Human Rights

Origins and basic concepts

Human rights and international law

The United Nations and human rights

Human rights in developing countries

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The subject of this article is the international concern with human rights. The article cannot, however, concentrate exclusively on the activities of international organizations and on conferences which purport to promote respect for human rights. The instruments, institutions, and operations of the international organizations of our day have roots in the philosophical, constitutional, and legal developments of many nations spread over many centuries. The work on the international plane has in its turn had considerable influence on constitutional, legal, and political developments within nation-states, not least on the written law of many of the states of Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean which have recently acceded to independence.

Origins and basic concepts

The expression “human rights,” as a term of art, is of recent origin. Even in its French-inspired form “rights of man” (droits de I’homme), it goes back only to the last decades of the eighteenth century. The idea, however, of the law, or the lawgiver, defining and protecting the legal rights of men— mainly the mutual rights of the members of the community—is very old indeed. It would, perhaps, be somewhat farfetched to look for elements of the protection of human rights in the Code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (about 2130 to 2088 B.C.), the most ancient code of law at present known. The sanctions which it provides in trying to protect worthy human-rights objectives (such as the administration of justice, marriage, and the family) are so disproportionately cruel that it is preferable to disregard this legislator in our context. However, as Rudolph von Jhering pointed out a century ago, the law of ancient republican Rome guaranteed to the Roman citizen (not to the foreigner or to the slave) the right to take part in the government of his country by participating in the exercise of the power of legislation, in the administration of criminal justice, in electing public officials, and even in having a share in the police power (Jhering 1852-1878).

An eminent American scholar has said (Yntema 1958) that the concepts of the Roman civil law, which were formulated by the Roman juridical genius in order to render justice in the mutual relations of individual men, are in essence a practical definition of the rights of man and a reasonable and authoritative criterion to which those who seek justice and protection of the inherent dignity of the human person can appeal. This holds true, in Yntema’s view, of the Roman law as it was applied on the continent of Europe and of the common law of the Anglo-Saxon countries. The common law and the civil law, so different in their institutions and techniques and, at the same time, so similar in their criteria of what is fair, offer an objective yardstick for judging conduct in terms of individual rights and freedoms. These systems have, of course, also tolerated institutions and practices which are inconsistent with the modern conception of a public order protecting human dignity. Nevertheless, through many centuries communities have existed where at least part of what are now considered to be fundamental human rights were well protected by elaborate and refined bodies of law.

In England of the seventeenth century battles were fought against the nonobservance of the ancient rights of Englishmen. Out of these struggles there came two great documents: the Petition of Right of 1628 and the Bill of Rights of 1689. These did not purport to define the basic human rights of all mankind. They were intended to give relief for specific grievances by limiting the power of the king and by strengthening the power of Parliament and of the courts. Their ideas and even their texts are, however, reflected in the work of the American and French revolutionaries of the eighteenth century: in the immortal passages of the American Declaration of Independence, in the Virginia bill of rights of 1776, in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and in the American bill of rights.

In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the example set by the United States and France of adopting bills of rights or otherwise embodying such rights in their constitutions, was followed on the entire continent of Europe, and the movement spread to the Americas, Asia, and Africa, but until very recently Britain and the British dominions and possessions remained aloof from this movement.

The Russian Revolution of 1917, while following the American-French precedent in the form of its pronouncements, gave it a fundamentally different substance. The difference lies not in the emphasis on economic and social rights in addition to the traditional political and civil rights. Such provisions are also found in other constitutions, for example, in the Mexican constitution of 1917, in the Weimar constitution of Germany of 1919, and in the constitution of the Republic of Spain of 1931. The difference between the Soviet pronouncements and their Western predecessors lies in the complete transformation of the meaning of political and civil rights.

This basic difference in concepts becomes clear when one compares the provisions of the American bill of rights with the corresponding provisions of the first Soviet constitution. The first amendment to the American constitution provides, among other things, that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; the Russian constitution of 1918 “for the purpose of securing freedom of expression to the toiling masses,” abolishes all dependence of the press upon capital, and turns over to the working people and the poorest peasantry “all technical and material means for the publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books,” etc. The American constitution prohibits abridgment of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, while the Lenin constitution, in order to ensure complete freedom of assembly to the working class and to the poorest peasantry, offers “all premises convenient for public gatherings together with lighting, heating, and furniture.”

The Soviet constitution of 1936, while changing the wording, has, by and large, maintained this general approach. The Western constitutional ideas were designed to prevent interference with fundamental rights mainly, though not exclusively, by the public authorities. The Soviet concept does not treat of this aspect at all. It promises to make available technical facilities; it does not promise freedom in the choice of the purposes for which they will be used. In trying to draw conclusions from the existence in so many legal systems of catalogues of rights, one must keep in mind these differences in the basic concepts.

Human rights and international law

Attempts to seek a foundation for the rights of the individual in the law of nations go back to an early stage in the history of international law. The work of the Spanish theologian-lawyer Francisco de Vitoria—born 1480, died 1546—is perhaps the first attempt to use legal reasoning, moral principle, and political courage in support of a cause which we might consider as involving human rights as well as international law. He lectured about “the Indians recently discovered” and pleaded for their rights vis-a-vis the Spanish conquerors. The greatest figures in the literature of international law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries exercised a powerful influence on the growth of the concept of the inalienable rights of man. In 1950 Sir Hersch Lauterpacht characterized the close connection between human rights and international law by saying that “the law of nations, in itself conceivable only as being above the legal order of sovereign States, is not only a law governing their mutual relations but is also, upon final analysis, the universal law of humanity in which the individual human being as the ultimate unit of all law rises sovereign over the limited province of the State” (p. 120).

In the field of action, as distinct from scholarship, the international concern with human rights has manifested itself in two different ways: by so-called “humanitarian intervention” and by the adoption of international treaties.

In traditional international law it was assumed that a state had the authority to treat its own nationals as it saw fit. When, however, the ill-treatment by a state of its own population was of such an intensity that it shocked the conscience of mankind, other states, usually the great powers of the period, took it upon themselves to threaten, or even to use, force in order to come to the rescue of the oppressed population. While resort to this type of action was not infrequent, the doctrine underlying it has never become a generally recognized part of international law because of the abuse inherent in the concept of “humanitarian intervention.”

The protection of oppressed or endangered groups by international treaty started in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in matters of religious liberty. In the course of the nineteenth century the international treaty was used also to protect ethnic and racial groups and to combat the slave trade and slavery; in the twentieth century it has been used to improve labor conditions, to arrange for the supervision of the administration of mandated territories, and to provide under the supervision of the League of Nations for certain rights of racial, religious, or linguistic minorities in a number of states, mainly in central and eastern Europe.

The United Nations and human rights

Not until the world had passed through the tragic events of World War II and had witnessed the barbarous acts committed by the totalitarian regimes of that period was the universal organization of the international community, the United Nations, charged with some responsibilities in the matter of human rights, and its members pledged themselves to take action for the achievement of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.

The San Francisco Charter of 1945 through which the peoples of the United Nations reaffirmed their faith in “fundamental human rights” did not define these rights. The charter has made it abundantly clear, however, that one particular activity at least is repugnant to it: discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, language, or religion.

