human rights essay introduction

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Essay on Human Rights: Samples in 500 and 1500

Updated on
Dec 9, 2023

Essay writing is an integral part of the school curriculum and various academic and competitive exams like IELTS , TOEFL , SAT , UPSC , etc. It is designed to test your command of the English language and how well you can gather your thoughts and present them in a structure with a flow. To master your ability to write an essay, you must read as much as possible and practise on any given topic. This blog brings you a detailed guide on how to write an essay on Human Rights , with useful essay samples on Human rights.

This Blog Includes:

The basic human rights, 200 words essay on human rights, 500 words essay on human rights, 500+ words essay on human rights in india, 1500 words essay on human rights, importance of human rights, essay on human rights pdf.

What are Human Rights

Human rights mark everyone as free and equal, irrespective of age, gender, caste, creed, religion and nationality. The United Nations adopted human rights in light of the atrocities people faced during the Second World War. On the 10th of December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Its adoption led to the recognition of human rights as the foundation for freedom, justice and peace for every individual. Although it’s not legally binding, most nations have incorporated these human rights into their constitutions and domestic legal frameworks. Human rights safeguard us from discrimination and guarantee that our most basic needs are protected.

Did you know that the 10th of December is celebrated as Human Rights Day ?

Before we move on to the essays on human rights, let’s check out the basics of what they are.

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Human Rights Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on human rights.

Human rights are a set of rights which every human is entitled to. Every human being is inherited with these rights no matter what caste, creed, gender, the economic status they belong to. Human rights are very important for making sure that all humans get treated equally. They are in fact essential for a good standard of living in the world.

Moreover, human rights safeguard the interests of the citizens of a country. You are liable to have human rights if you’re a human being. They will help in giving you a good life full of happiness and prosperity.

Human Rights Categories

Human rights are essentially divided into two categories of civil and political rights, and social rights. This classification is important because it clears the concept of human rights further. Plus, they also make humans realize their role in different spheres.

When we talk about civil and political rights , we refer to the classic rights of humans. These rights are responsible for limiting the government’s authority that may affect any individual’s independence. Furthermore, these rights allow humans to contribute to the involvement of the government. In addition to the determination of laws as well.

Next up, the social rights of people guide the government to encourage ways to plan various ways which will help in improving the life quality of citizens. All the governments of countries are responsible for ensuring the well-being of their citizens. Human rights help countries in doing so efficiently.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Importance of Human Rights

Human rights are extremely important for the overall development of a country and individuals on a personal level. If we take a look at the basic human rights, we see how there are right to life, the right to practice any religion, freedom of movement , freedom from movement and more. Each right plays a major role in the well-being of any human.

Right to life protects the lives of human beings. It ensures no one can kill you and thus safeguards your peace of mind. Subsequently, the freedom of thought and religion allows citizens to follow any religion they wish to. Moreover, it also means anyone can think freely.

Further, freedom of movement is helpful in people’s mobilization. It ensures no one is restricted from traveling and residing in any state of their choice. It allows you to grab opportunities wherever you wish to.

Next up, human rights also give you the right to a fair trial. Every human being has the right to move to the court where there will be impartial decision making . They can trust the court to give them justice when everything else fails.

Most importantly, humans are now free from any form of slavery. No other human being can indulge in slavery and make them their slaves. Further, humans are also free to speak and express their opinion.

In short, human rights are very essential for a happy living of human beings. However, these days they are violated endlessly and we need to come together to tackle this issue. The governments and citizens must take efforts to protect each other and progress for the better. In other words, this will ensure happiness and prosperity all over the world.

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An introduction to human rights.

Human rights are a set of principles concerned with equality and fairness.

They are not a recent invention - ideas about rights and responsibilities have been an important part of all societies throughout history. Since the end of World War II, there has been a united effort by the nations of the world to decide what rights belong to all people and how they can best be promoted and protected.

Explore the sections below to find information about the important human rights questions:

What are human rights?

Where do human rights come from?

Why are human rights important, what are human rights.

Every person has dignity and value. One of the ways that we recognise the fundamental worth of every person is by acknowledging and respecting their human rights.

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. They are about living a life free from fear, harassment or discrimination.

Human rights can broadly be defined as a number of basic rights that people from around the world have agreed are essential. These include the right to life, the right to a fair trial, freedom from torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the rights to health, education and an adequate standard of living.

These human rights are the same for all people everywhere – men and women, young and old, rich and poor, regardless of our background, where we live, what we think or what we believe. This is what makes human rights ‘universal’.

Who has a responsibility to protect human rights?

Human rights connect us to each other through a shared set of rights and responsibilities.

A person’s ability to enjoy their human rights depends on other people respecting those rights. This means that human rights involve responsibility and duties towards other people and the community. Individuals have a responsibility to ensure that they exercise their rights with consideration for the rights of others. For example, when someone uses their right to freedom of speech, they should do so without interfering with someone else’s right to privacy.

Governments have a particular responsibility to ensure that people are able to enjoy their rights. They are required to establish and maintain laws and services that enable people to enjoy a life in which their rights are respected and protected.

For example, the right to education says that everyone is entitled to a good education. This means that governments have an obligation to provide good quality education facilities and services to their people. Whether or not governments actually do this, it is generally accepted that this is the government's responsibility and people can call them to account if they fail to respect or protect their basic human rights.

What do human rights cover?

Human rights cover virtually every area of human activity.

They include civil and political rights , which refer to a person’s rights to take part in the civil and political life of their community without discrimination or oppression. These include rights and freedoms such as the right to vote, the right to privacy, freedom of speech and freedom from torture.

The right to vote and take part in choosing a government is a civil and political right.

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.

The right to education is an example of an economic, social and cultural right.

One of the main differences between these two groups of rights is that, in the case of civil and political rights, governments must make sure that they, or any other group, are not denying people access to their rights, whereas in relation to economic, social and cultural rights, governments must take active steps to ensure rights are being fulfilled.

As well as belonging to every individual, there are some rights that also belong to groups of people. This is often in recognition of the fact that these groups have been disadvantaged and marginalised throughout history and consequently need greater protection of their rights. These rights are called collective rights . For example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples possess collective rights to their ancestral lands, which are known as native title rights.

Rights that can only apply to individuals, for example the right to a fair trial, are called individual rights .

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The origins of human rights

Click here for a brief timeline of the evolution of human rights

Human rights are not a recent invention.

Throughout history, concepts of ethical behaviour, justice and human dignity have been important in the development of human societies. These ideas can be traced back to the ancient civilisations of Babylon, China and India. They contributed to the laws of Greek and Roman society and are central to Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Hindu, Islamic and Jewish teachings. Concepts of ethics, justice and dignity were also important in societies which have not left written records, but consist of oral histories such as those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia and other indigenous societies elsewhere.

Ideas about justice were prominent in the thinking of philosophers in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. An important strand in this thinking was that there was a 'natural law' that stood above the law of rulers. This meant that individuals had certain rights simply because they were human beings.

In 1215, the English barons forced the King of England to sign Magna Carta (which is Latin for ‘the Great Charter’). Magna Carta was the first document to place limits on the absolute power of the king and make him accountable to his subjects. It also laid out some basic rights for the protection of citizens, such as the right to a trial.

Significant development in thinking about human rights took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, during a time of revolution and emerging national identities.

The American Declaration of Independence (1776) was based on the understanding that certain rights, such as ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', were fundamental to all people. Similarly, t he French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789) challenged the authority of the aristocracy and recognised the ‘liberty, equality and fraternity' of individuals. These values were also echoed in the United States’ Bill of Rights (1791), which recognised freedom of speech, religion and the press, as well as the right to ‘peaceable' assembly, private property and a fair trial.

The English barons forcing the tyrannical King John to sign Magna Carta in 1215

Find out more about Magna Carta and its human rights legacy by watching this short video or exploring this interactive timeline .

The development of modern human rights

The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw continuing advances in social progress, for example, in the abolition of slavery, the widespread provision of education and the extension of political rights. Despite these advances, international activity on human rights remained weak. The general attitude was that nations could do what they liked within their borders and that other countries and the broader international community had no basis for intervening or even raising concerns when rights were violated.

This is expressed in the term ‘state sovereignty’, which refers to the idea that whoever has the political authority within a country has the power to rule and pass laws over that territory. Importantly, countries agree to mutually recognise this sovereignty. In doing so, they agree to refrain from interfering in the internal or external affairs of other sovereign states.

However, the atrocities and human rights violations that occurred during World War II galvanised worldwide opinion and made human rights a universal concern.

Word War II onwards

During World War II millions of soldiers and civilians were killed or maimed. The Nazi regime in Germany created concentration camps for certain groups - including Jews, communists, homosexuals and political opponents. Some of these people were used as slave labour, others were exterminated in mass executions. The Japanese occupation of China and other Asian countries was marked by frequent and large-scale brutality toward local populations. Japanese forces took thousands of prisoners of war who were used as slave labour, with no medical treatment and inadequate food.

A group of prisoners at a concentration camp during WWII in Ebensee, Austria

The promotion and protection of human rights became a fundamental objective of the Allied powers. In 1941, U.S. President Roosevelt proclaimed the 'Four Freedoms' that people everywhere in the world ought to enjoy - freedom of speech and belief, and freedom from want and fear.

The war ended in 1945, but only after the destruction of millions of lives, including through the first and only use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many countries were devastated by the war, and millions of people died or became homeless refugees.

This new organisation was the United Nations, known as the UN, which came into existence in 1945. A s the war drew to a close, the victorious powers decided to establish a world organisation that would prevent further conflict and help build a better world.

The UN was created to fulfil four key aims:

to ensure peace and security
to promote economic development
t o promote the development of international law
to ensure the observance of human rights.

In the UN Charter – the UN’s founding document – the countries of the United Nations stated that they were determined:

The UN's strong emphasis on human rights made it different from previous international organisations. UN member countries believed that the protection of human rights would help ensure freedom, justice and peace for all in the future.

Read more about the work of United Nations on The International Human Rights System page .

Values of tolerance, equality and respect can help reduce friction within society. Putting human rights ideas into practice can helps us create the kind of society we want to live in.

In recent decades, there has been a tremendous growth in how we think about and apply human rights ideas. This has had many positive results - knowledge about human rights can empower individuals and offer solutions for specific problems.

Human rights are an important part of how people interact with others at all levels in society - in the family, the community, schools, the workplace, in politics and in international relations. It is vital therefore that people everywhere should strive to understand what human rights are. When people better understand human rights, it is easier for them to promote justice and the well-being of society.

Can my human rights be taken away from me?

