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Human Rights






The term “human rights” is strongly associated with the founding of the United Nations (UN) in 1945, and the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It replaced the phrase “natural rights”, as well as the phrase “the rights of Man”, which was not universally understood to include the rights of women.

There are four basic characteristics of human rights. First, regardless of their ultimate origin or justification, human rights represent individual or group demands (usually the former) for the shaping and sharing of power, wealth, and other human goods. Second, human rights commonly refer to fundamental as distinct from non-essential claims or goods. In fact, some theorists go so far as to limit human rights to a single core right, or two – for example, the right to life or the right to equal freedom of opportunity. Third, most assertions of human rights are qualified by the limitation that the rights of any particular individual or group are properly restricted as much as is necessary to secure the comparable rights of others. Finally, if a right is determined to be a human right, it is understood to be universal in character, equally possessed by all human beings.

It is common to distinguish between three generations of human rights that succeeded each other historically. The first generation of civil and political rights derives from the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century revolutions in Britain, France, and the United States. Infused with the political philosophy of liberal individualism and the related economic and social doctrine of laissez-faire, these rights are conceived more in negative (freedoms from) than positive (rights to) terms. They are laid down in Articles 2-21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and include:

· freedom from gender, racial, and equivalent forms of discrimination;

· the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person;

· freedom from slavery or involuntary servitude;

· freedom from torture and from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;

· freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile;

· the right to a fair and public trial;

· freedom from interference in privacy and correspondence;

· freedom of movement and residence;

· the right to asylum from persecution;

· freedom of thought, conscience, and religion;

· freedom of opinion and expression;

· freedom of peaceful assembly and association;

· the right to participate in government, directly or through free elections;

· the right to own property and the right not to be deprived of it arbitrarily.

The second generation of economic, social, and cultural rights finds its origins primarily in the socialist tradition. The rights in this category respond in large part to the abuses and misuses of capitalist development and what was claimed to be its underlying conception of individual liberty that tolerated the exploitation of working classes and colonial peoples. Historically, it is a counterpoint to the first generation of civil and political rights, with human rights conceived more in positive (rights to) than negative (freedoms from) terms, and requiring the intervention rather than the abstention of the state to promote equality. These positive rights are listed in Articles 22-27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and include:

· the right to social security;

· the right to work and to protection against unemployment;

· the right to rest and leisure, including periodic holidays with pay;

· the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of self and family;

· the right to education;

· the right to the protection of one’s scientific, literary, and artistic production.

Finally, the third generation of solidarity rights is a product of both the rise and the decline of the nation-state in the last half of the twentieth century. Foreshadowed in Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims that ‘everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights set forth in this Declaration can be fully realised’, it appears so far to embrace six rights. Three of these reflect the emergence of Third World nationalism and its revolution of rising expectations, i.e. its demand for a global redistribution of power, wealth, and other important values: the right to political, economic, social, and cultural self-determination; the right to economic and social development; and the right to participate in and benefit from ‘the common heritage of mankind’. The other three third-generation rights – the right to peace, the right to a healthy and sustainable environment, and the right to humanitarian disaster relief – suggest the inefficiency of the nation-state in certain critical respects.

Primary responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights under the UN Charter rests with the General Assembly and, under its authority, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Commission on Human Rights, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR). The UN Commission on Human Rights, an intergovernmental subsidiary body of ECOSOC established in 1947, serves as the UN’s central policy organ in the human rights field. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, a post created by the General Assembly in 1993, is responsible for implementing and coordinating United Nations human rights programmes and projects, including overall supervision of the UN’s Geneva-based Centre for Human Rights, a bureau of the UN Secretariat.

For the first 20 years of its existence (1947-1966), the UN Commission on Human Rights concentrated its efforts on standard-setting (believing that generally it had no legal competence to deal with complaints about violations of human rights). Together with other UN bodies, it has drafted human rights standards and prepared a number of international human rights instruments. Among the most important of these have been the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights together with its first Optional Protocol (1976). Collectively known as the International Bill of Human Rights, these three instruments serve as touchstones for interpreting the human rights provisions of the UN Charter. Also central have been the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), each elaborating on provisions of the International Bill of Human Rights.

The Commission continues to perform this standard-setting role. From 1967, however, it was specifically authorized to deal with violations of human rights, and, since then, has set up mechanisms and procedures to investigate alleged violations of human rights and otherwise monitor compliance by states with international human rights law. Thus, much of the work of the Commission is now investigatory, evaluative, and advisory in character. On an ad hoc basis, it appoints special rapporteurs, special representatives, special committees, and other envoys to examine human rights situations and report back to the Commission. During the 1970s and 1980s, these fact-finding and implementation mechanisms and procedures became the focus of the Commission’s attention. In the 1990s the Commission increasingly turned its attention to the need of states to overcome obstacles to the enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights, including the right to development and the right to an adequate standard of living. Increased attention has been paid also to the protection of the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples and to the protection of the rights of women and the rights of the child. Despite the proliferation of human rights laws, adherence to them remains a voluntary commitment on the part of nation-states.

 


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