Human rights

Human rights are moral principles or

norms[1] that describe certain standards
of human behaviour and are regularly
protected as natural and legal rights in
municipal and international law.[2] They
are commonly understood as
inalienable,[3] fundamental rights "to
which a person is inherently entitled
simply because she or he is a human
being"[4] and which are "inherent in all
human beings",[5] regardless of their
nation, location, language, religion, ethnic
origin or any other status.[3] They are
applicable everywhere and at every time
in the sense of being universal,[1] and
they are egalitarian in the sense of being
the same for everyone.[3] They are
regarded as requiring empathy and the
rule of law[6] and imposing an obligation
on persons to respect the human rights
of others,[1][3] and it is generally
considered that they should not be taken
away except as a result of due process
based on specific circumstances;[3] for
example, human rights may include
freedom from unlawful imprisonment,
torture and execution.[7]
The doctrine of human rights has been
highly influential within international law,
global and regional institutions.[3]
Actions by states and non-governmental
organisations form a basis of public
policy worldwide. The idea of human
rights[8] suggests that "if the public
discourse of peacetime global society
can be said to have a common moral
language, it is that of human rights". The
strong claims made by the doctrine of
human rights continue to provoke
considerable scepticism and debates
about the content, nature and
justifications of human rights to this day.
The precise meaning of the term right is
controversial and is the subject of
continued philosophical debate;[9] while
there is consensus that human rights
encompasses a wide variety of rights[5]
such as the right to a fair trial, protection
against enslavement, prohibition of
genocide, free speech[10] or a right to
education (including the right to
comprehensive sexuality education,
among others), there is disagreement
about which of these particular rights
should be included within the general
framework of human rights;[1] some
thinkers suggest that human rights
should be a minimum requirement to
avoid the worst-case abuses, while
others see it as a higher standard.[1][11] In
the light of emerging neurotechnologies,
four new rights were identified: the right
to cognitive liberty, the right to mental
privacy, the right to mental integrity, and
the right to psychological
continuity.[12][13]

Many of the basic ideas that animated

the human rights movement developed in
the aftermath of the Second World War
and the events of the Holocaust,[6]
culminating in the adoption of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
Paris by the United Nations General
Assembly in 1948. Ancient peoples did
not have the same modern-day
conception of universal human rights.[14]
The true forerunner of human rights
discourse was the concept of natural
rights which appeared as part of the
medieval natural law tradition that
became prominent during the European
Enlightenment with such philosophers as
John Locke, Francis Hutcheson and
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and which
featured prominently in the political
discourse of the American Revolution
and the French Revolution.[6] From this
foundation, the modern human rights
arguments emerged over the latter half
of the 20th century,[15] possibly as a
reaction to slavery, torture, genocide and
war crimes,[6] as a realisation of inherent
human vulnerability and as being a
precondition for the possibility of a just
society.[5]

Whereas recognition of the

inherent dignity and of the
equal and inalienable rights of
all members of the human
family is the foundation of
freedom, justice and peace in
the world ...

— 1st sentence of the

Preamble to the United
Nations Universal
Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR)
 All human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights.

— Article 1 of the Universal

Declaration of Human
Rights[16]

History of the concept

The Cyrus Cylinder, created by king Cyrus the Great,

is sometimes argued to be the world's first charter of
human rights.
The history of human rights has not been
entirely progressive. Many established
rights would be replaced by other less
tolerant systems. Stable institutions may
be uprooted such as in cases of conflict
such as war and terrorism.[17]

The earliest conceptualisation of human

rights is credited to ideas about natural
rights emanating from natural law.

The Northeast African civilization of

Ancient Egypt[18] supported basic human
rights.[19] For example, Pharaoh
Bocchoris (725-720 BC) promoted
individual rights, suppressed
imprisonment for debt, and reformed
laws relating to the transferral of
property.[19]

The first recording of human rights were

inscribed by Cyrus the Great, the founder
of the Achaemenid Empire, into the Cyrus
Cylinder. The Cyrus Cylinder is a clay
tablet created in 539 B.C. soon after the
Achaemenid conquest of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire. It proclaimed all of
his subject to be free and banned the
practice of slavery. Additionally it stated
the freedom to practice one's faith
without persecution and forced
conversions.[20][21]

The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, who ruled

from 268 to 232 BCE, established the
largest empire in South Asia. Following
the reportedly destructive Kalinga War,
Ashoka adopted Buddhism and
abandoned an expansionist policy in
favor of humanitarian reforms. The
Edicts of Ashoka were erected
throughout his empire, containing the
'Law of Piety'.[22] These laws prohibited
slavery, religious discrimination, and
cruelty against both humans and
animals.[23]

Later documents pertaining to human

rights can be referenced in the
Constitution of Medina (622), Al-Risalah
al-Huquq (late 7th to early 8th century),
Magna Carta (1215), the German
Peasants' War Twelve Articles (1525), the
English Bill of Rights (1689), the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
the Citizen (1789), and the Bill of Rights
in the United States Constitution
(1791).[1]

The statute of Kalisz (1264), bestowed

privileges to the Jewish minority in the
Kingdom of Poland such as protection
from discrimination and hate speech.[24]
Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept
of human rights is intertwined with the
modern sense of citizenship, which did
not emerge until the past few hundred
years.[25]
16th–18th century

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

approved by the National Assembly of France, 26
August 1789

17th-century English philosopher John

Locke discussed natural rights in his
work, identifying them as being "life,
liberty, and estate (property)", and argued
that such fundamental rights could not
be surrendered in the social contract. In
Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights
and the Scottish Claim of Right each
made illegal a range of oppressive
governmental actions.[26] Two major
revolutions occurred during the 18th
century, in the United States (1776) and
in France (1789), leading to the United
States Declaration of Independence and
the French Declaration of the Rights of
Man and of the Citizen respectively, both
of which articulated certain human
rights. Additionally, the Virginia
Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded
into law a number of fundamental civil
rights and civil freedoms.
 We hold these truths to be self-
evident, 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.

— United States
Declaration of
Independence, 1776

These were followed by developments in

philosophy of human rights by
philosophers such as Thomas Paine,
John Stuart Mill and G.W.F. Hegel during
the 18th and 19th centuries. The term
human rights probably came into use
some time between Paine's The Rights of
Man and William Lloyd Garrison's 1831
writings in The Liberator, in which he
stated that he was trying to enlist his
readers in "the great cause of human
rights". Although the term had been used
by at least one author as early as
1742.[27]

19th century

In the 19th century, human rights became

a central concern over the issue of
slavery.[6] A number of reformers, notably
British Member of Parliament William
Wilberforce, worked towards the
abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and
abolition of slavery. This was achieved
across the British Empire by the Slave
Trade Act 1807, which was enforced
internationally by the Royal Navy under
treaties Britain negotiated with other
nations,[28] and the Slavery Abolition Act
1833. In the United States, all the
northern states had abolished the
institution of slavery between 1777 and
1804, although southern states clung
tightly to the "peculiar institution".
Conflict and debates over the expansion
of slavery to new territories constituted
one of the reasons for the southern
states' secession and the American Civil
War. During the reconstruction period
immediately following the war, several
amendments to the United States
Constitution were made. These included
the 13th amendment, banning slavery,
the 14th amendment, assuring full
citizenship and civil rights to all people
born in the United States, and the 15th
amendment, guaranteeing African
Americans the right to vote. In Russia,
the reformer Tsar Alexander II ended
serfdom in 1861,[6] although the freed
serfs often faced restrictions of their
mobility within the nation.

Many groups and movements have

achieved profound social changes over
the course of the 20th century in the
name of human rights. In 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, and more recent movements,
on behalf of women and minorities in the
United States.

The establishment of the International

Committee of the Red Cross, the 1864
Lieber Code and the first of the Geneva
Conventions in 1864 laid the foundations
of International humanitarian law, to be
further developed following the two
World Wars.

