What Are Human Rights?

The ICESCR commits 155 state parties to work toward the granting of economic, social, and cultural rights to individuals. States and other duty-bearers must comply with the legal norms and standards enshrined in human rights instruments. Where they fail to do so, aggrieved rights-holders are entitled to institute proceedings for appropriate redress before a competent court or other adjudicator, in accordance with the rules and procedures provided by law.

They also include economic, social and cultural rights, which relate to a person’s rights to prosper and grow and to take part in social and cultural activities. This group includes rights such as the right to health, the right to education and the right to work. Human rights are a set of principles concerned with equality and fairness. They recognise our freedom to make choices about our lives and to develop our potential as human beings.

Yet their failures have led not to denial, but to incremental improvements and humility. As in Brazil, local police often use torture because they believe that it is an effective way to maintain order or to solve crimes. If the national government decided to wipe out torture, it would need to create honest, well-paid investigatory units to monitor the police. The government would also need to fire its police forces and increase the salaries of the replacements. It would probably need to overhaul the judiciary as well, possibly the entire political system. Such a government might reasonably argue that it should use its limited resources in a way more likely to help people – building schools and medical clinics, for example.

Article 29

This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. You have the right to protection if someone tried to harm your good name, enter your home without permission or interfere with your correspondence.

Right To Education

These basic rights are based on shared values like dignity, fairness, equality, respect and independence. Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein. ISHR has permanent offices in Geneva and New York, enabling us to build and leverage our distinctive expertise and networks at the UN and among key diplomats for the benefit of defenders.

Interventions To Protect Human Rights

These countries all have judicial systems, and most suspected criminals are formally charged and appear in court. But the courts are slow and underfunded, so police, under pressure to combat crime, employ extrajudicial methods, such as torture, to extract confessions. The Human Rights Principles of the UN Global Compact are derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We call on companies to respect and support internationally-proclaimed human rights and to ensure they are not complicit in human rights abuses. Before us is a unique opportunity to create a more equitable and sustainable society.

Despite the horrifying genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and the civil war in Yugoslavia, the 1990s were the high-water mark for the idea of human rights. Human rights played an increasingly important role in the European Union and members insisted that countries hoping to join the EU to obtain economic benefits should be required to respect human rights as well. NGOs devoted to advancing human rights also grew during this period, and many countries that emerged from under the Soviet yoke adopted western constitutional systems. We should note that the universality of human rights does not in any way threaten the rich diversity of individuals or of different cultures. Diversity requires a world where everyone is equal, and equally deserving of respect.

In many Islamic countries, any kind of defamation of Islam is not protected by freedom of speech. Human rights law blandly acknowledges that the right to freedom of expression may be limited by considerations of public order and morals. But a government trying to comply with the international human right to freedom of expression is given no specific guidance whatsoever. Although the modern notion of human rights emerged during the 18th century, it was on December 10, 1948, that the story began in earnest, with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN general assembly.

The OSCE action in the field of human rights is carried through the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Based in Warsaw, the ODIHR is active throughout the OSCE area in the fields of election observation, democratic development, human rights, tolerance and non-discrimination, and rule of law. Its activities targeted to young people include human rights education, fighting antisemitism and Islamophobia. The doctrine of human rights has been highly influential within international law and global and regional institutions. Actions by states and non-governmental organisations form a basis of public policy worldwide. The idea of human rights suggests that "if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights".