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.

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. For them, they are democratic ideals.

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.

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 movement
 * political 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 starvation
 * group rights that provide protection for groups against ethnic genocide and for the ownership by countries of their national territories and resources

As a result of the horrors of the Second World War and 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 fulfil on the part of individual states), two treaties were prepared.

In 1976, 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)
 * Convention against Torture (entry into force: 1984)
 * Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (entry into force: 1969)
 * Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (entry into force: 1981)
 * Convention on the Rights of the Child (entry into force: 1989)
 * 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". 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 particular practice is a human rights violations, 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, 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; and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

History of human rights

 * See also: History of democracy

Ur-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 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). Even 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 Qu'ran 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.

In the 18th century in Europe several philosophers, most notably John Locke, proposed and debated the concept of natural rights that belong to a person by nature and because he was a human being, not by virtue of his citizenship in a particular country or membership in a particular religious or ethnic 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." 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 century. A contemporary, Henry David Thoreau, who wrote about human rights in his treatise On the Duty of Civil Disobedience may have been the first to call them by that name.

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, labor unions brought about laws granting workers the right to strike, establishing minimum work conditions and forbidding or regulating child labor. 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 Ghandi'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
Numerous 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 set 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.

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, without basing it on existing legal concepts. The term "humanism" refers to the developing doctrine of such universally applicable values.

Criticism and debate
One of the arguments made against the human rights agenda 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.

In reply the cultural imperialism argument, if taken too far, can itself be accused of engaging in cultural relativism. If one accepts that all viewpoints and moral frameworks are equally valid then one cannot condemn any behaviour, however outrageous or horrific, with conviction. Those who support human rights often recount a history of the agenda that emphasises the influence of many cultures and religions. They explain how human rights can in practice be used as a defence against imperialism and a 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 enacted without 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). But without care this criticism can become an apology for all behaviour as it aligns closely with moral relativism. 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. But some 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 against intervention 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.

Abuse of Human rights
Human rights abuse is abuse of people in a way that violates 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 their country. (Article 13)
 * Freedom of speech or religion are denied. (Articles 18 & 19)
 * The right to join a 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 violate human rights at all 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 human rights.

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. Amnesty International has called the running of Guantanamo Bay detainment camp by the United States "a human rights scandal" in a series of reports

Non-governmental and multilateral organisations

 * Aga Khan Developement 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
 * Memorial (society)
 * Montagnard Foundation
 * Network Against Prohibition
 * Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
 * Peace Brigades International
 * Prisoners Overseas
 * Southern Poverty Law Center

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
 * Citizens Commision 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
 * Human Rights Watch
 * 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 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

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