STATE
insistent and illimitable power of
 A community of persons, occupying a
definite portion of territory,
independent of external control, and
possessing a government.
Government
 an instrumentality in which the will of
the State is implemented and realized
Fundamental Powers of a State
1. Police Power
2. Power of Eminent Domain
3. Power of Taxation
Similarities of the 3 Powers of a State
- Inherent in the State
- Necessary and indispensable
- Methods by which State
interferes with private property
- Presuppose equivalent
compensation
- Exercised primarily by the
Legislature
 The power is inherently vested in the
Legislature
 Police Power: The power of promoting
public welfare by restraining and
regulating the use of liberty and
property.
 Police Power: It is that authority to
enact legislation that may interfere
with personal liberty or property in
order to promote the general welfare
- regulates both liberty and property.
- exercised only by government.
- exercised only by government and
may thus be destroyed.
- The most powerful tool of the state
in regulating liberty is police power.
- inherent and plenary power in the
State which enables it to prohibit all
things hurtful to the comfort, safety
and welfare of society
- police power is the most essential,
the state.
Scope of POLICE POWER
 Police power is the most pervasive, the
least limitable, and the most demanding
of the three powers.
 Police power cannot be bargained away
through the medium of a treaty or a
contract.
 Congress may validly delegate this
power to the President, to
administrative bodies and to lawmaking
bodies of the local government units
 Local governments units exercise the
power under the general welfare clause
Limitations
 It is circumscribed by no less than
Article III, Sec. 1 of the Philippine
Constitution which mandates that “No
person shall be deprived of life, liberty
or property without due process of law,
nor any person be denied the equal
protection of the laws.”
 Lawful subject
 The interests of the public in general as
distinguished from those of a particular
class, require the exercise of the power
- the activity or property sought to be
regulated affects the general
welfare.
Lawful means
 The means employed are reasonably
necessary for the accomplishment of
the purpose, and not unduly oppressive
on individuals.
 Power of Eminent Domain: Also known
as the power of expropriation
 This is the use of the government of its
coercive authority, upon just
compensation, to forcibly acquire the
needed property for public purpose.
Who may exercise the power of eminent
domain?
 The power of eminent domain is
inherent in the Congress but this may
be validly delegated to the President,
local government bodies, certain public
corporations like the National Housing
Authority, and even to private
corporations performing public
functions like the Philippine Long
Distance Telephone Company and
Meralco.
Requisites for the valid exercise of the
power of eminent domain
 The power of eminent domain, need
not be specifically conferred on the
government by the Constitution.
Section 9 of Article III of the
Constitution provides that private
property shall not be taken for a public
use without just compensation.
- There must be genuine necessity to
take the private property.
- The taking must comply with due
process of law
- must be payment of just
compensation
- it is an involuntary sale of real
estate.
- and may thus be destroyed.
- may be exercised by private entities.
- the property is wholesome and
devoted to public use.
- it is the full and fair equivalent of
the property taken
- may be used as an implement to
attain the police objective.
 Power of Taxation
- affect only property rights
- exercised only by government
- the property is wholesome and
devoted to public use
- may be used as an implement of
police power.
- it is the protection given instituted
by government for the taxes paid
Freedom
 Freedom is a blessing enjoyed under a
democracy
- it is not absolute, lest we fall into
anarchy.
- Rights may be regulated such that
the state may enact regulations that
may interfere with personal liberty
Fundamental concepts and principles of
Human Rights
a. Brief History of Human Rights
i. Cyrus the Great
-King of Ancient Persia, conquered the City of
Babylon. He freed the slaves, declared that all
people had the right to choose their own
religion, and established racial equality.
-Known as the Cyrus Cylinder, this ancient
record has now been recognized as the world’s
first charter of Human Rights.
-It is translated into all six official languages of
the United Nations and its provisions parallel
the first four Articles of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
ii. 1215 Magna Carta
-Great Charter
-King John of England was forced to sign
-Among them was the right of the church to be
free from governmental interference, the rights
of all free citizens to own and inherit property
and to be protected from excessive taxes.