Nor has the charter established specific international machinery for the enforcement of its human-rights provisions, except for arrangements under the trusteeship system. But it has created organs of general and wide competence—the general Assembly, the Security Council, and the Economic and Social Council—and it has laid the foundations for the establishment of an unlimited number of subsidiary bodies, including commissions in the field of human rights.

The General Assembly, and to some extent also the Economic and Social Council, have not hesitated to use their general powers of investigation and recommendation to take action of varying character and intensity in such situations as violations of religious or political freedom in eastern Europe, race conflict in South Africa, forced labor in various parts of the world, infringement of trade union freedom, practices violating the human dignity of women in less developed communities, the status of Buddhists in South Vietnam, and many others. The fight against colonialism has been one of the characteristics of the international scene in the post-World War II world. Rightly or wrongly, the majority of governments have, to a large extent, identified the struggle against colonial domination with the struggle for human rights.

International bill of rights

Since the United Nations Charter had not defined human rights and had not created special international institutions for their enforcement, it was widely assumed in 1945 that this would soon be done in an “International bill of rights.” In 1947-1948 it was decided that this “bill” would consist of two or more documents: a declaration, a covenant, and “measures of implementation.” In 1948 the General Assembly proclaimed in a resolution the first part of this bill of rights as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The drafting of the other parts of the bill has not yet been completed; according to later decisions, they are to consist of two covenants, one on civil and political rights, the other on economic, social, and cultural rights, with provision for international supervision of their implementation. (By the end of 1963 all the general and substantive provisions of the two covenants had been approved on the General Assembly level, while—as of 1965 —the international procedural arrangements have still to be agreed upon.)

The declaration of 1948 is the only world-wide official document where the human rights of which the charter speaks are set forth. Its range is very wide. It proclaims not only the traditional political and civil rights and freedoms of its national predecessors but also “economic, social and cultural rights.” The declaration has, to some extent, filled the gap created by the delay in completing the covenants and acquired a status different from and more important than the one which was originally intended for it. It has been used by the United Nations, by other international organizations and conferences, and by governments as a yardstick to measure the compliance by governments with the obligations deriving from the charter in matters of human rights. It has penetrated into international conventions, national constitutions, and legislation, and even, in isolated cases, into court proceedings.

The technique of developing international standards by proclaiming instruments of the declaration type has been frequently used, the most potent post-1948 example being the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, of 1960. Additional human-rights declarations were also adopted: the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, in 1963. In other fields examples are the declarations on Permanent Sovereignty Over Natural Resources, 1962, and on Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, 1963. Many more are in various stages of drafting and preparation.

Conventions on specific human-rights subjects

While the work of drafting the comprehensive covenants on human rights has been going on, the United Nations and its specialized agencies have produced a considerable body of treaty law on the subject of human rights by adopting and putting into force conventions on more limited subjects. Important examples are the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948; the Genocide Convention, 1948; the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, 1952; the Conventions on the Status of Refugees, 1951, and of Stateless Persons, 1954; the Conventions on the Reduction of Statelessness, 1961, and on the Nationality of Married Women, 1957; the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, 1956, and the Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labor, 1957; the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958, and the Convention against Discrimination in Education, I960; the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, 1962; and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1965.

Regional arrangements

In the years during which the United Nations has been slowly working its way toward the completion of the world-wide covenants, much more rapid progress was achieved in western Europe. Under the auspices of the Council of Europe, the European Convention of Human Rights of 1950 came into being, supplemented by protocols of 1952 and 1963 and by the European Social Charter of 1961. By the convention, the 15 European states which are parties to it have undertaken to secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights which it defines—most of the traditional political and civil rights. The convention established two new organs to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the parties: the European Commission on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.

The existence of the court is significant primarily as a symbol. Its jurisdiction is very narrowly circumscribed. It was established in 1959, and by the beginning of 1965 only two cases had gone before it. The commission, however, has played an important and effective part. Ten of the European states (not including the United Kingdom and France, the latter not being a party to the convention at all) have accepted the right of individuals to petition the commission and to claim to be the victims of a violation of the convention by one of the parties. It has been the commission’s examination of petitions, and especially the examination of their admissibility, which offered the commission the opportunity to build up an impressive body of case law. And although in the over whelming majority of cases the commission has had to reject the petition, its work has transformed the abstract idea of the international protection of human rights into a concrete, tangible, day-to-day task. This operation has laid bare the formidable problems and pitfalls inherent in so novel an experiment.

For many years, the Organization of American States has tried to establish inter-American institutions for the promotion of respect for human rights. In 1948 the “American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man” was proclaimed at Bogota; conventions on political and civil rights of women and on territorial and diplomatic asylum were signed in 1948 and 1954 respectively. An Inter-American Convention on Human Rights providing for the establishment of a commission and a court of human rights, on the European model, was drafted by the Inter-American Council of Jurists in 1959. At the beginning of 1965 final action on the draft had not yet been taken by the political organs.

Program of practical action

The effectiveness and desirability of the international treaty as an instrument for the promotion of human rights was challenged early in the history of the United Nations. The most weighty challenge came in 1953 when U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stated that the new Eisenhower administration did not believe in “treaty coercion” and did not favor “formal undertakings” as the proper and most effective way to achieve throughout the world the goals of human liberty. As a consequence the United States declared its intention not to become a party to any covenant on human rights or to sign human-rights conventions of a more limited scope. As we have seen, the majority of governments has continued to hold that multilateral conventions have their place among the endeavors to give effect to the human-rights provisions of the charter. Those governments consented, however, to a new program proposed by the United States, provided it was adopted in addition to treaties and not instead of them.

Thus, in 1955-1956 the United Nations started a series of new activities: (1) periodic (triennial) reporting by states on developments; (2) studies of specific rights or groups of rights; and (3) advisory services in the field of human rights. A great number of governments have participated in the reporting procedure in the first three triennial cycles; the Commission on Human Rights has, however, not yet arrived at a final policy about the use to be made of the reports. The first of the studies was a world-wide inquiry and investigation into the status of the right to be free from arbitrary arrest, detention, and exile. The most fruitful branch of the program of advisory services has been the convening of mostly regional conferences (called seminars) to exchange views and experiences on important and topical problems, such as the protection of human rights in criminal law and procedure, the role of the police in the protection of human rights, or the status of women in family law. It was a series of seminars on judicial and other remedies against the illegal exercise or abuse of administrative authority which made the institution of the “ombudsman” known outside the Scandinavian countries and led to its acceptance in at least two other countries (England and New Zealand) and to its consideration elsewhere (Canada and some United States jurisdictions). One such regional conference, held in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1964, was devoted to “human rights in developing countries,” a basic problem which deserves more detailed discussion (Seminar …1964).

Human rights in developing countries

Observance of human rights poses problems everywhere, and no country’s record, be it highly industrialized or economically underdeveloped, is faultless. In most of the countries which have acceded to independence only recently the problems are aggravated. Many of these countries have implacable enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease, and inertia. Western commentators have tended to underestimate the importance of illiteracy and ignorance, particularly in unsophisticated rural societies (De Smith 1964, p. 237). At the Kabul conference it was agreed that there could be no meaningful exercise of many human rights in a country where economic resources were scarce and the bulk of the population lived on the margin of subsistence. It was argued that in such matters as the development of the whole economy and the improvement of health, education, and housing, the state needed the necessary powers to implement its plans even though, meanwhile, the rights of individuals or groups might be temporarily curtailed. Some speakers wondered, however, whether the governments of some developing countries did not show an excessive concern for the internal and external security of the state and apply unnecessary restrictions on human rights.

