Politics & International Relations
UN Human Rights
The UN Human Rights refers to the international framework established by the United Nations to protect and promote human rights globally. It encompasses various treaties, mechanisms, and bodies aimed at upholding fundamental rights and freedoms for all individuals, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or other characteristics. The UN Human Rights system plays a crucial role in monitoring, reporting, and addressing human rights violations around the world.
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11 Key excerpts on "UN Human Rights"
eBook - PDF- Marko Nikoli?, Marko Nikolić(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Society Publishing(Publisher)
Thus, the most relevant political aspect is not the asserting of similarities but the negotiation of differences. 5.2. WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS? Rights that accrue to human beings by the very virtue of their existence irrespective of race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, religion, language or any other status are essentially human rights. These include the freedom of opinion and expression, freedom from slavery and torture, the right to life and liberty, the right to work and education and numerous other rights. Without any discrimination, all are entitled to these rights. 5.2.1. International Human Rights Law The Government of a State is obliged to act or refrain from acting in specific ways vide the parameters laid out in the international human rights law so that the fundamental freedom of individuals and groups as well as their human rights can be both protected and promoted. The creation of a human rights law that is comprehensive is perhaps one of the greatest achievements Criminalization of Politics 120 of the United Nations which is an internationally protected universal code that can be subscribed by all individuals and aspired to by all people. A broad range of rights that are accepted internationally have been defined by the United Nations and these include various civil, economic, cultural, social, and political rights. Mechanisms have also been established to protect and promote these rights whereby states are assisted whilst they carry out their responsibilities in this aspect. The Charter of the United Nations adopted in 1945 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which was adopted in 1948 laid the foundations of this body of law.
eBook - PDF- Susana Sampaio-Dias(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
This mechanism would monitor the behaviour of nations, provide a platform for diplomatic resolution of conflicts, and, if necessary, make use of military force to uphold its values (Nickel, 1987; Fagan, 2009; Ishay, 2010). The UN believed that codifying the fundamental principles of human rights was critical to the future of humanity. The first Human Rights Commission that was asked to identify the common rights of all human beings adopted the UDHR after intense debate. Its members (Eleanor Roosevelt, the Chinese Confucian philosopher and diplomat Pen-Chung, the Lebanese existentialist philosopher and rapporteur Charles Malik, and the French legal scholar and later Nobel Prize laureate René Cassin) intended to bring together a wide range of influences in human rights principles; to encompass the rights shared by all individuals regardless of race, religion, creed, nationality, social origin, and sex; to assure security and civil liberties; and to support political, social, and economic equity. The drafters’ goal was to enshrine these rights in a document that translated the inalienability and indivisibility of human rights. Today, human rights are defined as norms ‘inherent to all human beings’, regardless of nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status, and are ‘often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of international law’ (see, e.g., United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [n.d.]). The principles of universality, inalienability, indivisibility, and equality are the cornerstone of international human rights law, and states must assume obligations and duties to respect, protect, and to fulfil these human rights. Nonetheless, human rights history has been (and continues to be) written by several hands throughout the centuries of human existence.
eBook - PDFHuman Rights and Legal Judgments
The American Story
- Austin Sarat(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
19 Today, here as elsewhere, disagreements arise over particular human rights claims. And even where there is agreement in principle, human rights may not be respected in practice. No matter how they are defined, human rights are variably realized; indeed, as America’s post-9/11 history suggests, they are regularly violated even when governments proclaim their adherence to human rights ideals. Thus, after 9/11, the Bush Justice Department developed novel legal theories to work around America’s legal obligations under UN Conventions. 20 Despite their controversial status in American law and politics, appeals to human rights, as a way of understanding and regulating the behavior of nations toward their people, are as prevalent as they have ever been. “The past few decades,” Richard Wilson notes, “have witnessed the inexorable rise of the application of international human rights law as well as the extension of a wider public discourse on human rights, to the point where human rights could be seen as one of the most globalized political values of our times.” 21 This development is a result of the convergence of many factors, but perhaps none is more important than the demise of communism and the ascendance of capitalism and liberal democracy throughout the world. Democracy has replaced Marxism as what Amrita Basu recently called “the hege- monic ideology of social change.” 22 With the fall of communism and the spread of democratization in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, human rights have taken on new salience in political struggles both in those places and in the United States. In the years since the end of World War II, Glendon argues, 17 “Human Rights – The UN Declaration of Human Rights and President Harry Truman,” in Encyclopedia of the New American Nation, www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Human-Rights- The-un-declaration-of-human-rights-and-president-harry-truman.html, accessed November 12, 2016.
