human rights universal rights held to belong to individuals by virtue of their being human, encompassing civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights and freedoms, and based on the notion of personal human dignity and worth. Conceptually derived from the theory of natural law and originating in Greco-Roman doctrines, the idea of human rights appears in some early Christian writers' works and is reflected in the Magna Carta (1215). The concept winds as a philosophical thread through 17th- and 18th-century European and American thought, including the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789). The United Nation's Commission on Human Rights, with Eleanor Roosevelt as chair, created the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which reasserted the concept of human rights after the horrors of World War II. Human rights have since become a universally espoused yet widely disregarded concept.
Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch promote human rights and denounce human-rights abuses. In addition, such abuses around the world are monitored and documented by independent investigators ( "special rapporteurs" ) appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, which, in turn, rebukes cited nations for their human-rights failures. (The council replaced the UN Human Rights Commission, which had been accused of protecting human-rights violators, in mid-2006; similar accusations have been leveled at the new council.) The charging in 1998 by a Spanish court of former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet with human-rights violations and the 1999 British ruling that he could be extradited to Spain, as well as the indictment and arrest (2000) in Senegal of former Chadian president Hissène Habré for human-rights violations during his presidency (although charges were later dropped, he was subsequently rearrested on a Belgian warrant), were regarded as steps forward in the international protection of human rights.
See also civil rights ; feminism ; gay-rights movement ; war crimes .
Bibliography: See M. A. Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2001).
Author not available, HUMAN RIGHTS.,
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2008
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&type=2 "The Economist (US)")
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Beyond the "genocide Olympics"; Business and human rights.
The Economist (US); 4/26/2008; 1133 words;
... expected to take a lead in promoting human rights BY THE standards of any previous ... organisations committed to promoting human rights, including the United Nations Global ... Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights. Even so, Mr Isdell now finds himself ...
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A screaming start; The UN and human rights.(Has the UN's human-rights machinery really improved?)(United Nations Human Rights Council)
The Economist (US); 4/26/2008; 1205 words;
... the 60-year-old UN Commission on Human Rights was dumped. Kofi Annan, who was ... others . When its successor, the Human Rights Council, started up a couple of ... inclusion as members of some serial human-rights abusers; its decision to stand ...
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&type=1 "The Mercury (South Africa)")
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Human rights 'can suffer in research'.(News)
The Mercury (South Africa); 5/12/2008; 165 words;
... researchers, says South African Human Rights Commission chairman Jody Kollapen. Delivering a lecture on Human Rights, Ethics and Research at the University ... researchers respecting people's human rights while doing research. No research ...
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Human rights and social justice; action and service for the helping and health professions.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Reference & Research Book News; 5/1/2008; 198 words;
9781412938723 Human rights and social justice; action and service ... investigator of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Project at the Center for Social Change ... book offers a conceptual framework for human rights policy and practice supported with ... systems over time ... .
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&type=1 "Portland Press Herald (Maine)")
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Cyclone just one of the disasters in Myanmar ; The international community should be more active in preventing human rights abuses.
Portland Press Herald (Maine); 5/13/2008; Anonymous --; 415 words;
... should be more active in preventing human rights abuses. Byline: Anonymous -- Edition ... has been a cause of concern for human rights activists for denying people access ... issued a scathing report about human rights abuses inflicted on people by their ...
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Chantal J. Zabus. Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women's Experiential Texts and Human Contexts.(Book review)
World Literature Today; 5/1/2008; Newson-Horst, Adele S.; 544 words;
... Zabus. Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women's Experiential Texts and Human Contexts. Stanford, California ... cultural rituals) and rights (the desire to forego ... Western voyeuristic gaze, human-rights issues, and cultural ... assertions. Between Rites and Rights is an exceedingly ...
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Pope Benedict XVI pleads for global human rights [Derived Headline]
New Haven Register; 4/19/2008; Jack Golas; 17 words;
Pope Benedict XVI pleads for global human rights in address at UN, C4 Area teens get tickets to see pope, B1
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Our women must be protected; Saudi Arabia.(Human rights for Saudi women)(male guardanship)
The Economist (US); 4/26/2008; 648 words;
... affirms the detailed report by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based monitoring ... of another woman's testimony to Human Rights Watch. A mother tells her daughter ... that the Saudi authorities let Human Rights Watch compile its report in situ ...
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Many Days Late, Many Dollars Short; Soft-Pedaling Human Rights?; A Fish Story for the History Books; Shake, Shake, Shake in Djibouti.
U.S. News & World Report; 4/17/2006; Omestad, Thomas Fischman, Josh Press, Associated Atlas, Edited By Terry; 759 words;
... middle of the month. Soft-Pedaling Human Rights? Iran and Cuba, among others ... is the shaky start of the U.N. Human Rights Council--a body that was supposed ... international pressure on chronic rights violators, in part by keeping ... the discredited, previous U.N. Human Rights ...
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Mugabe a hostage of his generals; Top Zimbabwean writer Chenjerai Hove says his country's leader will not be allowed to leave because his generals need him to protect them from being charged for human rights abuses carried out during the bush war, writes Hans Pienaar.(News)
The Mercury (South Africa); 5/13/2008; 1072 words;
... Washington-based AllAfrica.com internet news service, one of several critics of the ... fame as a writer and wrote a column for news- papers satirising Mugabe. In the run ... future truth commission or charges for human rights abuses. His own military people are saying ...
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Slain human rights advocate mourned
Chicago Sun-Times; 9/1/2000; 2 words;
Caption only.
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&type=1 "Daily Post (Liverpool, England)")
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Human Rights Shame: Exposed: Liverpool's own human rights scandal.(News)
Daily Post (Liverpool, England); 7/9/2004; 12 words;
Left behind after yesterday's raid: seven men sleeping on the floor in one room
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Protecting a predator ; Shielded by his 'human rights', a rapist was free to live where he chose. And kill a girl of 14...
Daily Mail; 5/10/2008; Chris Brooke; 559 words;
... it wasn't too dangerous for him to live next to this poor girl, was it? 'That's the problem with this country nowadays, the rights of offenders come first.' Clark murdered Zuzanna just 11 months after he was given a rented house in the Harehills district ...
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THE BCOCS (BIG CLASSES ON CAMPUS) HUMAN RIGHTS, HITCHCOCK, AND HISTORY WERE ALL THE RAVE THIS FALL AT LOCAL COLLEGES. HERE'S A SAMPLING OF FIVE COURSES THAT FILLED UP THE FASTEST.
The Boston Globe; 10/15/2006; ANUPREETA DAS; 9 words;
BOSTON UNCOMMON / DISPATCH PLEASE SEE MICROFILM FOR CHART DATA.
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HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST WOMEN IN AFGHENISTAN:PATRICK LEAHY
Congressional Testimony; 3/9/1999; 21 words;
00-00-0000 CGISTATUS=FAILURE. INTERNAL ERROR. WM03 : Web Manager sent a message indicating the server could not complete the given request.
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