Human rights
Human rights refers to the concept of
human beings as having universal
rights, or status, regardless of legal
jurisdiction or other localizing factors, such as
ethnicity and
nationality. As is evident in the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights, at least in the post-war period, are conceptualized as based on inherent
human dignity, retaining their universal and inalienable character.
The existence, validity and the content of human rights continue to be the subject to debate in philosophy and political science. Legally, human rights are defined in
international law and covenants, and further, in the domestic laws of many states. However, for many people the doctrine of human rights goes beyond law and forms a fundamental moral basis for regulating the contemporary geo-political order.
International legislation
Main article: International human rights instruments
Where it has been adopted, human rights legislation commonly contains:
security rights that protect people against crimes such as murder, massacre,
torture and rape
liberty rights that protect freedoms in areas such as belief and religion,
association,
assembling and
movementpolitical rights that protect the liberty to participate in politics by
expressing themselves, protesting, voting and serving in public office
due process rights that protect against abuses of the legal system such as imprisonment without trial, secret trials and excessive punishments
equality rights that guarantee equal citizenship, equality before the
law and nondiscrimination
welfare rights (also known as economic or social rights) that require the provision of
education and protections against severe
poverty and
starvationgroup rights that provide protection for groups against ethnic
genocide and for the ownership by countries of their national territories and resources
Appalled by the barbarism of the
Second World War and the
Holocaust, the
United Nations General Assembly adopted the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
1948. While not legally binding, it urged member nations to promote a number of human, civil, economic and social rights, asserting these rights are part of the "foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world". The declaration was the first international legal effort to limit the behaviour of states and press upon them duties to their citizens following the model of the
rights-duty duality.
Many states wanted to go beyond the declaration of rights and create legal covenants which would put greater pressure on states to follow human rights norms. Because some states disagreed over whether this international covenant should contain economic and social rights (which usually require a greater effort to fulfill on the part of individual states), two treaties were prepared.
In
1966 and
1976 respectively, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights came into force. With the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights these documents form the
International bill of rights.
Since then several other
pieces of legislation have been introduced at the international level:
*
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entry into force: 1951) [
1]
*
Convention against Torture (entry into force: 1984) [
2]
*
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (entry into force: 1969) [
3]
*
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (entry into force: 1981) [
4]
*
Convention on the Rights of the Child (entry into force: 1989) [
5]
*
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (entry into force: 2002)
With the exception of the non-derogable human rights (the four most important are the right to life, the right to be free from slavery, the right to be free from torture and the right to be free from retroactive application of penal laws), the UN recognises that human rights can be limited or even pushed aside during times of national emergency - although "the emergency must be actual, affect the whole population and the threat must be to the very existence of the nation. The declaration of emergency must also be a last resort and a temporary measure" [
6]. Conduct in war is governed by
International Humanitarian Law.
International bodies
The
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights created an agency, the
Human Rights Committee to promote compliance with its norms. The eighteen members of the committee express opinions as to whether a particular practice is a human rights violation, although its reports are not legally binding.
A modern interpretation of the original Declaration of Human Rights was made in the
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action [
7], adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. The degree of unanimity over these conventions, in terms of how many and which countries have ratified them vary, as does the degree to which they are respected by various states. The UN has set up a number of bodies to monitor and study human rights, under the leadership of the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Regional legislation
There are also many regional agreements and organisations governing human rights including the
European Court of Human Rights, which is the only international court with jurisdiction to deal with cases brought by individuals (rather than states); the
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights;
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights;
Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam;
Inter-American Court of Human Rights; and Iran's
Defenders of Human Rights Center.
See also: History of democracyUr-Nammu, the king of
Ur created what was arguably the first legal codex in ca.
2050 BC. Several other sets of laws were created in
Mesopotamia including the
Code of Hammurabi, (ca. 1780 BC) which is one of the best preserved examples of this type of document. It shows rules and punishments if those rules are broken on a variety of matters including
women's rights,
children's rights and
slave rights.