-It established the right of widows who owned
property to choose not to remarry, and
established principles of due process and
equality before the law.
-It also contained provisions forbidding bribery
and official misconduct.
-Among the Magna Carta’s provisions were
clauses providing for a free church, reforming
law and justice, and controlling the behavior of
royal officials.
-One of the charter’s 63 clauses tasked the
barons with choosing 25 representatives to
serve as a “form of security” ensuring the
preservation of the rights and liberties that had
been enumerated.
-The Magna Carta guaranteed that government,
royal or otherwise, would be limited by the
written law of the land.
-effectively the first written constitution in
European History.
iii. 1628 The Petition of Right
-The next recorded milestone in the
development of human rights was the Petition
of Right,
-Produced in 1628 by the English Parliament
and sent to Charles I as a statement of civil
liberties.
-Refusal by Parliament to finance the king’s
unpopular foreign policy had caused his
government to exact forced loans and to
quarter troops in subjects’ houses as an
economy measure.
-Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for opposing
these policies had produced in Parliament a
violent hostility to Charles and to George
Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham.
-The Petition of Right, initiated by Sir Edward
Coke, was based upon earlier statutes and
charters and asserted four principles: (1) No
taxes may be levied without consent of
Parliament, (2) No subject may be imprisoned
without cause shown (reaffirmation of the right
of habeas corpus), (3) No soldiers may be
quartered upon the citizenry, and (4) Martial
law may not be used in time of peace.
-Petition of Right, (1628) petition sent by the
English Parliament to King Charles I complaining
of a series of breaches of law.
-The petition sought recognition of four
principles: no taxation without the consent of
Parliament, no imprisonment without cause, no
quartering of soldiers on subjects, and no
martial law in peacetime. See also petition of
right.
-The Petition of Right was drawn up by Charles’s
third Parliament in as many years. He had
maintained a tumultuous relationship with the
House of Commons, which did not trust Charles
and denied him taxes to finance his war against
Spain.
-After dismissing his second Parliament, he
became the latest monarch to impose a forced
loan, an effective tax wherein the monarch
compelled gifts from his subjects and
imprisoned those who did not comply.
-Parliament found this to be a violation of the
spirit of the Magna Carta, which provided that
the monarch could not levy taxes without
common consent or imprison a free man
without cause, and thus drafted the Petition (at
the suggestion of Edward Coke) to reclaim the
rights of Parliament and of free men and to
extract a recommitment from the crown to
observe the rule of law.
-To continue receiving subsidies for his policies,
Charles was compelled to accept the petition,
but he later ignored its principles.
-Nevertheless the Petition of Right came to be
regarded as a constitutional document of the
government of the United Kingdom, alongside
other monumental acts such as the Magna
Carta and the Bill of Rights (1689).
-Darnel’s case, (1627–28), also called Five
Knights’ case, celebrated case in the history of
the liberty of English subjects. It contributed to
the enactment of the Petition of Right. In March
1627,
-Sir Thomas Darnel—together with four other
knights, Sir John Corbet, Sir Walter Earl, Sir
Edmund Hampden, and Sir John Hevingham—
was arrested by the order of King Charles I for
refusing to contribute to forced loans.
-The knights demanded that the crown show
cause for their imprisonment or that they be
released on bail.
-In November 1627 their appeal for a writ of
habeas corpus was argued before the King’s
Bench.
-Counsel for the knights appealed mostly to
medieval precedents, including clause 39 of the
Magna Carta, which stipulated that no man
should lose his liberty without due process of
law.
-On Tudor precedents the crown argued that it
had a large discretionary power of arrest.
-The judges refused bail but did not decide that
the crown could always commit without cause.
After the release of the knights in 1628, the
issue continued to be debated in Parliament.
-Charles I’s agreement not to imprison subjects
who refused to pay forced loans did not mollify
a House of Commons that sought to impose on
the reluctant monarch its own interpretation of
the Magna Carta.
-From this impasse was born the Petition of
Right (1628).
iv. 1776 The United States Declaration of
Independence
-announced the separation of 13 North
American British colonies from Great Britain.