20th century

The World Wars, and the huge losses of

life and gross abuses of human rights
that took place during them, were a
driving force behind the development of
modern human rights instruments. The
League of Nations was established in
1919 at the negotiations over the Treaty
of Versailles following the end of World
War I. The League's goals included
disarmament, preventing war through
collective security, settling disputes
between countries through negotiation
and diplomacy, and improving global
welfare. Enshrined in its charter was a
mandate to promote many of the rights
later included in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.

At the 1945 Yalta Conference, the Allied

Powers agreed to create a new body to
supplant the League's role; this was to be
the United Nations. The United Nations
has played an important role in
international human-rights law since its
creation. Following the World Wars, the
United Nations and its members
developed much of the discourse and the
bodies of law that now make up
international humanitarian law and
international human rights law. Analyst
Belinda Cooper argued that human rights
organisations flourished in the 1990s,
possibly as a result of the dissolution of
the western and eastern Cold War
blocs.[29] Ludwig Hoffmann argues that
human rights became more widely
emphasised in the latter half of the
twentieth century because it "provided a
language for political claim making and
counter-claims, liberal-democratic, but
also socialist and post colonialist.[30]

Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in

Islam

The CDHR was signed by member states

of the OIC in 1990 at the 19th Conference
of Foreign Ministers held in Cairo, Egypt.
It was seen as the answer to the UDHR.
In fact, the CDHR was "patterned after
the UN-sponsored UDHR of 1948".[31] The
object of the CDHR was to "serve as a
guide for member states on human
rights issues. CDHR translated the
Qur'anic teachings as follows: "All men
are equal in terms of basic human dignity
and basic obligations and
responsibilities, without any
discrimination on the basis of race,
colour, language, belief, sex, religion,
political affiliation, social status or other
considerations. True religion is the
guarantee for enhancing such dignity
along the path to human integrity.[31] The
CDHR referenced Islamic Sharia [32]
which includes Quran, Hadith, prophetic
teachings and Islamic legal tradition.

Philosophy
The philosophy of human rights attempts
to examine the underlying basis of the
concept of human rights and critically
looks at its content and justification.
Several theoretical approaches have
been advanced to explain how and why
human rights have become a part of
social expectations.

One of the oldest Western philosophies

of human rights is that they are a product
of a natural law, stemming from different
philosophical or religious grounds. Other
theories hold that human rights codify
moral behaviour which is a human social
product developed by a process of
biological and social evolution
(associated with Hume). Human rights
are also described as a sociological
pattern of rule setting (as in the
sociological theory of law and the work
of Weber). These approaches include the
notion that individuals in a society accept
rules from legitimate authority in
exchange for security and economic
advantage (as in Rawls) – a social
contract. The two theories that dominate
contemporary human rights discussion
are the interest theory and the will theory.
Interest theory argues that the principal
function of human rights is to protect
and promote certain essential human
interests, while will theory attempts to
establish the validity of human rights
based on the unique human capacity for
freedom.[33] Other positions attempt to
categorise rights into basic types, rather
than make claims about the function or
derivation of particular rights.[34]

Criticism

The claims made by human rights to

universality have led to criticism.
Philosophers who have criticised the
concept of human rights include Jeremy
Bentham, Edmund Burke, Friedrich
Nietzsche and Karl Marx. Canadian
political philosophy professor Charles
Blattberg argues that discussion of
human rights, being abstract,
demotivates people from upholding the
values that rights are meant to affirm.[35]
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
gives particular attention to two types of
criticisms: the one questioning
universality of human rights and the one
denying them objective ground.[36] Alain
Pellet, a French scholar on international
law, criticises "human rightism" approach
as denying the principle of sovereignty
and claiming a special place for human
rights among the branches of
international law;[37] French journalist
Alain de Benoist questions human rights
premises of human equality.[38] American
scholar David Kennedy had listed
pragmatic worries and polemical charges
concerning human rights in 2002 in
Harvard Human Rights Journal.[39]
Classification
Human rights can be classified and
organised in several different ways. At an
international level the most common
categorisation of human rights has been
to split them into civil and political rights,
and economic, social and cultural rights.

Civil and political rights are enshrined in

articles 3 to 21 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and
in the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR). Economic,
social and cultural rights are enshrined in
articles 22 to 28 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and
in the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR).

Indivisibility

The UDHR included both economic,

social and cultural rights and civil and
political rights because it was based on
the principle that the different rights
could only successfully exist in
combination:

The ideal of free human beings

enjoying civil and political
freedom and freedom from fear
and want can only be achieved
if conditions are created
 whereby everyone may enjoy
his civil and political rights, as
well as his social, economic
and cultural rights.

— International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights
and the International
Covenant on Economic
Social and Cultural Rights,
1966

This is held to be true because without

civil and political rights the public cannot
assert their economic, social and cultural
rights. Similarly, without livelihoods and a
working society, the public cannot assert
or make use of civil or political rights
(known as the full belly thesis).

The indivisibility and interdependence of

all human rights has been confirmed by
the 1993 Vienna Declaration and
Programme of Action:

All human rights are universal,

indivisible and interdependent
and related. The international
community must treat human
rights globally in a fair and
equal manner, on the same
footing, and with the same
emphasis.
 — Vienna Declaration and
Programme of Action,
World Conference on
Human Rights, 1993

This statement was again endorsed at

the 2005 World Summit in New York
(paragraph 121).

Although accepted by the signatories to

the UDHR, most do not in practice give
equal weight to the different types of
rights. Some Western cultures have often
given priority to civil and political rights,
sometimes at the expense of economic
and social rights such as the right to
work, to education, health and housing.
Similarly the ex Soviet bloc countries and
Asian countries have tended to give
priority to economic, social and cultural
rights, but have often failed to provide
civil and political rights.

Categorisation

Opponents of the indivisibility of human

rights argue that economic, social and
cultural rights are fundamentally different
from civil and political rights and require
completely different approaches.
Economic, social and cultural rights are
argued to be:

aspirations or goals, as opposed to real

'legal' rights
ideologically divisive/political, meaning
that there is no consensus on what
should or should not be provided as a
right
non-justiciable, meaning that their
provision, or the breach of them,
cannot be judged in a court of law
positive, meaning that they require
active provision of entitlements by the
state (as opposed to the state being
required only to prevent the breach of
rights)
progressive, meaning that they will take
significant time to implement
resource-intensive, meaning that they
are expensive and difficult to provide
 socialist, as opposed to capitalist
vague, meaning they cannot be
quantitatively measured, and whether
they are adequately provided or not is
difficult to judge.

Similarly civil and political rights are

categorized as:

capitalist
cost-free
immediate, meaning they can be
immediately provided if the state
decides to
justiciable
negative, meaning the state can
protect them simply by taking no
 action
non-ideological/non-political
precise, meaning their provision is easy
to judge and measure
real 'legal' rights

Australian politician Olivia Ball and

British scholar Paul Gready argue that for
both civil and political rights and
economic, social and cultural rights, it is
easy to find examples which do not fit
into the above categorisation. Among
several others, they highlight the fact that
maintaining a judicial system, a
fundamental requirement of the civil right
to due process before the law and other
rights relating to judicial process, is
positive, resource-intensive, progressive
and vague, while the social right to
housing is precise, justiciable and can be
a real 'legal' right.[40]

Three generations

Another categorisation, offered by Czech-

French scholar 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. This
categorisation is at odds with the
indivisibility of rights, as it implicitly
states that some rights can exist without
others. Prioritisation of rights for
pragmatic reasons is however a widely
accepted necessity. American human
rights scholar Philip Alston argues:

If every possible human rights

element is deemed to be
essential or necessary, then
nothing will be treated as
though it is truly important.[41]
He, and others, urge caution with
prioritisation of rights:

[T]he call for prioritizing is not

to suggest that any obvious
violations of rights can be
ignored.

