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Human rights

时间:2009-06-16 09:12:16

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(单词翻译)

Jackie:Welcome to bbclearningenglish.com and a second chance to hear Insight Plus - a series first broadcast in 2001 that looks at the language of issues you hear about in the news. Today’s topic is Human rights - do we have a right to freedom, food and shelter? Here’s Lyse Doucet.
Lyse:The world is all too full of injustice1.(不公正) People’s rights are not being respected. And these violations2(违反,违背) are getting more and more coverage3 in the media. Our rights are being denied despite international laws meant to protect us – laws, conventions, charters(执照,宪章)on human rights have existed for centuries but the abuses still exist. In today’s Insight Plus, we’ll look at the language used to report on human rights and gain some insight into how the rights of people around the world are not being respected.
First, let’s listen to part of a report by Richard Hamilton, featured in the BBC World Service radio programme, Analysis. He focuses on the European Convention on Human Rights. But the language in that agreement - that convention, is universal, like the issue of human rights.
Clip
We start just after the 2nd World War. In 1945 Europe was in a mess. Many European cities were destroyed by the bombings, people had suffered greatly. And there were troubling questions about the cruelty, the attrocities that had occurred during the war.   
The worst abuse of human rights was what came to be known as the holocaust4, the genocide of Jews in Nazi5 Germany. So much had been destroyed, but from the ruins, or out of the ashes of post war Europe came a new determination.    
After the Second World War, Europe lay in ruins – devastated(毁坏) by bombs, killings6 and atrocities7.(暴行) But out of the ashes emerged a convention that lawmakers promised meant citizens would never again suffer persecution(迫害)torture(拷问,苦闷), slavery, or discrimination. (歧视)
Lyse:   Immediately after the war, 46 governments came together under the title of The United Nations. The UN declared that the horrors of the Second World War should never be allowed to happen again. Respect for human rights and human dignity(人类尊严) is, it said, “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”
In 1948, The UN created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and shortly afterwards came the European convention. The spirit and principles in both these documents can be found in similar works throughout history - as long ago as 1215, in England’s Magna Carta…in the Declaration of Independence in the United States of America in 1776, and in the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Let’s return to our report on the European Convention of Human Rights. We’ll hear from Keir Starmer, a leading human rights lawyer, on the significance(意义,重要性) of this convention.  
Clip
It’s meant common values across Europe and a common strategy to uphold human rights and make them central in the protection given to individuals from their governments.     
Lyse: Human rights are based on the idea that we have common values, shared ideals such as “all human beings are born free and equal” and “everyone has the right to life and liberty.” These common values are stated clearly in the European Convention.   Here’s Keir Starmer again describing the protection the convention has given to citizens.
Clip
Individuals throughout Europe have relied on the right to liberty to challenge arrest and detention9 on a widespread basis. They’ve relied on the convention to challenge discrimination throughout Europe and they’ve widely relied on freedom of expression to put forward views of minorities as well as majorities.
Lyse: Keir Starmer mentions some rights that are enshrined(入庙奉祀) or permanently10 protected in the European Convention. They include the right to challenge, arrest and detention so we are not punished for things we haven’t done. There’s also our right to freedom of expression – our right to say what we think and feel whether its about religion, politics, or personal matters. That can be especially important when we are part of a minority, when our views are different from the views of the majority of people. 
 In our next clip, we’ll hear some key articles - or points - from the
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They’re read by Eleanor
Roosevelt, the wife of former American President Theodore Roosevelt,
She chaired the group that spent 3 years creating the historic
declaration.      
Clip
(Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Lyse: Human rights are the subject of today’s Insight Plus from the BBC World Service, your guide to the language and background to the stories that stay in the news. Over the years, a large number of laws and charters have been developed based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They’re meant to protect citizens, and to confront human rights violations wherever they occur. 
Around the world countries and regions have written their own
conventions. We’ve heard about the European Convention of Human
Rights. There’s also an American Convention and an African Charter.  
But the report asks whether a global agreement could work.. Some countries argue that certain cultures, for example Islamic nations, may need their own human rights charter. But most experts agree that human rights are universal and should be applied11 around the world. To help achieve that, there have even been attempts to establish an international guide such as The International Covenant12 on Civil and Political Rights, signed in 1966. 
It’s a great goal. But the report reminds us that this lofty(高的,高超的,傲慢的) - or grand, idealistic talk about people’s rights isn’t much much help to people living in the poorest nations. If you’re hungry or don’t have a roof over your head, it’s not much comfort to know you have a basic right to food and shelter. 
Clip
Lofty discussions about civil liberties might seem a long way off for people in many parts of the world where their first concern is to get enough food to survive. The human rights lawyer Kier Starmer says in these cases conventions give more priority to economic rights rather than political ones.
 
