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The Zimbabwean situation from a human rights perspective
Brian Penduka, Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum
July 07, 2006

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Introduction
This paper seeks to highlight the Human Rights situation in Zimbabwe. It is not the intention of the writer to create a bleak picture of the situation in Zimbabwe, but to aid the audience (which it is assumed is made up predominately of Zimbabweans living in Zimbabwe) to come up with some sort of understanding and appreciation of the situation given the discourse of International Human Rights as it stands at the moment. The analysis of the Zimbabwean situation will be largely based on the Amnesty International Report on Zimbabwe. This paper shall be presented in three parts to allow for a more holistic understanding of the concept of human rights as these relate to the Zimbabwean situation. The paper shall therefore be structured thus;

• Human rights as a concept;
• Zimbabwe’s international obligations; and
• Human rights situation in zimbabwe.

Human rights as a concept

History of universal human rights - up to WW2¹
Human rights is a concept that has been constantly evolving throughout human history.² It has over the years been intricately tied to the laws, customs and religions throughout the ages.

It was in ancient Greece where the concept of human rights began to take a greater meaning than the prevention of arbitrary persecution. Human rights became synonymous with natural rights, rights that spring from natural law. According to the Greek tradition of Socrates and Plato, natural law is law that reflects the natural order of the universe, essentially the will of the gods who control nature.³ This idea of natural rights continued in ancient Rome, where the Roman jurist Ulpian believed that natural rights belonged to every person, whether they were a Roman citizen or not.

Despite this principle, there are fundamental differences between human rights today and natural rights of the past. For example, it was seen as perfectly natural to keep slaves, and such a practice goes counter to the ideas of freedom and equality that we associate with human rights today. In the middle ages and later the renaissance, the decline in power of the church led society to place more of an emphasis on the individual, which in turn caused the shift away from feudal and monarchist societies, letting individual expression flourish.

The next fundamental philosophy of human rights arose from the idea of positive law. Thomas Hobbes, (1588-1679) saw natural law as being very vague and hollow and too open to vast differences of interpretation. Therefore under positive law, instead of human rights being absolute, they can be given, taken away, and modified by a society to suit its needs. Jeremy Bentham, another legal positivist sums up the essence of the positivist view:-

The doctrines of human rights that we now have are direct descendants of this thinking as it was further developed by the following declarations;-

A human right is 'natural' in that every one owns them, not because they are subject to any particular system of law or religious or political administration. They can be asserted against individuals, but they express the political objective: that governments must respect, protect and promote them.

The greatest 20th century statements of 'natural' or human rights can be dated to 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This preceded a range of international Conventions, Covenants, Declarations and other treaties that have followed the tradition. Most came from the United Nations. But other groups have also adopted human rights standards. The European community, for example, has adopted a Convention on Human Rights. The African Union has the African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. Many nations have incorporated rights into their national constitutions - acknowledging that the rights exist, not that they are created by their laws.⁵

The most common 'universal' rights are the right to life; to freedom; to own property (limiting where government may intrude); citizenship rights (voting, nationality and participation in public life); rights to standards of good behaviour by governments (or protection of the rule of law), and social, economic and cultural rights. The latter have become important during the 20th century, and raise important and still controversial issues about social justice and the distribution of wealth.

Universal human rights are, historically, the flower of what was originally a European plant. They have now received the support of world nations. Respect for human rights is becoming a universal principle of good government.

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1. Extracted from a literary paper by Moira Rayner
2. One of the first examples of a codification of laws that contain references to individual rights is the tablet of Hammurabi. The tablet was created by the Sumerian king Hammurabi about 4000 years ago. While considered barbaric by today's standards, the system of 282 laws created a precedent for a legal system. This kind of precedent and legally binding document protects the people from arbitrary persecution and punishment.
3. A classic example of this occurs in Greek literature, when Creon reproaches Antigone for defying his command to not bury her dead brother, and she replies that she acted under the laws of the gods.
4. J.Bentham, Anarchichical Follies, quotes in N.Kinsella, "Tomorrow's Rights in the Mirror of History" in G. Gall, ed., Civil Liberties in Canada (Toronto: Butterworths, 1982), p.17.)
5. Reference is made to the Chapter III of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

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