Notably, the largest protest in American history (15 to 26 million people participated). After the death of black man George Floyd 178 , protesters rioted, set fire to businesses, churches, police cars, smashed and looted supermarkets and stores across major cities. According to the New York Post (June 4, 2020), in Minneapolis alone, about 220 buildings were set on fire, causing at least $55 million in property damage and stolen property 179 . According to Fox News, this protest quickly spread throughout America, Asia, Europe, Australia 180 . The right to freedom of assembly and the right to protest are basic human rights. However, these rights are being exploited by bad elements to cause social unrest, causing countries to face political instability. There were cases where after the election, the losing side raised protests to seize power with the created excuse that the election was fraudulent, and that they would seize power no matter what . 181 This situation is a wake-up call for the world to reconsider the scope and rationality of these complex Rights.
3.3.3.5. Environmental destruction
The world's rapidly growing population, coupled with the enormous human consumption demands, is pushing our planet into an increasingly serious "ecological debt". Every year, humans consume 1.7 times more resources than the Earth can provide182, leading to many consequences such as lack of clean water, desertification, soil erosion, declining agricultural productivity, declining seafood reserves, depleted forests, and the disappearance of many animal species.
To serve the needs of life, people use water for farming, livestock raising and manufacturing industrial products, resulting in 70% of fresh water resources and 2/3 of
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178 Spreading to more than 650 cities and 50 states to fight racism in Minneapolis, USA. Refer to the article: Anti-racism protests spread in Europe and North Africa , People's Police Newspaper online, website: http://cand.com.vn/The-gioi-24h/Bieu-tinh-chong-ky-thi-chung-toc-lan-rong-o-chau-Au-va-Bac-Phi-598171/ , accessed on March 6, 2021 .
179 Quoted from https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/george-floyd/damage-from-fires-vandalism-in-
minneapolis-at-55-million-and-counting/89-09073537-2473-4604-a17c-9fc3b5f3430b, accessed March 5, 2021. 180 See “Ethnic conflict: America is immersed in a spiral of violence”, Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper , No. 122 (5892), June 3, 2020, p. 16.
181 Tens of thousands of Belarus protesters marched through the streets of the capital Minsk on September 6, 2020, calling for
President Alexander Lukashenko resigns. Nearly a month after an election that the opposition accused of fraud, large-scale protests in Belarus show no signs of abating. See “Belarusians continue protests demanding the president’s resignation”, The VietNam Post , No. 1475, published on September 11, 2020, p. 4, website: https://thevietnampost.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SecA-2.pdf, accessed on June 25, 2021.
182 Cited https://www.footprintnetwork.org/2018/07/23/earth-overshoot-day-2018-is-august-1-the- earliest-date-since-ecological-overshoot-started-in-the -early-1970s-2/ , accessed March 5, 2021.
The total number of rivers in the world is gradually drying up 183 . It is predicted that by 2030, about 60 countries will be in a state of severe water shortage. In the world, about 2.1 billion people do not have clean water and 4.5 billion people do not have safe sanitation 184 . Every year, 3.6 million people die from diseases caused by polluted water 185 . The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warns that by 2025, 1.8 billion people are expected to live in countries or regions with “absolute” water scarcity and two-thirds of the world's population could be in a state of “stress” 186 . Severe environmental destruction is an ongoing and dangerous phenomenon. The cause is found to be that humans have exploited the environment to serve their lives of enjoying too many conveniences.
The alarming thing is that deforestation is becoming increasingly serious, threatening the life of the planet. Over the past three decades (from 1990 to 2020), the global forest area has decreased by 178 million hectares (equivalent to the area of Libya187 , 5.3 times larger than the area of Vietnam). According to a report based on satellite data from Global Forest Watch, from 2010 to 2020, a total of 257.4 million hectares of tree cover were lost globally188, seriously threatening the lives of billions of people. On January 13, 2021, a report by the World Wildlife Fund showed the worrying reality that in the past decade alone, more than 43 million hectares of forest (larger than the area of Germany) have disappeared. In Vietnam alone, according to a 2019 report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, there were 10,731 violations of forest protection and development, and 2,575 hectares of forest were damaged. It is estimated that Vietnam is losing 137 species of plants, animals and insects every day due to tropical deforestation.
