Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Shunning Disadvantage 1
Shunning Disadvantage
Explanations
Debating the Shunning Disadvantage ......................................................................................................................................2
Negative 1NC
1NC Shunning DA ................................................................................................................................................................4 1NC Cuba Link .....................................................................................................................................................................7 1NC Mexico Link .................................................................................................................................................................8 1NC Venezuela Link ............................................................................................................................................................9
2NC/1NR Extensions
They Say: Cubas Record Not Extreme .............................................................................................................................. 10 They Say: Mexicos Record Not Extreme .......................................................................................................................... 11 They Say: Venezuelas Record Not Extreme ..................................................................................................................... 13 They Say: Human Rights Watch Bad ................................................................................................................................. 15 They Say: Case Outweighs ................................................................................................................................................ 16 They Say: Weigh Consequences ........................................................................................................................................ 18 They Say: Shunning Immoral ............................................................................................................................................. 19 They Say: No Morality Decision Rule ................................................................................................................................ 20
1AR Extensions
Extend: Cubas Record Not Flagrant ................................................................................................................................. 28 Extend: Mexicos Record Not Flagrant .............................................................................................................................. 29 Extend: Venezuelas Record Not Flagrant ......................................................................................................................... 30 They Cite: Human Rights Watch ........................................................................................................................................... 31 Extend: Weigh Consequences ........................................................................................................................................... 32 Extend: Shunning Immoral ................................................................................................................................................ 33 Extend: No Morality D-Rule .............................................................................................................................................. 34
Shunning Disadvantage 2
Affirmative Answers:
The affirmative can raise threads in two basic categories to respond to the Shunning DA: First, the affirmative can argue that an evaluation of consequences is the best way to determine the merits of a proposed policy. If the benefits of the policy outweigh its costs, the policy should be enacted the case outweighs the disadvantage. This category of responses also includes arguments about the relationship between morality and national policymaking as well as arguments questioning the effectiveness of shunning as a human rights strategy. Second, the affirmative can argue that the nation with which they propose engagement is not a flagrant, willful, and persistent violator of human rights. For each country, there is a robust debate about their human rights record; both the facts and interpretations of the facts are debatable. Affirmatives can argue that the negative's criticism of these nations' human rights records is biased and based on a particular Western conception of rights that can't be universally applied.
Key Terms:
Consequentialism Consequentialism is a class of ethical theories that assesses the morality of an action based on the action's consequences, not the action itself or the intentions that motivated it. In debates, the negative will argue that consequentialism is an undesirable ethical framework because engagement with human rights abusers is always immoral. In response, the affirmative will defend consequentialism as a superior framework for assessing the merits of proposed policies. Deontology Deontology is a class of ethical theories that assesses the morality of an action based on the action's adherence to one ore more rules, not based on the consequences of the action. In debates, the negative will defend a deontological view of ethics by arguing that human rights abusers should always be shunned. In response, the affirmative will argue that deontology is an undesirable moral framework because it fails to consider the consequences of strictly following the rules it establishes. Human Rights Human rights are the inalienable rights to which every person is inherently entitled simply because he or she is a human being. While there is substantial disagreement about the particulars, there is a great deal of consensus about the basic set of rights that should be universally recognized. Documents like the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights codify human rights in international law. In debates, the negative will argue that human rights are so important that those who violate them must be shunned.
Shunning Disadvantage 3
Shunning Disadvantage 4
Shunning Disadvantage 5
Shunning Disadvantage 6
Shunning Disadvantage 7
Shunning Disadvantage 8
Shunning Disadvantage 9
Shunning Disadvantage 10
Political imprisonment is widespread and denies basic rights. HRW 13 Human Rights Watch, 2013 (Universal Periodic Review: HRW Submission on Cuba, 16th Universal Periodic
Review, May, Available Online at http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/18/universal-periodic-review-hrw-submissioncuba, Accessed 07-03-2013) In line with the rejection by the Cuban government of the recommendation to halt the prosecution of citizens who are exercising the rights guaranteed under articles 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 of the UDHR, Cubans who dare to criticize the government risk criminal charges which is in clear contradiction with Cubas international human rights obligations and will not enjoy due process guarantees , such as the right to fair and public hearings by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. In practice, courts are subordinated to the executive and legislative branches, thus denying meaningful judicial protection . Political prisoners are routinely denied parole after completing the minimum required sentence as punishment for refusing to participate in ideological activities such as reeducation classes. Dozens of political prisoners remain in Cuban prisons, according to respected human rights groups on the island. These groups estimate there are many more political prisoners whose cases they cannot document because the government does not allow independent national or international human rights groups to access its prisons.