Developing countries experience difficulties not only in regard to economic and social rights, the enjoyment of which clearly presupposes a certain economic standard, but also in regard to the “classical” civil and political rights. A basic prerequisite of the right to a fair trial is the existence of an adequate number of well-trained lawyers, and “crash programs” for their training were recommended at the Kabul conference. The scarcity of competent and efficient public officials is also an obstacle to progress in the human-rights field. An other specific problem of the underdeveloped world arises in the very sensitive area of “labor mobili zation.” In some countries, it was alleged at the conference, it is not yet possible to rely exclusively upon systems of voluntary labor to satisfy the basic needs of the nation. Recourse has sometimes to be had to certain forms of labor mobilization involving the compulsory removal of people to areas other than those of their residences. It was claimed, however, that such national labor services should be distinguished from the practices of forced labor which were forbidden by international conventions (see also Cowen 1964).

Neither the human-rights provisions of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nor the other treaties and declarations mentioned above have brought about the millennium. It is therefore not the purpose of this article to convey the idea that the rights set forth in these instruments are, in fact, respected and observed throughout the world. In 1952, in 1957, and, again, in 1962 the General Assembly of the United Nations reiterated that notwithstanding the obligations arising from the charter and notwith standing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, violations of human rights continue to occur in various parts of the world, and that notwith standing some progress the situation in many parts of the world was unsatisfactory.

The task of making the protection of human rights general, permanent, and effective still lies ahead. This should not lead us, however, to belittle the progress that has been achieved on the international and national levels since World War II. Whatever the technical position might be in particular instances, and however difficult it might often be to achieve redress through international or national remedies, the traditional concept, that the way a state treats those subject to its power and jurisdiction is within its unfettered discretion, is a thing of the past. A vast but asymmetrical structure of international obligations has been built, some vague, some precise; and injunctions and exhortations have been issued, some authoritative, others less so. The fate of the individual may still in fact be at the mercy of his state, but it is also a matter of continuing and increasing international concern.

Egon Schwelb

[See alsoInternational Crimes. Other relevant material may be found inConstitutional Law, articles onCivil LibertiesandCivil Rights; International Law; International Organization.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Cassin, Rene 1952 La declaration universelle et la mise en oeuvre des droits de I’homme. The Hague, Academy of International Law, Recueil des cours, 1951 79:237–367.

Cowen, Denis V. 1964 Human Rights in Contemporary Africa. Natural Law Forum 9:1–24.

De Smith, Stanley A. 1964 The New Commonwealth and Its Constitutions. London: Stevens.

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Holcombe, Arthur N. 1948 Human Rights in the Modern World. New York Univ. Press; Oxford Univ. Press.

Jellinek, Georg (1898) 1901 The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens: A Contribution to Modern Constitutional History. New York: Holt. → First published in German. A third German edition was published in 1919 by Duncker and Humblot.

Jhering, Rudolph von (1852–1878) 1906-1923 Geist des romischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwicklung. 6th ed., 3 vols. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel.

Lauterpacht, Hersch 1945 An International Bill of the Rights of Man. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.

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Vasak, Karel 1964 La convention europeenne des droits de I’homme. Paris: Librairie Generale de Droit et de Jurisprudence.

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Human Rights

THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

HUMAN RIGHTS AS CONSCIENCE AND SOCIAL VALUES

CURRENT FRONTS FOR THE ADVANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

THE UNITED STATES AND HUMAN RIGHTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The core conception underlying human rights rests on the following premises: (1) all humans have equal rights that derive from the dignity and inherent worth of every person; (2) all humans have rights to freedom and development; (3) the advance of human rights is inherent in the pursuit of world peace, social justice, democracy, and the rule of law; (4) vulnerable groups need special protections; (5) cultural diversity and pluralism affirm persons’ identities; and (6) human rights must be linked with the promotion of sustainable communities and environments. This conception has formally evolved within the international framework of the United Nations, as well as the United Nations’ specialized agencies—the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Still, the roots of this conception are everywhere evident, in communities, in peoples’ movements, and increasingly in state constitutions (for summaries see Howard 1995; An-Na’im 2002; Orend 2002; Felice 2003).

THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The international response to the Holocaust at the end of World War II (1939–1945) was swift and decisive, specifically, the founding of the United Nations in 1945, which in turn paved the way for the formal elaboration of human rights in terms of two distinct but related frameworks (Moore and Pubantz 2006). One framework deals with the most egregious violations, namely, humanitarian law, embodied in the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and subsequently in various treaties and statutes, including the 1998 statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC), which tries individuals who commit crimes against humanity (Robertson 1999).

The second framework deals with fundamental human rights, initially enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This document is extraordinary for many reasons, not the least of which is that it has been affirmed by all of the nearly two hundred member states of the United Nations. (The UDHR does not have treaty status, and therefore is not enforceable.) The philosophical premise, as stated in Article 1, is that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” The UDHR encompasses three main sorts of rights: (1) political and civil rights that historically evolved in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States; (2) socioeconomic rights and security rights, specifically those rights people have by virtue of being human, such as the right to a job, community and family, food, security, housing, and education; and (3) the rights of vulnerable persons and minority populations.

Subsequently, international treaties have been enacted that are designed to assist nation-states in advancing human rights. These treaties are:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Additionally, the United Nations has promulgated other declarations and charters (without treaty status) dealing with human rights, some of which concern specific groups, such as indigenous peoples, the mentally disabled, and many others. The ILO and UNESCO also have standards for human rights in areas in which they have expertise and authority.

GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights take on new significance in an increasingly interconnected world in which the gaps in human welfare are widening and all humans are at increased risk owing to the proliferation of weapons, terrorism, and the deterioration of natural habitats (Singer 2004). Just as multinationals acquired the capacities in the 1980s to move their operations everywhere around the globe to find the cheapest labor (Amin 1997), the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund put the populations of many poor countries at risk (UNDP 2004). Aggravating these material inequalities, the world’s “haves” are largely white, whereas the world’s “have-nots” are largely non-white.

Another aspect of global interconnectedness is that declines in some national economies have spurred high rates of migration, while affluent countries have increasingly barred migrants’ entry. Furthermore, the rate of decline of the planet’s environment, climate, and biodiversity has accelerated. A sustainable habitat is also a basic human right, but environmental degradation, climate change, hazardous wastes, pesticides, and toxic products all threaten sustainability. On the positive side, the advance of communications has expanded peoples’ own connectedness, which has fostered remarkable cooperation around shared objectives, such as poverty reduction.