eBook - PDF- M. Risse(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
(p 542) Indeed, some have suspected human rights of being 19th century standards of civilization in disguise, designed to determine the con- ditions under which the benefits of interacting with Europeans and their descendants can be enjoyed. This chapter explores the philo- sophical foundations of human rights. Chapter 2 addresses general concerns about the existence of universal values, but still with an eye on the fact that the UDHR is the only promising attempt at cre- ating a broadly shared moral vision for the future of humanity. “Human rights is the idea of our time, the only political-moral idea that has received universal acceptance,” writes the legal scholar Louis Henkin, perhaps with some exaggeration, while “the Human Rights 11 suspension of rights is the touchstone and measure of abnormal- ity” (1990, pp xvii–xviii). But indeed, human rights talk has become the common language of emancipation and moral progress. When organized power is criticized for harming those whom it ought to benefit, appeals to human rights are normally deployed, rather than other languages that have also been used to that end (which the readers may or may not be familiar with), such as the language of Marxism, critical theory, modernization theory, dependency theory, or other moral languages, such as the language of justice or plainly of rights and duties as opposed to “human” rights. Only decades after 1948 did the UN follow suit with legally binding documents. It took even longer for human rights organizations to have a major presence in international politics. But especially since the end of the Cold War, the human rights movement – ear- lier often confined to candle light vigils – has established such a presence. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Doctors Without Borders have become highly visible, and human rights standards have entered foreign policy making on a large scale.
eBook - PDFInternational Law
Cases and Materials with Australian Perspectives
- Donald Rothwell, Stuart Kaye, Afshin Akhtarkhavari, Ruth Davis(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The last three are included in this list because of the impact they have had in establishing regional customary law approaches to the human rights discourse. In addition to these general agreements, the international community has elaborated, interpreted or expanded on civil, political, cultural, economic, social and solidarity rights through specialised conventions. These range from topics such as racial discrimination, 30 discrim- ination against women, 31 and rights of children, 32 to torture, 33 war crimes, 34 trafficking in women and children, 35 and indigenous people. 36 It is important to appreciate the range and breadth as well as technical complexity of international agreements for protecting human dignity. This scope provides a useful reminder of the nature of the discourse in the context of the theoretical debates about the role of human rights in international law. The following extract from Cassimatis is a useful introduction to the concepts used to categorise rights within the human rights discourse itself but should also reinforce the idea regarding the extensive scope of the field itself. Cassimatis breaks down his description of the norms into a classification commonly referred to as ‘generations of rights’ because their expression in international law and politics has historically followed each other. Anthony Cassimatis, Human Rights Related Trade Measures under International Law, Martinius Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 2007 (footnotes omitted) (a) Civil and Political Rights [25] . . . The conventional distinction in classifying human rights under international law is that drawn between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights. International instruments, both global and regional, often reflect this distinction. There is, however, some overlap between these rights and strict separation of the two categories of rights does not appear possible. ...........................................................................
eBook - PDFMorals, Rights and Practice in the Human Services
Effective and Fair Decision-Making in Health, Social Care and Criminal Justice
- Tony Ward, Marie Connolly(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Jessica Kingsley Publishers(Publisher)
Chapter 1 Understanding Human Rights In recent years there has been a surge of popular and academic interest in the subject of human rights (Churchill 2006; Donnelly 2003; Dunn and Wheeler 1999; Gewirth 1998; Li 2006; Nickel 2007; Orend 2002). Media reports on human rights and their violations appear on a daily basis and there are literally hundreds of books published each year on this topic and even more scholarly articles. The claim that every human being has intrinsic value has ignited the international political community, and countries are increasingly eager to pub-licize their human rights successes and to hide their failures (Donnelly 2003; Dunn and Wheeler 1999). Different nations have become galvanized by the idea of human rights and are prepared to monitor its abuses and to intervene to stop violations elsewhere. Of course, there are limits to the willingness of indi-vidual states to fight on behalf of the victims of abuses of human rights and it is clear that they modulate their responses to violations depending on their own economic and political interests (Freeman 2002; Morris 2006). Nevertheless, the topic of human rights has become a moral cause and declarations such as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), (United Nations 1948) and the two associated United Nations covenants are increas-ingly utilized in the evaluation of international and national laws and political processes (Donnelly 2003; Orend 2002). People respond passionately to issues related to human rights, partly because they frame our expectations of fair treatment, equity and justice. How we respect the rights of others can determine how harmoniously we live together. It can also influence feelings of equality or discrimination. Increas-ingly, work within the human services is influenced by rights-based discourses.
eBook - PDF- Roger Trigg(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
This, though, raises the question of how it is decided what rights there are. Where do they come from? No one familiar with international politics in the contemporary world will have any doubt of the importance of human rights. One has only to visit the United Nations in New York, and see the Declaration hung in a series of frames along one of the walls, to be in no doubt that the idea of human rights is at the centre of the work of the United Nations and its agencies. Yet there is a paradox. There are still many abuses of human rights, many of them perpetrated by the actions of some of the very governments whose flags fly outside the headquarters. The United Nations, in other words, proclaims something which is not practised, and may not be believed, by all of its members. One of the reasons for this is evident in a comparison of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights with the American Declaration of Independence. The former was adopted in 1948, when the shadows of the Holocaust and other terrible suffering in the Second World War lay over the nations. It begins by referring to the ‘inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’. It continues by saying that it is essential that these rights be protected by the rule of law. Yet this raises the question of which law, that of an individual nation or something constituted on an international basis. It appears preferable that, as long as there are sovereign states, their law codifies basic rights, but we are then left with the issue of what happens when a ‘rogue’ state refuses to.
eBook - PDF- S.B. Chrimes(Author)
- 2001(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
The assertion of those rights is emphasized again and again by diplomats, jurists, human rights activists, and politicians. Will those assertions be agreed to and implemented in the twenty-first century? That probably is the central question facing the human family. But its answer does not depend alone on the enforcement of the interna-tional law on human rights. Even if the enforcement were vigorous, law cannot prevail unless there is an acceptance of it at a deep level. The passions and violence that could arise in the twenty-first century are al-most totally beyond prediction. Terrorists, new nations, millions of refu-gees, and violent hordes seizing land and property are all possible. These frightening prospects emphasize once again the need to reassure the poor and dispossessed of the truth that their internationally recognized human rights to economic equality are in the process of being fulfilled. If the 2 billion poor people of the world have no reasonable assurance that they will have a decent life for their families, they will do what desperate groups have often done in human history. The virtual certainty of mass uprisings if the world does not move to-ward some type of economic justice for all is one more reason the eco-nomic rights promised by world law have such primordial importance. The chapters that follow chronicle how the world in the past fifty years has moved to carry out the solemn promises made in 1945 and 1948, and in dozens of covenants on human rights made by the United Nations and its affiliated agencies. But the fulfillment of these rights will not bring stability and justice to the human family unless the startling disparity between the economic status of rich and poor nations is diminished. 12 : THE UNITED NATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS THE U.N. COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS The original dream of some of the founders of the United Na-tions was to place a mechanism to implement human rights in the charter itself.