A person's human rights cannot be taken away. In its final Article, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that no State, group or person '[has] 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'.

This doesn't mean that abuses and violations of human rights don't occur. On television and in newspapers every day we hear tragic stories of murder, violence, racism, hunger, unemployment, poverty, abuse, homelessness and discrimination.

However, the Universal Declaration and other human rights treaties are more than just noble aspirations. They are essential legal principles. To meet their international human rights obligations, many nations have incorporated these principles into their own laws. This provides an opportunity for individuals to have a complaint settled by a court in their own country.

Individuals from some countries may also be able to take a complaint of human rights violations to a United Nations committee of experts, which would then give its opinion.

In addition, education about human rights is just as important as having laws to protect people. Long term progress can really only be made when people are aware of what human rights are and what standards exist.

10 Tips for Writing a Human Rights Essay

Whether you are studying human rights or are building a career in the field , you will inevitably have to be skilled at writing about and for human rights. Human rights-related writing can take a variety of forms – university students embrace more academic articles while advocacy officers might spend more time with writing online campaigns or writing human rights reports . In other situations you might want to write a human rights essay. Essays need to be concise, convincing, well-researched and built on strong arguments. If you can successfully produce a human rights essay, you will be able to make a research article, a call for action, or a campaign out of it.

To excel at writing human rights essays, follow these 10 tips:

1. Choose a topic you are passionate about

First and foremost, you need to find a topic you are truly passionate about. Human rights are such a broad field of study and can be linked to nearly any other subject – from history and anthropology to technology and medicine. The best way to ensure that your human rights essay will be readable and convincing is to discuss something you have knowledge of or find it easy to learn about. For example, if you are into criminology, you might want to look into the intersections and relationships between human rights and criminal justice . At the very start of the writing process, you should note down what the broad, general topic you are interested in is.

2. Do research and narrow down your topic

Once you have established the general human rights-related topic you are looking into, you will have to narrow it down in order to write an essay. Choosing to write only about human rights and criminal justice, for instance, will not result in a successful essay because both concepts are so broad. For this reason, you will have to narrow down the scope of your essay. If you are clueless about what you want to discuss more specifically, doing a general Internet search can lead you to some hints. After you have done a preliminary research on the Internet, you should be able to identify a topic that will be the central theme of your essay. By way of example, if you are looking into criminal justice, you might want to discuss the rights of defendants, the rights of victims, or prison conditions.

3. Ask concrete questions you can answer

Now that you have chosen your topic, you will need to start reading a bit more extensively about it unless you already have sufficient knowledge of the literature to start writing immediately. Reading journal articles, reports and book chapters is an essential step to get you thinking because a successful human rights essay should answer concrete questions. In other words, discussing the current literature on the topic is not sufficient to make an excellent essay. What you will need to do is find gaps in these sources, questions that are not fully answered, or under-researched issues and make your own contribution to the field by writing about them in more length. In preparation for writing, note down several questions that you find particularly relevant and important and start building your essay around them.

4. Provide your audience with a brief introduction to the topic

It is entirely up to the author to decide which parts of the essay will be written first. Some writers find it easier to build a central argument and then add an introduction to it, while others like to begin with the paragraphs that lead the reader to the main issue. Whichever order you decide to follow, it is important to skillfully craft an introduction to your topic. Allowing the reader to have a sense of the context in which the issue is placed is essential for them to fully follow your train of thought at a later stage of the essay. Ideally, in the introduction, you should give some historical background to the topic, reference what has been written before in a few sentences, explain some of the major debates on the topic, and guide your reader through the outline of the essay. In any case, your introduction should not be long as you want to leave more space for your arguments.

5. Create sub-headings for the body of your essay

Regardless of the length of your essay, you should divide the body of your essay into paragraphs and/or brief chapters. Each paragraph or chapter should have an overarching theme, something that unites your sentences. It could be a whole argument, a certain issue, or a group of examples aimed at buttressing your argument. If the format of the essay allows you to do so, add sub-headings to each of the chapters based on the issue they are discussing or the point you are trying to make. All of these together will make your essay much more readable and easier to follow for the readers. Furthermore, it will allow you to keep track of your ideas and ensure that you are not spilling the same argument repeatedly in different parts of the essay but that your thoughts are organized and clear.

6. Make the strongest argument your central point

In a human rights essay, you can present several different arguments; nevertheless, it is important to ensure that at least one of them is a truly strong, unique argument that readers have not heard before. If you provide your audience with multiple weak arguments that sound repetitive, there is a risk that the readers will abandon the essay before finishing or will simply not be convinced by the message you want to convene. Consequently, while writing, you need to identify your strongest argument and make it your central point in the essay. Comments, weaker arguments, and examples that will support the argument should all be placed around it. Your main argument should be in a form of a statement that you can paraphrase and repeat a few times towards the end of the essay. Yet, you should also be able to answer questions such as “Why is that?”, “How can you prove it?”, “Is there anyone who disagrees and why are they wrong?” to add to the strength of your argument. At the end of such a writing process, you can also incorporate references to your central argument into the title of your essay so the readers know what to expect from the very beginning.

7. Support your arguments with references

Although human rights essays allow writers to have their own voices heard more than academic articles, they should still aspire to adopt academic style referencing at least to some degree. Needless to say, your essay should be one-of-a-kind; however, that does not mean that your arguments should be entirely invented or have nothing to do what is actually being discussed by other authors. On the contrary, you make your argument more credible if you can provide a link to where you found certain information, particularly when it comes to answering questions such as where, when, or who . Moreover, it is wise to cite other authors who support some of your claims as that proves that your essay is well-researched. You may also decide to refer to articles and books where opposing arguments are presented and then try to refute them in your essay. Essentially, a human rights essay should not be filled with in-text citations and footnotes like an academic paper, but it certainly necessary to provide references to the other people’s work that helped you write it.

8. Write a general, but convincing conclusion

Having written an introduction and several short-chapters with a clear central argument as well as supporting arguments, all you need to do is come up with a brief conclusion. Writers have different styles of writing conclusions – you can phrase it in a form of a short overview of what was written or add the final comment on the topic. What is important is that your conclusion does not introduce any new ideas and arguments you cannot finish due to its length but that it more generally wraps up your entire essay. It would be wise to find a skillful way to reiterate one or more of your main points without sounding too repetitive. Conclusions also provide a perfect space to make a strong finish, show your writing skills and sound confident and convincing.

And a few extra tips:

9. Place your argument within a legal framework

Fulfilling the eight steps listed above is essential to write a human rights essay that is publishable, readable, and can help you get a good mark at school. To ensure that your human rights essay is truly excellent, it is also useful to look into the law. Human rights do not necessarily have to be discussed through a legal sciences lens, but they are inevitably protected and promoted through domestic, regional, and international laws. Therefore, by placing your topic within a legal framework, you truly show that you master several disciplines and that your arguments are based on practice as well as on theory. To do that, find an appropriate framework that fits your context – it could be a combination of domestic and international legal documents, their applications and differences, or only one particular law, depending on what you are writing about. In accordance with your legal knowledge, you might want to discuss the applicable legal frameworks in more detail, or simply use them as a reference to buttress your arguments.

10. Use specific examples

What can truly help your case in a human rights essay is finding a concrete example to demonstrate how theory does or does not work in practice. By doing so, you build a strong support for your argument and you also allow your readers to relate to what you are saying on a more emotional level, helping them visualize a certain human rights issue. For example, if you are making a recommendation on how to improve prison conditions in a particular country to better respect the rights of prisoners, it could be good to find a country or a community where some of the aspects you are suggesting have been implemented in prisons and this has fostered a more human rights-respecting environment. To find such an example, turn into the grassroots, do a research on local initiatives or contact non-governmental organizations working in places you are writing about.

We hope these tips will guide you to create an excellent human rights essay. To see how it all works in practice for some of the most prominent human rights authors, take a look at these inspiring human rights essays.

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About the author, maja davidovic.

Maja Davidovic is a Serbian-born independent researcher and Human Rights graduate. She holds her M.A. degree from Central European University in Budapest, and had previously lived and worked in Greece, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Maja mostly researches about women’s rights, child protection and transitional justice, and has been involved with organizations such as MSF and OSCE, as well grassroots initiatives. You may follow her on her newly-made Twitter profile @MajaADavidovic, where she aspires to open discussions on a variety of human rights-related issues.

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Human Rights: A Brief Introduction

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Human Rights

Human rights are norms that aspire to protect all people everywhere from severe political, legal, and social abuses. Examples of human rights are the right to freedom of religion, the right to a fair trial when charged with a crime, the right not to be tortured, and the right to education.

The philosophy of human rights addresses questions about the existence, content, nature, universality, justification, and legal status of human rights. The strong claims often made on behalf of human rights (for example, that they are universal, inalienable, or exist independently of legal enactment as justified moral norms) have frequently provoked skeptical doubts and countering philosophical defenses (on these critiques see Lacrois and Pranchere 2016, Mutua 2008, and Waldron 1988). Reflection on these doubts and the responses that can be made to them has become a sub-field of political and legal philosophy with a very substantial literature (see the Bibliography below).

This entry addresses the concept of human rights, the existence and grounds of human rights, the question of which rights are human rights, and relativism about human rights.

1. The General Idea of Human Rights

2.1 how can human rights exist, 2.2 normative justifications for human rights, 2.3 political conceptions of human rights, 3.1 civil and political rights, 3.2 social rights, 3.3 rights of women, minorities, and groups, 3.4 environmental rights, 4. universal human rights in a world of diverse beliefs and practices, bibliography: books and articles in the philosophy of human rights, recent collections, guides to international human rights law, other resources, related entries.

This section attempts to explain the general idea of human rights by identifying four defining features. The goal is to answer the question of what human rights are with a description of the core concept rather than a list of specific rights. Two people can have the same general idea of human rights even though they disagree about which rights belong on a list of such rights and even about whether universal moral rights exist. The four-part explanation below attempts to cover all kinds of human rights including both moral and legal human rights and both old and new human rights (e.g., both Lockean natural rights and contemporary human rights). The explanation anticipates, however, that particular kinds of human rights will have additional features. Starting with this general concept does not commit us to treating all kinds of human rights in a single unified theory (see Buchanan 2013 for an argument that we should not attempt to theorize together universal moral rights and international legal human rights).