HUMAN RIGHTS AS CONSCIENCE AND SOCIAL VALUES

As already implied, human rights are more than formal agreements. They rest on a set of ideals and values. All religious traditions, from the ancient Hindu Upanishads to contemporary religions, have emphasized the importance of duties and obligations, and continue to play an ongoing role in human rights, as do currents in philosophy and ethics (Lauren 2003). The U.S. civil rights movement and other social movements, such as those for gender equality, have played key roles in shaping peoples’ conscience about equality of rights. Liberation struggles against colonial oppressors have also reshaped conscience. The Martinican-born political theorist Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) powerfully captures this in The Wretched of the Earth : “Independence is … an indispensable condition for the existence of men and women who are truly liberated, in other words who are truly masters of all the material means which make possible the radical transformation of society” (1963, p. 310).

CURRENT FRONTS FOR THE ADVANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The advance of human rights is a vision that is increasingly shared by advocates for justice as well as by development specialists, and this is possible because people at the grassroots, community level have been increasingly successful in generating the infrastructures for local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that, in turn, form coalitions with international NGOs. In important ways, these relationships have fundamentally transformed development projects, from a top-down approach to complex, collaborative approaches. These coalitions are able to leverage governmental reforms, and sometimes can gain major concessions from local private-sector firms. For example, the French NGO, Dignity International, collaborates with the Nairobi Hakijamii Centre for Economic and Social Rights to reduce poverty in Kenya, and this partnership also has developed models for development that it uses in international education.

Many NGOs already have consultative status with the United Nations, and such relationships are growing and intensifying as the United Nations has embarked on a new and expansive agenda to partner with these organizations, as well as local and state governments and private-sector organizations. The objective is to create layers of engagement, including grassroots engagement, to promote development, human rights, and peace and to stem the causes of human and environmental degradation (Annan 2005). A few examples of NGOs are: Global Rights; the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR); Choike-Latin America; Third World Network; and Amnesty International. Very often these NGOs function more as the conduits of expansive networks rather than as single-site organizations. The NGOs that work with the United Nations are also involved in the global World Social Forum, which is an amalgam of a peoples’ social movement, an NGO, and a network of NGOs.

Recent interest centers on the importance of direct, participatory democracy as both a vehicle for governance and an expression of human rights (Beetham 1999; Green 1999). New electronic technologies make it possible for members of a community to participate in democratic self-governance, and the initial pilot projects have been remarkably successful (MacLean 2004). Another approach is based on the idea that credit is a human right. Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus established the nonprofit Grameen Bank in 1976 to give microloans to the very poor in third world countries (Chowdhury 2001). By 2005 Grameen Bank had given out $4,896 million in loans, primarily to women, to start their own businesses. The repayment rate was a remarkable 98 percent. Microloans are not structural solutions for solving poverty, but nevertheless they help to transform the lives of poor women and indirectly benefit their communities.

THE UNITED STATES AND HUMAN RIGHTS

In spite of the great progress that has been made since the initial formalization of the principles of human rights in 1948, there are serious obstacles. A major one has to do with worldwide inequalities of resources, which can be traced to the long-term effects of colonialism, ongoing exploitation by multinationals, and authoritarian governments. Some states are too poor to implement human rights programs, and, besides, many poor states have not yet attained the kind of stable government structures that give people a voice to make demands for their rights. Yet, paradoxically, the world’s most powerful and richest nation, the United States, has been one of the world’s worst partners in the international human rights community.

The United States has remained on the margins of the world’s human rights community. For example, it rejects the idea that socioeconomic security and cultural identity are human rights. In part, this grows out of ideological conflicts during the cold war; but it is also pragmatic, consistent with U.S. geopolitical ambitions (Tabb 2002). Another explanation is that human rights are not in synch with American values that stress competitive individualism (Blau and Moncada 2005). Indeed, the U.S. Constitution is one of the few in the world today that does not include provisions for socioeconomic rights (Blau and Moncada 2006). In addition, the world’s richest nation does not support various treaties to slow the rate of environmental degradation and climate change (Low 1999; Kaul et al. 2003). The United States is one of only a few countries not party to the ICC and during the Iraq War violated the terms of the Geneva Convention, which it has ratified (Hooks and Mosher 2005).

Still, worldwide, the momentum of the human rights revolution has accelerated, possibly because of developments in communications and because of the increasingly grave conditions threatening humans and their habitats. The goal, as often stressed by UNESCO, is “to build peace in the minds of people,” which resonates with the motto of the World Social Forum: “A Better World Is Possible.”

Leading international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have been on the front lines defending peoples’ rights against brutal oppressors and inhuman acts of violence. The very complex and challenging tasks involving securing positive rights, such as the right to a decent job, housing, food, health care, and the rights to a culture and to identity require social movements, the engagement of activists, and immense efforts by people in their work-places and communities. People of color in the United States and elsewhere have played leading roles in such challenging tasks, including roles in the Civil Rights Movement, South Africa’s anti-Apartheid struggle, the Zapatista Movement, the Brazilian Landless Movement, and the Malawian shaming campaign against neoliberal policies and foreign investors. In the United States it is significant that an African American, Gay McDougall, executive director of a leading human rights organization, Global Rights, was appointed to serve as UN independent expert on minority issues.

SEE ALSO Civil Rights; Genocide; Natural Rights; Needs, Basic; United Nations

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amin, Samir. 1997. Capitalism in the Age of Globalization: The Management of Contemporary Society. London: Zed.

Amnesty International. http://amnesty.org/.

An-Na’im, Abdullahi A., ed. 2002. Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in Africa. London: Zed.

Annan, Kofi. 2005. In Larger Freedom: Towards Security, Development, and Human Rights for All. Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Decision by Heads of State and Government in September 2005. http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/.

Beetham, David. 1999. Democracy and Human Rights. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity.

Blau, Judith, and Alberto Moncada. 2005. Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Blau, Judith, and Alberto Moncada. 2006. Justice in the United States: Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). http://cesr.org/.

Choike-Latin America. http://choike.org/.

Chowdhury, Afsan. 2001. Local Heroes. New Internationalist 332: 22–23.

Dignity International. http://www.dignityinternational.org/.

Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. Preface by Jean-Paul Sartre. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove.

Felice, William F. 2003. The Global New Deal: Economic and Social Human Rights in World Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Global Rights. http://www.globalrights.org/.

Grameen Bank. http://www.grameen-info.org/.

Green, Judith M. 1999. Deep Democracy: Community, Diversity, and Transformation. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Hooks, Gregory, and Clayton Mosher. 2005. Outrages against Personal Dignity: Rationalizing Abuses and Torture in the War on Terror. Social Forces 83 (4): 1627–1646.

Howard, Rhoda E. 1995. Human Rights and the Search for Community. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Human Rights Watch. http://www.hrw.org/.

International Labour Organization (ILO). http://www.ilo.org/.

Kaul, Inge, Pedro Conceição, Katell Le Goulven, and Ronald U. Mendoza, eds. 2003. Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization. New York: UNDP.

Lauren, Paul Gordon. 2003. The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Low, Nicholas, ed. 1999. Global Ethics and Environment. London: Routledge.

MacLean, Don, ed. 2004. Internet Governance: A Grand Collaboration. New York: United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force.

Moore, John Allphin, Jr., and Jerry Pubantz. 2006. The New United Nations: International Organization in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Orend, Brian. 2002. Human Rights: Concept and Context. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview.

Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice. London: Allen Lane.

Singer, Peter. 2004. One World: The Ethics of Globalization. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Tabb, William K. 2002. Unequal Partners: A Primer on Globalization. New York: New Press.