-rebellious American colonists looked to the
Magna Carta as a model for their demands of
liberty from the English crown on the eve of the
American Revolution.
-Its legacy is especially evident; “We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness.”
-The declaration put forth the more
fundamental doctrines of NATURAL RIGHTS.
-Natural rights: The rights that are not
dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of
any particular culture or government, and are
therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights
that cannot be repealed or restrained by human
laws). Some, yet not all, see them as
synonymous with human rights.
v. 1789 The Declaration of the Right of
Man and of the Citizen
-Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen, French Declaration des Droits de
l’Homme et du Citoyen, one of the basic
charters of human liberties, containing the
principles that inspired the French Revolution.
-Its 17 articles, adopted between August 20 and
August 26, 1789, by France’s National Assembly,
served as the preamble to the Constitution of
1791. Similar documents served as the
preamble to the Constitution of 1793 (retitled
simply Declaration of the Rights of Man) and to
the Constitution of 1795 (retitled Declaration of
the Rights and Duties of Man and the Citizen).
-The basic principle of the Declaration was that
all “men are born and remain free and equal in
rights” (Article 1), which were specified as the
rights of liberty, private property, the
inviolability of the person, and resistance to
oppression (Article 2). All citizens were equal
before the law and were to have the right to
participate in legislation directly or indirectly
(Article 6); no one was to be arrested without a
judicial order (Article 7). Freedom of religion
(Article 10) and freedom of speech (Article 11)
were safe guarded within the bounds of public
“order” and “law.”
-The document reflects the interests of the
elites who wrote it: property was given the
status of an inviolable right, which could be
taken by the state only if an indemnity were
given (Article 17); offices and position were
opened to all citizens (Article 6).
The sources of the Declaration included the
major thinkers of the French Enlightenment,
such as Montesquieu, who had urged the
separation of powers, and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, who wrote of general will—the
concept that the state represents the general
will of the citizens.
-The idea that the individual must be
safeguarded against arbitrary police or judicial
action was anticipated by the 18th-century
parlements, as well as by writers such as
Voltaire.
-French jurists and economists such as the
physiocrats had insisted on the inviolability of
private property.
-Other influences on the authors of the
Declaration were foreign documents such as the
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) in North
America and the manifestos of the Dutch Patriot
movement of the 1780s.
-The French Declaration went beyond these
models, however, in its scope and in its claim to
be based on principles that are fundamental to
man and therefore universally applicable.
-The Declaration is also explicable as an attack
on the pre-Revolutionary monarchical regime.
-Equality before the law was to replace the
system of privileges that characterized the old
regime.
-Judicial procedures were insisted upon to
prevent abuses by the king or his
administration, such as the lettre de cachet, a
private communication from the king, often
used to give summary notice of imprisonment.
-its principles (especially Article 1) could be
extended logically to mean political and even
social democracy.
-The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen came to be, as was recognized by the
19th-century historian Jules Michelet, “the
credo of the new age.”
vi. 1791 US Bill of Right
-The Bill of Rights of the US Constitution
protects basic freedoms of United States
citizens.
-Written during the summer of 1787 in
Philadelphia, the Constitution of the United
States of America is the fundamental law of the
US federal system of government and the
landmark document of the Western world.
- It is the oldest written national constitution in
use and defines the principal organs of
government and their jurisdictions and the basic
rights of citizens.
-The first ten amendments to the Constitution—
the Bill of Rights—came into effect on
December 15, 1791, limiting the powers of the
federal government of the United States and
protecting the rights of all citizens, residents
and visitors in American territory.
-The Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech,
freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear
arms, the freedom of assembly and the
freedom to petition.
-It also prohibits unreasonable search and
seizure, cruel and unusual punishment and
compelled self-incrimination.
-Among the legal protections it affords, the Bill
of Rights prohibits Congress from making any
law respecting establishment of religion and
prohibits the federal government from depriving
any person of life, liberty or property without
due process of law.