The
Persian Empire (in what is now
Iran) established unprecedented principles of human rights in the
6th century BC under the reign of
Cyrus the Great. After his conquest of
Babylon in
539 BC, the king issued the
Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in
1879 and recognized by many today as the first human rights document. The cylinder declared that citizens of the empire would be allowed to practice their religious beliefs freely. The cylinder also abolished slavery, so all the palaces of the kings of Persia were built by paid workers in an era where slaves typically did such work. These two reforms were reflected in the biblical books of
Chronicles and
Ezra, which state that Cyrus released the followers of
Judaism from slavery and allowed them to migrate back to their land. The cylinder now lies in the
British Museum, and a replica is kept at the
United Nations headquarters.
Three centuries later, the
Mauryan Empire of
ancient India established unprecedented principles of civil rights in the
3rd century BC under the reign of
Ashoka the Great. After his brutal conquest of
Kalinga in circa
265 BC, he felt remorse for what he had done, and as a result, he adopted
Buddhism. From that point, Ashoka, who had been described as "the cruel Ashoka" eventually came to be known as "the pious Ashoka". During his reign, he pursued an official policy of
nonviolence (
ahimsa). The unnecessary slaughter or mutilation of animals was immediately abolished, such as
sport hunting and
branding. Ashoka also showed mercy to those imprisoned, allowing them outside one day each year, and offered the common citizen free education at
universities. He treated his subjects as equals regardless of their religion, politics or
caste, and constructed free
hospitals for both humans and animals. Ashoka defined the main principles of nonviolence,
tolerance of all
sects and opinions,
obedience to parents,
respect for teachers and
priests, being
liberal towards friends, humane treatment of
servants (slavery was non-existent in India at the time), and
generosity towards all. These reforms are described in the
Edicts of Ashoka.
Elsewhere societies have located the beginnings of human rights in religious documents. The
Vedas, the
Bible, the
Qur'an and the
Analects of Confucius are some of the oldest written sources which address questions of people's duties, rights, and responsibilities.
In
1215 King John of England issued the
Magna Carta, a document forced upon him by the
Pope and
English barons, which required him to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that
the will of the king could be bound by law. Although the document did not itself limit the power of the king in the
Middle Ages, its later reinterpretation in the
Elizabethean and
Stuart periods established it as a powerful document on which
constitutional law was founded in
Britain and elsewhere.
Several
17th and
18th century European philosophers, most notably
John Locke, developed the concept of
natural rights, the notion that people possess certain rights by virtue of being human. Though Locke believed natural rights were derived from divinity since
humans were creations of
God, his ideas were important in the development of the modern notion of rights. Lockean natural rights did not rely on citizenship nor any law of the state, nor were they necessarily limited to one particular ethnic, cultural or religious group.
Two major revolutions occurred that century in the
United States (1776) and in
France (1789). The
United States Declaration of Independence includes concepts of
natural rights and famously states "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
 |
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789 |
Similarly, the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen defines a set of individual and collective rights of the people. These are held to be universal - it sets forth fundamental rights not only of French citizens but acknowledges these rights to
all men without exception.
Philosophers such as
Thomas Paine,
John Stuart Mill and
Hegel expanded on the theme of
universality during the 18th and
19th centuries. In
1831 William Lloyd Garrison wrote in a newspaper called
The Liberator that he was trying to enlist his readers in "the great cause of human rights"
[Mayer, Henry "All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery" St. Martin's Press, 1998, p. 110] so the term
human rights probably came into use sometime between Paine's
The Rights of Man and Garrison's publication. In 1849 a contemporary,
Henry David Thoreau, wrote about human rights in his treatise
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience [
8] which was later influential on human rights and civil rights thinkers.
Many groups and movements have managed to achieve profound social changes over the course of the
20th century in the name of human rights. In
Western Europe and
North America,
labour unions brought about laws granting workers the right to strike, establishing minimum work conditions and forbidding or regulating
child labour. The
women's rights movement succeeded in gaining for many women the right to
vote.
National liberation movements in many countries succeeded in driving out
colonial powers. One of the most influential was
Mahatma Gandhi's movement to free his native
India from
British rule. Movements by long-oppressed racial and religious minorities succeeded in many parts of the world, among them the
civil rights movement in the United States.