Third World Network (TWN). http://twnside.org.sg/.

United Nations. http://www.un.org/.

United Nations. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.

United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 2004. Human Development Report 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World. New York: Author.

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). http://www.unesco.org.

United Nations Treaty Body Data Base. http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf.

World Social Forum (WSF). http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/.

Judith Blau

HUMAN RIGHTS

HUMAN RIGHTS. The concept of human rights has evolved over time, and various countries have emphasized different aspects of human rights principles and policy. Some nations have emphasized traditional civil and political rights (both individual and collective), whereas others—particularly communist and socialist regimes—have emphasized the concept of economic and social rights. Some governments have embraced both sets of principles.

In the United States, the concept of certain individual and collective rights—in particular, civil and political rights—as "natural" or "unalienable" can be traced back to colonial times, reflecting the influence of John Locke and other political theorists. This concept was clearly set forth in the Declaration of Independence and was codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The United States has long regarded international human rights standards as universal. It has rejected the arguments of nations such as China, which claim that such standards can be discounted as mere "Western" concepts and argue that human rights should be viewed through the prism of each nation's history and culture. Unlike many governments, the United States acknowledges that some human rights problems persist within its territory despite its generally good record and accepts that universal human rights standards involve study and criticism of such matters.

Initiatives since World War II

World War II (1939–1945) gave impetus to the modern development of basic principles of human rights and to the general acceptance of the idea that the human rights practices of individual countries toward their own citizens are legitimate matters of international concern. The 1945 United Nations Charter included a general commitment to respect for human rights, but it was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948) that provided the basic statement of what have become widely accepted international human rights standards. The former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt played a key role in the formulation of the Universal Declaration.

Human rights principles, policy, and practices became an increased focus of popular and public attention in the United States during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Several influential nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were formed during this period to monitor and report on human rights matters. For example, both Human Rights Watch and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights were formed in 1978, and Physicians for Human Rights was formed in 1986. In addition, both the legislative and the executive branches of the U.S. government took significant steps during this period to make the promotion of human rights a government priority.

The new emphasis on human rights led to a congressional requirement for the annual submission by the Department of State of "a full and complete report" on the status of human rights practices around the world. The first of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices was submitted in 1977 (covering 1976). It surveyed the situation in eighty-two countries in less than 300 pages. By 2000, 194 individual reports were included, covering virtually every country in the world, and the overall report was more than 5,000 pages. The Country Reports evolved and expanded over the years, covering many of the rights included in the Universal Declaration and multilateral accords to which the United States is a party, as well as some rights in internationally accepted covenants to which the United States is not a party. Over time, the Country Reports added coverage of specific problems that became matters of public concern. For example, in the 1990s, Congress mandated coverage of children, indigenous people, refugees, and worker rights, and the State Department itself expanded coverage of women's rights, people with disabilities, and religious, national, racial, and ethnic minorities. Problems noted in the Country Reports can lead to the denial of aid and trade preferences. The Country Reports were initially subject to criticism as biased in some cases by policy concerns, and for many years the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights published an annual critique. However, by the late 1990s, the Country Reports were widely acknowledged to be a comprehensive and credible account of global human rights practices, and the Lawyers Committee had ceased publishing its critique.

In 1976, Congress established within the State Department a coordinator for human rights and humanitarian affairs; in 1977, under the Carter administration, which established human rights as a foreign policy priority, this position was upgraded to assistant secretary. In 1994, the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs was reorganized and renamed the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, to reflect both a broader scope and a more focused approach to the inter-locking issues of democracy, human rights, and worker rights.

Broadening Human Rights Concerns

American efforts to encourage respect for human rights increased significantly during the 1990s. The United States ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1992 (however, by the early twenty-first century it had not yet ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, or a number of other key international conventions). While the Universal Declaration did not entail any legal obligations, the ICCPR bound nations to respect its provisions and report on their observance; the United States submitted its first report under the ICCPR in 1994.

Also in 1994, Congress created the position of senior adviser for women's rights in the State Department, and women's rights became a major focus of U.S. activity. In 1995, First Lady Hillary Clinton played a leading role in equating women's rights and human rights at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In 2000, the focus on women's rights was reflected in the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which required a State Department report to Congress; the first report was submitted in 2001. Trafficking in persons—particularly women and children—is a significant transnational human rights problem, which became the focus of increased international attention in the late 1990s.

In the mid-1990s, growing public and congressional concern about religious persecution abroad led to calls for increased government action and reporting about such abuses. In 1996, Secretary of State Warren Christopher established the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad to advise the secretary and the president on integrating the protection and promotion of religious freedom into U.S. foreign policy. In 1998, Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act, which provided for an ambassador-at-large, a bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an annual State Department report, and possible sanctions against nations that restricted religious freedom.

During the 1990s, the United States placed increasing emphasis on encouraging democratization, promoting justice and accountability, and assisting the development of civil society. Through both direct assistance and the work of the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States promoted the development of key institutions and processes that provide the foundation for democratic governance, including support for free elections, free media, and free trade unions, training in the rule of law and the administration of justice, the empowerment of women, and the creation of NGOs and other institutions of civil society.

The United States also worked extensively with NGOs and international organizations to promote and protect human rights. The development of transnational human rights networks and a global human rights community, particularly after the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna and the Beijing Women's Conference, facilitated international debate over issues of democratization and justice. The 1998 arrest of General Au-gusto Pinochet in London at the request of a Spanish judge who wanted to try Pinochet in Spain for torture and political killings during his seventeen-year rule in Chile marked a watershed development. Although the British government ultimately allowed Pinochet to return home, his sixteen-month detention was a precedent for the globalization of efforts to assure justice and accountability. His near extradition helped generate a worldwide movement to hold heads of state accountable for human rights abuses committed while they were in power.

The U.S. government has played an active role in multilateral forums such as the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, pressing for resolutions critical of human rights abuses in countries such as China and Cuba. The United States has supported the efforts of regional bodies such as the Organization of American States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and has worked to build multilateral coalitions for human rights sanctions, monitoring, and relief efforts.

The United States also has worked to build new institutions to advance the protection of human rights. It supported the creation of the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights in 1993. Abuses and atrocities in Europe and Africa in the 1990s, including genocide in Rwanda and "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, led to sustained efforts to further accountability and justice. In response to these crises, the United States played a key role in the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The United States also supported the establishment and efforts of national or international "truth commissions," where internal conflicts and the transition from authoritarian rule made them an essential part of the peace process. Such truth commissions can provide a forum for victims to detail atrocities committed and discredit the perpetrators, particularly if prosecution is impractical or impossible, as in South Africa.

However, at times, the United States has not fully supported some international institutions. Although in late 2000 it signed the treaty to establish an International Criminal Court, concern in Congress in particular that the court might be able to prosecute U.S. service personnel abroad has prevented ratification. In 2001, the U.S. government renounced the accord. Also in 2001, concern that some nations would seek to use the World Conference against Racism for political purposes led the United States to limit its participation.

