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Human Rights - A Brief Introduction
When
the United States Declaration of Independence was adopted on the 4th
of July 1776, it stated that “…all men are created equal”. In
a similar fashion, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen that came as a result of the French revolution defined a set
of individual and collective rights of the people. Although these
two documents did not address issues of slavery or the rights of
women and children, they can be considered as important advancements
in the field of rights developments.
After
the horror and destruction of the first and second world wars, the
United Nations decided to reaffirm the issue of rights and drew up
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document sets forth
the inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms of each and every
person on the face of the earth.
To
download a copy of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, please
click here.
To
download a copy of the Universal
Declaration concerning the Rights
of Disabled Persons,
please click here.
As
the document name suggests, this is only a declaration of the rights
– it is not a legally binding contract. However, it does provide a
framework for establishing legal norms to govern international
behaviour in relation to the rights of the individual.
There
are three main categories of Human Rights in existence today. These
are also known as ‘generations’ and are as follows:
- Civil
and Political Rights (such
as rights to life, liberty, free speech, movement, political
thought and religious practise, a fair trial, privacy, to found
a family and to vote)
- Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (such
as rights to adequate food and water, health care, education, a
clean environment, to respect for cultural practices, and to
welfare assistance)
- Third
Generation Rights (such as the right to peace, development and
environmental rights).
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