of homosexuality, I'll be focusing on Uganda specifically today. Uganda is particularly problematic because their anti-gay bill was passed as recently as February 2014. There are two types of crimes defined under "gay acts", aggravated homosexuality and the offense of homosexuality. The former is defined as an act of homosexuality where the person who engaged in gay sexual activity is HIV-positive, or a minor, or disabled. The latter is a lot vaguer and spread out, it incriminates those who both recognize and support homosexuality, as well as those who attempt to engage in it. The punishment of which is 10-14 years in prison, with repeat offenders getting life in prison. The punishment for aggravated homosexuality was the death penalty, leading to the bill being known as the 'Kill the Gays' bill. Luckily, the bill only p...

 a basic human right in our democracy is our right to vote. the 2020 election is an interesting one because of the pandemic mail in voting is going to be used more than ever. even though there is no real evidence of fraud with mail in voting, there is a fear that there will be. in fact, people fear that people will be so intimidated that they may stay home and not vote. voting is such an important right that we have and we must exercise it. people really need to vote for this election because it is so polarized. it is my first time to vote and i look forward to my voting experience.  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/us/trump-election-poll-watchers.html

In South Africa, when the all National Party came into power they implemented a combination of policies on segregation both new and old which were collectively known as the movement called Apartheid. Since the people in power were historically white, this forced the nonwhite population of South Africa to live at a disadvantage. Some of the most notable act were the race registration act, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Amendment Act which prohibited sexual relations between whites and nonwhites, and the creation of neighborhoods called Bantustans  which forced blacks onto land with limited funding and resources.  The distribution of rights based on their officially registered race directly violates the universal characteristic of human rights and Article 2 of the UDHR since one racial group was favored over others. If South Africans had universal rights, there wouldn’t be a need to categorize everyone so that they could give the elite minority exclusi...