-In federal criminal cases it requires indictment
by a grand jury for any capital offense, or
infamous crime, guarantees a speedy public trial
with an impartial jury in the district in which the
crime occurred, and prohibits double jeopardy.
vii. The First Geneva Convention (1864)
-In 1859, Genevan businessman Henry Dunant
traveled to Emperor Napoleon III’s headquarters
in northern Italy to seek land rights for a
business venture.
-He got much more than he bargained for,
however, when he found himself a witness to
the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, a gory
battle in the Second War of Italian
Independence.
-The horrific suffering Dunant saw impacted him
so greatly he wrote a first-hand account in 1862
called A Memory of Solferino. But he didn’t just
write about what he’d observed, he also
proposed a solution: All nations come together
to create trained, volunteer relief groups to
treat battlefield wounded and offer
humanitarian assistance to those affected by
war.
- A committee was formed—which
included Dunant and an early iteration of the
Red Cross—in Geneva to explore ways to
implement Dunant’s ideas.
- In October 1863, delegates from 16
countries along with military medical personnel
traveled to Geneva to discuss the terms of a
wartime humanitarian agreement. This meeting
and its resultant treaty signed by 12 nations
became known as the First Geneva Convention.
- Despite playing an important role in the
progression of what became the International
Committee of the Red Cross, continuing his
work as champion for the battle-wounded and
prisoners of war and winning the first Nobel
Peace Prize, Dunant lived and died in near
poverty.
- In 1864, sixteen European countries and
several American states attended a conference
in Geneva, at the invitation of the Swiss Federal
Council, on the initiative of the Geneva
Committee.
-The diplomatic conference was held for the
purpose of adopting a convention for the
treatment of wounded soldiers in combat.
-The main principles laid down in the
Convention and maintained by the later Geneva
Conventions provided for the obligation to
extend care without discrimination to wounded
and sick military personnel and respect for and
marking of medical personnel transports and
equipment with the distinctive sign of the red
cross on a white background.
viii. The United Nations (1945)
-World War II had raged from 1939 to 1945, and
as the end drew near, cities throughout Europe
and Asia lay in smoldering ruins.
-Millions of people were dead, millions more
were homeless or starving. Russian forces were
closing in on the remnants of German resistance
in Germany’s bombed-out capital of Berlin.
-In the Pacific, US Marines were still battling
entrenched Japanese forces on such islands as
Okinawa.
-In April 1945, delegates from fifty countries
met in San Francisco full of optimism and hope.
-The goal of the United Nations Conference on
International Organization was to fashion an
international body to promote peace and
prevent future wars.
-The ideals of the organization were stated in
the preamble to its proposed charter: “We the
peoples of the United Nations are determined
to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has
brought untold sorrow to mankind.”
-The Charter of the new United Nations
organization went into effect on October 24,
1945, a date that is celebrated each year as
United Nations Day.
ix. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (1948)
-By 1948, the United Nations’ new Human
Rights Commission had captured the world’s
attention.
-Under the dynamic chairmanship of Eleanor
Roosevelt—President Franklin Roosevelt’s
widow, a human rights champion in her own
right and the United States delegate to the UN
—the Commission set out to draft the
document that became the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Roosevelt,
credited with its inspiration, referred to the
Declaration as the international Magna Carta for
all mankind.
-It was adopted by the United Nations on
December 10, 1948.
-In its preamble and in Article 1, the Declaration
unequivocally proclaims the inherent rights of
all human beings: “Disregard and contempt for
human rights have resulted in barbarous acts
which have outraged the conscience of
mankind, and the advent of a world in which
human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech
and belief and freedom from fear and want has
been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the
common people...All human beings are born
free and equal in dignity and rights.”
-The Member States of the United Nations
pledged to work together to promote the thirty
Articles of human rights that, for the first time in
history, had been assembled and codified into a
single document
-In consequence, many of these rights, in
various forms, are today part of the
constitutional laws of democratic nations.
b.Definition of Human Rights
-Human rights are rights inherent to all human
beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality,
ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status.
-Human rights include the right to life and
liberty, freedom from slavery and torture,
freedom of opinion and expression, the right to
work and education, and many more.
