More is not always better: Human Rights and the Environment in Argentina

The United Nations created a document that contains the 30 basic human rights that countries should guarantee its people. It is the very basic of rights such as no one should be subject to torture or enslavement and that everyone has a right to a nationality. 

Farish Noor talks about eurocentrism, or that idea that people view the world from their own points of view with their cultural background. He encourages people to go beyond this and to engage people from around the world with a new perspective by “appreciate[ing] the different cultural understandings of human rights and liberties”

Environmental issues play into people’s human rights because it impacts how people want to live their lives and how they can, based on the decisions of others. For example, if a government is polluting the air in a country because they are lax on environmental protection laws then people are losing their right to breath clean air. 

Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey’s connected this idea for me to Argentina because she says “faster is not always better and that more is not always enough.” While she wasn’t talking directly about the environment, it reminded me of Argentina’s mindset about industry and deforestation. Because they are so concerned with building up industry to make everything faster and have more of it, that they have basically destroyed native forests in the country. Experts predict the entire country will not have native forests by 2024, so less than 10 years away and that to me is just unthinkable. 

Deforestation in Argentina 

The website Human Rights Watch also talked about the Argentinean government not guaranteeing land rights to indigenous peoples, which to me speaks to how they feel about protecting the environment as well because they are talking away protected lands and from people who treat it with more respect.

Human Rights Watch also notes that Argentina’s human rights track record is sort of mixed. While they do have many protected rights, there are still issues with freedom of the press, police abuse, poor prison conditions, and barriers to reproductive heath products/services. With corruption of the government it does not surprise me that there are issues with freedoms of the press and police abuse. However, I was at first very surprised that they limit reproductive services like abortions. Then I remembered that country is very influenced by the Catholic Church and the Vatican so it makes more sense that the right to have an abortion has been limited based on religious beliefs. 

Graffiti about human rights in Argentina 

I was quite surprised that Argentina doesn’t have a huge amount of human rights violations just based on the overall governmental corruption but perhaps the corruption is more for personal gain and less on limited the rights of Argentineans.