Natural resources accumulated over millions of years, especially fossil energy sources, are also being exploited by humans to the point of exhaustion, making them difficult to regenerate. The world is facing the worry that when oil, natural gas and coal mines are exhausted, how will humans manage to maintain their lives? Forecast
183 Cited from https://ourworldindata.org/water-use-stress , accessed March 5, 2021.
184 Cited from https://www.who.int/news/item/12-07-2017-2-1-billion-people-lack-safe-drinking-water-at-home-more-than-twice-as-many-lack-safe-sanitation , accessed March 5, 2021 .
185 Quoted from https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/freshwater/deaths-from-dirty-
water/story, accessed March 5, 2021.
186 Cited from http://www.fao.org/land-water/water/water-scarcity/en/ , accessed March 5, 2021.
187 Cited from http://www.fao.org/3/ca8642en/online/ca8642en.html#chapter-executive_summary , accessed July 28, 2021.
188 Cited from https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/global , accessed July 28, 2021.
It is predicted that in about 50.7 years the world will run out of oil, in 52.8 years it will run out of natural gas, and in 114 years it will run out of coal .
Not only are natural resources depleted, humans are also putting more burden on the Earth with their bad habits. The habit of using plastic without the responsibility of collecting and recycling has led to serious environmental pollution. Researchers say that by 2050, the oceans may contain more plastic than fish by weight 190 . Or the habit of excessive energy consumption by humans also makes natural resources depleted faster. Many cities have very high electricity consumption, typically London with about 150,000 billion watts per year, equivalent to the electricity consumption of Portugal and Greece combined 191 . This consumption level is a red alert in the excessive energy consumption of humans.
Up to now, the environment is the one that has suffered the most from the exploitation and use of resources by humans. Humans depend on nature to live but humans have not been truly responsible for nature. The way of life of humans is destroying rather than protecting the Earth. If this continues, life on Earth will soon be extinct.
We know how to love our country and are willing to sacrifice our lives to protect our Fatherland. How beautiful this ideal is. However, we have a bigger Fatherland, which is this beautiful and grateful planet. We must also be willing to sacrifice everything to protect this Fatherland, this planet. We must call on all mankind to do something together to protect the Earth, to protect the habitat of all species, to protect a bright future for our children and grandchildren with all the most beautiful love (maybe our planet is also a stopover for UFOs).
In short, the imbalance in the regulation of Human Rights and Human Obligations in the law has left serious consequences as above, forcing humanity to face great challenges. These challenges have become the cause of the movement of struggle for Obligations, demanding that the law pay more attention to Human Obligations. That is, it is necessary to improve and supplement Human Obligations in International Law as well as in Vietnamese Law.
189 Cited from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/years-of-fossil-fuel-reserves-left , accessed March 5, 2021.
190 Sutter JD (2016), How to stop the sixth mass extinction, website: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/12/world/sutter-vanishing-help/index.html, accessed April 25, 2021.
191 Quoted from https://tietkiemnangluong.com.vn/tin-tuc/khoa-hoc-cong-nghe/t13297/ban-do-tieu-thu-nang-
luong-cua-the-gioi.html, accessed December 2, 2020.