- Steven L. B. Jensen, Charles Walton(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
For these 9 Goodale, ‘The Myth of Universality’. 10 Quoted in Goodale (ed.), Letters to the Contrary, 298. 248 Mark Goodale respondents, ‘human rights’ should be understood and codified only as a follow-on to a more basic way of conceptualising the proper development of social and economic relations. In other words, the classic liberal account of human rights in which what Isaiah Berlin called ‘negative liberties’ were given priority was, on this view, an historically unfortunate inversion that had led to a distorted understanding of social and economic questions and the proper role of society and eventually the state in responding to them. 11 In considering the proposal for an international declaration of human rights, therefore, it was essential that the document eventually drafted by UNESCO and the UN not reinforce this historical distortion. Moreover, among leftist critics of human rights at the time, the distinction between civil and political and social and economic rights was often not finely drawn. It was rather that social and economic questions were central to the kinds of historical materialist and socialist positions through which critics considered human rights. The opposition to human rights, therefore, was much more likely to concern social and economic questions even if the critique was fundamentally about the rights-based approach as such. Nevertheless, here I want to analyse in more depth four particular responses that underscore four different ways in which ‘socio-economic rights’ were understood during the short period in which both UNESCO undertook its survey and the UN drafted what became the UDHR. All four responses were submitted by those who were associated with the traditional left, which, again, must be understood in the context of pre- war and early post-war political and historical dynamics.
- Onuma Yasuaki(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The universal nature of these rights is declared to be “beyond question” (ibid.). “While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights” (para. 5). These expressions are naturally a result of compromises between Western states, arguing for the universality of human rights, and non- Western states, emphasizing the differences in value systems. Yet one 41 John Rawls, who had enjoyed high stature as a leading philosopher through his A Theory of Justice of 1971, gave lectures from 1993 to 1995, paying serious attention to controver- sies on this issue. These new works culminated in The Law of Peoples, published in 1999. Although this work is not as impressive as the work of 1971 in terms of quality of the argument, the fact that Rawls seriously sought to respond to criticism of the Anglo- America-centric assumption of his “universal” theory of justice should be appreciated. See also Ignatieff 2001, in which the author sought to respond to the dissenting voices to the “universality” of human rights, recognizing their importance. normative bases and mechanisms 385 should note the terminology adopted: while particularities must be borne in mind, states are required to promote and protect all human rights, regardless of their systems. The Declaration does not say that while universality must be borne in mind, states must protect human rights according to their particularities. The Vienna Declaration apparently went in the direction of transcivilizational universality, not that of the so-called “clash of civilizations.” Second, the Vienna Declaration states that “all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated” (para. 5). It further states that “[t]he international community must treat human rights .
eBook - PDFChildren's Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms
Pedagogy, Principles and Practice
- Lee Jerome, Hugh Starkey(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
Human rights stem from a utopian or hopeful vision of a free, just and peaceful world. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) takes as its premise that this vision of an ideal and harmonious world could exist only if everybody understands and respects the minimum standards of entitlement and expectation set out in the preamble and articles of the UDHR (1948). Schools and other places of formal education have a key role to play in transmitting and fostering understandings of human rights. Although understandings will be influenced by context, the core principles of equality of rights and equality of entitlement to dignity and respect should be constant. 18 Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms To achieve this, HRE aims to ensure that teachers, parents and students anywhere in the world will be aware of and understand that human rights stem from an international consensus, expressed originally in the UN Charter and repeated and developed in the UDHR. This seminal milestone Declaration offers a vision of ‘freedom, justice and peace in the world’ that can be realized, by ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’. We examined some of the implications of this in Chapter 1. What we will develop here is the fact that children are ‘members of the human family’ and that consequently they are entitled equally with other, older, family members to respect of their dignity and recognition that their rights are not conditional. Human beings, in a human rights perspective, do not have to earn their rights. They do not have to behave well in order to be entitled to them. They do not have to show maturity or common sense. That said, the benefits of human rights, such as equality, health, education, shelter, protection from harm, are rarely fully realized without a struggle.
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