(1) Human rights are rights . Lest we miss the obvious, human rights are rights (see Cruft 2012 and the entry on rights ). Most if not all human rights are claim rights that impose duties or responsibilities on their addressees or dutybearers. Rights focus on a freedom, protection, status, or benefit for the rightholders (Beitz 2009). The duties associated with human rights often require actions involving respect, protection, facilitation, and provision. Rights are usually mandatory in the sense of imposing duties on their addressees, but some legal human rights seem to do little more than declare high-priority goals and assign responsibility for their progressive realization. One can argue, of course, that goal-like rights are not real rights, but it may be better to recognize that they comprise a weak but useful notion of a right (See Beitz 2009 for a defense of the view that not all human rights are rights in a strong sense. And see Feinberg 1973 for the idea of “manifesto rights”). A human rights norm might exist as (a) a shared norm of actual human moralities, (b) a justified moral norm supported by strong reasons, (c) a legal right at the national level (where it might be referred to as a “civil” or “constitutional” right), or (d) a legal right within international law. A human rights advocate might wish to see human rights exist in all four ways (See Section 2.1 How Can Human Rights Exist?).

(2) Human rights are plural . If someone accepted that there are human rights but held that there is only one of them, this might make sense if she meant that there is one abstract underlying right that generates a list of specific rights (See Dworkin 2011 for a view of this sort). But if this person meant that there is just one specific right such as the right to peaceful assembly this would be a highly revisionary view. Human rights address a variety of specific problems such as guaranteeing fair trials, ending slavery, ensuring the availability of education, and preventing genocide. Some philosophers advocate very short lists of human rights but nevertheless accept plurality (see Cohen 2004, Ignatieff 2004).

(3) Human rights are universal . All living humans—or perhaps all living persons —have human rights. One does not have to be a particular kind of person or a member of some specific nation or religion to have human rights. Included in the idea of universality is some conception of independent existence . People have human rights independently of whether they are found in the practices, morality, or law of their country or culture. This idea of universality needs several qualifications, however. First, some rights, such as the right to vote, are held only by adult citizens or residents and apply only to voting in one’s own country. Second, the human right to freedom of movement may be taken away temporarily from a person who is convicted of committing a serious crime. And third, some human rights treaties focus on the rights of vulnerable groups such as minorities, women, indigenous peoples, and children.

(4) Human rights have high-priority . Maurice Cranston held that human rights are matters of “paramount importance” and their violation “a grave affront to justice” (Cranston 1967). If human rights did not have high priority they would not have the ability to compete with other powerful considerations such as national stability and security, individual and national self-determination, and national and global prosperity. High priority does not mean, however, that human rights are absolute. As James Griffin says, human rights should be understood as “resistant to trade-offs, but not too resistant” (Griffin 2008). Further, there seems to be priority variation within human rights. For example, when the right to life conflicts with the right to privacy, the latter will generally be outweighed.

Let’s now consider five other features or functions that might be added.

Should human rights be defined as inalienable? Inalienability does not mean that rights are absolute or can never be overridden by other considerations. Rather it means that its holder cannot lose it temporarily or permanently by bad conduct or by voluntarily giving it up. It is doubtful that all human rights are inalienable in this sense. One who endorses both human rights and imprisonment as punishment for serious crimes must hold that people’s rights to freedom of movement can be forfeited temporarily or permanently by just convictions of serious crimes. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that human rights are very hard to lose. (For a stronger view of inalienability, see Donnelly 2003, Meyers 1985).

Should human rights be defined as minimal rights? A number of philosophers have proposed the view that human rights are minimal in the sense of not being too numerous (a few dozen rights rather than hundreds or thousands), and not being too demanding (See Joshua Cohen 2004, Ignatieff 2005, and Rawls 1999). Their views suggest that human rights are—or should be—more concerned with avoiding the worst than with achieving the best. Henry Shue suggests that human rights concern the “lower limits on tolerable human conduct” rather than “great aspirations and exalted ideals” (Shue 1996). When human rights are modest standards they leave most legal and policy matters open to democratic decision-making at the national and local levels. This allows human rights to have high priority, to accommodate a great deal of cultural and institutional variation among countries, and to leave open a large space for democratic decision-making at the national level. Still, there is no contradiction in the idea of an extremely expansive list of human rights and hence minimalism is not a defining feature of human rights (for criticism of the view that human rights are minimal standards see Brems 2009 and Raz 2010). Minimalism is best seen as a normative prescription for what international human rights should be. Moderate forms of minimalism have considerable appeal, but not as part of the definition of human rights.

Should human rights be defined as always being or “mirroring” moral rights? Philosophers coming to human rights theory from moral philosophy sometimes assume that human rights must be, at bottom, moral rather than legal rights. There is no contradiction, however, in people saying that they believe in human rights, but only when they are legal rights at the national or international levels. As Louis Henkin observed, “Political forces have mooted the principal philosophical objections, bridging the chasm between natural and positive law by converting natural human rights into positive legal rights” (Henkin 1978). Theorists who insist that the only human rights are legal rights may find, however, that the interpretations they can give of universality, independent existence, and high priority are weak.

Should human rights be defined in terms of serving some sort of political function? Instead of seeing human rights as grounded in some sort of independently existing moral reality, a theorist might see them as the norms of a highly useful political practice that humans have constructed or evolved. Such a view would see the idea of human rights as playing various political roles at the national and international levels and as serving thereby to protect urgent human and national interests. These political roles might include providing standards for international evaluations of how governments treat their people and specifying when use of economic sanctions or military intervention is permissible (see Section 2.3 Political Conceptions of Human Rights below).

Political theorists would add to the four defining elements suggested above some set of political roles or functions. This kind of view may be plausible for the very salient international human rights that have emerged in international law and politics in the last fifty years. But human rights can exist and function in contexts not involving international scrutiny and intervention such as a world with only one state. Imagine, for example, that an asteroid strike had killed everyone in all countries except New Zealand, leaving it the only state in existence. Surely the idea of human rights as well as many dimensions of human rights practice could continue in New Zealand, even though there would be no international relations, law, or politics (for an argument of this sort see Tasioulas 2012). And if in the same scenario a few people were discovered to have survived in Iceland and were living without a government or state, New Zealanders would know that human rights governed how these people should be treated even though they were stateless. How deeply the idea of human rights must be rooted in international law and practice should not be settled by definitional fiat. We can allow, however, that the sorts of political functions that Rawls and Beitz describe are typically served by international human rights today.

2. The Existence and Grounds of Human Rights

A philosophical question about human rights that occurs to many people is how it is possible for such rights to exist. Several possible ways are explored in this section.

The most obvious way in which human rights come into existence is as norms of national and international law that are created by enactment, custom, and judicial decisions. At the international level, human rights norms exist because of treaties that have turned them into international law. For example, the human right not to be held in slavery or servitude in Article 4 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Council of Europe, 1950) and in Article 8 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UN 1966) exists because these treaties establish it. At the national level, human rights norms exist because they have through legislative enactment, judicial decision, or custom become part of a country’s law. For example, the right against slavery exists in the United States because the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits slavery and servitude. When rights are embedded in international law we speak of them as human rights; but when they are enacted in national law we more frequently describe them as civil or constitutional rights.

Enactment in national and international law is clearly one of the ways in which human rights exist. But many have suggested that this cannot be the only way. If human rights exist only because of enactment, their availability is contingent on domestic and international political developments. Many people have looked for a way to support the idea that human rights have roots that are deeper and less subject to human decisions than legal enactment. One version of this idea is that people are born with rights, that human rights are somehow innate or inherent in human beings (see Morsink 2009). One way that a normative status could be inherent in humans is by being God-given. The U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776) claims that people are “endowed by their Creator” with natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On this view, God, the supreme lawmaker, enacted some basic human rights.

Rights plausibly attributed to divine decree must be very general and abstract (life, liberty, etc.) so that they can apply to thousands of years of human history, not just to recent centuries. But contemporary human rights are specific and many of them presuppose contemporary institutions (e.g., the right to a fair trial and the right to education). Even if people are born with God-given natural rights, we need to explain how to get from those general and abstract rights to the specific rights found in contemporary declarations and treaties.

Attributing human rights to God’s commands may give them a secure status at the metaphysical level, but in a very diverse world it does not make them practically secure. Billions of people do not believe in the God of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. If people do not believe in God, or in the sort of god that prescribes rights, and if you want to base human rights on theological beliefs you must persuade these people of a rights-supporting theological view. This is likely to be even harder than persuading them of human rights. Legal enactment at the national and international levels provides a far more secure status for practical purposes.

Human rights could also exist independently of legal enactment by being part of actual human moralities. All human groups seem to have moralities in the sense of imperative norms of interpersonal behavior backed by reasons and values. These moralities contain specific norms (for example, a prohibition of the intentional murder of an innocent person) and specific values (for example, valuing human life.) If almost all human groups have moralities containing norms prohibiting murder, these norms could partially constitute the human right to life.

The view that human rights are norms found in all human moralities is attractive but has serious difficulties. Although worldwide acceptance of human rights has been increasing rapidly in recent decades (see 4. Universal Human Rights in a World of Diverse Beliefs and Practices ), worldwide moral unanimity about human rights does not exist. Human rights declarations and treaties are intended to change existing norms, not just describe the existing moral consensus.

Yet another way of explaining the existence of human rights is to say that they exist most basically in true or justified ethical outlooks. On this account, to say that there is a human right against torture is mainly to assert that there are strong reasons for believing that it is always morally wrong to engage in torture and that protections should be provided against it. This approach would view the Universal Declaration as attempting to formulate a justified political morality for the whole planet. It was not merely trying to identify a preexisting moral consensus; it was rather trying to create a consensus that could be supported by very plausible moral and practical reasons. This approach requires commitment to the objectivity of such reasons. It holds that just as there are reliable ways of finding out how the physical world works, or what makes buildings sturdy and durable, there are ways of finding out what individuals may justifiably demand of each other and of governments. Even if unanimity about human rights is currently lacking, rational agreement is available to humans if they will commit themselves to open-minded and serious moral and political inquiry. If moral reasons exist independently of human construction, they can—when combined with true premises about current institutions, problems, and resources—generate moral norms different from those currently accepted or enacted. The Universal Declaration seems to proceed on exactly this assumption (see Morsink 2009). One problem with this view is that existence as good reasons seems a rather thin form of existence for human rights. But perhaps we can view this thinness as a practical rather than a theoretical problem, as something to be remedied by the formulation and enactment of legal norms. The best form of existence for human rights would combine robust legal existence with the sort of moral existence that comes from widespread acceptance based on strong moral and practical reasons.