Kier Starmer
“These are of primary importance to developing nations who rightly see that civil and political rights, for example, the right to vote the right to education, can only be achieved if there’s a degree of economic prosperity and that ordinary people are educated and have access to their civil and political rights. So that’s why there’s different emphasis. In truth, both sets of rights are indivisible - you can’t have one without the other. There are not many countries that say we need to be fed and therefore we don’t care about freedom of expression, for example. There’s many countries that say in addition to(除。。。之外还) freedom of expression we need to be fed and until we are fed we can’t have true freedom of expression and that’s a very valid13 position for them to take.”
Lyse: As new conventions are prepared, there’s a growing understanding that economic and social conditions must be emphasised if basic human rights are to be respected worldwide. When we speak about human rights, we also look at human wrongs - the abuse of these rights. We often learn about these abuses through organisations which monitor the behaviour of governments and other authorities. There are many national and international human rights organisations. One of most well-known is Amnesty International.  
Let’s listen to a report on human rights abuses, by the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Barnaby Mason. It looks at the violent conflict in the Middle East and at criticism by Amnesty International of the behaviour of both sides - the Israelis and the Palestinians. This short extract contains the kind of language that you often hear in broadcasts about human rights violations.
You’ll hear the expressions - breaking rules, grav(严肃的,庄严的) breach15 and gross violations. They mean the same thing, that rights have been abused and conventions ignored.   And words such as gross and grave tell us the violations are very serious indeed.    
 
Clip
Amnesty International criticises both sides but the weight of its condemnation(谴责,定罪) bears more heavily on Israel. It says the Israeli forces are breaking their own rules as well as international standards laid down in the Geneva Conventions. That lethal16 force must only be used to conter an immediate8 threat to life.
Mr Cordone said Amnesty International condemned17 what apppeared to be random18 Palestinian firing at Jewish settlements, as well as punitive19 Israeli raids mounted after the event to teach a lesson.. Asked whether "war crimes" was the phrase to decribe Israeli actions over the past month, Mr Cordone said there was a pattern of gross human rights violations that might well amount to war crimes. The Geneva Conventions prohibited wilful20 killings, he said, that would be a grave breach and therefore a war crime, though Amnesty could not say that any individual case fell into this category - that was a matter for a tribunal(法官席,法院,法庭)to investigate.  
Lyse:The report says the Geneva Convention has been ignored. Like other human rights conventions, it outlines how people should be treated. But the Geneva Convention applies to the specific circumstances of war. It protects the rights of soldiers captured by the enemy and also the rights of the sick and wounded. It’s there to remind warring groups that even in the middle of a conflict, individuals must be treated fairly and humanely(富人情的,慈悲的)
You also heard the term tribunal. It’s a committee or group of people with legal powers to establish whether serious abuses were committed during wartime. For example, the International War Crimes Tribunal investigates accusations21 such as genocide - or mass murder during the Balkans Conflict. Indicted22 individals charged with such war crimes are put on trial. There’s also a similar tribunal for Rwanda based in East Africa. These tribunals emphasise14 that individuals responsible for the gravest crimes must be punished. Only then can the UN Declaration on Human Rights achieve its goal – that atrocities must not be allowed to happen again.
Today on Insight Plus we’ve heard about the importance of respecting the basic human rights of every individual. We also heard how many international and national conventions on human rights have been established to try to safeguard our rights and prevent their abuse, even in times of war. 
But we have also been reminded that talk of basic human rights, such as the right to food and shelter, provides little comfort to the poorest who are hungry and homeless. To achieve universal respect for human rights, there must also be attention to the different conditions in which people live. 
(本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑)