-Everyone is entitled to these rights, without
discrimination
c. Principles/Characteristics/Attributes of
Human Rights
1.Inherent
-they are not granted by any person or
authority.
- rights are the birthright of all human beings,
existing independently of the will of either an
individual human being or group.
-They are not obtained and granted through any
human action or intervention. When one is
born, he carries with him these rights. They
cannot be separated or detached from him.
i. Universal
– all people have human rights irrespective of
their origin, status or condition or place where
they live.
-Human beings are essentially the same.
-human rights belong to everyone.
-Also means that the internationally-recognized
human rights are the basic core minimum to be
observed everywhere without regional
differences.
-These human rights belong to everyone,
everywhere, by virtue of being human. No one,
no group, no place in the world should be
denied the enjoyment of human rights.
ii. Indivisibility
-They are not capable of being divided into
equal parts
iii. Interdependence
-The fulfillment of one cannot be had without
the realization of the other.
iv. Inalienable
- Means that something is inherent,
unable to be taken away, and incapable of being
surrendered or transferred. They cannot be
taken away from individual and given to another
person.
-(According to America’s Declaration of
Independence) means that no person can
deprive any person these rights and no person
can repudiate these rights by himself.
-It also means that these rights cannot be
subjected of the commerce of man.
v. Imprescriptible
-Cannot be lost even by a long passage of lapse
of time.
d. Three Generations of Human Rights
1.The first generation of rights is known as the
first generation of civil and political rights.
-the first generation of rights gradually evolved
over centuries during the long development of
democratic society and serve as a protection of
the individuals from the arbitrary exercise of
police power.
-Examples of these rights are the right to
life,liberty and security of person; right against
torture; equal protection against any
discrimination; right against arbitrary arrest and
detention; right to a fair and public hearing by
an independent and impartial tribunal; the right
to be presumed innocent until proven guilty;
right to privacy; freedom of expression and
opinion.
-also known as the first generation of liberty
rights.
2.The second generation is known as the second
generation of economic social and cultural
rights.
-started to be recognized when people realized
that possession of the first generation of liberty
rights would be valueless without the
enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural
rights, would be valueless without the
enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural
rights.
-The experience of the Third World countries in
their struggle against colonialism, the influence
of socialism, and the encyclicals of the Popes all
contributed to the development and
appreciation of the economic, social, and
cultural rights.
-examples of these rights are the right to work,
right to social security, right to form and join
trade unions, right to education, right to rest
and leisure, right to health, right to shelter.
- also known as the second generation of
equality rights.
3. The third generation is known as the third
generation of solidarity rights or collective rights
-Intended to benefit individuals, groups, and
people and its realization will need global
cooperation based on international solidarity.
-Rights to peace, right to development,
environmental rights, right of self-
determination, right to food, rights of women,
rights of children, right to humanitarian disaster
relief, right to water.
- Also known as solidarity rights
UDHR
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
is a milestone document in the history of human
rights. Drafted by representatives with different
legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions
of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by
the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on
10 December 1948 (General Assembly
resolution 217 A) as a common standard of
achievements for all peoples and all nations. It
sets out, for the first time, fundamental human
rights to be universally protected and it has
been translated into over 500 languages. The
UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired,
and paved the way for, the adoption of more
than seventy human rights treaties, applied
today on a permanent basis at global and
regional levels (all containing references to it in
their preambles).
Preamble
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,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human
rights have resulted in barbarous acts which
have outraged the conscience of mankind, and
the advent of a world in which human beings
shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and
freedom from fear and want has been
proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the
common people
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,
Whereas it is essential to promote the
development of friendly relations between
nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations
have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in
fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person and in the equal
rights of men and women and have determined
to promote social progress and better standards
of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged
themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the
United Nations, the promotion of universal
respect for and observance of human rights and
fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these
rights and freedoms is of the greatest
importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, therefore,
The General Assembly,
Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human
Rights as a common standard of achievement
for all peoples and all nations, to the end that
every individual and every organ of society,
keeping this Declaration constantly in mind,
shall strive by teaching and education to
promote respect for these rights and freedoms
and by progressive measures, national and
international, to secure their universal and
effective recognition and observance, both
among the peoples of Member States
themselves and among the peoples of
territories under their jurisdiction.
Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in
dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards
one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and
freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without
distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other
status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be
made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional
or international status of the country or
territory to which a person belongs, whether it
be independent, trust, non-self-governing or
under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and
security of person.
Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude;
slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in
all their forms.
Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.
Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition
everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled
without any discrimination to equal protection
of the law. All are entitled to equal protection
against any discrimination in violation of this
Declaration and against any incitement to such
discrimination.
Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by
the competent national tribunals for acts
violating the fundamental rights granted him by
the constitution or by law.
Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest,
detention or exile.
Article 10
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.
Article 11
Everyone charged with a penal offence has the
right to be presumed innocent until proved
guilty according to law in a public trial at which
he has had all the guarantees necessary for his
defence.
No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence
on account of any act or omission which did not
constitute a penal offence, under national or
international law, at the time when it was
committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be
imposed than the one that was applicable at the
time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary
interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour
and reputation. Everyone has the right to the
protection of the law against such interference
or attacks.
Article 13
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement
and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country,
including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in
other countries asylum from persecution.
This right may not be invoked in the case of
prosecutions genuinely arising from non-
political crimes or from acts contrary to the
purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15
Everyone has the right to a nationality.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
nationality nor denied the right to change his
nationality.
Article 16
Men and women of full age, without any
limitation due to race, nationality or religion,
have the right to marry and to found a family.
They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage,
during marriage and at its dissolution.
Marriage shall be entered into only with the
free and full consent of the intending spouses.
The family is the natural and fundamental group
unit of society and is entitled to protection by
society and the State.
Article 17
Everyone has the right to own property alone as
well as in association with others.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
property.
Article 18
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 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion
and expression; this right includes freedom to
hold opinions without interference and to seek,
receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful
assembly and association.
No one may be compelled to belong to an
association.
Article 21
Everyone has the right to take part in the
government of his country, directly or through
freely chosen representatives.
Everyone has the right of equal access to public
service in his country.
The will of the people shall be the basis of the
authority of government; this will shall be
expressed in periodic and genuine elections
which shall be by universal and equal suffrage
and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent
free voting procedures.
Article 22
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right
to social security and is entitled to realization,
through national effort and international co-
operation and in accordance with the
organization and resources of each State, of the
economic, social and cultural rights
indispensable for his dignity and the free
development of his personality.
Article 23
Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of
employment, to just and favourable conditions
of work and to protection against
unemployment.
Everyone, without any discrimination, has the
right to equal pay for equal work.
Everyone who works has the right to just and
favourable remuneration ensuring for himself
and his family an existence worthy of human
dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by
other means of social protection.
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade
unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure,
including reasonable limitation of working hours
and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25
Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of
himself and of his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and
necessary social services, and the right to
security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other
lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his
control.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to
special care and assistance. All children,
whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy
the same social protection.
Article 26
Everyone has the right to education. Education
shall be free, at least in the elementary and
fundamental stages. Elementary education shall
be compulsory. Technical and professional
education shall be made generally available and
higher education shall be equally accessible to
all on the basis of merit.
Education shall be directed to the full
development of the human personality and to
the strengthening of respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote
understanding, tolerance and friendship among
all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall
further the activities of the United Nations for
the maintenance of peace.
Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of
education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27
Everyone has the right freely to participate in
the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the
arts and to share in scientific advancement and
its benefits.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the
moral and material interests resulting from any
scientific, literary or artistic production of which
he is the author.
Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international
order in which the rights and freedoms set forth
in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29
Everyone has duties to the community in which
alone the free and full development of his
personality is possible.
In the exercise of his rights and freedoms,
everyone shall be subject only to such
limitations as are determined by law solely for
the purpose of securing due recognition and
respect for the rights and freedoms of others
and of meeting the just requirements of
morality, public order and the general welfare in
a democratic society.