10
Shunning Disadvantage 11
11
Shunning Disadvantage 12
12
Shunning Disadvantage 13
13
Shunning Disadvantage 14
14
Shunning Disadvantage 15
15
Shunning Disadvantage 16
Let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved . . . . For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. n3 That we are all fundamentally the same , all human, all with the same dignity and rights , is at the core of the most important document to come out of World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the two treaties that followed it (together known as the "International Bill of Rights"). n4 The recognition of universal human rights, based on human dignity and equality as well as the principle of nondiscrimination, is fundamental to the development of a species consciousness. As Daniel Lev of Human Rights Watch/Asia said in 1993, shortly before the Vienna Human Rights Conference: Whatever else may separate them, human beings belong to a single biological species , the simplest and most fundamental commonality before which the significance of human differences quickly fades. . . . We are all capable, in exactly the same ways, of feeling pain, hunger, [*153] and a hundred kinds of deprivation. Consequently, people nowhere routinely concede that those with enough power to do so ought to be able to kill , torture , imprison , and generally abuse others. . . . The idea of universal human rights shares the recognition of one common humanity , and provides a minimum solution to deal with its miseries. n5 Membership in the human species is central to the meaning and enforcement of human rights, and respect for basic human rights is essential for the survival of the human species . The development of the concept of "crimes against humanity" was a milestone for universalizing human rights in that it recognized that there were certain actions , such as slavery and genocide , that implicated the welfare of the entire species and therefore merited universal condemnation . n6 Nuclear weapons were immediately seen as a technology that required international control, as extreme genetic manipulations like cloning and inheritable genetic alterations have come to be seen today. In fact, cloning and inheritable genetic alterations can be seen as crimes against humanity of a unique sort: they are techniques that can alter the essence of humanity itself (and thus threaten to change the foundation of human rights) by taking human evolution into our own hands and directing it toward the development of a new species, sometimes termed the "posthuman." n7 It may be that species-altering techniques, like cloning and inheritable genetic modifications, could provide benefits to the human species in extraordinary circumstances. For example, asexual genetic replication could potentially save humans from extinction if all humans were rendered sterile by some catastrophic event. But no such necessity currently exists or is on the horizon.
16
Shunning Disadvantage 17
17
Shunning Disadvantage 18
Isaac is wronghe overreaches on realism. Steger 2 Manfred B. Steger, Associate Professor of Politics & Government at Illinois State University, holds a Ph.D. in
Political Science from Rutgers University, 2002 (Ends, Means, and the Politics of Dissent: Reply to Jeffrey C. Isaac, Dissent, Volume 49, Issue 2, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via EBSCOhost, p. 74-75) Idealizing Realist Politics Another reason for the systemic distortion and marginalization of the campus lefts pacifism is the widespread idealization of so-called realist politics. Throughout his article, Isaac adopts the questionable metaphysical assumptions that underlie the realist paradigm: In the best of all imaginable worlds, it might be possible to defeat alQaeda without using force and without dealing with corrupt regimes and political forces like the Northern Alliance. But [end page 74] in this world it is not possible. And this, alas, is the only world that exists. Note how Isaac claims for himself the same omniscient vantage point that he so dislikes in the campus left. This arrogant spirit of ontological absolutism pervades his essay. Here is another example: To accomplish anything in the political world, one must attend to the means that are necessary to bring it about. Of course, having defined what counts as the political world, Isaac employs the term necessary to imply war-like activities. In short, the only way to fight terrorism is to declare a large-scale war on it, thus fighting violence with greater violence. Anybody challenging Isaacs conclusions or his underlying realist metaphysics is nave , unpragmatic , vague , irrational , an accomplice of terrorism, andthis is my favorite charge out of touch with the preoccupations and opinions of the vast majority of Americans. Isaacs cheap rhetorical appeal to common sense, is, indeed, an embarrassing move for an intellectual descendent of the gadfly Socrates who contributes regularly to a progressive magazine titled Dissent.
18
Shunning Disadvantage 19
Sanctions are ethical necessary to protect the moral order. He 11 Wei He, holds L.L.B.s in Law from the University of Bristol and the University of International Business and
Economics, 2011 (Can International Sanctions in Foreign Policy be Ethical?, e-International Relations, August 27th, Available Online at http://www.e-ir.info/2011/08/27/can-%E2%80%98international-sanctions%E2%80%99-in-foreignpolicy-be-ethical/, Accessed 07-22-2013) This minimal convergence area, which is the respect for peoples right to live, is where international morality lies, and is also the source of legitimacy for international sanctions . If the government of a state is unable to guarantee its peoples right to live, the international sanctions imposed on the government can be deemed ethical . This argument reaches the same point as the notion of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which is best demonstrated in the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document which states that [e] Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, and the international community are prepared to take collective action if the state fails to do so (UN, 2005). However, the application of ethical international sanctions is not only limited to the range of the R2P. When the targeted government not only deprives its own people of the right to live, but also threatens such rights of people in other nations, the international sanctions are still ethical. In this sense, international sanctions are a valuable instrument in international efforts to safeguard peace and security (Sweden Government, no date). If peace and security can be achieved, the peoples right to live in the world will be guaranteed, which meets exactly the international moral requirement mentioned above.
19
Shunning Disadvantage 20
State moral agency is needed to address global challenges. Erskine 1 Toni Erskine, Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, Honorary Professor of Global
Ethics at RMIT University, holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, 2001 (Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents: The Case of States and Quasi-States, Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 15, Issue 2, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Wiley, p. 83) First, if only individuals, and never institutions, are seen to be moral agents, the possibility of assigning responsibility for some actions is lost . The United States can respond to acute environmental crises by upholding the conditions of the Kyoto conventionwhether or not it chooses to do sowhile the individual citizen cannot . The same citizen might have a duty to live in a way that is environmentally responsible, but she has neither the scope nor the power to coordinate and enforce systemic changes in how goods are produced, consumed, and disposed of. As ONeill maintains, If ethical reasoning is accessible only to individuals , its meagre help with global problems should not surprise us.46
20
Shunning Disadvantage 21
21
Shunning Disadvantage 22
22
Shunning Disadvantage 23
23
Shunning Disadvantage 24
24
Shunning Disadvantage 25
25
Shunning Disadvantage 26
26
Shunning Disadvantage 27
27
Shunning Disadvantage 28
28
Shunning Disadvantage 29
29
Shunning Disadvantage 30
30
Shunning Disadvantage 31
31
Shunning Disadvantage 32
32
Shunning Disadvantage 33
33
Shunning Disadvantage 34
34