What are Human Rights - Assignment Example

What are Human Rights? Table of Contents What are Human Rights? 1 1.Introduction 2 2.History of Human Rights 2 3.Categories of Human Rights 3 4.Explaining the Importance of Each Category of Human Rights Using Examples 4 5.Conclusion 5 Reference List 7 Bibliography 8 1. Introduction The global history of human rights dates back to World War II through a process of global consciousness for acquiring rights and responsibilities through group memberships on the basis of community, ethnicity, society, class or state. The context of humanity started building with the incidents of persecution in the name of restriction of political, social rights, detention to death. The 20th century Holocaust paved the way to the creation of Human Rights documents , beginning with the Magna Carta (1215), English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights 1791 (OHCHR, 2015). All these documents led to the creation of all modern day human rights documents. Many of them have been converted to modern day policies and human rights documents in varied segments of social, religious, economic and political sections (Baylis, Smith and Owens, 2010). However, the impending issue till date is the problem of deprivation. These legal documents are meant to help the oppressed across different sections of the society to resort to means of emancipation. Despite its long history, the field of Human Rights needs to effectively perform to improve human lives. This essay will make an attempt to trace the historical advent of human rights and their major categories generation-wise. It begins with a description of the history of human rights, the major theoretical constructs and the three major categories of human rights, with the help of examples. 2. History of Human Rights Human Rights were born after the World War II, with the formation of the United Nations (OHCHR, 2015). This led to focus on the individual consciousness as a part of inherent ability to be purportedly universal or self-evident in existence, international legalisation and endowments. One of its most important expressions relevant in the present century is the debate and success of human rights as a legal prima for legitimate involvement and ensuring that everyone’s rights are protected (Twiss, 2004). 3. Categories of Human Rights The generation-wise classification was introduced in Karel Vasak in the year 1977.The civil-political (First-generation) human rights pertain to norms related to physical and civil security and civil-political liberties or empowerments (for example, laws relating to slavery, freedom of thought, religion etc). The second category relates to the socio-economic (Second-generation) human rights that again include two subtypes, such as, norms related to provision of goods for meeting social needs and those pertaining to meeting the economic needs (for example, laws relating to nutrition, shelter, health-care). The (Third Generation) collective-developmental human rights include two subtypes, i.e., self-determination of peoples for securing economic, social, and cultural development and some other special rights of ethnic and religious minorities that entitles them to freely practice their own cultures, language, and religion. These laws are broad-classed and are acknowledged by the International community (Twiss, 2004), for example, The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992), and the Draft Declaration of Indigenous Peoples (1994). The three-generation framework is a conceptual tool in understanding the world’s real social, economic and political problems and how human rights could take a step in the application of the various forms. 4. Explaining the Importance of Each Category of Human Rights Using Examples The UN definition of Human Rights considers them to be ‘inter alia, universal and inalienable, interdependent and indivisible’ (Bailey, n.d.). There are varied obstacles and tensions to the existence of Human Rights. The theoretical foundations are based on the major conflicts of positive against negative rights; the debate between duties and rights; individual and group rights and the dilemma of universality as Western imperialism. Negative right is meant to subject inaction while a positive right permits an action. Generation wise, negative rights belong to the first generation, while the positive rights belong to the second and third generations, respectively. There is always a perennial conflict between the two schools of thought as one is conceptually antagonist to the other. To explain, a positive right may confer upon the government to provide for the services to an individual. If on carrying out these duties, there is an increase of state expenditures and requires tax impositions, this would give birth to negative rights for preventing the government tax the people for money (Bailey, n.d.). The norms pertaining to slavery, torture, and inhuman-treatment fall under the purview of civil-political human rights. These are prohibited by several Acts of Parliament and ratified by several Acts of Parliament. The State sometimes fails in its duties to give proper protection to vulnerable people against ill-treatment of all forms. For example, Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (European Convention on Human Rights, 2012). In this case, the threshold of severity is the determining factor and a victim’s inability to be affected by the particular treatment is taken into account. There are different types of ill-treatment, such as, Torture, Inhuman treatment or punishment, degrading treatment or punishment. This Article 3 places some negative obligations on the state which prevents from subjecting anyone within its jurisdiction to any form of mistreatment, punishment or any torture. Similarly, laws related to freedom of speech laws are relegated to the first generational human rights. The worker compensation and labour related laws belong to the second generational laws of Human Rights. Worker compensation related laws provide insurance in the form of wages and medical benefits in exchange of any form of mandatory fulfilment of job responsibilities. For example, the Employers Act of 1969 mandates all employers in UK to purchase Employers Liability Insurance. The minimum limit of Indemnity is £5,000,000 per occurrence and the market practice is to usually provide a minimum £10,000,000 with inner limits to certain risks over £5,000,000 valuation (Oliphant, 2012). Talking of conflicts, the sphere of human rights in the international platform revolves around the question of universality in resorting to the western values. When the conceptual base is on the pretext of uniformisation for social harmony, it is a challenge to strike a balance between the needs of both worlds for building more diverse moral systems. From an ethno-centric perspective, International perspective is more pragmatic in nature, owing to its properties of openness, neutrality and diverse support at the inter-cultural level. Thereby, drafters of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) are in agreement with this western philosophy on the question of human dignity and universal human rights (Twiss, 1998) 5. Conclusion In this era of globalization and revolutionary intervention of technology and communication in our daily lives, Human rights are extremely significant for empowerment and exertion of a better degree of self-expression. Again, there is an apprehensive threat from all global terrors due to liberalization and freedom of speech. Every nationality, gender, race, ethnicity, and religion, justify their existence and significance through a system of human rights and maintain peace and harmony in the society. The classification of the three categories of human rights was conceptualised on the issue of social justice and the relative importance of each categories for human welfare. From the analytical point of view, human rights and laws hold Governments ideally accountable for legal dealings. Holding every citizen equal under law, the contention is to protect the vulnerable from atrocities of all forms, such as inequality, slavery, racialism, religious violence and many more. Over time, the landscape has undergone a steady alteration, in terms of expanding the consciousness and individual liabilities by the establishment of the courts of law, charters and commissions and treaties. Reference List Bailey, P., no date. The creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [online] Available at: [Accessed 20 January, 2015] Baylis, J., Smith, S. and Owens, P., 2010. The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berlin, I., 1958. Isaiah Berlin’s lecture. [online] Available at: [Accessed 20 January 2015]. European Convention on Human Rights, 2012. Freedom from torture and inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment. Human Rights Review. pp. 69-135. OHCHR, 2015. What are human rights?, [online] Available at: [Accessed 20 January 2015]. Oliphant, K., 2012. Employers' Liability and Workers' Compensation. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 482. Twiss, S. B., 1998. Moral grounds and plural cultures: interpreting human rights in the international community. The Journal of Religious Ethics, 26(2), pp. 271-282. Twiss, S. B., 2004. History, human rights, and globalization. The Journal of Religious Ethics. 32(1), pp.39-70. Vasak, K., 1977. Human rights: a thirty-year struggle: the sustained efforts to give force of Law to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UNESCO Courier, 30(11), pp. 28-29. Waldron, J., 1984. Theories of rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bibliography Donnelly, J., 2002. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. 2nd edn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Falk, R., 2000. Human Rights Horizons: the Pursuit of Justice in a Globalizing World. New York: Routledge. United Nations, no date. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [online] Available at: [Accessed 20 January 2015]. Read More