The United States played a major role in developing the Convention against Torture, which it signed in 1992 and ratified in 1994. Subsequently, the executive branch established regulations to ensure that those who were likely to be tortured if returned to their country of origin could not be extradited or deported. The National Institute of Mental Health has provided significant funding for research into the problems of survivors of torture, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services has provided funding to organizations in major cities to identify torture survivors among refugee communities. The U.S. Agency for International Development has supported programs around the world to assist torture victims, and the United States has been the largest single donor to the UN Voluntary Fund on Torture. Since 1980, the United States has supported civil claims by torture victims. In 1992, the president and Congress worked together to enact the Torture Victims Protection Act and, in 1998, the Torture Victims Relief Act to support the efforts of torture victims who sought refuge in the United States to seek justice and compensation for their suffering.

The United States has focused increasingly on issues of worker rights and, particularly in the late 1990s, on problems such as forced labor (including forced child labor) and sweatshop labor. As part of its anti-sweatshop initiative, the U.S. government has awarded millions of dollars in grants to organizations that promote justice in the workplace. During the 1990s, the United States increasingly sought to promote corporate social responsibility in the global struggle for human rights. This concept entailed recognition that profits could not be considered apart from human costs, in terms of human rights, labor standards, and environmental issues, and that these factors should be integrated into business practices. The United States has worked closely with the International Labor Organization on worker rights problems around the world. The Department of State's Advisory Committee on Labor Diplomacy was established in 1999, as was the position of special representative for international labor affairs. In 2000, the United States played a leading role in the development and adoption of a business code of conduct aimed at preventing abuses by governments in developing nations where international corporations operate. A group of major energy and mining companies joined with human rights organizations in adopting this voluntary statement of principles.

At the start of the twenty-first century, the cause of democracy and respect for human rights continued to progress. In its 2000–2001 survey, Freedom in the World, Freedom House reported that there were 86 free countries, 58 partly free countries, and 48 countries rated not free (in which basic political rights and civil liberties were denied). This represented an improvement compared with the figures of 65, 50, and 50, respectively, in its 1990–1991 survey. Nonetheless, violations of basic human rights, severe persecution, and egregious abuses, still forma systematic pattern in much of the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andreopoulos, George J., and Richard Pierre Claude, eds. Human Rights Education for the Twenty-First Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Brown, Peter G., and Douglas MacLean, eds. Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: Principles and Applications. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1979.

Claude, Richard Pierre, and Burns H. Weston, eds. Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Action. 2d ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.

Dunne, Tim, and Nicholas J. Wheeler, eds. Human Rights in Global Politics. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Hannum, Hurst, ed. Guide to International Human Rights Practice. 3d ed. Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational, 1999.

Human Rights Watch World Report 2000. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999.

Koh, Harold Hongju, and Ronald C. Slye, eds. Deliberative Democracy and Human Rights. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

Meron, Theodore, ed. Human Rights in International Law: Legal and Policy Issues. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.

Marc J.Susser

See alsoBill of Rights in U.S. Constitution ; United Nations ; andvol. 9:Human Rights Not Founded on Sex, October 2, 1837 .

HUMAN RIGHTS

Basic rights that fundamentally and inherently belong to each individual.

Human rights are freedoms established by custom or international agreement that impose standards of conduct on all nations. Human rights are distinct from civil liberties, which are freedoms established by the law of a particular state and applied by that state in its own jurisdiction.

Specific human rights include the right to personal liberty and due process of law; to freedom of thought, expression, religion, organization, and movement; to freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, age, language, and sex; to basic education; to employment; and to property. Human rights laws have been defined by international conventions, by treaties, and by organizations, particularly the united nations. These laws prohibit practices such as torture, slavery, summary execution without trial, and arbitrary detention or exile.

History

Modern human rights law developed out of customs and theories that established the rights of the individual in relation to the state. These rights were expressed in legal terms in documents such as the English Bill of Rights of 1688, the U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776, the U.S. Bill of Rights added to the U.S. Constitution in 1789, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen added to the French Constitution in 1791.

Human rights law also grew out of earlier systems of international law. These systems, developed largely during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were predicated on the doctrine of national sovereignty, according to which each nation retains sole power over its internal affairs without interference from other nations. As a result, early international law involved only relations between nation-states and was not concerned with the ways in which states treated their own citizens.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the notion of national sovereignty came under increasing challenge, and reformers began to press for international humanitarian standards. In special conferences such as the Hague Conference of 1899 and 1907, nations created laws governing the conduct of wars and handling of prisoners.

Not until after world war ii (1939–45) did the international community create international treaties establishing human rights standards. The United Nations, created in 1945, took the lead in this effort. In its charter, or founding document, the United Nations developed objectives for worldwide human rights standards. It called for equal rights and self-determination for all peoples, as well as "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion" (art. 55). The universal declaration of human rights, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948, also became an important human rights document.

To develop the U.N. Charter into an international code of human rights law, the international community created a number of multilateral human rights treaties. The two most significant of these are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, both put into effect in 1976. These treaties forbid discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status. The two covenants, along with the U.N. Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and an accord called the Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), constitute a body of law that has been called the International Bill of Human Rights.

The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights includes protections for the right to life, except after conviction for serious crime (art. 6); freedom from torture and other cruel and inhumane punishment (art. 7); freedom from slavery and prohibition from slave trade (art. 8); freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention (art. 9); humane treatment of prisoners (art. 10); freedom of movement and choice of residence (art. 12); legal standards, including equality before the law, fair hearings before an impartial tribunal, presumption of innocence, a prompt and fair trial, the right to counsel, and the right to review by a higher court; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (art. 18); and freedom of association, including association in trade unions (art. 22).

The Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights protects additional rights, many of which have yet to be realized in poorer countries. These include the right to work (art. 6); to just wages and safe working conditions (art. 7); to social security and social insurance (art. 9); to a decent standard of living and freedom from hunger (art. 11); to universal basic education (art. 13); and to an enjoyment of the cultural life and scientific progress of the country.

The international community has also adopted many other human rights treaties. These include the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948); the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (1953); the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery (revised 1953); the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment (1987); the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990); and the Convention on Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers (2003).

In addition to worldwide human rights agreements, countries have also established regional conventions. These include the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the American Convention on Human Rights, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

The United States and Human Rights

Although the United States was an active participant in the formation and implementation of international human rights organizations and treaties following World War II, and although it ratified selected treaties such as the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery in 1967 and the Convention on the Political Rights of Women in 1976, it did not ratify any of the major rights treaties until 1988, when it approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Four years later it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The U.S. Senate, which has authority to ratify all treaties, has been slow to review and approve human rights provisions, for a number of reasons. Senators have expressed concern about the effect of international treaties on U.S. domestic law. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." Treaties therefore stand as federal law, though they are not considered to be law if they conflict with the Constitution (Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 77 S. Ct. 1222, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1148 [1957]).

Conservative senators blocked early ratification of human rights treaties largely out of concern that the treaties would invalidate racial segregation laws that existed in the United States until the 1960s. Many human rights advocates claimed that these laws violated existing international treaties. Some senators argued that human rights should fall under domestic authority only and should not be subject to international negotiations. Others contended that ratification of human rights treaties would federalize areas of law better left to the states.