— Philip Alston[41]

Priorities, where necessary,

should adhere to core concepts
(such as reasonable attempts
at progressive realization) and
principles (such as non-
 discrimination, equality and
participation.

— Olivia Ball, Paul

Gready[42]

Some human rights are said to be

"inalienable rights". The term inalienable
rights (or unalienable rights) refers to "a
set of human rights that are fundamental,
are not awarded by human power, and
cannot be surrendered."

International protection and

promotion
In the aftermath of the atrocities of World
War II, there was increased concern for
the social and legal protection of human
rights as fundamental freedoms. The
foundation of the United Nations and the
provisions of the United Nations Charter
provided a basis for a comprehensive
system of international law and practice
for the protection of human rights. Since
then, international human rights law has
been characterised by a linked system of
conventions, treaties, organisations, and
political bodies, rather than any single
entity or set of laws.[43] However,
American analyst Pierre Leval suggested
that respect for fundamental human
rights in the world today (in 2013) is
"dismal" within some nations:[44]
Despotic regimes murder,
mutilate, and rape civilian
populations and arbitrarily
imprison and torture political
opponents. Human traffickers,
almost invariably operating
with the protection of corrupt
local officials and police,
enslave children and young
women in the sex trade. So
long as the regimes that
sponsor and protect these
criminals remain in power,
their crimes go unrecognized.
 — Pierre N. Leval in
Foreign Affairs, 2013[44]

United Nations Charter

The provisions of the United Nations

Charter provided a basis for the
development of international human
rights protection in the opinion of British
barrister Ian Brownlie.[43] The preamble
of the charter provides that the members
"reaffirm faith in fundamental human
rights, in the equal rights of men and
women" and Article 1(3) of the United
Nations charter states that one of the
purposes of the UN is: "to achieve
international cooperation in solving
international problems of an economic,
social, cultural, or humanitarian
character, and in promoting and
encouraging respect for human rights
and for fundamental freedoms for all
without distinction as to race, sex,
language, or religion".[45] Article 55
provides that:

The United Nations shall

promote: a) higher standards
of living, full employment, and
conditions of economic and
social progress and
development; b) solutions of
international economic, social,
 health, and related problems;
c) international cultural and
educational cooperation; d)
universal respect for, and
observance of, human rights
and fundamental freedoms for
all without distinction as to
race, sex, language, or religion.

Of particular importance is Article 56 of

the charter: "All Members pledge
themselves to take joint and separate
action in co-operation with the
Organization for the achievement of the
purposes set forth in Article 55." This is a
binding treaty provision applicable to
both the organization and its members
and has been taken to constitute a legal
obligation for the members of the United
Nations.[43] Overall, the references to
human rights in the charter are general
and vague. The charter does not contain
specific legal rights, nor does it mandate
any enforcement procedures to protect
these rights.[46] According to Shaw, the
importance of human rights on the global
stage can be traced to the importance of
human rights within the United Nations
framework and the UN Charter can be
seen as the starting point for the
development of a broad array of
declarations, treaties, implementation
and enforcement mechanisms, UN
organs, committees and reports on the
protection of human rights.[46] The rights
espoused in the UN charter were codified
and defined in a non-binding context
within the International Bill of Human
Rights, composing the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights.

Universal Declaration of Human

Rights
"It is not a treaty...[In the future, it] may well become
the international Magna Carta."[47] Eleanor Roosevelt

with the Spanish text of the Universal Declaration in

1949.

The Universal Declaration of Human

Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the
United Nations General Assembly[16] in
1948, partly in response to the atrocities
of World War II. It is generally viewed as
the preeminent statement of
international rights and has been
identified as being a culmination of
centuries of thinking along both secular
and religious lines.[48] Although the UDHR
is a non-binding resolution, it is now
considered by some to have acquired the
force of international customary law
which may be invoked in appropriate
circumstances by national and other
tribunals. The UDHR urges member
nations to promote a number of human,
civil, economic and social rights,
asserting these rights as 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.
 ...recognition of the inherent
dignity and of the equal and
inalienable rights of all
members of the human family
is the foundation of freedom,
justice and peace in the world.

— Preamble to the
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, 1948

The UDHR was framed by members of

the Human Rights Commission, with
former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as
Chair, who began to discuss an
International Bill of Rights in 1947. The
members of the Commission did not
immediately agree on the form of such a
bill of rights, and whether, or how, it
should be enforced. The Commission
proceeded to frame the UDHR and
accompanying treaties, but the UDHR
quickly became the priority.[49] Canadian
law professor John Humphrey and
French lawyer René Cassin were
responsible for much of the cross-
national research and the structure of the
document respectively, where the articles
of the declaration were interpretative of
the general principle of the preamble.
The document was structured by Cassin
to include the basic principles of dignity,
liberty, equality and brotherhood in the
first two articles, followed successively
by rights pertaining to individuals; rights
of individuals in relation to each other
and to groups; spiritual, public and
political rights; and economic, social and
cultural rights. According to Cassin, the
final three articles place rights in the
context of limits, duties and the social
and political order in which they are to be
realised.[49] Humphrey and Cassin
intended the rights in the UDHR to be
legally enforceable through some means,
as is reflected in the third clause of the
preamble:[49]

Whereas it is essential, if man

is not to be compelled to have
recourse, as a last resort, to
 rebellion against tyranny and
oppression, that human rights
should be protected by the rule
of law.

— Preamble to the
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, 1948

Some of the UDHR was researched and

written by a committee of international
experts on human rights, including
representatives from all continents and
all major religions, and drawing on
consultation with leaders such as
Mahatma Gandhi.[50][51] The inclusion of
civil, political, economic, social and
cultural rights[49][52] was predicated on
the assumption that all human rights are
indivisible and that the different types of
rights listed are inextricably linked. This
principle was not then opposed by any
member states (the declaration was
adopted unanimously, Byelorussian SSR,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia,
Ukrainian SSR, Union of South Africa,
USSR, Yugoslavia.); however, this
principle was later subject to significant
challenges.[52]

The Universal Declaration was bifurcated

into treaties, a Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and another on social,
economic, and cultural rights, due to
questions about the relevance and
propriety of economic and social
provisions in covenants on human rights.
Both covenants begin with the right of
people to self-determination and to
sovereignty over their natural
resources.[53] This debate over whether
human rights are more fundamental than
economic rights has continued to the
present day. The United States declared
after the World Food Summit that a right
to be free from hunger does not give rise
to any international obligations which
has been interpreted as a negative
duty.[54]
The drafters of the Covenants initially
intended only one instrument. The
original drafts included only political and
civil rights, but economic and social
rights were also proposed. The
disagreement over which rights were
basic human rights resulted in there
being two covenants. The debate was
whether economic and social rights are
aspirational, as contrasted with basic
human rights which all people possess
purely by being human, because
economic and social rights depend on
wealth and the availability of resources.
In addition, which social and economic
rights should be recognised depends on
ideology or economic theories, in
contrast to basic human rights, which are
defined purely by the nature (mental and
physical abilities) of human beings. It
was debated whether economic rights
were appropriate subjects for binding
obligations and whether the lack of
consensus over such rights would dilute
the strength of political-civil rights. There
was wide agreement and clear
recognition that the means required to
enforce or induce compliance with
socioeconomic undertakings were
different from the means required for
civil-political rights.[55][56]

This debate and the desire for the

greatest number of signatories to
human-rights law led to the two
covenants. The Soviet bloc and a number
of developing countries had argued for
the inclusion of all rights in a so-called
Unity Resolution. Both covenants allowed
states to derogate some rights. Those in
favour of a single treaty could not gain
sufficient consensus.[57][58]

International treaties

In 1966, the International Covenant on

Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the
International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) were
adopted by the United Nations, between
them making the rights contained in the
UDHR binding on all states that have
signed this treaty, creating human-rights
law.

