11. Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 220-240
Author(s):  
Tom Campbell

This chapter focuses on human rights. Human rights are derived historically from the idea of natural law as it developed on a strong religious basis in late medieval Europe and, later, in a more secularized form during the more rationalist period of the Enlightenment. Meanwhile, the contemporary human rights movement stems from the aftermath of World War II. It is associated, domestically, with constitutional bills of rights and, internationally, with the work of the United Nations. Human rights may be defined as universal rights of great moral and political significance that belong to all human beings by virtue of their humanity. They are said to be overriding and absolute. Human rights may be divided into three overlapping groups: civil and political rights; economic, social, and cultural rights; and group or collective rights for development and self-determination.

1977 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence J. LeBlanc

The human rights proclaimed and affirmed in the various international declarations, conventions, and covenants adopted since World War II fall into two broad categories: civil and political; and economic, social, and cultural. The former includes the traditional rights of man, such as the rights to life and liberty; the latter includes such rights as the right to work, to social security, and to the preservation of one's health and well-being.International agreement in principle on most civil and political rights as human rights has been relatively easy to achieve; disagreement has occurred—and is likely to continue to occur-primarily over their precise meaning. Virtually everyone endorses, for example, a right to life; not everyone agrees, however, that capital punishment or abortion must therefore be prohibited by law.


Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan

This chapter helps to confirm the explanatory power of the naturalistic theory of moral progress outlined in previous chapters by making two main points. First, it shows that the theory helps to explain how and why the modern human rights movement arose when it did. Second, it shows that the advances in inclusiveness achieved by the modern human rights movement depended upon the fortunate coincidence of a constellation of contingent cultural and economic conditions—and that it is therefore a dangerous mistake to assume that continued progress must occur, or even that the status quo will not substantially deteriorate. This chapter also helps to explain a disturbing period of regression (in terms of the recognition of equal basic status) that occurred between the success of British abolitionism and the founding of the modern human rights movement at the end of World War II.


2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Nickel

Like people born shortly after World War II, the international human rights movement recently had its sixty-fifth birthday. This could mean that retirement is at hand and that death will come in a few decades. After all, the formulations of human rights that activists, lawyers, and politicians use today mostly derive from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the world in 1948 was very different from our world today: the cold war was about to break out, communism was a strong and optimistic political force in an expansionist phase, and Western Europe was still recovering from the war. The struggle against entrenched racism and sexism had only just begun, decolonization was in its early stages, and Asia was still poor (Japan was under military reconstruction, and Mao's heavy-handed revolution in China was still in the future). Labor unions were strong in the industrialized world, and the movement of women into work outside the home and farm was in its early stages. Farming was less technological and usually on a smaller scale, the environmental movement had not yet flowered, and human-caused climate change was present but unrecognized. Personal computers and social networking were decades away, and Earth's human population was well under three billion.


2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 783-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Buergenthal

Few, if any, branches of international law have undergone such dramatic growth and evolution as international human rights in the one hundred years since the founding of the American Society of International Law. This branch of international law did not really come into its own until after World War II. Before then, what today we would broadly characterize as human rights law consisted of diffuse or unrelated legal principles and institutional arrangements that were in one way or another designed to protect certain categories or groups of human beings. Included in this mix prior to World War I were state responsibility for injuries to aliens, international humanitarian law (as we know it today), the protection of minorities, and humanitarian intervention.


1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-21
Author(s):  
Warren Weinstein

International concern with the rights of man is not new. During the 1800s the movement to abolish slavery was an emanation of this concern. In the mid-1800s the International Committee of the Red Cross was founded in reaction to the lack of care for wounded soldiers on battlefield. Under its aegis there developed humanitarian law, both the Law of Geneva and the Law of The Hague.In the post World War I period, civil and political rights were given international protection in a series of “minorities treaties.” In addition, economic and social rights received international recognition with the creation of the International Labor Organization (I.L.O.) in 1919. Refugees received assistance with the establishment of a High Commissioner for Refugees. It has, however, only been in the post World War II period that international human rights, and their protection, have received extensive recognition.