These rights and freedoms may in no case be
exercised contrary to the purposes and
principles of the United Nations.
Article 30
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted
as implying for any State, group or person any
right to engage in any activity or to perform any
act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights
and freedoms set forth herein.
THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-REFOULMENT
-The principle of non-refoulement under
international human rights law
Under international human rights law, the
principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no
one should be returned to a country where they
would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment and
other irreparable harm. This principle applies to
all migrants at all times, irrespective of
migration status.
What is the principle of non-refoulement? The
principle of non-refoulement forms an essential
protection
under international human rights, refugee,
humanitarian and customary law. It prohibits
States from transferring or removing individuals
from their jurisdiction or effective control when
there are substantial grounds for
believing that the person would be at risk of
irreparable harm upon return, including
persecution, torture, illtreatment or other
serious human rights violations. Under
international human rights law the prohibition
of refoulement is explicitly included in the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CAT) and the International
Convention for the Protection of All Persons
from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED).
In regional instruments the principle is explicitly
found in the Inter-American
Convention on the Prevention of Torture, the
American Convention on Human Rights, and the
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
Union. International human rights bodies,
regional human rights courts, as well as national
courts have guided that this principle is an
implicit guarantee flowing from the obligations
To respect, protect and fulfil human rights.
Human rights treaty bodies regularly receive
individual petitions concerning non-
refoulement, including the Committee Against
Torture, the Human Rights Committee, the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women and the Committee on the
Rights of the Child.
What is the scope of the principle of non-
refoulement?
The prohibition of refoulement under
international human rights law applies to any
form of removal or transfer of persons,
regardless of their status, where there are
substantial grounds for believing that the
returnee would be at risk of irreparable harm
upon return on account of torture, ill-treatment
or other serious breaches of human rights
obligations.
As an inherent element of the prohibition of
torture and other forms of ill-treatment, the
principle of non-refoulement is characterized by
its absolute nature without any exception. In
this respect, the scope of this principle under
relevant human rights law treaties is broader
than that contained in international refugee law.
The prohibition applies to all persons,
irrespective of their citizenship, nationality,
statelessness, or migration status, and it applies
wherever a State exercises jurisdiction or
effective control, even when outside of that
State’s territory.
The prohibition of refoulement has been
interpreted by some courts and international
human rights mechanisms to apply to a range of
serious human rights violations, including due process, including as a supplement to
torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading asylum determination mechanisms.xii
treatment, flagrant denial of the right to a fair
trial, risks of violations to the rights to life, 2. Mechanisms for entry and stay related to the
integrity and/or freedom of the person, serious principle of non-refoulement. States should
forms of sexual and gender-based violence, establish mechanisms for entry and stay for
death penalty or death row , female genital those migrants who are unable to return under
mutilation, or prolonged solitary confinement, IHRL, in order to ensure the principle of non-
among others. refoulement, as well as on other grounds such
as ensuring torture rehabilitation.xiii
Some courts and some international human Administrative and legislative mechanisms
rights mechanisms have further interpreted should be set up to grant legal status to
severe violations of economic, social and migrants who cannot return, in the form of
cultural rights to fall within the scope of the temporary, long-term or permanent status.
prohibition of non-refoulement because they
would represent a severe violation of the right
to life or freedom from torture or other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment. For example, degrading living
conditions, lack of medical treatment , or
mental illness have been found to prevent
return of persons.
Heightened consideration must also be given to
children in the context of non-refoulement,
whereby actions of the State must be taken in
accordance with the best interests of the child.
In particular, a child should not be returned if
such return would result in the violation of their
fundamental human rights, including if there is
a risk of insufficient provision of food or health
services.
How to respond to the protection needs of
migrants according to the principle of non-
refoulement?
States have a legal obligation under
international human rights law to uphold the
principle of non-refoulement, including to
ensure that a range of practical and human
rights-based protection mechanisms are in
place:
1. Mechanisms for assessment related to the
principle of non-refoulement. States should put
in place mechanisms and allocate resources to
ensure that the IHRL protection needs of all
migrants can be assessed individually and with