Since then numerous other treaties

(pieces of legislation) have been offered
at the international level. They are
generally known as human rights
instruments. Some of the most
significant, referred to (with ICCPR and
ICESCR) as "the seven core treaties", are:

Convention on the Elimination of All

Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) (adopted 1979, entry
into force: 1981)
Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
(adopted 1966, entry into force: 1969)
Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities (CRPD) (adopted
2006, entry into force: 2008)
Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) (adopted 1989, entry into force:
1989)
United Nations Convention Against
Torture (CAT) (adopted 1984, entry
into force: 1987)
International Convention on the
Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of their
 Families (ICRMW or more often MWC)
(adopted 1990, entry into force: 2003)

Customary international law

In addition to protection by international

treaties, customary international law may
protect some human rights, such as the
prohibition of torture, genocide and
slavery and the principle of non-
discrimination.[59]

International humanitarian law

The Geneva Conventions came into

being between 1864 and 1949 as a result
of efforts by Henry Dunant, the founder
of the International Committee of the
Red Cross. The conventions safeguard
the human rights of individuals involved
in armed conflict, and build on the Hague
Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the
international community's first attempt to
formalise the laws of war and war crimes
in the nascent body of secular
international law. The conventions were
revised as a result of World War II and
readopted by the international
community in 1949.

United Nations system

Under the mandate of the UN charter,

and the multilateral UN human rights
treaties, the United Nations (UN) as an
intergovernmental body seeks to apply
international jurisdiction for universal
human-rights legislation.[60] Within the
UN machinery, human-rights issues are
primarily the concern of the United
Nations Security Council and the United
Nations Human Rights Council, and there
are numerous committees within the UN
with responsibilities for safeguarding
different human-rights treaties. The most
senior body of the UN in the sphere of
human rights is the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights. The
United Nations has an international
mandate to:
 achieve international co-
operation in solving
international problems of an
economic, social, cultural, or
humanitarian character, and
in promoting and encouraging
respect for human rights and
for fundamental freedoms for
all without distinction as to
race, gender, language, or
religion.

— Article 1–3 of the United

Nations Charter

Political bodies
Security Council

The United Nations Security Council has

the primary responsibility for maintaining
international peace and security and is
the only body of the UN that can
authorise the use of force. It has been
criticised for failing to take action to
prevent human rights abuses, including
the Darfur crisis, the Srebrenica
massacre and the Rwandan Genocide.[61]
For example, critics blamed the presence
of non-democracies on the Security
Council for its failure regarding.[62]

On April 28, 2006 the Security Council

adopted resolution 1674 that reaffirmed
the responsibility to protect populations
from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity"
and committed the Security Council to
action to protect civilians in armed
conflict.[63]

General Assembly

The UN General Assembly

The United Nations General Assembly,

under Article 13 of the UN Charter, has
the power to initiate studies and make
recommendations on human rights
issues.[64] Under this provision, the
general assembly passed the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948,
and since then a wide variety of other
human rights instruments.[64] The
assembly has several subsidiary organs
that deal with specific human rights
issues, such as the Special Committee
on Decolonisation and the Special
Commission against Apartheid (no
longer operational). In addition the
general assembly has set up a number of
subsidiary organs that consider human
rights issues in a number of high-profile
contexts: such as the UN Council on
Namibia, the Special Committee to
Investigate Israeli Practises in the
Occupied territories and the Committee
on the Exercise of the Inalienable rights
of the Palestine People.[65]

Human Rights Council

The United Nations Human Rights

Council, created at the 2005 World
Summit to replace the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights, has a
mandate to investigate violations of
human rights.[66] The Human Rights
Council is a subsidiary body of the
General Assembly[67] and reports directly
to it. It ranks below the Security Council,
which is the final authority for the
interpretation of the United Nations
Charter.[68] Forty-seven of the one
hundred ninety-one member states sit on
the council, elected by simple majority in
a secret ballot of the United Nations
General Assembly. Members serve a
maximum of six years and may have
their membership suspended for gross
human rights abuses. The Council is
based in Geneva, and meets three times
a year; with additional meetings to
respond to urgent situations.[69]

Independent experts (rapporteurs) are

retained by the Council to investigate
alleged human rights abuses and to
provide the Council with reports.

The Human Rights Council may request

that the Security Council take action
when human rights violations occur. This
action may be direct actions, may involve
sanctions, and the Security Council may
also refer cases to the International
Criminal Court (ICC) even if the issue
being referred is outside the normal
jurisdiction of the ICC.[70]

Treaty bodies

In addition to the political bodies whose

mandate flows from the UN charter, the
UN has set up a number of treaty-based
bodies, comprising committees of
independent experts who monitor
compliance with human rights standards
and norms flowing from the core
international human rights treaties. They
are supported by and are created by the
treaty that they monitor, With the
exception of the CESCR, which was
established under a resolution of the
Economic and Social Council to carry out
the monitoring functions originally
assigned to that body under the
Covenant, they are technically
autonomous bodies, established by the
treaties that they monitor and
accountable to the state parties of those
treaties - rather than subsidiary to the
United Nations. Though in practice they
are closely intertwined with the United
Nations system and are supported by the
UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights (UNHCHR) and the UN Centre for
Human Rights.[71]

The Human Rights Committee

promotes participation with the
standards of the ICCPR. The members
of the committee express opinions on
member countries and make
judgments on individual complaints
against countries which have ratified
an Optional Protocol to the treaty. The
judgments, termed "views", are not
legally binding. The member of the
committee meets around three times a
year to hold sessions [72]
The Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights monitors the
ICESCR and makes general comments
on ratifying countries performance. It
will have the power to receive
complaints against the countries that
opted into the Optional Protocol once it
has come into force. It is important to
note that unlike the other treaty bodies,
the economic committee is not an
autonomous body responsible to the
treaty parties, but directly responsible
to the Economic and Social Council
and ultimately to the General
Assembly. This means that the
Economic Committee faces particular
difficulties at its disposal only
relatively "weak" means of
implementation in comparison to other
treaty bodies.[73] Particular difficulties
noted by commentators include:
perceived vagueness of the principles
of the treaty, relative lack of legal texts
and decisions, ambivalence of many
states in addressing economic, social
and cultural rights, comparatively few
non-governmental organisations
focused on the area and problems with
obtaining relevant and precise
information.[73][74]
The Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination monitors the
CERD and conducts regular reviews of
countries' performance. It can make
judgments on complaints against
member states allowing it, but these
are not legally binding. It issues
warnings to attempt to prevent serious
contraventions of the convention.
The Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women
monitors the CEDAW. It receives
states' reports on their performance
and comments on them, and can make
judgments on complaints against
countries which have opted into the
1999 Optional Protocol.
The Committee Against Torture
monitors the CAT and receives states'
reports on their performance every
four years and comments on them. Its
subcommittee may visit and inspect
countries which have opted into the
Optional Protocol.
The Committee on the Rights of the
Child monitors the CRC and makes
comments on reports submitted by
states every five years. It does not
have the power to receive complaints.
The Committee on Migrant Workers
was established in 2004 and monitors
the ICRMW and makes comments on
reports submitted by states every five
years. It will have the power to receive
complaints of specific violations only
once ten member states allow it.
The Committee on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities was
established in 2008 to monitor the
Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities. It has the power to
receive complaints against the
countries which have opted into the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The Committee on Enforced
Disappearances monitors the ICPPED.
All States parties are obliged to submit
reports to the Committee on how the
rights are being implemented. The
Committee examines each report and
addresses its concerns and
recommendations to the State party in
the form of "concluding observations”.
Each treaty body receives secretariat
support from the Human Rights Council
and Treaties Division of Office of the
High Commissioner on Human Rights
(OHCHR) in Geneva except CEDAW,
which is supported by the Division for the
Advancement of Women (DAW). CEDAW
formerly held all its sessions at United
Nations headquarters in New York but
now frequently meets at the United
Nations Office in Geneva; the other treaty
bodies meet in Geneva. The Human
Rights Committee usually holds its
March session in New York City.