Urban History ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARC BOONE

ABSTRACT:This article examines how modern historiography has developed quite differentiated views on the way medieval cities have given expression to renewal and to creativity. ‘National’ traditions have played a highly influential role in modifying the general views articulated in the major syntheses produced by scholars such as Max Weber and Henri Pirenne at the beginning of the twentieth century. An almost jubilant way of looking at the city as the hotbed of modernity gave room, in the decades after the Great War, to pessimism and a negative view on urbanity, before a more nuanced and positive view has been re-established after World War II and in the course of recent paradigmatic changes.


Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier

This chapter begins with an account of Natalya Estemirova, a Russian human rights organization Memorialand former history teacher who was abducted and murdered in Chechnya in 2009. It focuses on the international human rights movement that is made up of men and women who gather information on rights abuses, lawyers and others who advocate for the protection of rights, and medical personnel who specialize in the treatment and care of victims. It also points out how human rights was recognized in international agreements such as the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights since the end of World War II. The chapter highlights the widespread agreement on the international human rights movement that include a prohibition on the arbitrary or invidious deprivation of life or liberty. It also recounts the emergence of the international human rights movement as a force in world affairs in the late 1970s.


Author(s):  
Khan Ferdousour Rahman

The relationship between human rights and conflict is dynamic, complex, and powerful, constantly shaping and reshaping the course of both peace and war. The world was worried with the devastating effect of the World War II. The United Nations was formed out of the ashes of the war in 1945, putting respect for human rights alongside peace, security and development as the primary objectives. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was also adopted in 1948 as a continuation of that obligation, which provided a framework for a series of international human rights conventions. Presently almost all the national legislations are influenced by these conventions. The modern system of international human rights treaties is based on the concept of universalism. Depending on the agency, human rights include civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, development rights, and indigenous rights. However, what is or is not considered a human right differs from one nation to another (Fedorak, 2007).


Author(s):  
Theo van Boven

This chapter discusses different human rights categories. A first categorization distinguishes civil and political rights from economic, social, and cultural rights. This distinction is, however, increasingly contested, and should not disguise the mutual relationship between these rights as essential conditions for the life and well-being of the human person. A second distinction is that between the rights of individuals and the rights of collectivities, in particular indigenous peoples. Collective rights offer parameters for the effective enjoyment of individual rights. A third distinction is that between core rights and other rights, raising the issue of whether there is a ranking among human rights as to their fundamental nature. It is argued that basic substantive rights determining the life, survival, dignity, and worth of individuals and peoples may be considered as core rights. The chapter finally discusses the question of whether ‘new human rights’ are emerging. It suggests that this question be approached with caution, and that human rights should be understood in an inclusive and newly focused manner, encompassing hitherto marginalized and excluded groups and human beings.


Author(s):  
Joseph M. Wronka

At the heart of social work, human rights are a set of interdependent guiding principles having implications for meta-macro (global), macro (whole population), mezzo (at risk), micro (clinical), meta-micro (everyday life), and research interventions to eradicate social malaises and promote well-being. They can be best understood vis-à-vis the UN Human Rights Triptych. This consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, increasingly referred to as customary international law on the center panel; the guiding principles, declarations, and conventions following it, on the right panel—like the conventions on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); and implementation mechanisms, on the left panel—like the filing of country reports on compliance to conventions, the Universal Periodic Review, thematic and country reports by special rapporteurs, and world conferences. Briefly, this powerful idea, which emerged from the ashes of World War II, emphasizes five crucial notions: human dignity; non-discrimination; civil and political rights; economic, social, and cultural rights; and solidarity rights. Whereas this article emphasizes issues pertaining to the United States, it touches upon other countries as appropriate, calling for a global vision in the hopes that every person, everywhere, will have their human rights realized. Only chosen values endure. The challenge, through open discussion and debate, is the creation of a human rights culture, which is a lived awareness of these principles in one's mind, heart, and body, integrated dragged into our everyday lives. Doing so will require vision, courage, hope, humility, and everlasting love, as the indigenous spiritual leader Crazy Horse reminds us.


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