Justifications for human rights should defend their main features including their character as rights, their universality, and their high priority. Such justifications should also be capable of providing starting points for justifying a plausible list of specific rights (on starting points and making the transition to specific rights see Nickel 2007; see also Section 3 Which Rights are Human Rights? below). Further, justifying international human rights is likely to require additional steps (Buchanan 2012). These requirements make the construction of a good justification for human rights a daunting task.

Approaches to justification include grounding human rights in prudential reasons, practical reasons, moral rights (Thomson 1990), human well-being (Sumner 1987, Talbott 2010), fundamental interests (Beitz 2015), human needs (Miller 2012), agency and autonomy (Gewirth 1996, Griffin 2008) dignity (Gilabert 2018, Kateb 2011, Tasioulas 2015), fairness (Nickel 2007), equality, and positive freedom (Gould 2004, Nussbaum 2000, Sen 2004). Justifications can be based on just one of these types of reasons or they can be eclectic and appeal to several (Tasioulas. 2015).

Grounding human rights in human agency and autonomy has had strong advocates in recent decades. For example, in Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Application (1982) Alan Gewirth offered an agency-based justification for human rights. He argued that denying the value of successful agency and action is not an option for a human being; having a life requires regarding the indispensable conditions of agency and action as necessary goods. Abstractly described, these conditions of successful agency are freedom and well-being. A prudent rational agent who must have freedom and well-being will assert a “prudential right claim” to them. Having demanded that others respect her freedom and well-being, consistency requires her to recognize and respect the freedom and well-being of other persons. Since all other agents are in exactly the same position as she is of needing freedom and well-being, consistency requires her to recognize and respect their claims to freedom and well-being. She “logically must accept” that other people as agents have equal rights to freedom and well-being. These two abstract rights work alone and together to generate equal specific human rights of familiar sorts (Gewirth 1978, 1982, 1996). Gewirth’s aspiration was to provide an argument for human rights that applies to all human agents and that is inescapable. From a few hard-to-dispute facts and a principle of consistency he thinks we can derive two generic human rights—and from them, a list of more determinate rights. Gewirth’s views have generated a large critical literature (see Beyleveld 1991, Boylan 1999).

A more recent attempt to base human rights on agency and autonomy is found in James Griffin’s book, On Human Rights (2008). Griffin does not share Gewirth’s goal of providing a logically inescapable argument for human rights, but his overall view shares key structural features with Gewirth’s. These include starting the justification with the unique value of human agency and autonomy (which Griffin calls “normative agency”), postulating some abstract rights (autonomy, freedom, and well-being), and making a place for a right to well-being within an agency-based approach.

In the current dispute between “moral” (or “orthodox”) and “political” conceptions of human rights, Griffin strongly sides with those who see human rights as fundamentally moral rights. Their defining role, in Griffin’s view, is protecting people’s ability to form and pursue conceptions of a worthwhile life—a capacity that Griffin variously refers to as “autonomy,” “normative agency,” and “personhood.” This ability to form, revise, and pursue conceptions of a worthwhile life is taken to be of paramount value, the exclusive source of human dignity, and thereby the basis of human rights (Griffin 2008). Griffin holds that people value this capacity “especially highly, often more highly than even their happiness.”

“Practicalities” also shape human rights in Griffin’s view. He describes practicalities as “a second ground” of human rights. They prescribe making the boundaries of rights clear by avoiding “too many complicated bends,” enlarging rights a little to give them safety margins, and consulting facts about human nature and the nature of society. Accordingly, the justifying generic function that Griffin assigns to human rights is protecting normative agency while taking account of practicalities.

Griffin claims that human rights suffer even more than other normative concepts from an “indeterminacy of sense” that makes them vulnerable to proliferation (Griffin 2008). He thinks that tying all human rights to the single value of normative agency while taking account of practicalities is the best way to remedy this malady. He criticizes the frequent invention of new human rights and the “ballooning of the content” of established rights. Still, Griffin is friendly towards most of the rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Beyond this, Griffin takes human rights to include many rights in interpersonal morality. For example, Griffin thinks that a child’s human right to education applies not just against governments but also against the child’s parents.

Griffin’s thesis that all human rights are grounded in normative agency is put forward not so much as a description but as a proposal, as the best way of giving human rights unity, coherence, and limits. Unfortunately, accepting and following this proposal is unlikely to yield effective barriers to proliferation or a sharp line between human rights and other moral norms. The main reason is one that Griffin himself recognizes: the “generative capacities” of normative agency are “quite great.” Providing adequate protections of the three components of normative agency (autonomy, freedom, and minimal well-being) will encounter a lot of threats to these values and hence will require lots of rights.

Views that explain human rights in terms of the practical political roles that they play have had prominent advocates in recent decades. These “political” conceptions of human rights explain what human rights are by describing the things that they do . Two philosophers who have developed political conceptions are discussed in this section, namely, John Rawls and Charles Beitz (for helpful discussions of political conceptions and their alternatives see the collections of essays in Etinson 2018 and Maliks and Schaffer 2017).

Advocates of political conceptions of human rights are often agnostic or skeptical about universal moral rights while rejecting wholesale moral skepticism and thinking possible the provision of sound normative justifications for the content, normativity, and roles of human rights (for challenges to purely political views see Gilabert 2011, Liao and Etinson 2012, Sangiovanni 2017, and Waldron 2018).

John Rawls introduced the idea of a political conception of human rights in his book, The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1999). The basic idea is that we can understand what human rights are and what their justification requires by identifying the main roles they play in some political sphere. In The Law of Peoples this sphere is international relations (and, secondarily, national politics). Rawls was attempting a normative reconstruction of international law and politics within today’s international system, and this helps explain Rawls’s focus on how human rights function within this system.

Rawls says that human rights are a special class of urgent rights . He seems to accept the definition of human rights given in Section 1 above. Besides saying that human rights are rights that are high priority or “urgent,” Rawls also accepts that they are plural and universal. But Rawls was working on a narrower project than Gewirth and Griffin. The international human rights he was concerned with are also defined by their roles in helping define in various ways the normative structure of the global system. They provide content to other normative concepts such as legitimacy, sovereignty, permissible intervention, and membership in good standing in the international community.

According to Rawls the justificatory process for human rights is analogous to the one for principles of justice at the national level that he described in A Theory of Justice (Rawls 1971). Instead of asking about the terms of cooperation that free and equal citizens would agree to under fair conditions, we ask about the terms of cooperation that free and equal peoples or countries would agree to under fair conditions. We imagine representatives of the world’s countries meeting to choose the normative principles that constitute the basic international structure. These representatives are imagined to see the countries they represent as free (rightfully independent) and equal (equally worthy of respect and fair treatment). These representatives are also imagined to be choosing rationally in light of the fundamental interests of their country, to be reasonable in seeking to find and respect fair terms of cooperation, and impartial because they are behind a “veil of ignorance”—they lack information about the country they represent such as its size, wealth, and power. Rawls holds that under these conditions these representatives will unanimously choose principles for the global order that include some basic human rights (for further explanation of the global original position see the entries on John Rawls and original position ).

Rawls advocated a limited list of human rights, one that leaves out many fundamental freedoms, rights of political participation, and equality rights. He did this for two reasons. One is that he wanted a list that is plausible for all reasonable countries, not just liberal democracies. The second reason is that he viewed serious violations of human rights as triggering permissible intervention by other countries, and only the most important rights can play this role.

Leaving out protections for equality and democracy is a high price to pay for assigning human rights the role of making international intervention permissible when they are seriously violated. We can accommodate Rawls’underlying idea without paying that price. To accept the idea that countries engaging in massive violations of the most important human rights are not to be tolerated we do not need to follow Rawls in equating international human rights with a heavily-pruned list. Instead we can work up a view—which is needed for other purposes anyway—of which human rights are the weightiest and then assign the intervention-permitting role to this subset.

Charles Beitz’s account of human rights in The Idea of Human Rights (Beitz 2009) shares many similarities with Rawls’s but is much more fully developed. Like Rawls, Beitz deals with human rights only as they have developed in contemporary international human rights practice. Beitz suggests that we can develop an understanding of human rights by attending to “the practical inferences that would be drawn by competent participants in the practice from what they regard as valid claims of human rights.” Observations of what competent participants say and do inform the account of what human rights are. The focus is not on what human rights are at some deep philosophical level; it is rather on how they work by guiding actions within a recently emerged and still evolving discursive practice. The norms of the practice guide the interpretation and application of human rights, the appropriateness of criticism in terms of human rights, adjudication in human rights courts, and—perhaps most importantly—responding to serious violations of human rights. Beitz says that human rights are “matters of international concern” and that they are “potential triggers of transnational protective and remedial action.”

Beitz does not agree with Rawls’s view that these roles require an abbreviated list of human rights. He accepts that the requirements of human rights are weaker than the requirements of social justice at the national level, but denies that human rights are minimal or highly modest in other respects.

Beitz rightly suggests that a reasonable person can accept and use the idea of human rights without accepting any particular view about their foundations. It is less clear that he is right in suggesting that good justifications of human rights should avoid as far as possible controversial assumptions about religion, metaphysics, ideology, and intrinsic value (see the entry public reason ). Beitz emphasizes the practical good that human rights do, not their grounds in some underlying moral reality. This helps make human rights attractive to people from around the world with their diverse religious and philosophical traditions. The broad justification for human rights and their normativity that Beitz offers is that they protect “urgent individual interests against predictable dangers (”standard threats“) to which they are vulnerable under typical circumstances of life in a modern world order composed of independent states.”

3. Which Rights are Human Rights?

This section discusses the question of which rights belong on lists of human rights. The Universal Declaration’s list, which has had great influence, consists of six families: (1) Security rights that protect people against murder, torture, and genocide; (2) Due process rights that protect people against arbitrary and excessively harsh punishments and require fair and public trials for those accused of crimes; (3) Liberty rights that protect people’s fundamental freedoms in areas such as belief, expression, association, and movement; (4) Political rights that protect people’s liberty to participate in politics by assembling, protesting, voting, and serving in public office; (5) Equality rights that guarantee equal citizenship, equality before the law, and freedom from discrimination; and (6) Social rights that require that governments ensure to all the availability of work, education, health services, and an adequate standard of living. A seventh category, minority and group rights, has been created by subsequent treaties. These rights protect women, racial and ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, children, migrant workers, and the disabled.

Not every question of social justice or wise governance is a human rights issue. For example, a country could have too many lawyers or inadequate provision for graduate-level education without violating any human rights. Deciding which norms should be counted as human rights is a matter of considerable difficulty. And there is continuing pressure to expand lists of human rights to include new areas. Many political movements would like to see their main concerns categorized as matters of human rights, since this would publicize, promote, and legitimize their concerns at the international level. A possible result of this is “human rights inflation,” the devaluation of human rights caused by producing too much bad human rights currency (See Cranston 1973, Orend 2002, Wellman 1999, Griffin 2008).

