MEANING
Human Rights are universal legal guarantees protecting individuals and groups against which interfere with fundamental freedom and human dignity. Human rights are generally defined as those rights which are inherent in our nature and without it , we cannot live as human beings. These rights and fundamental freedom allow us to develop and use our human qualities, intelligence, talent and conscience, and to satisfy our dignity of man is derived the right of every person to free development of his personality. It’s the essence of these rights that make man human.
At first instance it’s hard to come up with, rights we can include in human rights, it’s been classified below; according to-
- Source- natural, constitutional statutory rights.
- Recipient- individual and collective rights.
- Aspect of life- civil, political, economic, social, cultural rights.
- Struggle for recognition- first, second and third generation rights.
DEFINITIONS
“Rights are the external conditions necessary for the greatest possibility development of the capacity of the personality” –Ernest Barker
“We have a right to the means that are necessary to the development of our lives in the direction of the highest good of the community of which we are a part” –Bernard Bosanquet
“Rights are what we may expect from and others fro0m us, and all genuine rights are conditions of social welfare. Thus, the rights anyone may claim are partly those which are essential to every man in order to be rational human person, and partly those, which are necessary for the fulfillment of the function that society expects from him. They are conditioned by, and correlative to, his social responsibilities” –Leonard Hobhouse
Professor Wesley Hohfeld calls the four things which the term ‘a right’ covers:’ claims”, “privileges or liberty”, “powers” and “immunities”.
CONCEPT
The concept of human rights though is central to political science, it is poorly understood.
The term” human rights” is all comprehensive- it includes both civil- political (negative rights) and economic, social and cultural (positive rights) and collective or group rights.
Earlier, each group of nations has a different perception of human rights. The new concept of human rights giving equal treatment, if not equal importance, to both set of rights (civil- political and economic- social) became a characteristic feature of many constitutions that came into existence after the Second World War.
Generation wise-
First generation human rights deal with liberty and practicability in political life. They are fundamental civil and political in nature, and serve to protect the individual from excess of state. It primarily includes those rights defined in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), like freedom of speech, right of fair trial, freedom of religion and voting rights.
Second generation human rights cover economic, social and cultural rights, which primarily find their origin in the socialist tradition and have been variously promoted by revolutionary struggles and welfare movements, also known as social welfare rights. Example: right to development, right to live under decent living conditions, right to workers to self-organize.
Third generation human rights covers collective rights, best understood as a product of both the rise and decline of the nation states in the last half o0f the 20th century .Example: right of people to a healthy environment.
EVOLUTION
Ancient times:
The concept of Human Rights as it is today was unknown to ancient societies. Although certain rights were available to citizens of various ancient societies but they were subject to coercion by the state especially for the purpose of maintaining peace and order in society, state security and protection of life and property. What existed was a political duty imposed the rule,, in the most case by divine law, to protect the citizen and the freedom available was as granted by the rulers.
“Judaism knows not rights but duties, and at bottom, all duties are to God”.- Ancient Hebrews
Magna Carta:
The earliest legal instrument of protection of individual rights against state encroachment was the English Magna Carta signed by King John in 1215. It has been described as a charter not of “popular liberty” but of “feudal reaction” clamoring for restoration of feudal privileges and jurisdiction which is unfriendly to the crown and to the growth of popular liberty. It made the king and his subjects subordinate to the law such that the king could not deal with the subject expect according to the law.
French Declaration:
The French declaration of the rights of man and the citizen 1789 proclaimed a universal principle of rights applicable to all people in large. It highlighted that sovereignty rests on the nation and all authority to exercise it must be derived from the people. Rights covered were to come up with equality of all men, through-
- The pre-eminence of the rights to liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression,
- Equality of citizen and their admission to public post and employment on the basis of merit,
- Freedom of thought and opinion.
Post First World War:
The progressive internalization of human rights was initiated at the First World War peace settlement. Peace treaties were put in place for-
- Protection of the religions and languages of minorities,
- Minimum standers for labor under the supervision of the international labor organization,
- System that ensures accountability,
- Public welfare as a trust to civilization.
Post Second World War:
It was the atrocities by the Nazi regime in the years and during World War II that revolted the conscience of mankind and forced the people of the world to take a hard look at the concept of domestic jurisdiction of Human Rights. This led to the consecration of human rights into the UN Charter, in general terms and later in elaborate terms in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Crux (step by step eventual adoption of Human Rights):
Discrimination-
Objectionable, as disregards fundamental notions of human dignity and equality before the law, towards those who lack knowledge about rights and perceived to be weak in capacity to fight for their rights.Ex.:
- Racial discrimination (Apartheid, cultural minorities, etc)
- Sex discrimination (Violence against Women, Political Rights of Women, trafficking of women and prostitution, etc)
- Religious Discrimination
NGO’s as Ombudsmen–
- NGO’s function as Ombudsmen, safe-guard human rights and calling the attention of the government on violations through periodic reports, public statements participation in the deliberations established by intergovernmental organizations.
- NGO’s stimulate public opinion and initiations and initiation on the foundation of foreign policy of countries on matters concerning the violation of human rights.
UN objective-
Enforce equal human rights; “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of human person”(UN Charter Preamble); for the recognition and respect of human rights and freedom.
Human Rights Education-
- System used for training, dissemination and information efforts aimed at building of universal culture of human rights.
- Imparting of knowledge and skills on the molding of attitude, which direct towards the strengthening the people’s respect for human rights.
- Provides the understanding, tolerance, gender equality and friendship among all nations including indigenous people and racial, national ethnic, religious and linguistic groups.
- Enables a person to participate effectively in a FREE society.
CONCLUSION–
After undergoing number of theories, related to natural law, positivism, justice, equality and dignity of man and famous documents like Magna Carta (1215), Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), International Covenant on Social, Culture and Economic Rights (1966), we seem to have all the possible power as an individual to stand for ourselves against any kind of injustice.
(But are we free enough to exercise our rights in ongoing scenario of our country or we just possess them materialistically?)
Farheen Dhanjal 