Regional human rights regimes

International human rights regimes are in
several cases "nested" within more
comprehensive and overlapping regional
agreements. These regional regimes can
be seen as relatively independently
coherent human rights sub-regimes.[75]
Three principal regional human rights
instruments can be identified; the African
Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights,
the American Convention on Human
Rights (the Americas) and the European
Convention on Human Rights. The
European Convention on Human Rights
has since 1950 defined and guaranteed
human rights and fundamental freedoms
in Europe.[76] All 47 member states of the
Council of Europe have signed the
Convention and are therefore under the
jurisdiction of the European Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg.[76]

Human rights promotion

Human rights continue to be promoted

around the world through governmental
organisations and museums including
the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Non-governmental actors
Non-governmental organisations
Visitors to an LGBT Pride event in Greece interact
with members of a non-governmental human rights

organisation.

International non-governmental human

rights organisations such as Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch,
International Service for Human Rights
and FIDH monitor what they see as
human rights issues around the world
and promote their views on the subject.
Human rights organisations have been
said to "translate complex international
issues into activities to be undertaken by
concerned citizens in their own
community".[77] Human rights
organisations frequently engage in
lobbying and advocacy in an effort to
convince the United Nations,
supranational bodies and national
governments to adopt their policies on
human rights. Many human-rights
organisations have observer status at the
various UN bodies tasked with protecting
human rights. A new (in 2009) non-
governmental human-rights conference
is the Oslo Freedom Forum, a gathering
described by The Economist as "on its
way to becoming a human-rights
equivalent of the Davos economic
forum." The same article noted that
human-rights advocates are more and
more divided amongst themselves over
how violations of human rights are to be
defined, notably as regards the Middle
East.[78]

There is criticism of human-rights

organisations who use their status but
allegedly move away from their stated
goals. For example, Gerald M. Steinberg,
an Israel-based academic, maintains that
NGOs take advantage of a "halo effect"
and are "given the status of impartial
moral watchdogs" by governments and
the media.[79] Such critics claim that this
may be seen at various governmental
levels, including when human-rights
groups testify before investigation
committees.[80]

Human rights defenders

Human rights defender are people who,

individually or with others, act peacefully
to promote or protect human rights.[81]
They can defend rights as part of their
jobs or in a voluntary capacity and can
act at local, national or international
level. They can be journalists,
environmentalists, whistle-blowers, trade
unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing
campaigners, and so on. As a result of
their activities, they can sometimes be
the subject of reprisals and attacks of all
kinds, including smears, surveillance,
harassment, false charges, arbitrary
detention, restrictions on the right to
freedom of association, and physical
attacks.[82]

Corporations

Multinational companies play an

increasingly large role in the world, and
have been responsible for numerous
human rights abuses.[83] Although the
legal and moral environment surrounding
the actions of governments is reasonably
well developed, that surrounding
multinational companies is both
controversial and ill-defined.
Multinational companies' primary
responsibility is to their shareholders, not
to those affected by their actions. Such
companies may be larger than the
economies of some of the states within
which they operate, and can wield
significant economic and political power.
No international treaties exist to
specifically cover the behaviour of
companies with regard to human rights,
and national legislation is very variable.
Jean Ziegler, a Swiss professor and
Special Rapporteur of the UN
Commission on Human Rights on the
right to food stated in a report in 2003:
[T]he growing power of
transnational corporations
and their extension of power
through privatization,
deregulation and the rolling
back of the State also mean
that it is now time to develop
binding legal norms that hold
corporations to human rights
standards and circumscribe
potential abuses of their
position of power.

— Jean Ziegler[84]
In August 2003 the Human Rights
Commission's Sub-Commission on the
Promotion and Protection of Human
Rights produced draft Norms on the
responsibilities of transnational
corporations and other business
enterprises with regard to human
rights.[85] These were considered by the
Human Rights Commission in 2004, but
have no binding status on corporations
and are not monitored.[86]

Violations
Human rights violations occur when
actions by state (or non-state) actors
abuse, ignore, or deny basic human
rights (including civil, political, cultural,
social, and economic rights).
Furthermore, violations of human rights
can occur when any state or non-state
actor breaches any part of the UDHR
treaty or other international human rights
or humanitarian law.[87] In regard to
human rights violations of United
Nations laws, Article 39 of the United
Nations Charter designates the UN
Security Council (or an appointed
authority) as the only tribunal that may
determine UN human rights violations.

Human rights abuses are monitored by

United Nations committees, national
institutions and governments and by
many independent non-governmental
organisations, such as Amnesty
International, International Federation of
Human Rights, Human Rights Watch,
World Organisation Against Torture,
Freedom House, International Freedom
of Expression Exchange and Anti-Slavery
International. These organisations collect
evidence and documentation of alleged
human rights abuses and apply pressure
to enforce human rights laws.

Wars of aggression, war crimes and

crimes against humanity, including
genocide, are breaches of International
humanitarian law and represent the most
serious of human rights violations.
In efforts to eliminate violations of
human rights, building awareness and
protesting inhumane treatment has often
led to calls for action and sometimes
improved conditions. The UN Security
Council has interceded with peace
keeping forces, and other states and
treaties (NATO) have intervened in
situations to protect human rights.

Substantive rights
Right to life

Every human being has the

inherent right to life. This right
shall be protected by law. No
 one shall be arbitrarily
deprived of his life.

— Article 6.1 of the

International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights

The right to life is the essential right that

a human being has the right not to be
killed by another human being. The
concept of a right to life is central to
debates on the issues of abortion, capital
punishment, euthanasia, self defence
and war. According to many human
rights activists, the death penalty violates
this right.[88] The United Nations has
called on states retaining the death
penalty to establish a moratorium on
capital punishment with a view to its
abolition.[89] States which do not do so
face considerable moral and political
pressure.

Freedom from torture

Throughout history, torture has been

used as a method of political re-
education, interrogation, punishment, and
coercion. In addition to state-sponsored
torture, individuals or groups may be
motivated to inflict torture on others for
similar reasons to those of a state;
however, the motive for torture can also
be for the sadistic gratification of the
torturer, as in the Moors murders.

Since the mid-20th century, torture is

prohibited under international law and
the domestic laws of most countries. It is
considered to be a violation of human
rights, and is declared to be
unacceptable by Article 5 of the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Signatories of the Geneva Conventions of
1949 and the Additional Protocols I and II
of June 8, 1977 officially agree not to
torture captured persons in armed
conflicts, whether international or
internal. Torture is also prohibited by the
United Nations Convention Against
Torture, which has been ratified by 157
countries.[90]

National and international legal

prohibitions on torture derive from a
consensus that torture and similar ill-
treatment are immoral, as well as
impractical.[91] Despite these
international conventions, organisations
that monitor abuses of human rights
(e.g., Amnesty International, the
International Rehabilitation Council for
Torture Victims) report widespread use
condoned by states in many regions of
the world.[92] Amnesty International
estimates that at least 81 world
governments currently practise torture,
some of them openly.[93]

Freedom from slavery

Freedom from slavery is internationally

recognised as a human right. Article 4 of
the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights states:

No one shall be held in slavery

or servitude; slavery and the
slave trade shall be prohibited
in all their forms.[94]

Despite this, the number of slaves today

(in 2010) is higher than at any point in
history,[95] remaining as high as 12
million[96] to 27 million,[97][98][99] Most are
debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who
are under debt bondage incurred by
lenders, sometimes even for
generations.[100]Human trafficking is
primarily for prostituting women and
children into sex industries.[101]

Groups such as the American Anti-

Slavery Group, Anti-Slavery International,
Free the Slaves, the Anti-Slavery Society,
and the Norwegian Anti-Slavery Society
continue to campaign to rid the world of
slavery.