Types of human rights
Human rights are sometimes divided into
negative and positive rights. Negative human rights, which follow mainly from the Anglo-American legal tradition, denote actions that a government should not take. These are codified in the
United States Bill of Rights, the
English Bill of Rights and the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and include right to life and security of person; freedom from
slavery; equality before the law and
due process under the
rule of law; freedom of movement; and freedoms of
speech,
religion and
assembly.
Positive human rights mainly follow from the
Rousseauian Continental European legal tradition and denote rights that the state is obliged to protect and provide. Examples of such rights include: the rights to education, to a livelihood, to legal equality. Positive rights have been codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in many 20th-century
constitutions.
Another categorization, offered by
Karel Vasak, is that there are
three generations of human rights: first-generation civil and political rights (right to life and political participation), second-generation economic, social and cultural rights (right to subsistence) and third-generation solidarity rights (right to peace, right to clean environment). Out of these generations, the third generation is the most debated and lacks both legal and political recognition. Some theorists discredit these divisions by claiming that rights are interconnected. Arguably, for example, basic education is necessary for the right to political participation.
Justification of human rights
Several theoretical approaches have been advanced to explain how human rights become part of social expectations. The
biological theory considers the comparative reproductive advantage of human social behavior based on empathy and
altruism in the context of
natural selection. Other theories hold that human rights codify moral behavior, which is a human, social product developed by a process of biological and social evolution (associated with
Hume) or as a sociological pattern of rule setting (as in the sociological theory of law and the work of
Weber). This approach includes the notion that individuals in a society accept rules from legitimate authority in exchange for security and economic advantage (as in
Rawls).
On the other hand,
natural law theories base human rights on the "natural" moral order that derives from religious precepts such as common understandings of justice and the belief that moral behavior is a set of objectively valid prescriptions. Some have used religious texts such as the
Bible and
Qur'an to support human rights arguments. However, there are also more secular forms of natural law theory that understand human rights as derivative of the notion of universal human dignity.
Yet others have attempted to construct an "
interests theory" defence of human rights. For example the philosopher
John Finnis argues that human rights are justifiable on the grounds of their instrumental value in creating the necessary conditions for human well-being. Some interest-theorists also justify the duty to respect the rights of other individuals on grounds of self-interest (rather than altruism or benevolence). Reciprocal recognition and respect of rights ensures that one's own will be protected.
Ultimately, the term "human rights" is often itself an appeal to a transcendent principle, not based on existing legal concepts. The term "
humanism" refers to the developing doctrine of such
universally applicable values. The term "human rights" has replaced the term "
natural rights" in popularity, because the rights are less and less frequently seen as requiring
natural law for their existence.
[Weston, Burns H. Human Rights in Encyclopedia Britannica Online, p. 2, Retrieved May 18, 2006]Criticism and debate
One of the arguments made against the concept of human rights is that it suffers from
cultural imperialism. In particular, some see human rights as fundamentally rooted in a politically
liberal outlook which, although consensually accepted in
Western Europe and
North America, is not necessarily taken as standard elsewhere. An appeal is often made to the fact that influential human rights thinkers, such as
John Locke and
John Stuart Mill, have all been Western and indeed that some were involved in the running of
Empires themselves. The cultural imperialism argument achieves even greater potency when it is made on the basis of
religion. Some histories of human rights emphasise the
Judeo-Christian influence on the agenda and then question whether this is in keeping with the tenets of other
world religions.
Yet, the cultural imperialism argument ignores the historic origins of rights. While Western political philosophers like Locke, Hobbes and Mill made important contributions to the development of modern notions of human rights, the concept of human rights itself has origins in many world cultures and religions, including Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions. Additionally, this argument leads to
absolute relativism if taken too far. If all viewpoints and moral frameworks are equally valid then one cannot condemn any behaviour, however outrageous or horrific. In practice, human rights offer a basis to criticism such behavior or conduct, including
imperialism. As such, human rights can be a transformative tool for
self-determination.
One way out of the cultural imperialism and relativism debate is to argue that the body of human rights exists in a hierarchy or can undergo
derogation. The relationship between different rights is complex since it can be argued that some are mutually reinforcing or supportive. For example, political rights, such as the right to hold office, cannot be fully exercised without other social and cultural pre-requisites, such as a decent education. Whether the latter should therefore be included as a first-generation right is a debated point.
