Understanding Human Rights: Definition, History, and Compliance
Understanding Human Rights
The rights are guarantees, freedoms, and privileges that people have. They may or may not be guaranteed by law and are intended to protect every citizen. Every law is the fulfillment of a duty. The duties are obligations, laws, and rules governing coexistence in our society that we are obliged to comply with.
Human Conditions and Rights
Human conditions are what all human beings have simply by existing, and their actual implementation is essential for development. Human rights belong to all people without exception or distinction of any kind.
Individual Rights
Individual rights are requirements of the person.
- 1st Generation: Focuses on freedom: political, civil, and social rights that belong to a group of individuals or groups.
- 2nd Generation: Focuses on equality of social, economic, and cultural rights.
- 3rd Generation: Focuses on solidarity: the environment, peace, and development of peoples.
Historical Context
Until the 18th Century
- Declaration of Rights of Virginia (1776): Arose during the war for U.S. independence and included the rights of citizens, except slaves.
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789): Authored by the French National Assembly and included the rights of citizens, except women. This is the source of all statements and accounted for the abolition of slavery.
19th Century
- The 19th century beheld individual rights such as freedom and legal equality, and the right to vote, but only the bourgeoisie had these rights.
- 2nd half of the 19th century: It looked like the work of economic education to the strike of assembly and legal equality of all men of all classes.
20th Century
- From the 2nd World War, ensure compliance with the rights and correction of inequalities. The UN was drafted in 1948 the universal declaration of human rights.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly. It collects moral demands of liberty, equality, and dignity to recognize the inviolability of the person.
Features
- Universal: They are valid for all people.
- Inalienable: They cannot be assigned or transferred to other people.
- Non-Negotiable: You cannot negotiate the failure of one or more rights to promote compliance of others.
Cultural Diversity and Rights
In our world, there are different cultures and cultural diversity. This diversity calls for a dialogue between cultures and common responses to problems that affect all mankind.
Breach of Human Rights
- Cultural: Refer to traditions or customs.
- Religious: Beliefs are based on the result of a particular religion and have significant political implications.
- Political: Decisions made by political entities.
Defending Human Rights: United Nations
Organizations of the United Nations and its specialized agencies are responsible for enforcing the rights.
- Covenants: Economic, social, and cultural rights, and civil and political rights.
- Organizations: They are very numerous. Some were created within the UN from the Magna Carta (High Commissioner and UN Human Rights Council) or treaty (Human Rights Committee).
- Forums: Permanent forum on indigenous issues.
International Tribunals
- International Court of Justice: Resolves disputes between states and provides opinions on questions referred to it.
- International Criminal Court: Tries crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity such as slavery, extermination, and torture.
- Special Courts: Created during an apparent violation of human rights.
Compliance in Developing Countries
In these countries, many of the common rights are not respected. Practices include torture, political repression, violence, child exploitation, discrimination against women, and slavery.
Compliance in Developed Countries
These rights are largely being respected, but cases of violence against women, child abuse, racism, sexual orientation discrimination, environmental issues, and access to information through new technology still occur.