Since the late 1960s, such objections in the Senate have been overcome by attaching to treaties modifying terms called reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs). RUDs modify the treaties so that their effect on U.S. law will be acceptable to the two-thirds majority required for treaty ratification in the Senate. A reservation, for example, may state that the United States will not accept any element of a treaty found to be in conflict with the U.S. Constitution or existing laws, or that ratification will not federalize areas of law currently controlled by the states.

The U.S. Congress has also enacted its own human rights legislation. Under the leadership of Representative Donald M. Fraser (D-Minn.) during the 1970s, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs added language to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973 (22 U.S.C.A. § 2151 et seq.) that required the president to cancel military and economic assistance to any government that "engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights," including torture and arbitrary detention without charges (§§ 2151n, 2304). This new legislation authorized the state department to collect and analyze data on human rights violations. Congress has also passed laws that require cutting off or limiting aid to countries with significant human rights violations.

In 1977, Congress gave human rights greater priority within the executive branch by creating a new State Department office, the Bureau on Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, headed by an assistant secretary of state (Pub. L. No. 95-105, 91 Stat. 846). In 1994, the administration of President bill clinton renamed the office the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The bureau is charged with administering programs and policies to promote democratic institutions and respect for human rights and workers' rights around the world. It also presents to Congress an annual report on the status of human rights all over the globe.

Nongovernment Organizations

amnesty international, the center for constitutional rights, human rights watch, the International Commission of Jurists, and other international human rights organizations closely monitor states' compliance with human rights standards. These groups also publicize rights violations and coordinate world public opinion against offending states. In many cases they induce governments to modify their policies to meet rights standards.

Domestic human rights organizations such as the Vicaria de Solidaridad, in Chile, and the Free Legal Assistance Group of the Philippines also play a significant role as human rights watchdogs, often at great personal risk to their members.

further readings

Amnesty International Website. Available online at <www.amnesty.org> (accessed September 25, 2003).

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Website. Available online at <www.state.gov/g/drl> (accessed September 25, 2003).

Curry, Lynne. 2002. The Human Body on Trial: A Handbook with Cases, Laws, and Documents. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.

Golove, David. 2002. "Human Rights Treaties and the U.S. Constitution." DePaul Law Review 52 (winter): 579–625.

Kennedy, David. 2002. "The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the Problem?" Harvard Human Rights Journal 15 (spring): 101–25.

cross-references

Civil Rights; Genocide; Nuremberg Trials; Tokyo Trial.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights are the rights individuals are said to have as human beings. They are claims on society—its members and government (Henkin, 1996). They are spelled out in international law, drawing on the norms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (Steiner and Alston, 2000). Russia has a long history of authoritarian rule and human rights abuses. Nikolai Berdyayev went so far as to connect the depth and longevity of Russian communism, a system inimical to human rights, to this persistent culture of despotism (1960). In the vivid phrasing of Alexander Radishchev, an eighteenth-century dissident, in his Journey from Saint Petersburg to Moscow (which landed him in Siberia), the rigid censorship under Catherine the Great resembled a restrictive nursemaid who stunts children's growth toward self-reliant maturity.

Human rights improved somewhat thanks to the liberating effects of Russia's rapid industrialization after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the judicial and local government reforms in 1864. In Tsarist Russia by 1914, a liberal and democratic socialist professional class of educators, lawyers, judges, social workers, women's rights advocates, and rapidly growing and mainly non-Bolshevik political parties increasingly demanded the protection of individual rights and a lawgoverned state. That meant broadening the selective westernization, launched two hundred years earlier by Peter the Great and aimed at strengthening Russia, to include the rights and freedoms he and his successors generally sought to exclude.

Following the abdication of Nicholas II in March 1917, the Provisional Government of March–November 1917 produced what the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin himself called the freest country in Europe, before he and his minority party of Bolsheviks forcibly ended that freedom by sharply curbing human rights.

The Bolsheviks socially cleansed Russia's reformed courts, democratic professionals, and growing autonomous civil society. They held Russia to the constitutional principles that rights must serve the cause of socialism as interpreted by the Communist Party. Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924 opened the way to the consolidation of total power by Josef Stalin, his forced collectivization of the peasants, his five-year plans for heavy industrialization, and his purges of alleged enemies of the people.

The cultural thaw after Stalin's death in March 1953 ended with the ousting of Party leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1964. Ensuing trials of social satirists and critics sparked a courageous dissident movement in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Its members, who were promptly imprisoned or exiled, included Andrei Sakharov, proponent of East-West convergence; Yuri Orlov and the Moscow Helsinki Group; and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, chronicler of Soviet labor camps.

Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader from March 1985 to December 1991, introduced glasnost —openness or free expression—and soon after, perestroika —attempts at economic and political reform. Gorbachev freed political prisoners and exiles between 1986 and 1989. His UN speech of December 7, 1988, praised the once spurned Universal Declaration of Human Rights and revised the 1977 Constitution accordingly. But he reformed too little too late. Four months after his near-overthrow in the August 1991 coup by his own reactionary appointees, the Soviet Union split into three onceagain independent Baltic republics and twelve newly independent states, including the Russian Federation.

Boris Yeltsin, Russian president from 1991 until his resignation in 1999, forced on Russia the 1993 Constitution increasing presidential power but also containing Article 2: "The individual and his rights and freedom are the highest value. The recognition, observance and defense of the human rights and freedoms of the individual and the citizen are the obligation of the state." The Constitution proclaims a broad range of civil, political, social, and economic rights. Contrasting realities under overbearing and corrupt state administrations infringed on freedom of expression, religion, fair and humane justice, freedom of movement, and freedom from racial, ethnic, and homophobic bigotry, and hate crimes. Moreover, during the wars to retain Chechnya just about every human right was violated. Inequality, poverty, and homelessness haunted the land while the new rich lived high. Women experienced inequality and exploitation in employment, widespread divorce, abandonment, and domestic violence, and trafficking into prostitution. Life expectancy fell to third-world levels, especially among men, owing to stress, accidents, alcoholism, and the pervasive inadequacy of health care (Juviler, 2000; Human Rights Watch).

Such political and social human rights violations prompted the formation of numerous free but under-funded human rights advocacy groups—nongovernmental organizations. They ranged from Russian Soldiers' Mothers, who were against the wide abuses of military recruits, to the anti-Stalinist and pro-rights Memorial Society, to Muslim cultural and aid societies.

Seventy years of Communist social and legal cleansing are not overcome in a decade or two. In Ken Jowitt's words, "We must think of a 'long march' rather than a simple transition to democracy" (Jowitt, 1992, 189), with all sorts of human rights to redeem.

See also: dissident movement; gulag; sakharov, andrei dmitrievich; solzhenitsyn, alexander isayevich

bibliography

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Henkin, Louis. (1996). The Age of Rights, 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press.

Human Rights Watch World Report. (2003). <http://www.hrw.org/wr2kr/europe11.html>.

Jowitt, Ken. (1992). New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Juviler, Peter. (1998). Freedoms Ordeal: The Struggle for Human Rights and Democracy in Post-Soviet States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Juviler, Peter. (2000). "Political Community and Human Rights in Post-Communist Russia." In Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities, ed. Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner.