One way to avoid rights inflation is to follow Cranston in insisting that human rights only deal with extremely important goods, protections, and freedoms. A supplementary approach is to impose several justificatory tests for specific human rights. For example, it could be required that a proposed human right not only protect some very important good but also respond to one or more common and serious threats to that good (Dershowitz 2004, Donnelly 2003, Shue 1996, Talbott 2005), impose burdens on the addressees that are justifiable and no larger than necessary, and be feasible in most of the world’s countries (on feasibility see Gilabert 2009 and Nickel 2007). This approach restrains rights inflation with several tests, not just one master test.

In deciding which specific rights are human rights it is possible to make either too little or too much of international documents such as the Universal Declaration and the European Convention. One makes too little of them by proceeding as if drawing up a list of important rights were a new question, never before addressed, and as if there were no practical wisdom to be found in the choices of rights that went into the historic documents. And one makes too much of them by presuming that those documents tell us everything we need to know about human rights. This approach involves a kind of fundamentalism: it holds that when a right is on the official lists of human rights that settles its status as a human right (“If it’s in the book that’s all I need to know.”) But the process of identifying human rights in the United Nations and elsewhere was a political process with plenty of imperfections. There is little reason to take international diplomats as the most authoritative guides to which human rights there are. Further, even if a treaty’s ratification by most countries can settle the question of whether a certain right is a human right within international law, such a treaty cannot settle its weight. The treaty may suggest that the right is supported by weighty considerations, but it cannot make this so. If an international treaty enacted a right to visit national parks without charge as a human right, the ratification of that treaty would make free access to national parks a human right within international law. But it would not be able to make us believe that the right to visit national parks without charge was sufficiently important to be a real human right (see Luban 2015).

The least controversial family of human rights is civil and political rights. These rights are familiar from historic bills of rights such as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789) and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791, with subsequent amendments). Contemporary sources include the first 21 Articles of the Universal Declaration , and treaties such as the European Convention , the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights , the American Convention on Human Rights, and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights . Some representative formulations follow:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought and expression. This right includes freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing, in print, in the form of art, or through any other medium of one’s choice. (American Convention on Human Rights, Article 13.1)

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests (European Convention, Article 11).

Every citizen shall have the right to participate freely in the government of his country, either directly or through freely chosen representatives in accordance with the provisions of the law. 2. Every citizen shall have the right of equal access to the public service of his country. 3. Every individual shall have the right of access to public property and services in strict equality of all persons before the law (African Charter, Article 13).

Most civil and political rights are not absolute—they can in some cases be overridden by other considerations. For example, the right to freedom of movement can be restricted by public and private property rights, by restraining orders related to domestic violence, and by legal punishments. Further, after a disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake free movement is often appropriately suspended to keep out the curious, permit access of emergency vehicles and equipment, and prevent looting. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights permits rights to be suspended during times “of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation” (Article 4). But it excludes some rights from suspension including the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the prohibition of slavery, the prohibition of ex post facto criminal laws, and freedom of thought and religion.

The Universal Declaration included social (or “welfare”) rights that address matters such as education, food, health services, and employment. Their inclusion has been the source of much controversy (see Beetham 1995). The European Convention did not include them (although it was later amended to include the right to education). Instead they were put into a separate treaty, the European Social Charter . When the United Nations began the process of putting the rights of the Universal Declaration into international law, it followed the same pattern by treating economic and social standards in a treaty separate from the one dealing with civil and political rights. This treaty, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (the “Social Covenant,” 1966), treated these standards as rights—albeit rights to be progressively realized.

The Social Covenant’s list of rights includes nondiscrimination and equality for women in economic and social life (Articles 2 and 3), freedom to work and opportunities to work (Article 4), fair pay and decent conditions of work (Article 7), the right to form trade unions and to strike (Article 8), social security (Article 9), special protections for mothers and children (Article 10), the right to adequate food, clothing, and housing (Article 11), the right to basic health services (Article 12), the right to education (Article 13), and the right to participate in cultural life and scientific progress (Article 15).

Article 2.1 of the Social Covenant sets out what each of the parties commits itself to do about this list, namely to “take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation…to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant.” In contrast, the Civil and Political Covenant commits its signatories to immediate compliance, to “respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory the rights recognized in the present Covenant” (Article 2.1). The contrast between these two levels of commitment has led some people to suspect that economic and social rights are really just valuable goals. Why did the Social Covenant opt for progressive implementation and thereby treat its rights as being somewhat like goals? The main reason is that many of the world’s countries lacked the economic, institutional, and human resources to realize these standards fully or even largely. For many countries, noncompliance due to inability would have been certain if these standards had been treated as immediately binding.

Social rights have often been defended with linkage arguments that show the support they provide to adequate realization of civil and political rights. This approach was first developed philosophically by Henry Shue (Shue 1996; see also Nickel 2007 and 2016). Linkage arguments defend controversial rights by showing the indispensable or highly useful support they provide to uncontroversial rights. For example, if a government succeeds in eliminating hunger and providing education to everyone this promotes people’s abilities to know, use, and enjoy their liberties, due process rights, and rights of political participation. Lack of education is frequently a barrier to the realization of civil and political rights because uneducated people often do not know what rights they have and what they can do to use and defend them. Lack of education is also a common barrier to democratic participation. Education and a minimum income make it easier for people near the bottom economically to follow politics, participate in political campaigns, and to spend the time and money needed to go to the polls and vote.

Do social rights yield a sufficient commitment to equality? Objections to social rights as human rights have come from both the political right and the political left. A common objection from the left, including liberal egalitarians and socialists, is that social rights as enumerated in human rights documents and treaties provide too weak of a commitment to material equality (Moyn 2018; Gilabert 2015). Realizing social rights requires a state that ensures to everyone an adequate minimum of resources in some key areas but that does not necessarily have strong commitments to equality of opportunity, to strong redistributive taxation, and to ceilings on wealth (see the entries equality , equality of opportunity , distributive justice , and liberal feminism ).

The egalitarian objection cannot be that human rights documents and treaties showed no concern for people living in poverty and misery. That would be wildly false. One of the main purposes of including social rights in human rights documents and treaties was to promote serious efforts to combat poverty, lack of education, and unhealthy living conditions in countries all around the world (see also Langford 2013 on the UN Millennium Development Goals). The objection also cannot be that human rights facilitated the hollowing out of systems of welfare rights in many developed countries that occurred after 1980. Those cuts in welfare programs were often in violation of the requirements of adequately realizing social rights.

Perhaps it should be conceded that human rights documents and treaties have not said enough about positive measures to promote equal opportunity in education and work. A positive right to equal opportunity, like the one Rawls proposed, would require countries to take serious measures to reduce disparities between the opportunities effectively available to children of high-income and low-income parents (Rawls 1971).

A strongly egalitarian political program is best pursued partially within but mostly beyond the human rights framework. One reason for this is that the human rights movement will have better future prospects for acceptance and realization if it has widespread political support. That requires that the rights it endorses appeal to people with a variety of political views ranging from center-left to center-right. Support from the broad political center will not emerge and survive if the human rights platform is perceived as mostly a leftist program.

Do social rights protect sufficiently important human interests? Maurice Cranston opposed social rights by suggesting that social rights are mainly concerned with matters such as holidays with pay that are not matters of deep and universal human interests (Cranston 1967, 1973. Treatments of objections to social rights include Beetham 1995; Howard 1987; and Nickel 2007). It is far from the case, however, that most social rights pertain only to superficial interests. Consider two examples: the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to free public education. These rights require governments to try to remedy widespread and serious evils such as severe poverty, starvation and malnutrition, and ignorance. The importance of food and other basic material conditions of life is easy to show. These goods are essential to people’s ability to live, function, and flourish. Without adequate access to these goods, interests in life, health, and liberty are endangered and serious illness and death are probable. Lack of access to educational opportunities typically limits (both absolutely and comparatively) people’s abilities to participate fully and effectively in the political and economic life of their country.

Are social rights too burdensome? Another objection to social rights is that they are too burdensome on their dutybearers. It is very expensive to guarantee to everyone basic education and minimal material conditions of life. Frequently the claim that social rights are too burdensome uses other, less controversial human rights as a standard of comparison, and suggests that social rights are substantially more burdensome or expensive than liberty rights. Suppose that we use as a basis of comparison liberty rights such as freedom of communication, association, and movement. These rights require both respect and protection from governments. And people cannot be adequately protected in their enjoyment of liberties such as these unless they also have security and due process rights. The costs of liberty, as it were, include the costs of law and criminal justice. Once we see this, liberty rights start to look a lot more costly.

Further, we should not generally think of social rights as simply giving everyone a free supply of the goods they protect. Guarantees of things like food and housing will be intolerably expensive and will undermine productivity if everyone simply receives a free supply. A viable system of social rights will require most people to provide these goods for themselves and their families through work as long as they are given the necessary opportunities, education, and infrastructure. Government-implemented social rights provide guarantees of availability (or “secure access”), but governments should have to supply the requisite goods in only a small fraction of cases. Note that education is often an exception to this since many countries provide free public education irrespective of ability to pay.

Countries that do not accept and implement social rights still have to bear somehow the costs of providing for the needy since these countries—particularly if they recognize democratic rights of political participation—are unlikely to find it tolerable to allow sizeable parts of the population to starve and be homeless. If government does not supply food, clothing, and shelter to those unable to provide for themselves, then families, friends, and communities will have to shoulder this burden. It is only in the last hundred or so years that government-sponsored social rights have taken over a substantial part of the burden of providing for the needy. The taxes associated with social rights are partial replacements for other burdensome duties, namely the duties of families and communities to provide adequate care for the unemployed, sick, disabled, and aged. Deciding whether to implement social rights is not a matter of deciding whether to bear such burdens, but rather of deciding whether to continue with total reliance on a system of informal provision that distributes assistance in a very spotty way and whose costs fall very unevenly on families, friends, and communities.

Are social rights feasible worldwide? Another objection to social rights alleges that they are not feasible in many countries (on how to understand feasibility see Gilabert 2009). It is very expensive to provide guarantees of subsistence, measures to protect and restore people’s health, and education. Many governments will be unable to provide these guarantees while meeting other important responsibilities. Rights are not magical sources of supply (Holmes and Sunstein 1999).

