Blog Post 4

 

Bishop, J. (2012). The Limits of Corporate Human Rights Obligations and the Rights of For- Profit Corporations. Business Ethics Quarterly, 22(1), 119-144.

This article summarizes how legal rights are given to cooperation causing them to undertaking human rights. This becomes a problem because cooperation’s are supposed to respect human rights .However, these cooperation’s have been abusing and substituting legal rights. The article explains the legal obligation and implications regarding human rights.

Corporations are held to obey a variety of human rights with regards to their employees, as governments are to their citizens. Bishop, the author, states clearly that the straight forward approach is that “if humans do in fact have human rights, then all agents that are capable of doing so have obligations to respect those rights” (p. 121-122.) The way this can be applied to my conflict is that the “all agents” part of the above quote can be applied to the government and the regulations on 3D printed items. In a way, this can be seen as an interference with the rights of creative freedom, rights to bear arms, and rights to the freedom of speech. However, Bishop also states that human rights were not designed with corporations in mind, but with individuals. Even though this is true, this does not mean that governments are exempt from obeying these given rights to speech, creativity, and to bear arms.

This article ties into the Monsanto vs. Farmers conflict because is describes how cooperations should govern and obey human rights and essentially, the Monsanto wheat company does not do this because they violate the human rights as they sell genetically modified planting seeds for crops and meats. The article also argues that human rights where designed not regarding cooperations, but individuals. Therefore, farmers because they are individuals, have the right to grow crops without inference of cooperations. This article can be used in defense of the fact that farmers have to use Monsanto seeds in order to progressively grow crops. However this also contradicts because although farmer have the right to grow their own “natural crops”, if cooperations are given human rights they somewhat have power to interfee especially if Monsanto is claiming to better the world.

K.N

J.L

Blog Post 4

Tir, J. (2010). Territorial Diversion: Diversionary Theory of War and Territorial Conflict. Journal Of Politics, 72(2), 413-425.

The article “Territorial Diversion: Diversionary Theory of War and Territorial Conflict” explains the relationship between civilians and land and the relationship between a leader or government and land. Diversionary activity is mentioned as a way for governments to gain civilian loyalty during a territorial dispute. According to Tir, government leaders can mask their true intentions for control by manipulating and appealing to the public.

The Dokdo/Takeshima islets dispute somewhat relates to this article. The South Korean government has stationed South Korean soldiers on the islets in order to show the citizens of Korea that they are the true owners of Dokdo/Takeshima. There are no bad intentions to mask, however, as the South Korean government’s reason behind stationing soldiers on the islets is to provoke Japan, a nation which historically does not get along with South Korea, and promote nationalism amongst South Korean citizens. Tir’s article discusses territorial disputes between corrupt governments and unsatisfied citizens. The Dokdo/Takeshima conflict does not really follow along with Tir’s description of a traditional territorial dispute.

 

This article is almost the exact opposite of what is happening in the Syrian civil war. This article talks about creating diversions in order to gain civilian loyalty, specifically land disputes, however in the case of Syria there is almost no civilian loyalty to the government. In addition, the government shows no interest in what the people think. This civil war is solely based on government versus the people, not territory, but power.

 

Kat Platt and Kelly Green