Human and Animal rights - Daniela Fernandez

Human Rights are a modern term for all those rights that must be respected in every human being. It is commonly said that these rights are not established by law, but recognized by it. Because these rights are part of human existence, we are born with these groups of rights, and a law´s function is only to make them be respected. The list of current human rights can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration was adopted by United Nations in 1948, so every country, that constitutes the international community, should adopt them in their legal systems. As human rights are accepted in regional legislation, they´ll be called: fundamental rights. In Costa Rica, fundamental rights are found in its Political Constitution, as well as in every law or code related to them, specifically the Penal Code.

Some human rights background comes from the Second World War, when many people were killed in violent ways. Those crimes, such as torture and homicide, are precisely the ones that human rights pretend to avoid. But, not only those extreme cases are regulated; this declaration contemplates so many other aspects such as:  Life, security, liberty, no slavery or servitude, the right to be recognized as a person, equality before the law, no discrimination, etc. You may think why are those basic rights regulated? Well, although they might seem obvious for us, the truth is that in some oriental countries they are not respected at all, but even closer to us, in the United States, this declaration is not ratified because they agree with death penalty in some states. The fact that some country signs and ratifies the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, gives to its nation the security that their State will struggle to protect their most basic rights. Through history, human being has become the worst enemy of its own kind, so human rights arrived as an opportunity to regulate this, and find a more peaceful living style. Respecting human rights means to respect human kind and it introduces a better way of problems solving.

On the other hand, the condition of animals nowadays is a serious topic in almost every country of the world. Costa Rica is not the exception, in our country the people who worked in the environmental area fight in favor of the animal rights; they obtain too many regulations, one of these was a decree in SENASA (Sistema Nacional de Salud Animal), N° 7451 “Ley de bienestar de los animales”; we as humans need to have more conscience about the animals and we have to obey the rules that responsible people set in favor of animals.

Sometimes, many people attack animals because they feel in danger and in some cases they don´t want to hurt them, but the worst situation comes when people kill the animals. Occasionally when people try to protect themselves is when the animal is wild. Then, when the authorities found the animal they realize that it was an endangered animal. And here is the bad situation; they cannot do anything because the creature is dead. The only “solution” is to inform and make the community aware of the problem, and also ask for help.

There are a lot of disputes around the Globe between human civilizations. I think that if we cannot tolerate the same “race” we are not able to follow the regulation in favor of animals. As in every kind of subject, there are people in favor and against it. The key here is to try to give some reasons to the people in favor of the rights either human or animal. And we could have a better place to live if we learn to take on the laws for every “heart” in the Earth.