Chapter 3 Summary
The provisions of current international law, to the extent that they recognize human obligations and their parallelism with human rights, create an important legal basis for subjects in establishing legal relationships related to human obligations. However, those obligations and the subjects implementing the obligations, which are individuals, have not been fully, specifically and in detail. The correlation between rights and obligations in law is still unclear. For many decades, international law has shown an imbalance between rights and obligations, in which obligations have not been given due attention. This situation also affects the form and content of the rights and obligations regime in the constitutions of countries. The long-term emphasis on rights has created a culture of favoring human rights that has spread throughout the world, leaving many consequences for humanity. The movement to fight for human obligations has been taking place vigorously since the end of the 20th century as an inevitable result of those consequences. This movement has led to the birth of declarations, contributing to helping people re-evaluate the importance of Obligations. However, there has not been a declaration on Human Obligations that is convincing enough to be adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
Although in the Vietnamese legal system, Obligations are regulated in detail with specific sanctions, in reality, there are still many cases of violations of Obligations, causing many social benefits to be violated. This situation is partly due to the influence of strong propaganda of Human Rights, partly due to people's inadequate awareness of Obligations, especially due to the instinctive psychology of people being selfish and lazy in implementing Obligations. In addition, some legal regulations are still lacking, sanctions are not strict, the reward mechanism for good behavior is not yet perfected... are also reasons for violations of the law on Human Obligations or incomplete implementation of Obligations. All the shortcomings analyzed, commented and explained above aim to create the premise for recommendations and solutions that will be mentioned in Chapter 4.
CHAPTER 4. VIEWPOINTS AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE HUMAN OBLIGATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND VIETNAMESE LAW
4.1. Viewpoints on perfecting Human Obligations in International Law and Vietnamese Law
The reality stated in Chapter 3 has demonstrated that international law and national constitutions have stipulated more human rights than human obligations. The bias towards rights has led to an imbalance between rights and obligations, which has led to serious consequences in society. To solve this problem, perfecting international law and Vietnamese law on human obligations is an important and urgent task. In addition to the viewpoint " All people are born free, equal in dignity and rights " 192 which has been widely recognized by the world, we find it necessary to add the following viewpoint: Every person coming to this world has the responsibility to build a better world, to enjoy together the rights and happiness in that world . It can be said that this is both the main viewpoint and the most important message that we want to convey in the thesis. Based on this general viewpoint, we develop it into three specific viewpoints as follows:
First, perfecting Human Obligations in a direction commensurate with Human Rights in law.
International law as well as national law need to be adjusted so that the provisions on Human Obligations must be commensurate with the provisions on Human Rights. That is also the principle that Human Rights are inseparable from Human Obligations, which is expressed in many constitutions of countries. This principle means that the subject enjoying Rights is also the subject performing Obligations, whoever enjoys a Right must have Obligations right in that Right, except for those who do not have the conditions to perform Obligations.
The implementation of Obligations makes people worthy of enjoying corresponding benefits, such as a person who works diligently deserves to receive good results. This is a social justice. Likewise, when writing about the principle of inseparability between Rights and Obligations of the public,
192 Article 1, UDHR.
According to Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Minh Doan: " Citizens without Rights do not have Obligations; citizens who do not fulfill Obligations do not enjoy Rights " 193 .
An important criterion to evaluate the level of worthiness of enjoying human rights is the level of implementation of obligations in that individual. Those who have a higher level of implementation of obligations, the more valuable they are in the community. A lazy person who contributes little to the community cannot enjoy rights equal to those who are always dedicated. Particularly for specific entities such as the disabled, the elderly, the disadvantaged... who are not able to perform many obligations, the State needs to create conditions for them to be able to contribute according to their ability, so that they still have dignity in life.
When the Law prescribes that people have the right to enjoy, the Law must also prescribe the Obligations for people to fulfill. The abundance or depletion of social resources depends on the degree to which people fulfill their Obligations. People fulfill their Obligations to create resources and then enjoy corresponding rights. The concept of Obligations and corresponding rights requires that Obligations must be equal to Rights, that is, the more you contribute, the more you will enjoy. If everyone thinks like that, society will not have resources to develop.
Humanity needs to think more thoroughly and Obligations need to be implemented many times more than the Human Rights enjoyed. The implementation of this Obligation will compensate society for the resources consumed. Because when enjoying any Right, we have taken away a part of the common resources of society. Don't think that if I eat three bowls of rice, I only have to grow three bowls of rice. In fact, the invisible costs from rice, fields to the bowl of rice that I eat at home are ten times more. The costs of transportation, milling, processing, clothing, housing, social peace... surround the three bowls of rice that I eat. I have to grow thirty bowls of rice to be able to eat three bowls of rice. To enjoy a Right, a benefit, I have to implement Obligations ten times more.
