One of the important characteristics of a profession is that it should have a code of ethics (Corey et al. 2011). Social workers have long considered ethics an indispensable aspect of their practice, and many national social work associations have codes of ethics to which their members are required to adhere. Social work is no different from many other professions in this, except that the importance it gives to values means that social workers are probably more immediately conscious of the ethical aspects of their practice than are some other professionals. Certainly, social workers spend a good deal of time talking about ethics, establishing and revising codes of ethics, and consciously dealing with ethical issues confronted in practice. The very nature of social work practice, dealing as it does with conflicting values and the making of difficult moral choices on behalf of society, means that ethical dilemmas will be part of the practice of every social worker (Clark 2000). Codes of ethics are not only used to encourage ‘ethical’ behaviour on the part of social workers and to assist social workers who are confronted by difficult ethical dilemmas.

There are two views one can take on the timeliness of the idea of human rights. One is that it is an idea whose time has come. This view sees human rights as being a necessary counter to economic globalisation and asserts that, in the globalised world, ideas of global citizenship based on ideals of human rights are important in the same way as ideas of national citizenship rights became important with the emergence of the nation state. It suggests that the apparently increasing interest in a human rights discourse is a source of hope for a future based on collective understandings of shared human values rather than individual greed and consumption. Human rights can be the basis for a future of humanity that until now has seemed an impossible dream. The other view of human rights is that it is an idea whose time has passed. This view sees human rights as a leftover remnant from the disappearing world of modernist certainty and Western imperialism. In the postmodern world of relativism, multiple voices, fragmented realities and the ‘death of the meta-narrative’, there is no room for, and no point in, a universal discourse such as human rights.

The issue of cultural relativism has been a major one for theorists of human rights. Arguments about cultural difference represent perhaps the strongest criticisms of the idea of human rights, and for many they are the most difficult to deal with (Brown 1999, 2020). This is especially true for social workers from Western traditions, who are generally aware of the role of the West in colonising other world-views and who wish to value cultural diversity. This results in Western social workers (among many others) feeling somewhat guilty about supporting something called ‘human rights’ and being particularly susceptible to the criticisms of human rights as a Western concept and therefore somehow not to be trusted. The aim of this chapter is to explore this difficult area, with a view to developing an approach to human rights that overcomes these dilemmas. Herein lies the key to dealing with cultural difference: the capacity to look critically at all cultural traditions is contextualised differently in different cultures, and to see that human rights violations and the struggle for human rights occur in all cultural contexts.

This chapter is about the relationship between needs and rights, and what that means for social work practice. Social workers can be regarded as professional need-definers. They are constantly in the process of identifying, and then trying to meet, human needs, as described back in 1945 by Charlotte Towle (Towle 1987). Scarcely a day would pass in any social worker’s life when the word ‘need’ is not used on dozens of occasions. Social workers do ‘needs assessments’, talk about the needs of individuals, of families, of client groups (e.g. the aged), of communities, of agencies, of service delivery systems (e.g. the health care system) and of the whole society (e.g. the need for a better income security system). Social workers talk about ‘unmet need’, ‘needing more resources’, ‘doing a needs survey’, ‘needing more social workers’ and ‘needing supervision’. ‘Need’ is one of the most commonly used words in the social work vocabulary, and it is significant that more often than not it is used, in the words of Noel and Rita Timms, ‘in the absence of any deep sense of puzzlement about the concept’ (Timms & Timms 1977: 141).

This chapter examines the link between rights and responsibilities, duties and obligations. If people are assumed to have rights, these can be seen as implying certain corresponding obligations, on the part of both the state and individuals, to ensure that those rights are protected and realised. These need to be examined in some detail, as they have significant implications for a social work practice that assumes a human rights perspective. We will first examine the idea of the responsibilities of the state, or of some other civic body, which result from the acknowledgment and affirmation of human rights. In keeping with some of the ideas in this chapter about advocacy and expectations of social workers to work for social change, the case study will examine a 2020 global campaign that captured the attention of activists, the media and others concerned about racial inequality in the criminal justice system: the Black Lives Matter movement. Its implications will be described and discussed in the case study at the end of the chapter.

Thus far, there has been little discussion about how we construct, define or accept human rights. What rights should actually count as human rights for social work practice? Do we simply accept the Universal Declaration, do we add to it, do we subtract from it, or do we reformulate it? On reading the Universal Declaration (see website for details), one is struck by how many of the rights contained in it are violated daily for millions of people. This applies not only to developing nations or nations with a ‘human rights record’ that is seen as ‘poor’. It also applies to the so-called ‘developed’ world, where the rights outlined in the Universal Declaration are certainly not all adequately met for the whole population. What country, for example, can clearly demonstrate the full realisation of the right to equality before the law, the right to work and to free choice of work, higher education equally accessible and inclusive for all for desire to attend, and other rights?

Crops that can be grown in a particular area depend on climate and soil. Not all crops can be grown in all areas as different areas have different types of climate and soils. Further, water requirements of crops are influenced by climate. This chapter discusses those aspects of climate that are fundamental to agricultural farming and consequent irrigation.

Irrigation planning begins with an assessment of water resources availability and irrigation potential. Then, planning of an irrigation system depends on the size of the system. Small systems may be owned by individual farmers, and farmers plan these systems on their own, with limited outside help. On the other hand, large systems are owned by governments or groups of farmers, and their planning is quite technical. This chapter discusses the rudimentary aspects of irrigation planning.

Sources of water are either surface or subsurface. Surface water is stored in reservoirs and is conveyed to the farm for irrigation or is derived from rivers either directly or through canals. Subsurface water is extracted from aquifers by wells and then conveyed to the farm. This chapter provides a snapshot of these sources and availability of water therein.