As we saw earlier, the Social Covenant dealt with the issue of feasibility by calling for progressive implementation, that is, implementation as financial and other resources permit. Does this view of implementation turn social rights into high-priority goals? And if so, is that a bad thing?

Standards that outrun the abilities of many of their addressees are good candidates for treatment as goals. Viewing them as largely aspirational rather than as imposing immediate duties avoids problems of inability-based noncompliance. One may worry, however, that this is too much of a demotion for social rights because goals seem much weaker than rights. But goals can be formulated in ways that make them more like rights. They can be assigned addressees (the parties who are to pursue the goal), beneficiaries, scopes that define the objective to be pursued, and a high level of priority (see Langford 2013 and Nickel 2013; see also UN Human Rights and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals ). Strong reasons for the importance of these goals can be provided. And supervisory bodies can monitor levels of progress and pressure low-performing addressees to attend to and work on their goals.

Treating very demanding rights as goals has several advantages. One is that proposed goals that greatly exceed our abilities are not so farcical as proposed duties that do so. Creating grand lists of social rights that many countries cannot presently realize seems farcical to many people. Perhaps this perceived lack of realism is reduced if we understand that these “rights” are really goals that countries should seriously promote. Goals coexist easily with low levels of ability to achieve them. Another advantage is that goals are flexible: addressees with different levels of ability can choose ways of pursuing the goals that suit their circumstances and means. Because of these attractions it may be worth exploring sophisticated ways to transform very demanding human rights into goals. The transformation may be full or partial. It is possible to create right-goal mixtures that contain some mandatory elements and that therefore seem more like real rights (see Brems 2009). A right-goal mixture might include some rights-like goals, some mandatory steps to be taken immediately, and duties to realize the rights-like goals as quickly as possible.

Equality of rights for historically disadvantaged or subordinated groups is a longstanding concern of the human rights movement. Human rights documents repeatedly emphasize that all people, including women and members of minority ethnic and religious groups, have equal human rights and should be able to enjoy them without discrimination. The right to freedom from discrimination figures prominently in the Universal Declaration and subsequent treaties. The Civil and Political Covenant, for example, commits participating states to respect and protect their people’s rights “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or social status” (on minority and group rights see Kymlicka 1995, Nickel 2007).

A number of standard individual rights are especially important to ethnic and religious minorities, including rights to freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom from discrimination. Human rights documents also include rights that refer to minorities explicitly and give them special protections. For example, the Civil and Political Covenant in Article 27 says that persons belonging to ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities “shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.”

Feminists have often protested that standard lists of human rights do not sufficiently take into account the different risks faced by women and men. For example, issues like domestic violence, reproductive choice, and trafficking of women and girls for sex work did not have a prominent place in early human rights documents and treaties. Lists of human rights have had to be expanded “to include the degradation and violation of women” (Bunch 2006, 58; see also Lockwood 2006 and Okin 1998). Violations of women’s human rights often occur in the home at the hands of other family members, not in the street at the hands of the police. Most violence against women occurs in the “private” sphere. This has meant that governments cannot be seen as the only addressees of human rights and that the right to privacy of home and family needs qualifications to allow police to protect women within the home.

The issue of how formulations of human rights should respond to variations in the sorts of risks and dangers that different people face is difficult and arises not just in relation to gender but also in relation to age, profession, political affiliation, religion, and personal interests. Due process rights, for example, are much more useful to young people (and particularly young men) than they are to older people since the latter are far less likely to run afoul of the criminal law.

Since 1964 the United Nations has mainly dealt with the rights of women and minorities through specialized treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979); the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2007). See also the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Specialized treaties allow international norms to address unique problems of particular groups such as assistance and care during pregnancy and childbearing in the case of women, custody issues in the case of children, and the loss of historic territories by indigenous peoples.

Minority groups are often targets of violence. Human rights norms call upon governments to refrain from such violence and to provide protections against it. This work is partly done by the right to life, which is a standard individual right. It is also done by the right against genocide which protects some groups from attempts to destroy or decimate them. The Genocide Convention was one of the first human rights treaties after World War II. The right against genocide is clearly a group right. It is held by both individuals and groups and provides protection to groups as groups. It is largely negative in the sense that it requires governments and other agencies to refrain from destroying groups; but it also requires that legal and other protections against genocide be created at the national level.

Can the right against genocide be a human right? More generally, can a group right fit the general idea of human rights proposed earlier? On that conception, human rights are rights of all persons . Perhaps it can, however, if we broaden our conception of who can hold human rights to include important groups that people form and cherish (see the entry on group rights ). This can be made more palatable, perhaps, by recognizing that the beneficiaries of the right against genocide are individual humans who enjoy greater security against attempts to destroy the group to which they belong (Kymlicka 1989).

In spite of the danger of rights inflation, there are doubtless norms that should be counted as human rights but are not generally recognized as such. After all, there are lots of areas in which people’s dignity and fundamental interests are threatened by the actions and omissions of individuals and governments. Consider environmental rights, which are often defined to include rights of animals or even of nature itself (see the entry on environmental ethics ). Conceived in this broad way environmental rights don’t have a good fit with the general idea of human rights because the rightholders are not humans or human groups.

Alternative formulations are possible, however. A basic environmental human right can be understood as requiring maintenance and restoration of an environment that is safe for human life and health. Many countries have environmental rights of this sort in their constitutional bills of rights (Hayward 2005). And the European Union’s Bill of Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union , includes in Article 37 an environmental protection norm: “A high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment must be integrated into the policies of the Union and ensured in accordance with the principle of sustainable development.”

A human right to a safe environment or to environmental protection does not directly address issues such as the claims of animals or biodiversity, although it might do so indirectly using the idea of ecosystem services to humans (see Biodiversity and Human Rights . A justification for a human right to a safe environment should show that environmental problems pose serious threats to fundamental human interests, values, or norms; that governments may appropriately be burdened with the responsibility of protecting people against these threats; and that most governments actually have the ability to do this.

Climate change is currently a major environmental threat to many people’s lives and health, and hence it is unsurprising that human rights approaches to climate change have been developed and advocated in recent decades (see Bodansky 2011, Gardiner 2013, and UN Human Rights and Climate Change ). One approach, advocated by Steve Vanderheiden accepts the idea of a human right to an environment that is adequate for human life and health and derives from this broad right a more specific right to a stable climate (Vanderheiden 2008). Another approach, advocated by Simon Caney, does not require introducing a new environmental right. It suggests instead that serious action to reduce and mitigate climate change is required by already well-established human rights because severe climate change will violate many people’s rights to life, food, and health (Caney 2010). One could expand this approach by arguing that severe climate change should be reduced and mitigated because it will cause massive human migrations and other crises that will undermine the abilities of many governments to uphold human rights (for evaluation of these arguments see Bell 2013).

Two familiar philosophical worries about human rights are that they are based on moral beliefs that are culturally relative and that their creation and advocacy involves ethnocentrism. Human rights prescribe universal standards in areas such as security, law enforcement, equality, political participation, and education. The peoples and countries of planet Earth are, however, enormously varied in their practices, traditions, religions, and levels of economic and political development. Putting these two propositions together may be enough to justify the worry that universal human rights do not sufficiently accommodate the diversity of Earth’s peoples. A theoretical expression of this worry is “relativism,” the idea that ethical, political, and legal standards for a particular country or region are mostly shaped by the traditions, beliefs, and conditions of that country or region (see the entry on moral relativism ). The anthropologist William G. Sumner, writing in 1906, asserted that “the mores can make anything right and prevent condemnation of anything” (Sumner 1906).

Relativists sometimes accuse human rights advocates of ethnocentrism, arrogance, and cultural imperialism (Talbott 2005). Ethnocentrism is the assumption, usually unconscious, that “one’s own group is the center of everything” and that its beliefs, practices, and norms provide the standards by which other groups are “scaled and rated” (Sumner 1906; see also Etinson 2018 who argues that ethnocentrism is best understood as a kind of cultural bias rather than as a belief in cultural superiority). Ethnocentrism can lead to arrogance and intolerance in dealings with other countries, ethical systems, and religions. Finally, cultural imperialism occurs when the economically, technologically, and militarily strongest countries impose their beliefs, values, and institutions on the rest of the world. Relativists often combine these charges with a prescription, namely that tolerance of varied practices and traditions ought to be instilled and practiced through measures that include extended learning about other cultures.

The conflict between relativists and human rights advocates may be partially based on differences in their underlying philosophical beliefs, particularly in metaethics. Relativists are often subjectivists or noncognitivists and think of morality as entirely socially constructed and transmitted. In contrast, philosophically-inclined human rights advocates are more likely to adhere to or presuppose cognitivism, moral realism , and intuitionism .

During the drafting in 1947 of the Universal Declaration, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association warned of the danger that the Declaration would be “a statement of rights conceived only in terms of the values prevalent in Western Europe and America.” Perhaps the main concern of the AAA Board in the period right after World War II was to condemn the intolerant colonialist attitudes of the day and to advocate cultural and political self-determination. But the Board also made the stronger assertion that “standards and values are relative to the culture from which they derive” and thus “what is held to be a human right in one society may be regarded as anti-social by another people” ( American Anthropological Association Statement on Human Rights 1947 ).

This is not, of course, the stance of most anthropologists today. Currently the American Anthropological Association has a Committee on Human Rights whose objectives include promoting and protecting human rights and developing an anthropological perspective on human rights. While still emphasizing the importance of cultural differences, anthropologists now often support cultural survival and the protection of vulnerable cultures, non-discrimination, and the rights and land claims of indigenous peoples.

The idea that relativism and exposure to other cultures promote tolerance may be correct from a psychological perspective. People who are sensitive to differences in beliefs, practices, and traditions, and who are suspicious of the grounds for extending norms across borders, may be more inclined to be tolerant of other countries and peoples than those who believe in an objective universal morality. Still, philosophers have been generally critical of attempts to argue from relativism to a prescription of tolerance (Talbott 2005). If the culture and religion of one country has long fostered intolerant attitudes and practices, and if its citizens and officials act intolerantly towards people from other countries, they are simply following their own traditions and cultural norms. They are just doing what relativists think people mostly do. Accordingly, a relativist from a tolerant country will be hard-pressed to find a basis for criticizing the citizens and officials of the intolerant country. To do so the relativist will have to endorse a transcultural principle of tolerance and to advocate as an outsider cultural change in the direction of greater tolerance. Because of this, relativists who are deeply committed to tolerance may find themselves attracted to a qualified commitment to human rights.