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1 injustice O45yL     
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利
参考例句:
  • They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
  • All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。
2 violations 403b65677d39097086593415b650ca21     
违反( violation的名词复数 ); 冒犯; 违反(行为、事例); 强奸
参考例句:
  • This is one of the commonest traffic violations. 这是常见的违反交通规则之例。
  • These violations of the code must cease forthwith. 这些违犯法规的行为必须立即停止。
3 coverage nvwz7v     
n.报导,保险范围,保险额,范围,覆盖
参考例句:
  • There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
  • This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。
4 holocaust dd5zE     
n.大破坏;大屠杀
参考例句:
  • The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
  • Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀,因为他像希特勒一样残忍。
5 Nazi BjXyF     
n.纳粹分子,adj.纳粹党的,纳粹的
参考例句:
  • They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻,并出面求和。
  • Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。
6 killings 76d97e8407f821a6e56296c4c9a9388c     
谋杀( killing的名词复数 ); 突然发大财,暴发
参考例句:
  • His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
  • The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。
7 atrocities 11fd5f421aeca29a1915a498e3202218     
n.邪恶,暴行( atrocity的名词复数 );滔天大罪
参考例句:
  • They were guilty of the most barbarous and inhuman atrocities. 他们犯有最野蛮、最灭绝人性的残暴罪行。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The enemy's atrocities made one boil with anger. 敌人的暴行令人发指。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
8 immediate aapxh     
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的
参考例句:
  • His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
  • We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。
9 detention 1vhxk     
n.滞留,停留;拘留,扣留;(教育)留下
参考例句:
  • He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
  • He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。
10 permanently KluzuU     
adv.永恒地,永久地,固定不变地
参考例句:
  • The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
  • The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。
11 applied Tz2zXA     
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。
12 covenant CoWz1     
n.盟约,契约;v.订盟约
参考例句:
  • They refused to covenant with my father for the property.他们不愿与我父亲订立财产契约。
  • The money was given to us by deed of covenant.这笔钱是根据契约书付给我们的。
13 valid eiCwm     
adj.有确实根据的;有效的;正当的,合法的
参考例句:
  • His claim to own the house is valid.他主张对此屋的所有权有效。
  • Do you have valid reasons for your absence?你的缺席有正当理由吗?
14 emphasise emphasise     
vt.加强...的语气,强调,着重
参考例句:
  • What special feature do you think I should emphasise? 你认为我该强调什么呢?
  • The exercises heavily emphasise the required readings.练习非常强调必须的阅读。
15 breach 2sgzw     
n.违反,不履行;破裂;vt.冲破,攻破
参考例句:
  • We won't have any breach of discipline.我们不允许任何破坏纪律的现象。
  • He was sued for breach of contract.他因不履行合同而被起诉。
16 lethal D3LyB     
adj.致死的;毁灭性的
参考例句:
  • A hammer can be a lethal weapon.铁锤可以是致命的武器。
  • She took a lethal amount of poison and died.她服了致命剂量的毒药死了。
17 condemned condemned     
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
  • The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。
18 random HT9xd     
adj.随机的;任意的;n.偶然的(或随便的)行动
参考例句:
  • The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
  • On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查,发现肉变质了。
19 punitive utey6     
adj.惩罚的,刑罚的
参考例句:
  • They took punitive measures against the whole gang.他们对整帮人采取惩罚性措施。
  • The punitive tariff was imposed to discourage tire imports from China.该惩罚性关税的征收是用以限制中国轮胎进口的措施。
20 wilful xItyq     
adj.任性的,故意的
参考例句:
  • A wilful fault has no excuse and deserves no pardon.不能宽恕故意犯下的错误。
  • He later accused reporters of wilful distortion and bias.他后来指责记者有意歪曲事实并带有偏见。
21 accusations 3e7158a2ffc2cb3d02e77822c38c959b     
n.指责( accusation的名词复数 );指控;控告;(被告发、控告的)罪名
参考例句:
  • There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
  • He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。
22 indicted 4fe8f0223a4e14ee670547b1a8076e20     
控告,起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The senator was indicted for murder. 那位参议员被控犯谋杀罪。
  • He was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of murder. 他被大陪审团以两项谋杀罪名起诉。

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