Another important philosophical criticism of human rights is their presumed basis in
morality. If moral beliefs are fundamentally expressions of individuals' personally held preferences then the objective morality upon which human rights are founded is rejected.
Richard Rorty has argued that human rights are not based upon the exercise of reason but a sentimental vision of humanity (even though he does support human rights in law on the basis of interests theory).
Alasdair MacIntyre has written that a belief in rights is on a par with "belief in
witches and
unicorns"
[MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981)After Virtue, pp. 69-70, London, Duckworth]. But without care this criticism can become an apology for all behaviour as it aligns closely with
moral relativism. Furthermore it assumes that moral beliefs are personally held preferences and that there are no objective criterion to deduce valid moral beliefs from. Although there was no human rights law in
South Africa at the time of apartheid, human rights were used as
norms to be aspired to.
A final set of debating points revolves around the question of who has the duty to uphold human rights. Human rights have historically arisen from the need to protect citizens from abuse by the state and this might suggest that all mankind has a duty to intervene and protect people wherever they are. Divisive national loyalties, which emphasise differences between people rather than their similarities, can thus be seen as a destructive influence on the human rights movement because they deny people's innately similar human qualities
[Klitou, Demetrius The Friends and Foes of Human Rights]. But others argue that
state sovereignty is paramount, not least because it is often the state that has signed up to human rights treaties in the first place. Commentators positions in the argument for and against
intervention and the
use of force by states are influenced by whether they believe human rights are largely a legal or moral duty and whether they are of more
cosmopolitan or
nationalist persuasion.
Human rights Violation is
abuse of people in a way that it abuses any fundamental human rights. It is a term used when a government violates national or international law related to the protection of human rights.
According to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental human rights are violated when:
* A certain
race,
creed, or group is denied recognition as a "person". (Article 2)
* Men and women are not treated as equal. (Article 2)
* Different racial or religious groups are not treated as equal. (Article 2)
* Life, liberty or security of person are threatened. (Article 3)
* A person is sold as or used as a
slave. (Article 4)
*
Cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment is used on a person (such as
torture or
execution). (Article 5) (See also
Prisoners' rights)
* Punishments are dealt arbitrarily or unilaterally, without a proper and
fair trial. (Article 11)
* Arbitrary interference into personal, or private lives by agents of the state. (Article 12)
* Citizens are forbidden to leave or return to their country. (Article 13)
*
Freedom of speech or
religion are denied. (Articles 18 & 19)
* The right to join a
trade union is denied. (Article 23)
* Education is denied. (Article 26)
Monitoring
Human rights violations and abuses include those documented by
non-governmental organizations such as
Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch,
Freedom House,
International Freedom of Expression Exchange and
Anti-Slavery International.
Only a very few countries do not commit significant human rights violations, according to Amnesty International. In their
2004 human rights report (covering
2003) the
Netherlands,
Norway,
Denmark,
Iceland and
Costa Rica are the only (mappable) countries that did not violate at least some human rights significantly.
Some people believe human rights abuses are more common in
dictatorships or
theocracies than in
democracies because
freedom of speech and
freedom of the press tend to uncover state orchestrated abuse and expose it. Nonetheless human rights abuses do occur in democracies. For example, the Macpherson report found that the British police had been institutionally
racist in the handling of the death of
Stephen Lawrence. Also Amnesty International has called the running of
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp by the
United States "a human rights scandal" in a series of reports [
9].
Non-governmental and multilateral organizations
*
Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN)*
Amnesty International*
Ansar Burney Trust - Working in Pakistan and the Middle East
*
Bahrain Centre for Human Rights*
ARTICLE 19*
Carter Center*
Forum 18*
Freedom House*
Human Rights Campaign*
Human Rights Watch*
International Freedom of Expression Exchange*
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights*
Defenders of Human Rights Center*
Memorial (society)*
Montagnard Foundation*
Network Against Prohibition*
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights*
Peace Brigades International*
Pastoral dos Direitos Humanos da Igreja Missão Jesus*
Prisoners Overseas*
Southern Poverty Law Center
*
Human rights portal* Steiner, Henry J. & Alston, Philip. (1996).