East Asia is the region of the world that participates least in the international human rights system—even though some important East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea do participate. In the 1990s Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and others argued that international human rights as found in United Nations declarations and treaties were insensitive to distinctive “Asian values” such as prizing families and community (in contrast to strong individualism); putting social harmony over personal freedom; respect for political leaders and institutions; and emphasizing responsibility, hard work, and thriftiness as means of social progress (on the Asian Values debate see Bauer and Bell 1999; Bell 2000; Sen 1997; and Twining 2009). Proponents of the Asian values idea did not wish to abolish all human rights; they rather wanted to deemphasize some families of human rights, particularly the fundamental freedoms and rights of democratic participation (and in some cases the rights of women). They also wanted Western governments and NGOs to stop criticizing them for human rights violations in these areas.

At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, countries including Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Iran advocated accommodations within human rights practice for cultural and economic differences. Western representatives tended to view the position of these countries as excuses for repression and authoritarianism. The Conference responded by approving the Vienna Declaration . It included in Article 5 the assertion that countries should not pick and choose among human rights: “All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis. While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Perhaps the debate about relativism and human rights has become obsolete. In recent decades widespread acceptance of human rights has occurred in most parts of the world. Three quarters of the world’s countries have ratified the major human rights treaties, and many countries in Africa, the Americas, and Europe participate in regional human rights regimes that have international courts (see Georgetown University Human Rights Law Research Guide in the Other Internet Resources below). Further, all of the world’s countries now use similar political institutions (law, courts, legislatures, executives, militaries, bureaucracies, police, prisons, taxation, and public schools) and these institutions carry with them characteristic problems and abuses (Donnelly 2003). Finally, globalization has diminished the differences among peoples. Today’s world is not the one that early anthropologists and missionaries found. National and cultural boundaries are breached not just by international trade but also by millions of travelers and migrants, electronic communications, international law covering many areas, and the efforts of international governmental and non-governmental organizations. International influences and organizations are everywhere and countries borrow freely and regularly from each other’s inventions and practices.

Worldwide polls on attitudes towards human rights are now available and they show broad support for human rights and international efforts to promote them. Empirical research can now replace or supplement theoretical speculations about how much disagreement on human rights exists worldwide. A December 2011 report by the Council on Foreign Relations surveyed recent international opinion polls on human rights that probe agreement and disagreement with propositions such as “People have the right to express any opinion,” “People of all faiths can practice their religion freely,” “Women should have the same rights as men,” “People of different races [should be] treated equally,” and governments “should be responsible for ensuring that [their] citizens can meet their basic need for food.” Big majorities of those polled in countries such as Argentina, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Nigeria, China, India, and Indonesia gave affirmative answers. Further, large majorities (on average 70%) in all the countries polled supported UN efforts to promote the human rights set out in the Universal Declaration. Unfortunately, popular acceptance of human rights ideas has not, however, prevented a recent slide in many of these same countries towards authoritarianism.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

Other Internet Resources

Georgetown Law Library Human Rights Law Research Guide
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library .
Francisco Suarez (1548–1617), entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
Human Rights entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .

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The assistance of Adam Etinson, Pablo Gilabert, and Erin Sperry is acknowledged with gratitude.

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Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn)

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Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction considers the controversies surrounding the human rights movement by focusing on highly topical issues such as torture, arbitrary detention, privacy, equality, health, and discrimination. It discusses the historical origins of human rights and how they are formed in law; explains what our human rights actually are; and considers where the human rights movement might be heading. Today, it is usually not long before a problem gets expressed as a human rights issue. Indeed, human rights law continues to gain increasing attention internationally, and must move quickly in order to keep up with a social world, which is changing so rapidly.

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The complex origins, development, and meanings of human rights

By Eric D. Weitz June 14, 2022

In 2015, a young girl and her father crossed into the United States from the border with Mexico. Astrid and Arturo, K’iche’ Indians from Guatemala, were fleeing the systematic discrimination and violence their people have suffered for decades. US officials detained Astrid and Arturo for only one day. They had applied for political asylum and were allowed to move on. They began to build a life in Pennsylvania as they awaited the decision on their asylum status. Three years later, in 2018, US immigration authorities raided their home in the middle of the night and arrested them. Human rights lawyers argued that Astrid and Arturo were unjustly detained. Amnesty International launched a campaign to free them. The authorities were deluged with nearly two thousand phone calls and tens of thousands of petitions demanding their release. The calls and petitions arrived from nearly every continent on the globe. Officials relented, and after a month set father and daughter free. For now. Their status as asylum seekers has, as of autumn 2018, still not been finally decided. 1

One story from one family among the more than 68.5 million migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in the world today. 2 Yet the experiences of Astrid and Arturo speak to the three questions that animate this book: Who has access to rights? What do we mean by human rights? And how do we obtain rights?

Human rights are never as simple as we might think from reading, say, the preamble and thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). That is precisely the point of A World Divided . I aim not just to celebrate human rights (although I do most definitely support them), but to explore their complex origins, development, and meanings since the eighteenth century. I do so by examining the histories of various nation-states and one federation of nationalities (the Soviet Union) and the human rights they proclaimed. I have chosen these particular cases, culled from around the globe over the past two and one-half centuries, because they encompass the variety of modern political and economic systems, from republic to empire, slavery to socialism, colonialism to communism.

Human rights offer people around the world the prospects of expansive, liberty-endowed, self-determining lives, despite the violations, deprivations, and atrocities we still witness on virtually every continent. Even where they exist only as promises and hopes, human rights stand as a triumph of the human spirit and intellect. Where implemented, they protect us from the arbitrary power of the state. They assure us that policemen cannot enter our homes unless granted a warrant, and no government agency can arbitrarily seize the property we own. Every time individuals around the globe go to a polling place to pull a lever or scratch an X to choose the representatives of their choice, wherever people raise their voices in meetings and rallies or in letters to their local newspaper, they are exercising rights of free speech that make them participants of the worlds they inhabit, whether it be their local village or town or country. Whenever people demand clean water or adequate healthcare, they are expressing their social rights. Through all these activities, they are no longer mere objects who are ordered about or moved around at someone’s whim, nor subjects who, if fate treats them well, receive benefits from those above them. Rights give people power in the best sense of the term—the ability to shape their own lives and the societies in which they live. Rights enhance our capacity to be more fully human.

In our divided world of 193 sovereign nation-states, we have rights first and foremost as national citizens. But who, in fact, constitutes the nation and by what criteria? Were Arturo and Astrid, as Indians, national citizens and therefore able to exercise rights in Guatemala? Who has the “right to have rights”?—as Hannah Arendt, and the German Enlightenment philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte before her, asked. 3 Access to rights in the nation-state is the first major theme of this book. From Greek rebels in the early nineteenth century to anticolonial Africans in the twentieth, all had to face the questions: Who belongs to the nation? Who qualifies to be a rights-bearing citizen, and what kinds of rights may he or she possess? What happens to those who live within the territory of the new nation-state but are somehow different from the dominant group, whether by virtue of skin color, religion, language, or any other trait? This quandary remains with us today, as Arturo and Astrid know all too well.

A World Divided affirms the powerful and creative history of human rights from the late eighteenth century to the present. It also presents a critique of the limitations of rights, so long as they are based in the nation-state and national or racial citizenship. 4 In fact, the book takes the problem one step further: the great paradox of the history presented here is that nation-states create rights for some at the same time that they exclude others, at times quite brutally. The state is our protector; it is also our greatest threat. 5 This dilemma, that the state, at its best, enforces human rights, but at the same time limits the circle of those who can possess rights, is our history as well as our present and future. As far as anyone can imagine, we will continue to inhabit a world of 193 sovereign independent states (give or take one, two, or three).

Only since 1945 has the emergence of international human rights offered a model of universal rights beyond the nation-state. The UDHR, passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on 10 December 1948, proclaims that rights inhere in everyone regardless of national citizenship. Scores of international treaties confirm the point that even the stateless possess human rights and therefore need to be protected by states and the international community. 6 Asylum seekers, like Arturo and Astrid, are especially protected, and they at least were released from detention after one month. Every step that moves the protection of human rights to the international level, however partial and limited, constitutes, I argue, a major advance, the best-laid path out of the quandaries and limitations of human rights based exclusively in national citizenship. 7

Nonetheless, in the vast majority of cases we are still dependent on the nation-state to establish and enforce human rights, or are compelled to fight the nation-state as the supreme violator of rights. Activists around the globe appeal to international human rights standards. But their first station stop is their own state, which they call upon to ensure free speech, provide clean water, and rein in paramilitaries who wreak havoc on populations. 8

One truth about human rights is incontrovertible (and it may be the only truth): they are dynamic. Their meaning has evolved over the past two and one-half centuries, and that is the second theme pursued in this book. Once reserved for some people—propertied men, white Europeans, loyal Soviets—they were quickly demanded by those who had been excluded. Activists turned the rhetoric and law of rights against those who reigned, and demanded a free and open, more inclusive society. We shall see this phenomenon at work time and again, in Brazil, the Soviet Union, South Korea, and Rwanda and Burundi, and in other histories explored in each of the chapters. We shall also see it at work internationally, notably in the movement for women’s rights after 1945.

As the charmed circle of rights-bearing citizens expanded, so did the meaning of those rights. In the nineteenth century, new states were primarily liberal in character. They proclaimed political rights, like the right to free speech and assembly and protection from unwarranted search and seizure, but provided little to nothing in the way of social rights. 9 Yet already by the mid-nineteenth century, socialists, feminists, and some liberals raised the objection that rights conceived solely in political terms ignored the great needs and desires of the vast majority of the population. 10

Today, most scholars and activists insist that the political rights derived from the great revolutions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries must be complemented by social and economic rights. The UN said as much in 1966 by passing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the United States, though a signatory, has never ratified the treaty). The Guatemalan Constitution, like so many others around the globe, conforms to this understanding. 11 Its section on “Human Rights,” primarily political in orientation, is immediately followed by one on “Social Rights.” Had the state come anywhere close to following its own prescriptions, Arturo and Astrid would have been able to speak out freely and express their cultural identity, and would have had access to healthcare and education—the full complement of human rights as understood today.

This essay is an excerpt from A World Divided: The Global Struggle for Human Rights in the Age of Nation-States by Eric D. Weitz .

About the Author

Eric D. Weitz (1953–2021) was Distinguished Professor of History at City College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was also the author of Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy , which was named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice; A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation; and Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (all Princeton).

