Human Rights as an International Issue

Human rights currently constitute an issue of great concern. Several conditions, resulting from cumulative postwar developments and the current political situation, account for the present change in attitude toward human rights. They are (1) institutional developments of the past forty years; (2) the growth of citizen human rights organizations; (3) decline in superpower involvement in international and regional military conflicts; (4) the current focus of national leaders on human rights; and (5) significant political changes in the most abusive nations. This article focuses on the change in the conceptualization of human rights in Latin America and the Soviet Union and the current priority given in these areas to the issue of human rights. It also focuses on the utility of the human rights issue for these countries. The dynamics in the human rights arena have changed in the 1980s, but there is no guarantee that the present conditions will continue.