Human Rights, International

Human Rights, International. Political and philosophical discussions of human rights can be traced to antiquity, but the movement to define and protect human rights internationally emerged in the last half of the twentieth century. The movement arose from the impact of World War II with its massive human rights abuses. The punishment of war criminals for crimes against humanity was one reaction to these abuses. A second and more sustained reaction was the internationalization and expansion of standards of behavior relating to human rights.

The move to ground the protection of human rights in international agreements found broad support among the delegates at the 1945 San Francisco Conference that launched the United Nations. Written into the UN charter was the pledge of member states to promote and encourage respect for “human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion” (1.3). The rights that were the subject of this general goal were detailed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the work of a UN committee chaired by U.S. delegate Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. The declaration set the pattern for many subsequent human rights agreements. While often nonbinding, they nevertheless, in the words of the declaration's preamble, serve “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations.”

The human rights movement found regional expression in such undertakings as the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (1948), the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), the European Social Charter (1961), and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981). The movement has also generated controversy over the legitimacy of economic as opposed to political rights. Two U.N.–sponsored covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966), reflect this controversy. The opposition of some nations, including the United States, to incorporating economic rights in a document intended to be legally binding, was met by separating the types of rights, thus allowing for separate agreements.

The Helsinki Accords (1975) enhanced the effectiveness of international standards by establishing regular review conferences to encourage compliance with the accord's human rights provisions. An emphasis on human rights in the foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter's administration (1977–1981) further boosted the movement, which continued to expand and generate controversy. Toward the end of the twentieth century, some Asian and African states questioned the universality of civil and political rights, especially as applied to their own regimes. Still, the movement continued, as concerns about the environment, unequal development, racial discrimination, breaches of humanitarian norms, and the rights of marginalized groups such as women, children, and indigenous peoples were all brought under the umbrella of international human rights.
See also Internationalism.

Bibliography

Dorothy V. Jones , Code of Peace: Ethics and Security in the World of the Warlord States, 1991.
Rein Mullerson , Human Rights Diplomacy, 1997.

Dorothy V. Jones.