Panel Discussion Report
Overview of The Point Discussed
The United Nation Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not only the paper of documentation but it is a historical proclaiming that allows all human kinds to understand, defend, promote and act their rights universally (OHCHR, 2013). As a result, government, institutions and individuals come up with an agreement to obligate upon their responsibilities in promoting equality, freedom and respect for mans in the world with dignity.
Civil Organization (2011) defines article 6 “You have rights no matter where you go” of fundamental human rights as “the rights of humans which are not constrained by border, and fundamental rights are recognized at anywhere and anytime before the law”. As a matter of fact that the recognition comes to a point that local citizens and foreigners have no boundary to enjoy in getting benefits from their fundamental rights such as rights to life, security and healthcare and so on. However, there are also differences between fundamental human rights and constitutional rights, therefore, foreigners and local citizens are not entitled rights in the same way. To protect foreigners’ rights, the existence of international laws plays vital roles in protecting their rights.
It can be seen that the rights of article 6 has been contradicted in some places in the world as well. Also, the existing problems of rights are extremely significant because they emerge a lot of social, economic, political, and humanitarian issues as have shown in the pictures of violence, discrimination and especially, unequal treatment in the society. Furthermore, the contributing factors of the contradiction are described with the aspects of cultures and government policy. In response to that, NGOs, human rights watchers and Civil Society Organizations have put their vast effort to reduce the problems of rights in local and international stage and too, to bring about peaceful and harmony society for the world.
Process
Planning
Form a group of five members and choose a moderator who is capable to submit the panel discussion proposal in time and guide the panel presentation effectively.
Choose the topic for the discussion from the two weeks lecture notes, one is about civil society and another one is about human rights.
Putting the thoughts to address an interesting and relevant topic for audiences from the notes, at the same time all members should be capable to deliver their critical thinking and ideas along with the topic chosen.
There are alternative topics come across each members’ mind, the topics are “charity or skill development”, “volunteerism in civil society”, and “You have rights no matter where you”.
The decision making stage arrived at an agreement to choose the topic “You have rights no matter where you go” by aiming to discuss and provide information about human rights, the related and current issues of rights violation, and roles of NGOs in helping society to understand their rights and others’ rights. Then the moderator prepares, compiles, and submits the proposal to lecturer.
Each panelist decides what they want to talk, since the topic’s outlook is categorized into three dimensions such as recognition, contradiction and factors affecting the implementation of the rights. Also each panelist takes charge to answer two questions that will be questioned by moderator.
I am the moderator of the panel presentation. Our group presentation is started with few discussions with all panelists since we aimed to develop the sub points to discuss for the three main dimensions under the panel topic.
The subject matters of the topic were to provide the audience a perceiving of the benefits of promoting rights and also to indicate the existed problems of violating the human rights.
Point of agreement and disagreement in the group
There are two members agree to stand on the recognition part about article #6 “You have rights no matter where you go”, with the position that this right is obviously been entitled to everyone who is human being. The rights mentioned in article #6 are the rest 29 rights in The UN universal declaration of human rights. Indeed, the rights they agreed are more on fundamental rights. In addition, there are also some countries which provide almost the same rights that local citizens have to foreigners.
However, other two panelists disagree towards the recognition of article 6 with the facts and the situations that there are a lot of restrictions to foreigners’ rights than local citizens’. In this case, the panelist presented the problems regarding equal treatment in certain areas such as employment, security and discrimination. What is more, the factors are derived from culture and government policy which were discussed by the forth panelist.
Resolution
The resolution in the discussion is to put our team stand on recognizing the rights meaning to recognize article 6. On the other hand, to clarify to audiences that there are certain sectors which the contradictory ideas are useful for the group to present because it implies that not every place in the world recognized and implemented the universal human rights correctly. Furthermore, we come to set up a motion to embed the message that the rights issues can be happened in any places if the wisdom of promoting and protecting the right is low.
Implementation/Execution
Satisfactions or the strengths of the resolution
Our group planned to conduct the presentation with one round discussion so that the dimensions that we are going to discuss will not mess up and time could be well managed.
All members get clear direction on what to talk regarding the prepared questions from the moderator. And we come into the common conclusion as the message to provide the sense of promoting and protecting the human rights.
Each group member can prepare good sources for their speech, including their interesting and amazing personal experience as a foreigner and a citizen of specific nation. Together come with positive conclusion, and satisfies their roles during the presentation.
Dissatisfaction and Weaknesses
The discussion part about international laws is tough as we do not have much and clear root of information.
Members did not come to the meeting together due to schedule clashes, while meeting few points are discussed with short period of time.
Each panelist is totally independent; they did not help one another when ones encountered problems of seeking reference and ideas to talk.
Learning/Reflection of Panel Discussion
Informative Speech
Our group topic was about human rights mainly stressed on the importance of the right “You have no matter where you go”. We found it is really interesting and beneficial for the listeners as the fact that we do not know well what our rights are and we believed the audience might have had encountered the situation of right violation when they travel to other countries. By going through many processes until the actual presentation, I realized more about volunteerism, since it is the first time I volunteered to become the moderator. Also, it was good chance to discover teamwork, information sharing, and collective decision making to arise a point that everyone is satisfy.
This discussion could be a good introduction and informative talk for the reason that it gathered positive and negative sides of actual practices in accepting universal human rights.
During the panel discussion presentation, our group had examined and elaborated on three dimensions of the practices of Article #6 “You have rights no matter where you go” of human rights. I introduce the panelists and topic to audiences, which at the same time I did learn to guide the panel, control my fear, be interactive with audiences and conclude the panel with subject matter of the discussion.
The first and second panelist decided to talk about the recognition to the rights and the other two panelists had given their ideas on the contradiction as well as the factors that influence the exercising of the article 6. The recognition of the rights indicates the elaboration on foreign and local citizens as well as the international laws which are protecting foreigners’ rights. The next one panelist talked about the contradictions to say that article #6 is implemented entirely in the societies. And the last panelist talked about the factors influence the practices of the rights as well as the unforgettable roles of NGOs and other Civil Society Organizations that stay forefront to protect and promote human rights. All members planned to presents their points into accurate and informative ways by taken the sources from their personal experiences, critical thinking, and research analyses.
We ended our panel discussion within 25 minutes and we had spare 5 minutes for the question session from the floor.
Handling Questions
We also handled with 2 questions from audiences, first is about the opening video which one audience asked if the violent actions to a foreigner in the video happened in real life. As the moderator, I provided the answer that that kind of situation is a fact based on what happened in Cambodia not long time ago that several Cambodian laborers who go to work in neighbor country, some are tortured and some are killed without any legal judgment.
The next question is answered by Dolma and Sharifa just to clarify and elaborate more on their points mentioned during the discussion.
Conclusion
In short, having a topic about human rights had encouraged me to study and understand further about the fundamental rights which are entitled to human beings. There are big amount of knowledge, learning experience and crucial information which I can attain during my research, rehearsal, and discussion with the panelists. Especially, the core ideas I received is that human is rights, hence, we have to recognize one’s rights and other’s rights since it is the fact that we are human kinds who live in one same world and breath the same air. Moreover, education about human rights is very important as to generate awareness about the rights and to take actions to protect the right, and then hopefully we could possibly solve some of the problems related to human rights.
Reference
OHCHR. (2013). Human Rights. Retrieved June 13, 2013, from United Nation: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/ListOfIssues.aspx
Civil Organization. (2011, December 11). You Have Rights No Matter Where You Go! Retrieved June 13, 2013, from Civil: http://civil.org.mk/you-have-rights-no-matter-where-you-go/
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