Right to a fair trial

 Everyone is entitled in full
equality to a fair and public
hearing by an independent and
impartial tribunal, in the
determination of his rights and
obligations and of any criminal
charge against him.[102]

The right to a fair trial has been defined

in numerous regional and international
human rights instruments. It is one of the
most extensive human rights and all
international human rights instruments
enshrine it in more than one article.[103]
The right to a fair trial is one of the most
litigated human rights and substantial
case law has been established on the
interpretation of this human right.[104]
Despite variations in wording and
placement of the various fair trial rights,
international human rights instrument
define the right to a fair trial in broadly
the same terms.[105] The aim of the right
is to ensure the proper administration of
justice. As a minimum the right to fair
trial includes the following fair trial rights
in civil and criminal proceedings:[106]

the right to be heard by a competent,

independent and impartial tribunal
the right to a public hearing
the right to be heard within a
reasonable time
 the right to counsel
the right to interpretation[106]

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to

speak freely without censorship. The
term freedom of expression is
sometimes used synonymously, but
includes any act of seeking, receiving
and imparting information or ideas,
regardless of the medium used. In
practice, the right to freedom of speech
is not absolute in any country and the
right is commonly subject to limitations,
such as on libel, slander, obscenity,
incitement to commit a crime, etc. The
right to freedom of expression is
recognised as a human right under
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and recognised in
international human rights law in the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 19 of the
ICCPR states that "[e]veryone shall have
the right to hold opinions without
interference" and "everyone shall have
the right to freedom of expression; this
right shall include freedom to seek,
receive and impart information and ideas
of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either
orally, in writing or in print, in the form of
art, or through any other media of his
choice".
Freedom of thought, conscience and
religion

Everyone has the right to

freedom of thought, conscience
and religion; this right includes
freedom to change his religion
or belief, and freedom, either
alone or in community with
others and in public or private,
to manifest his religion or
belief in teaching, practice,
worship and observance.

— Article 18 of the
International Covenant on
 Civil and Political Rights

Freedom of thought, conscience and

religion are closely related rights that
protect the freedom of an individual or
community, in public or private, to think
and freely hold conscientious beliefs and
to manifest religion or belief in teaching,
practice, worship, and observance; the
concept is generally recognised also to
include the freedom to change religion or
not to follow any religion.[107] The
freedom to leave or discontinue
membership in a religion or religious
group—in religious terms called
"apostasy"—is also a fundamental part of
religious freedom, covered by Article 18
of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.[108]

Human rights groups such as Amnesty

International organises campaigns to
protect those arrested and or
incarcerated as a prisoner of conscience
because of their conscientious beliefs,
particularly concerning intellectual,
political and artistic freedom of
expression and association.[109] In
legislation, a conscience clause is a
provision in a statute that excuses a
health professional from complying with
the law (for example legalising surgical
or pharmaceutical abortion) if it is
incompatible with religious or
conscientious beliefs.[110]

Freedom of movement

Freedom of movement asserts that a

citizen of a state in which that citizen is
present has the liberty to travel, reside in,
and/or work in any part of the state
where one pleases within the limits of
respect for the liberty and rights of
others,[111] and to leave that state and
return at any time.

Rights debates

Events and new possibilities can affect

existing rights or require new ones.
Advances of technology, medicine, and
philosophy constantly challenge the
status quo of human rights thinking.

Right to education

UN agencies, such as UNESCO, promote

the right to education as a fundamental
right. Education encompasses several
thematic areas, including comprehensive
sexuality education, which is also
considered to be relevant for human
rights.[112]

Right to keep and bear arms

The right to keep and bear arms for

defence is described in the philosophical
and political writings of Aristotle, Cicero,
John Locke, Machiavelli, the English
Whigs and others.[113] In countries with
an English common law tradition, a long-
standing common law right to keep and
bear arms has long been recognised, as
pre-existing in common law, prior even to
the existence of national
constitutions.[114]

Future generations

In 1997, UNESCO adopted the

Declaration on the Responsibilities of the
Present Generation Towards the Future
Generation. The Declaration opens with
the words:
Mindful of the will of the
peoples, set out solemnly in the
Charter of the United Nations,
to 'save succeeding generations
from the scourge of war' and to
safeguard the values and
principles enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, and all other
relevant instruments of
international law.

— Declaration on the
Responsibilities of the
Present Generation
 Towards the Future
Generation

Article 1 of the declaration states "the

present generations have the
responsibility of ensuring that the needs
and interests of present and future
generations are fully safeguarded". The
preamble to the declaration states that
"at this point in history, the very existence
of humankind and its environment are
threatened" and the declaration covers a
variety of issues including protection of
the environment, the human genome,
biodiversity, cultural heritage, peace,
development, and education. The
preamble recalls that the responsibilities
of the present generations towards
future generations has been referred to in
various international instruments,
including the Convention for the
Protection of the World Cultural and
Natural Heritage (UNESCO 1972), the
United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change and the Convention
on Biological Diversity (Rio de Janeiro,
1992), the Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development (UN
Conference on Environment and
Development, 1992), the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action
(World Conference on Human Rights,
1993) and a number of UN General
Assembly resolutions relating to the
protection of the global climate for
present and future generations adopted
since 1990.[115]

Sexual orientation and gender identity

Asia's first Genderqueer Pride Parade at Madurai

with Anjali Gopalan. On 11 December 2013,
homosexuality was criminalised in India by a
Supreme Court ruling.[116]

Sexual orientation and gender identity

rights relate to the expression of sexual
orientation and gender identity based on
the right to respect for private life and the
right not to be discriminated against on
the ground of "other status" as defined in
various human rights conventions, such
as article 17 and 26 in the United Nations
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and article 8 and article
14 in the European Convention on
Human Rights.

As of 2011, homosexual behaviour is

illegal in 76 countries and punishable by
execution in seven countries.[117] The
criminalisation of private, consensual,
adult sexual relations, especially in
countries where corporal or capital
punishment is involved, is one of the
primary concerns of LGBT human rights
advocates.[118]

Other issues include: government

recognition of same-sex relationships,
LGBT adoption, sexual orientation and
military service, immigration equality,
anti-discrimination laws, hate crime laws
regarding violence against LGBT people,
sodomy laws, anti-lesbianism laws, and
equal age of consent for same-sex
activity.[119][120][121][122][123][124]

A global charter for sexual orientation

and gender identity rights has been
proposed in the form of the 'Yogyakarta
Principles', a set of 29 principles whose
authors say they apply International
Human Rights Law statutes and
precedent to situations relevant to LGBT
people's experience.[125] The principles
were presented at a United Nations event
in New York on November 7, 2007, co-
sponsored by Argentina, Brazil and
Uruguay.

The principles have been acknowledged

with influencing the French proposed UN
declaration on sexual orientation and
gender identity, which focuses on ending
violence, criminalisation and capital
punishment and does not include
dialogue about same-sex marriage or
right to start a family.[126][127] The
proposal was supported by 67 of the
then 192 member countries of the United
Nations, including all EU member states
and the United States. An alternative
statement opposing the proposal was
initiated by Syria and signed by 57
member nations, including all 27 nations
of the Arab League as well as Iran and
North Korea.[128][129]

Trade

Although both the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights emphasise the
importance of a right to work, neither of
these documents explicitly mention free
trade as a mechanism for ensuring this
fundamental right. And yet trade plays a
key role in providing jobs.[130]

Some experts argue that trade is inherent

to human nature and that when
governments inhibit international trade
they directly inhibit the right to work and
the other indirect benefits, like the right to
education, that increased work and
investment help accrue.[131] Others have
argued that the ability to trade does not
affect everyone equally—often groups
like the rural poor, indigenous groups and
women are less likely to access the
benefits of increased trade.[132]

On the other hand, others think that it is

no longer primarily individuals but
companies that trade, and therefore it
cannot be guaranteed as a human right.
Additionally, trying to fit too many
concepts under the umbrella of what
qualifies as a human right has the
potential to dilute their importance.
Finally, it is difficult to define a right to
trade as either "fair"[133] or "just" in that
the current trade regime produces
winners and losers but its reform is likely
to produce (different) winners and
losers.[134]

Water and sanitation

The right to water has been recognised in

a wide range of international documents,
including treaties, declarations and other
standards. For instance, the 1979
Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) requires State parties to ensure
to women the right to "enjoy adequate
living conditions, particularly in relation
to … water supply". The 1989 Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC) requires
States parties to combat disease and
malnutrition "through the provision of
adequate nutritious foods and clean
drinking-water".