Steiner, Henry, and Alston, Philip. (2000). International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

Peter Juviler

human rights pl. n. a legal framework adopted and promoted by the United Nations after World War II in an attempt to prevent state-sponsored violence against individuals. In the UK the Human Rights Act 1998 enacts the provisions of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, which are designed to guarantee the individual's rights to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law. The introduction to the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) describes it as “an Act to give greater effect to rights and freedoms guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights” (also known as the Convention).

As health-care professionals, nurses have a duty to protect the human rights of their patients. Not only is this enshrined within the NMC Code of Professional Conduct (2004) but the Human Rights Act 1998, which came into force in October 2000, clearly identifies a range of issues that relate to nursing practice. The rights set out in the Convention and its protocols that are incorporated into British law by the HRA are those in Articles 2 to 12 and Article 14 of the Convention, plus those in the first and sixth protocols. Under the Act, NHS trusts and all health authorities will be classed as“public authorities”: as such, they are obliged to act in accordance with the Convention and could be liable for breaches of the HRA. The following articles cover rights that are relevant to nursing practice and the provision of nursing care.

Article 2

enshrines the right to life and imposes a duty on public authorities to protect someone whose life is at risk. This protection could be extended to a patient needing treatment that would save his or her life.

Article 3

prohibits torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Many forms of conduct have been found to be capable of breaching Article 3, including serious assaults, prison conditions, rape, and corporal punishment, and degrading treatment could include subjection of a patient to multiple examinations for training purposes.

Article 5

recognizes the right to liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention. For detention to be lawful, it must be only for one of the specified purposes set out in the article; these can include the detention and treatment of patients with mental healthproblems. Article 5 limits the circumstances under which someone can be detained, the terms of detention being regularly reviewed on an individual basis. In such reviews the onus is on the public authority to justify continued detention rather than on the detainee to show why he or she should be released.

Article 6

guarantees the right to a fair trial in civil and criminal proceedings and sets standards for the way that proceedings are run. It may be relevant if there are accusations of bias in a Mental Health Review Tribunal or a Child ProtectionConference.

Article 8

refers to the right to privacy and family life. Many rights are safeguarded under this article, including bodily integrity (which affords protection against forced treatment or physical restraint), sexuality, personal autonomy, the right to die with dignity, access of family members, privacy of correspondence and phone calls, and environmental protection (including freedom from excessive noise).

Article 9

guarantees freedom of thought and the opportunity to hold any religious belief. Individuals cannot be forced to follow a particular religion and cannot be prevented from changing their religion. It also protects the right to practise one's religion or beliefs provided that these are part of a sufficiently coherent philosophical scheme; veganism and pacifism, for example, are protected. Possible areas of relevance for nursing practice include the provision of facilities for worship, provision of culturally appropriate food, and sensitivity over the use of mixed wards for those to whom they are not acceptable for religious reasons.

Article 10

guarantees the right to hold and express opinions and ideas. It also guarantees the right to pass information to other people and to receive information from others; however, it is essential to consider the reputation or rights of others and the issues that relate to the disclosure of information received in confidence.

Article 14

guarantees the prohibition of discrimination and clearly states that the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms covered in the other articles will be available without discrimination on any ground, such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, or other status.

This review of the HRA is not exhaustive and merely identifies elements that may have an impact on nursing practice. Further details of the Act are available on the website
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/80042--d.htm www.un.org/rights Details of human rights from the United Nations website

human rights On 5 December 1948 the UNO General Assembly passed a Declaration of Human Rights, the first ever recognition that the safeguard of basic freedoms and human rights, regardless of race, sex, language, or religion, was an international concern. Passed unanimously, with the USSR and five Eastern European countries, as well as Saudi Arabia and South Africa, abstaining, its clauses were not legally binding, though they have become the basis of international law. In 1976 it was complemented by an international agreement on social, economic, and cultural rights (signed by 129 states by 1995) and an international treaty of civil and political rights (signed by 127 states by 1995). These stipulated the right to live, the freedom of expression and religion, the protection of minorities, and the prohibition of torture. An additional protocol of 15 December 1989 condemning capital punishment has so far only been accepted by 23 states. Moreover, over twenty individual agreements have been signed thus far, including the prohibition of genocide (12 January 1951), the condemnation of apartheid (18 July 1976), and opposition to the discrimination against women (3 September 1981).

By their very nature, human rights have been universal. This gave them their moral power, since opposition to human rights was hard to justify, as the regimes of Soviet Europe were to find out after they had subscribed to the maintenance of human rights at Helsinki. However, this universality also proved to be their weakness. They could be universally claimed and defined, and hence consensus about what human rights constituted was impossible to achieve. The only point of agreement was that universal rights have not been realized. In the face of globalization, the gap between rich and poor increased during the 1990s. According to the 2001 UN Development Report, 1.2 bn. people had less than $1 per day to live on, and 2.8 bn. people lived on less than $2 per day. 2.4 bn. people had no access to basic sanitation, and over 850 million people were illiterate. There were about 50 million refugees in 2000, with reports of over 300,000 people being tortured, missing, or executed (though the true figure for this was likely to be much higher). In 2000, an estimated 300,000 children below the age of 18 fought as soldiers in civil wars and international conflicts. Under the authority of the Security Council of the UN, a number of courts were established to deal with international human rights abuses. In 1993 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was set up in The Hague, whose most prominent case from 2002 involved the former Serb leader, Milošević. An International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was set up in 1994.

http://www.undp.org

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.) In Europe, the supranational European Court of Human Rights, established under the Council of Europe , is intended to protect individual human rights from government abuse.

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 small 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); A. Fagan, The Atlas of Human Rights (2010); S. Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (2010).

human rights Entitlements that an individual may arguably possess by virtue of being human and in accordance with what is natural. The concept of the inalienable rights of the human being has traditionally been linked to the idea of natural law, on which commentaries were written by several Greek and Roman writers. John Locke helped to shape ideas of fundamental human rights and liberal democracy in Two Treatises on Government (1690). The concept of human rights has been most notably formulated in a number of historic declarations, such as the US Declaration of Independence (1776), the US Constitution (1789) and particularly its first amendments in the Bill of Rights (1791), and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789). These documents owed much to the English Petition of Right (1628) and Bill of Rights (1689), which extended the concept of individual freedom proclaimed earlier in the Magna Carta (1215). The Charter of the United Nations (1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) proclaims the responsibility of the international community for the protection of human rights. See also civil rights

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html; http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

human rights. In recent times Buddhism has had to face a range of human rights problems in different parts of the world, notably in Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Burma. In common with most Asian traditions, however, Buddhism has never formulated an explicit doctrine of human rights. The concept of human rights is Western in nature and has its intellectual origins in the Enlightenment, and it is unclear to what extent the concept is compatible with traditional Buddhist teachings. Some Buddhists feel that a strong emphasis on individual rights runs counter to the doctrine of no self (anātman), and that rather than mimic the West Buddhism should evolve a distinctive approach grounded in compassion (karuṇā) and interrelatedness (see pratītya-samutpāda) rather than in a belief in the inviolable status of the individual. Others, such as the present Dalai Lama, seem to feel that the discourse of human rights is in harmony with the moral values of traditional Buddhism and provides a useful vocabulary for expressing Buddhist views on contemporary political and social issues.

HUMAN RIGHTS.

This entry includes two subentries:

human rights rights that are believed to belong justifiably to every person.

human rights See RIGHTS.