International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 019825437X
* Donnelly, Jack. (2003).
Universal Human Rights in Theory & Practice. 2nd ed. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press.
* Forsythe, David P. (2000).
Human Rights in International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Ignatieff, Michael.
Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
*Landman, Todd (2006)
Studying Human Rights, Oxford and London: Routledge ISBN 0415326052
* Shute, Stephen & Hurley, Susan (eds.). (1993).
On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures. New York: BasicBooks.
* Sunga, Lyal S. (1992) Individual Responsibility in International Law for Serious Human Rights Violations, Nijhoff Publishers.
*
Human Rights First*
COPSHOTS.org: Documenting Police Brutality; Documenting the Police*
The Human Rights Information & Documentation Center (HRIDC) - Monitoring the Human Rights Situation in Georgia
*
Human Rights Quarterly*
United Nations- Universal Declaration of Human Rights*
United Nations- Human Rights*
Better World Links Biggest Link List on Human Rights
*
A Tamil human rights news portal*
Rights Philosophy Forum*
Country reports on human rights from the U.S. Department of State
*
Chr. Michelsen Institute Major Norwegian research institute
*
Maximiliano Herrera Human Rights Site*
ngoCHR.org – Volunteer reporting on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
*
University of Leicester, UK, list of sources and links.*
Introduction to Human Rights & Humanitarian Law*
Photojournalist's approach to human rights in Sudan*
A Muslim approach to human rights*
Mission and Justice – Human Rights, Justice and Peace news from the Asia Pacific region.
*
Chile - Human Rights during the Pinochet Regime The Chile Information Project
*
Sri Lanka – Human Rights of the Tamil People*
Children's Rights Alliance*
Human rights development in Asia*
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry*
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library - Over 23,000 documents and 4,000 links
*
University of Minnesota Human Rights Resource Center - Creating and distributing Human Rights Education (HRE) resources, training activists, professionals, and students & building advocacy networks
*
International Freedom of Expression Exchange - Monitoring censorship around the world
*
Human Rights Reports from the United Nations by
Inner City Press, accredited media at the UN
*
Human Rights News Headlines by NewsXS - Aggregated news and RSS feed
*
Survivor bashing - bias motivated hate crimes*
Human Rights Video Project - NVR's Program in Public Libraries
*
Human Rights and Peace Store*
This is My Home: A Minnesota Human Rights Education Experience - Human rights curriculum and activities
*
The Human Rights in Mime*
Diplomacy Monitor - Human Rights*
Comparative Analysis of Human Rights*
Human Rights Issues*
Tamil human rights news portal*
Media Helping Media Discussion forum for international media in transition and post-conflict states.
*
IPS Inter Press Service News on human rights from around the world
Human rights organizations
*
Amnesty International*
Ansar Burney Welfare Trust*
Anti Slavery*
Asian Human Rights Commission*
Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission*
Better World Links on Human Rights Organizations*
China Support Network*
Citizens Commission for Human Rights*
Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab*
Dalit Human Rights (DHR)*
ENSAAF: Fighting Impunity in India*
European Roma Rights Center (ERRC)*
Fair Finance Watch: The Economic Right to Non-Exclusion*
FoodFirst Information and Action Network*
Forum 18 News Service*
Global Rights: Partners for Justice*
Global Human Rights Defence*
Human Rights First, formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights*
Human Rights Watch*[
10]Human Rights Organization
*
International Order of Human Rights - IOHR*
Justice For The World*
Liberty In North Korea (LiNK)*
Olympic Watch: Human Rights in China and Beijing 2008*
Ontario Human Rights Commission*
The Borgen Project*
The International Voice: A Youth Human Rights Newsmagazine*
University of Minnesota Human Rights Center*
The Magnus Hirschfeld Center for Human Rights*
International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights & Democracy)*
Drishtipat: Voice of Human Rights in Bangladesh*
Society for the Promotion of Human Rights in Employment*
Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University, Australia*
Burma Labour Solidarity Organisation
