Human rights
From Encyclopædia
Human rights are fundamental entitlements that all persons enjoy as protection against state conduct prohibited by international law or custom. Among the forms of mistreatment that are most widely condemned are extrajudicial or summary execution; disappearance (in which people are taken in custody and never heard of again); kidnapping;
torture; arbitrary detention or exile;
slavery or involuntary servitude;
discrimination on racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual grounds; and violation of the rights to due process, free expression, free association, free movement, and peaceable
assembly.BackgroundHuman rights as a distinct component of international law is a modern phenomenon; however, it has deep historical roots. Ancient Greek and Roman thought recognized the existence of immutable,
natural lawS to which individuals might
appeal in defiance of unjust state laws. Later, the secular and humanist strains of thought that appeared during the
Renaissance and blossomed fully during the 18th century
Enlightenment gave rise to theories of morality grounded in the rights of the individual. The crowning achievements of the latter period--the English
Bill of Rights of 1688, the American
Declaration of Independence of 1776, the
Bill of Rights (see
BILL OF RIGHTS) to the American Constitution in 1789, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1791--built upon philosophical foundations to codify in law restraints on governmental power.Human Rights and International LawInternational law, recognizing the right of national sovereignty, traditionally focused on relations between states, not on the ways in which states treated their own citizens. Nevertheless, international law did impose on states an obligation to provide protection for aliens within their borders. Moreover, by the 19th century, a doctrine of "humanitarian
intervention" developed, applying to
cases in which a state committed atrocities against its own subjects that "shocked the
conscience of mankind."Humanitarian law principles governing the rules of war--to protect civilians, the wounded, the shipwrecked, and prisoners of war--developed extensively from the writings of Hugo GROTIUS in the 17th century through the HAGUE CONFERENCES of 1899 and 1907 to the GENEVA CONVENTIONS of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977. (Unlike human rights law, humanitarian laws of war govern the conduct of both governmental and organized nongovernmental entities.)The horrors of
world War I and the plight of minority peoples in the newly created
nation states led to further, if still quite limited, modifications of the long-standing principle of national sovereignty. After the war, minority treaties enforced by the League of
nations were designed to protect the rights of linguistic and
ethnic minorities in the new states of
Central and [[Eastern
Europe|Eastern Europe]]. It was, not, however, until the systematic terror waged by the Nazi government against its own citizens and those under its
Control that the horrifying implications of the doctrine of national sovereignty became painfully apparent. The
Nuremberg TRIALS following
world War II gave rise to the notion of "crimes against humanity," which are violations of human rights of such an egregious nature as to
warrant judgment and
punishment by international tribunals in accordance with international norms.Following the war, international human rights law became codified in a series of declarations and agreements that set forth international standards to which all signatory governments pledged to adhere: the Universal Declaration of of Human Rights, adopted by the United
nations General
assembly in 1948; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, entered into force in 1976; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, also entered into force in 1976. A
number of regional agreements have been promulgated to supplement these worldwide instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (entered into force in 1953), the
Helsinki ACCORDS (adopted in 1975), the American Convention on Human Rights (entered into force in 1978), and the African
charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (entered into force in 1986).International and regional bodies have established forums and procedures for the examination and adjudication of alleged human rights violations. For example, the European Commission of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American ?tates investigate abuses and may refer particular
cases to regional courts. The Commission on Human Rights of the United
nations studies and makes recommendations concerning individual instances of abuse and generalized standards.The Human Rights MovementHowever, it has been left largely to nongovernmental organizations such as
amnesty INTERNATIONAL, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists to publicize gross violations through on-site investigations, the dissemination of detailed reports and advocacy in international and domestic forums. Such organizations, which bring the
pressure of
world public opinion to bear on offending governments, focus their
attention on a wide range of countries spanning much of the
globe. The credibility of their reports and findings has stemmed, in large part, from their impartial application of universal human rights norms to all governments.Within many countries, domestic human rights organizations have been established to monitor the actions of their governments. The work of such organizations--among them the Tutela Legal Human Rights Office of the San Salvador archdiocese, the Vicaria de Solidaridad in Chile, and the Free Legal Assistance Group of the
Philippines--has been of great significance in furthering the promotion of human rights. With far less physical protection and international notoriety than their transnational counterparts, domestic human rights monitors assume great risks. In recent years monitors around the
globe have been killed, abducted, arbitrarily arrested, and tortured for publicly decrying abuses.The success of the nongovernmental human rights movement over the past several decades has perhaps best been exemplified by the extent to which individual governments have incorporated human rights concerns and the rhetoric of human rights discourse into the substance and form of their
foreign policy. In the
United States, where the human rights movement has long enjoyed substantial popular and institutional support, the State Department has for more than a decade been required to produce an annual survey of human rights conditions worldwide to help Congress assess how U.S. assistance affects the rights of the people of a recipient country. Even governments that initially sought to suppress discussion of human rights increasingly recognize that their international image depends on their respect for human rights.By the late 1980s human rights had emerged as one of the principal themes of global politics and a frequent topic of discussion in U.S.-Soviet summit meetings. The extraordinary events of 1989 in [[Eastern
Europe|Eastern Europe]] were made possible in part by a long-established human rights movement. Some human rights activists, including members of
charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and individual
Helsinki Watch committees in several
nations, were by 1990 in power in countries where they had been jailed months earlier.The human rights movement's very success over the past decade in helping to bring about positive change in many parts of the
globe may suggest to some that vigilance is no longer necessary. Moreover, to the extent that
interest in human rights has stemmed not only from a concern to promote compliance with international standards, but also from a desire to enhance or diminish the geopolitical stature of a particular regime, the recent easing of international tensions could
lead some governments and citizens to devote less
attention to human rights issues.Human Rights TodayDespite its gains, however, the human rights movement has been forced to recognize that much work remains. Thus, as gross forms of
torture--including beating, burning, and electric shock--have declined in some countries in recent years, they have been replaced by more sophisticated methods of mistreatment--including sleep, water, and food deprivation; simulated asphyxiation; simulated drowning; freezing through excessive air-conditioning; and denial of medical care for the injured or ill--which leave no obvious signs and thus enable governments to deny that such practic?s take place, but which are equally effective in obtaining information and terrorizing populations. In other countries, despite a decline in the
numbers of extrajudicial executions and disappearances, the state of political and civil freedoms is often not improved, because the chilling effects of an earlier
stage of systematic violence endure.