The most clear definition of the human

right to water has been issued by the UN
Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights. This treaty body
interpreting legal obligations of State
parties to the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR) issued in 2002 a non-binding
interpretation affirming that access to
water was a condition for the enjoyment
of the right to an adequate standard of
living and inextricably related to the right
to the highest attainable standard of
health (see ICESCR Art. 11 & 12) and
therefore a human right:

The human right to water

entitles everyone to sufficient,
safe, acceptable, physically
accessible and affordable
 water for personal and
domestic uses.

— United Nations
Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights

On July 28, 2010, the United Nations

General Assembly declared water and
sanitation as human rights. Since then,
all States have at least ratified one
human rights convention which explicitly
or implicitly recognises the right, and
they all have signed at least one political
declaration recognising this right.[135]

Sexual and reproductive rights

Human rights include women's rights and
sexual and reproductive rights. Sexual
and reproductive rights are part of a
continuum of human rights, which
includes the rights to life, health and
education, the rights to equality and non-
discrimination, and the right to decide the
timing, number and spacing of one's
children.[136][137]

Reproductive and sexual rights as part of

human rights was affirmed
internationally at the Programme of
Action of the International Conference on
Population and Development (ICPD) in
Cairo in 1994.[136] It was the first among
international development frameworks to
address issues related to sexuality,
sexual and reproductive health, and
reproductive rights.[138]

The ICPD Programme of Action in

paragraph 7.2 "defines an individual's
sexual and reproductive health as
complete well-being related to sexual
activity and reproduction. Sexual and
reproductive health and rights (SRHR)
encompass both entitlements and
freedoms. This includes the definition of
reproductive rights in paragraph 7.3 of
the ICPD PoA, which clarifies that these
are not a new set of rights but human
rights in existing human rights
instruments related to sexual and
reproductive autonomy and the
attainment of sexual and reproductive
health.[139] Additionally, the 1995 Beijing
Platform for Action (PfA) expands this
definition to cover both sexuality and
reproduction by affirming in paragraph 96
the right to exercise control over and
make decisions about one’s sexuality,
including sexual and reproductive health,
free of coercion, discrimination and
violence."[138]

World Health Organisation

Reproductive rights were first established

as a subset of human rights at the United
Nations 1968 International Conference
on Human Rights.[140] The sixteenth
article of the resulting Proclamation of
Teheran states, "Parents have a basic
human right to determine freely and
responsibly the number and the spacing
of their children."[140][141]

Reproductive rights may include some or

all of the following rights: the right to
legal or safe abortion, the right to control
one's reproductive functions, the right to
quality reproductive healthcare, and the
right to education and access in order to
make reproductive choices free from
coercion, discrimination, and
violence.[142]

Reproductive rights may also be

understood to include education about
contraception and sexually transmitted
infections, and freedom from coerced
sterilisation and contraception,
protection from gender-based practices
such as female genital cutting (FGC) and
male genital mutilation
(MGM).[137][140][142][143]

Information and communication

technologies

In October 2009, Finland's Ministry of

Transport and Communications
announced that every person in Finland
would have the legal right to Internet
access.[144] Since July 2010, the
government has legally obligated
telecommunications companies to offer
broadband Internet access to every
permanent residence and office. The
connection must be "reasonably priced"
and have a downstream rate of at least 1
Mbit/s.[145]

In March 2010, the BBC, having

commissioned an opinion poll, reported
that "almost four in five people around
the world believe that access to the
internet is a fundamental right".[146] The
poll, conducted by the polling company
GlobeScan for the BBC World Service,
collated the answers of 27,973 adult
citizens across 26 countries to find that
79% of adults either strongly agreed or
somewhat agreed with the statement:
"access to the internet should be a
fundamental right of all people".[147]

Right to non-refoulement vs. right to

asylum

Non-refoulement is the right not to be

returned to a place of persecution and is
the foundation for international refugee
law, as outlined in the 1951 Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees.[148]
Both the right to non-refoulement and the
right to asylum have taken centre stage
in recent debates over the treatment of
refugees. A central worry about the right
to asylum is that it can limit a state's
power to handle a mass influx of
refugees.[149] Processing asylum
applications can take a considerable
amount of time, and this amount rises
with the number of refugees applying.
This creates an incentive for more
refugees to apply, since they are allowed
to stay in the country during the
application process. One potential
solution to the problem of mass influx is
proposed by U.S.-based political
philosopher Andy Lamey. Lamey
proposes a portable procedural model
that focuses on the right to non-
refoulement.[150] Crucially, the procedural
rights defended by this model can be
applied outside national borders, within
any rights respecting country; this allows
the burden of mass influx to be shared by
a plurality of countries without violating
the procedural rights of the refugee.

Relationship with other

topics
The environment

There are two basic conceptions of

environmental human rights in the
current human rights system. The first is
that the right to a healthy or adequate
environment is itself a human right (as
seen in both Article 24 of the African
Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights,
and Article 11 of the San Salvador
Protocol to the American Convention on
Human Rights).[151][152] The second
conception is the idea that environmental
human rights can be derived from other
human rights, usually – the right to life,
the right to health, the right to private
family life and the right to property
(among many others). This second
theory enjoys much more widespread
use in human rights courts around the
world, as those rights are contained in
many human rights documents.

The onset of various environmental

issues, especially climate change, has
created potential conflicts between
different human rights. Human rights
ultimately require a working ecosystem
and healthy environment, but the granting
of certain rights to individuals may
damage these. Such as the conflict
between right to decide number of
offspring and the common need for a
healthy environment, as noted in the
tragedy of the commons.[153] In the area
of environmental rights, the
responsibilities of multinational
corporations, so far relatively
unaddressed by human rights legislation,
is of paramount consideration.

Environmental rights revolve largely

around the idea of a right to a livable
environment both for the present and the
future generations.
National security

With the exception of non-derogable

human rights (international conventions
class 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 as
non-derogable),[154] 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.

— United Nations. The

Resource[154]

Rights that cannot be derogated for

reasons of national security in any
circumstances are known as peremptory
norms or jus cogens. Such United
Nations Charter obligations are binding
on all states and cannot be modified by
treaty.

Examples of national security being used

to justify human rights violations include
the Japanese American internment
during World War II,[155] Stalin's Great
Purge,[156] and the modern-day abuses of
terror suspects rights by some countries,
often in the name of the War on
Terror.[157][158]

Relativism and universalism

Relativists argue that human rights must avoid

pushing the values of a single culture at the expense
of others. "The White Man's Burden" is seen as an
example of the West using the spread of Western
culture as a justification for colonisation.
Universalists argue that some practices violate the
norms of all human cultures. They point out that
although Female genital mutilation is prevalent in
Africa, no religion supports the practice, and the
tradition is in violation of women's rights.

The UDHR enshrines universal rights that

apply to all humans equally, whichever
geographical location, state, race or
culture they belong to. However, in
academia there is a dispute between
scholars that advocate moral relativism
and scholars that advocate moral
universalism. Relativists do not argue
against human rights, but concede that
human rights are socially constructed
and are shaped by cultural and
environmental contexts. Universalists
argue that human rights have always
existed, and apply to all people
regardless of culture, race, sex, or
religion.