Especially, for those who have advantages in society such as high income, high education level... they should perform more Obligations than the Rights they enjoy to contribute to the development of the country.
Second, perfecting human obligations in law must be consistent with the ability to enforce them in practice.
193 Assoc.Prof.Dr. Nguyen Minh Doan, editor-in-chief (2010), Legal status of Vietnamese citizens , National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, p. 65.
The regulation of human obligations in law must ensure practical feasibility. The regulation of obligations must be different from the regulation of rights, that is, the regulation of human obligations must depend on the physical strength, mental strength and other conditions of the person. For example, everyone has the right to live in a peaceful country, without war and killing, but not everyone has the obligation to serve in the army, only those who meet the requirements of the army are capable of performing military service. Similarly, everyone has the right to enjoy social benefits, public services and utilities, but not everyone has the obligation to pay taxes, only those who are prescribed by law have the obligation to pay taxes. This also gives us an awareness that, when performing an obligation, we should try to do more than required to compensate for those who are unable to perform that obligation.
Although human obligations are a prerequisite for enjoying rights and go hand in hand with rights, regulations on obligations must be consistent with the ability to implement in practice, not exceeding the ability of individuals to avoid creating injustice in society and resentment among the people. To perfect legal regulations on human obligations, it is necessary to pay attention to practical feasibility and ensure harmony between the interests of the state, society and individual interests.
Third, perfecting human obligations in law requires attention to both passive obligations and active obligations.
Passive obligations are regulations that force people to restrain their behavior, not to do things that are prohibited by law so as not to harm the rights and interests of others, the community and the country. For example, do not litter, do not smoke in public places, do not make noise that is too loud for neighbors, do not share national secrets that we accidentally know with anyone...
Active obligations are regulations that require people to make efforts to perform certain actions to benefit the community and society. For example, taking care of the elderly, helping students in difficult circumstances, sorting garbage to facilitate recycling, planting forests to increase the green cover of the planet, working to achieve high productivity, paying taxes fully and on time, denouncing acts of betrayal of the Fatherland...
Active Obligations are more positive, playing a guiding role in expanding human thinking towards good things, and most importantly, education.
educate people's thinking so that they have the goodwill to fulfill their Obligations in the best way, many times more than what they have enjoyed. Therefore, the construction and improvement of the law on Human Obligations needs to pay attention to both Passive Obligations and Active Obligations.
4.2. Solutions to improve Human Obligations in International Law and Vietnamese Law
4.2.1. Building a correct, complete and profound awareness of Human Duties at both international and national levels
One of the important solutions to perfect international law as well as Vietnamese law on human obligations is to build awareness of human obligations for everyone to understand. Everyone must understand the importance of implementing human obligations to build together a prosperous, good and peaceful society in which there are many rights for people to enjoy.
The regulation of Human Obligations in International Law and National Law is difficult because more or less people are familiar with and want to enjoy Rights more than to exercise Obligations. This is one of the reasons that requires the building of awareness of Human Obligations in law to be promoted at both international and national levels.
4.2.1.1. Internationally
Firstly , major organizations in the world194 need to cooperate with member states, implementing global action programs to promote research and disseminate knowledge about Human Duties in each specialized field (economics, culture, education, labor, environment... ) 195 .
Second , countries need to strengthen cooperation and dialogue on Human Obligations. Countries around the world have differences in historical characteristics, political regimes, levels of development, and traditional cultural values, so their approaches to Human Obligations are different.
194 Examples of specialized agencies of the United Nations (World Health Organization WHO, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO, International Labor Organization ILO...); International organizations independent of the United Nations system (World Trade Organization WTO, World Federation of Trade Unions WFTU...)
195 For example, in the environmental field, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
The country has launched many global environmental campaigns. Notably, the annual “World Environment Day” program on June 5 aims to raise global awareness and action to protect the green space of the earth. The “Clean Seas 2017” program aims to combat plastic waste in the sea. The “WildforLife Big Cat Team Challenge 2018” program aims to raise awareness of protecting the remaining leopards, snow leopards, lions, tigers, etc. in the world, by encouraging people not to buy illegal wildlife products, etc.