More specifically, proponents of cultural

relativism argue for acceptance of
different cultures, which may have
practices conflicting with human rights.
Relativists caution that universalism
could be used as a form of cultural,
economic or political imperialism. The
White Man's Burden is used as an
example of imperialism and the
destruction of local cultures justified by
the desire to spread Eurocentric
values.[159] In particular, the concept of
human rights is often claimed to be
fundamentally rooted in a politically
liberal outlook which, although generally
accepted in Europe, Japan or North
America, is not necessarily taken as
standard elsewhere.

Opponents of relativism argue that some

practices exist that violate the norms of
all human cultures. A common example
is female genital mutilation, which
occurs in different cultures in Africa, Asia
and South America. It is not mandated by
any religion, but has become a tradition
in many cultures. It is considered a
violation of women's and girl's rights by
much of the international community,
and is outlawed in some countries.

The former Prime Ministers of Singapore,

Lee Kuan Yew, and of Malaysia, Mahathir
bin Mohamad both claimed in the 1990s
that Asian values were significantly
different from Western values and
included a sense of loyalty and foregoing
personal freedoms for the sake of social
stability and prosperity, and therefore
authoritarian government is more
appropriate in Asia than democracy. Lee
Kuan Yew argued that:
 What Asians value may not
necessarily be what Americans
or Europeans value.
Westerners value the freedoms
and liberties of the individual.
As an Asian of Chinese cultural
background, my values are for
a government which is honest,
effective, and efficient.

— Lee Kuan Yew,

Democracy, Human Rights
and the Realities, Tokyo,
Nov 10, 1992[160]

In response, critics have pointed out that

cultural relativism could be used as a
justification for authoritarianism. An
example is in 1981, when the Iranian
representative to the United Nations, Said
Rajaie-Khorassani, articulated the
position of his country regarding the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
by saying that the UDHR was "a secular
understanding of the Judeo-Christian
tradition", which could not be
implemented by Muslims without
trespassing the Islamic law.[161] The
Asian Values argument was criticised by
Mahathir's former deputy:

To say that freedom is Western

or unAsian is to offend our
traditions as well as our
 forefathers, who gave their
lives in the struggle against
tyranny and injustices.

— A. Ibrahim in his keynote

speech to the Asian Press
Forum titled Media and
Society in Asia, December 2,
1994

and by Singapore's opposition leader

Chee Soon Juan, who states that it is
racist to assert that Asians do not want
human rights.[162]

Defenders of moral universalism argue

that relativistic arguments neglect the
fact that modern human rights are new
to all cultures, dating back no further
than the UDHR in 1948. They argue that
the UDHR was drafted by people from
many different cultures and traditions,
including a US Roman Catholic, a
Chinese Confucian philosopher, a French
zionist and a representative from the
Arab League, amongst others, and drew
upon advice from thinkers such as
Mahatma Gandhi.[52] Michael Ignatieff
has argued that cultural relativism is
almost exclusively an argument used by
those who wield power in cultures which
commit human rights abuses, and that
those whose human rights are
compromised are the powerless.[163] This
reflects the fact that the difficulty in
judging universalism versus relativism
lies in who is claiming to represent a
particular culture.

Although the argument between

universalism and relativism is far from
complete, it is an academic discussion in
that all international human rights
instruments adhere to the principle that
human rights are universally applicable.
The 2005 World Summit reaffirmed the
international community's adherence to
this principle:

The universal nature of human

rights and freedoms is beyond
question.
 — 2005 World Summit,
paragraph 121

See also
Children's rights
Fundamental rights
Human rights in cyberspace
Human rights group
Human rights in the United States
Human rights literature
Human Rights Watch
International human rights law
International human rights instruments
Intersex human rights
List of human rights organisations
 LGBT rights
Minority rights
Public international law
International Year of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights

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Bibliography
Books

Beitz, Charles R. (2009). The idea of

human rights. Oxford: Oxford University
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Moyn, Samuel (2010). The last utopia:
human rights in history . Cambridge,
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674-06434-8.
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rights in theory and practice (2nd ed.).
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
ISBN 978-0-8014-8776-7.
Ball, Olivia; Gready, Paul (2006). The
no-nonsense guide to human rights.
New Internationalist. Oxford. ISBN 978-
1-904456-45-2.
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Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 978-0-
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Keys, Barbara J. (2014). Reclaiming
American Virtue: The Human Rights
Revolution of the 1970s. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University
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Shaw, Malcolm (2008). International
Law (6th ed.). Leiden: Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-
45559-9.
Ishay, Micheline R. (2008). The history
of human rights : from ancient times to
the globalization era. Berkeley, Calif.:
University of California Press.
ISBN 978-0-520-25641-5.
Brownlie, Ian (2003). Principles of
Public International Law (6th ed.). OUP.
ISBN 978-0-19-955683-0.
Glendon, Mary Ann (2001). A world
made new : Eleanor Roosevelt and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-
679-46310-8.
Sepúlveda, Magdalena; van Banning,
Theo; Gudmundsdóttir, Gudrún;
Chamoun, Christine; van Genugten,
Willem J.M. (2004). Human rights
reference handbook (3rd ed. rev. ed.).
 Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica: University of
Peace. ISBN 978-9977-925-18-9.[4]
Ignatieff, Michael (2001). Human rights
as politics and idolatry (3. print. ed.).
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
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Articles

Alston, Philip (August 2005). "Ships

Passing in the Night: The Current State
of the Human Rights and Development
Debate seen through the Lens of the
Millennium Development Goals".
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829. doi:10.1353/hrq.2005.0030 .
Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2005). "Lesbian,
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Online

Nickel, James (2010). "Human

Rights" . The Stanford Encyclopedia of
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 Fagan, Andrew (2005). "Human
Rights" . The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002 .

Miscellaneous

Roosevelt, Eleanor (December 9,

1948). On the Adoption of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (Speech).
Third regular session of the United
Nations General Assembly. Paris,
France.
"Universal Declaration of Human
Rights" . UN General Assembly.
December 10, 1948. 217 A (III)

Further reading
Abouharb, R. and D. Cingranelli (2007).
"Human Rights and Structural
Adjustment". New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Barzilai, G (2003), Communities and
Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal
Identities. The University of Michigan
Press, 2003. ISBN 0-47211315-1
Barsh, R. (1993). “Measuring Human
Rights: Problems of Methodology and
Purpose.” Human Rights Quarterly 15:
87-121.
Chauhan, O.P. (2004). Human Rights:
Promotion and Protection. Anmol
Publications PVT. LTD. ISBN 81-261-
2119-X
Forsythe, David P. (2000). Human
Rights in International Relations.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. International Progress
Organization. ISBN 3-900704-08-2
Forsythe, Frederick P. (2009).
Encyclopedia of Human Rights (New
York: Oxford University Press)
Ishay, M. (2004). The history of human
rights: From ancient times to the
globalization era. Los Angeles,
California: University California Press.
Joseph, Peter (2017). The New Human
Rights Movement: Reinventing the
Economy to End Oppression. BenBella
Books. ISBN 1942952651
Landman, Todd (2006). Studying
Human Rights. Oxford and London:
Routledge ISBN 0-415-32605-2
Renouard, Joe. Human Rights in
American Foreign Policy: From the
1960s to the Soviet Collapse (U of
Pennsylvania Press, 2016). 324 pp.
Robertson, Arthur Henry; Merrills, John
Graham (1996). Human Rights in the
World: An Introduction to the Study of
the International Protection of Human
Rights. Manchester University Press.
ISBN 0-7190-4923-7.
Steinberg, Gerald M., Anne Herzberg
and Jordan Berman (2012). Best
Practices for Human Rights and
 Humanitarian NGO Fact-Finding.
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers / Brill
ISBN 9789004218116
Steiner, J. & Alston, Philip. (1996).
International Human Rights in Context:
Law, Politics, Morals. Oxford:
Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-825427-X
Shute, Stephen & Hurley, Susan (eds.).
(1993). On Human Rights: The Oxford
Amnesty Lectures. New York:
BasicBooks. ISBN 0-465-05224-X

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