1. I take this story from the Amnesty International website: “I Welcome: Protecting the Rights of Refugees and Asylum-Seekers,” n.d., accessed 13 August 2018, https://www.amnestyusa.org/campaigns/refugee-and-migrant-rights/, and “Help Release 15-Year-Old Astrid and Her Father,” n.d., accessed 13 August 2018, https://act.amnestyusa.org/page/21189/action/1.

2. Figure from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, “Figures at a Glance,” n.d., accessed 13 August 2018, http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html.

3. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951; Cleveland: Meridian, 1958), 296. Arendt’s formulation, “the right to have rights,” is uncannily close to Fichte’s: “The one true right that belongs to the human being as such [is]: the right to be able to acquire rights.” See Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Foundations of Natural Right, according to the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre , ed. Frederick Neuhouser, trans. Michael Baur (1796; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 333. Arendt makes no reference to Fichte’s formulation, nor do any of the major Arendt scholars.

The German original: “Dies allein is das eigentliche Menschenrecht, das den [dem, editor] Menschen, als Menschen, zukommt; die Möglichkeit sich Rechte zu erwerben.” Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (1796), in J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften , ed. Reinhard Lauth and Hans Gliwitzky, pt. 1, vol. 4, Werke 1797–1798 (Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1970), 163.

4. I do not, however, share the withering criticisms of some recent authors, who tell us that human rights are on the wane; have altogether failed; are utopian in character and therefore undermine the real and necessary world of politics, which has to be about limited goals; divert attention from more critical social issues, like inequality; or are Western-based and therefore necessarily imperialist in character. See, for example, Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018), and The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010); Eric A. Posner, The Twilight of Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); and Stephen Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013). For a very effective challenge to such critiques, see Kathryn Sikkink, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), and Beth A. Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). See also the pioneering work of Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York: Norton, 2007). On the French debates, see Justine Lacroix and Jean-Yves Pranchère, Le procès des droits de l’homme: Généalogie du scepticisme démocratique (Paris: Seuil, 2016), which is highly critical of the francophone opponents of human rights. Lacroix and Pranchère’s position is very similar to my own.

5. See Christian Reus-Smit, Individual Rights and the Making of the International System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 210–11, who writes similarly. For two significant works on related themes, though neither addresses directly human rights, see Philipp Ther, The Dark Side of Nation-States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe , trans. Charlotte Kreutzmüller (2011; New York: Berghahn, 2014), and Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

6. See David Weissbrodt, The Human Rights of Non-Citizens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

7. Amid a huge literature on citizenship and rights, I have found especially compelling Ayten Gündoğdu, Rightlessness in an Age of Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Margaret R. Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to Have Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). All three authors work in conversation with Hannah Arendt. On the long and complex history of citizenship, see Frederick Cooper, Citizenship, Inequality, and Difference: Historical Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). Cooper emphasizes the diverse meanings of citizenship, in the present as well as historically. For one of the classic statements, see T. H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class” (1950), in Class, Citizenship, and Social Development: Essays by T. H. Marshall , introduction by Seymour Martin Lipset (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), 65–122.

8. See Steve J. Stern and Scott Straus, “Introduction: Embracing Paradox: Human Rights in the Global Age,” in The Human Rights Paradox: Universality and its Discontents , ed. Stern and Straus (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), 3–28. Also on the complexity of human rights, see Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, “Introduction: Genealogies of Human Rights,” in Human Rights in the Twentieth Century , ed. Hoffmann (2010; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1–26.

9. Isaiah Berlin’s famed distinction between negative and positive liberty applies here. See “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958), in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 118–72.

10. On the varieties of liberal thought, see Helena Rosenblatt, The Lost History of Liberalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). For arguments about the socialist contribution to a broadened conception of human rights, see Lacroix and Pranchère, Procès des droits de l’homme , and Gregory Claeys, “Socialism and the Language of Human Rights: The Origins and Implications of Economic Rights,” in Revisiting the Origins of Human Rights , ed. Pamela Slotte and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 206–36. See also Hunt, Inventing Human Rights .

11. For the text of the constitution, see “Guatemala’s Constitution of 1985 with Amendments through 1993,” Constitute Project, 17 January 2018, https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Guatemala_1993.pdf.

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240 Human Rights Essay Topics & Examples

Whether you’re interested in exploring enduring issues, social justice, or democracy, see the ideas below. Along with human rights topics for essays and other papers, our experts have prepared writing tips for you.

✅ Tips for Writing Essays on Human Rights

🏆 Best Human Rights Topic Ideas & Essay Examples

🥇 most interesting human rights topics for essays, 🎓 simple & easy human rights essay topics, 💡 great human rights research topics, 🔎 interesting topics to write about human rights, ❓ essay questions on human rights.

If you’re starting a discussion on human rights, essay examples on the subject can really help you with argumentation. And if you’re assigned to come up with a research paper or speech on it, a good idea is a must for an excellent grade. Good thing you’ve found this list of human rights essay topics!

✅ 9 Tips for Writing Essays on Human Rights

The recognition of people’s rights through proper laws preserves human dignity. This broadness means that human rights essay topics range in scope drastically, requiring you to bring together different kinds of ideas in a single paper.

Thus, you may need to keep in mind particular tips, from structural advice to correct terminology, to write an excellent human rights essay.

Do your research before you start working on your outline. Searching for book and journal titles beforehand will not only help you understand your topic better but also help you structure your thoughts, affecting your structure for the better.

Compiling a bibliography early will also save you from the mess, which comes from ordering and standardizing your sources as you go.

After you have your reference page ready, draft a human rights essay outline.

Make it as detailed or as simple as you need, because what is essential is that you divide your topics evenly between your paragraphs or subheadings.

Doing so will ensure that you have a comprehensive essay that helps advance academic knowledge on a particular subject, rather than an overpowered paper aimed at a single problem.

Write your thesis statement as your final prewriting step. Excellent thesis examples should state the theme explicitly and leave your reader with an accurate understanding of what you are trying to achieve in your paper.

Skipping or ignoring this phase may leave your work disoriented and without a definite purpose.

Keep in mind your chosen human rights essay questions when writing. Going off theme will never get you good marks with your instructor.

If you are writing from a cultural relativism point of view, then do you have the word-count to argue about moral relativism? Do not forget that everything you write should advance your central thesis and never undermine it!

Get a good grasp on the relevant terminology. Confusing human nature with the human condition is never a good start to a paper that aspires to shed light on one subject or the other.

You can start writing down the terms that you find useful or intriguing during your research phase to help you gain a better understanding of their meaning.

Understand the correct time and place to qualify or refute certain statements. Arguing against the children’s right to basic needs may never be appropriate in an academic setting. Acknowledge the arguable cases, and subvert these to your benefit, as an essayist.

Interest your audience with essay hooks and exciting facts. Academia is not a dull place, and your readers may find themselves more willing to engage with your work if they find it enjoyable, rather than dry and formalistic. Doing so will also demonstrate your good grasp on the subject!

Remain respectful of your chosen case, and remember that you are writing about a subject that experiences hundreds of daily violations.

Recognizing the dangerous nature of your paper will not only help you separate beneficial facts from superficial ones but may also allow you to hone your academic integrity.

Read sample essays online to gain a better understanding of what essay mechanics will work and which you can leave unused. This extra reading may also give you good human rights essay ideas to begin writing your paper!

However, remember that plagiarism is a punishable offense, unlike the simple act of becoming inspired by others’ work. Want to see some samples? Head over to IvyPanda and jump-start your paper!

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What Effect Has the Human Rights Act 1998 Had on UK Law?
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Impact of Economic Liberalization on Human Rights?
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Should Nature Have Constitutionally Protected Rights Equal to Human Rights?
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Human Rights Essay, with Outline

Published by gudwriter on January 4, 2021 January 4, 2021

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Human Rights Sample Essay Outline

Introduction.

Thesis: Human rights guarantee equal treatment of all people irrespective of their color, gender, religion or nationality.

Paragraph 1:

Every human being is entitled to all human rights upon their conception.

All persons are entitled to their human rights without discrimination.
Universal human rights under the international law dictate the responsibilities of state governments and list the practices that they should cease from to promote rights and freedoms of their people.
Human rights are unchallengeable.
Human rights violation such as human trafficking are severely punished.

Paragraph 2:

In the U.S., the Constitution protects human rights through the 9th Amendment.

The amendment states that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The “certain rights” here are those that are taken care of or protected through other amendments in the Bill of Rights.

Paragraph 3:

Human rights are symbiotic and inseparable.

Human rights are interdependent.
Improvement of one human right translates to development of all, and deprivation one is a deprivation of all.

Paragraph 4:

Human rights facilitate peaceful living for all individuals.

Human rights are not for the oppressed but all individuals.
Human rights protect individuals in their day to day activities.
Freedom of expression gives ordinary people the power to condemn acts of the powerful as well as oppose abuse of power by state governments.

Paragraph 5:

Human rights came to be universally accepted after World War II.

Sources of human rights include Magna Carta 1215 , the United States Constitution and bill of rights in 1791, and the French declaration of human rights in 1789.
United Nations played a significant role in the establishment of the international laws, which enforce human rights.

Paragraph 6:

The League of Nations first raised concern over abuse of human rights after the First World War.

The push for human rights bore fruits after the World War II when the Nazis killed more than 6million Jews, disabled people, and homosexuals.
State governments formed the United Nations to help prevent interstate conflicts and promote peace.

Paragraph 7:

In 1941, President Franklin Delano in his speech to the United Nations Congress mentioned the need for established of four central freedoms, which were freedom of religion, expression, and freedom from fear and want.

In 1945 the United Nations Charter was drafted.
A commission on human rights was formed to come up with a document containing a declaration of all human rights.
A restatement of the thesis statement
A summary of the main points
A take-away statement made based on presented facts or information

Human rights essay – informative essay about human rights, history, what it is, etc.

A Sample Essay on Human Rights

The world is made up of people with different characters. People are divided into the three social classes: the rich, the middle class, and the poor. There are people who hold positions of power and leadership while others are ruled or governed. In spite of these differences, all human beings are equal and should be treated equally. However, there some people, particularly those in positions of power, who may use their influence to mistreat others. Human rights exist to prevent those in power and ordinary people from abusing others. In this regard, human rights guarantee equal treatment of all people irrespective of their color, gender, religion, or nationality.

Every human being regardless of their gender, color, nationality, and religion are born with their rights. All persons are entitled to their human rights without discrimination (Hoffman, 2016). Laws and treaties enforce human rights, and the universal law on human rights ensures that no person or government abuses the rights of another human being (Hoffman, 2016). Universal human rights under the international law dictate the responsibilities of governments and list the practices that they should cease from in order to promote the rights and freedoms of their people. The international law provides that human rights are collective and unchallengeable (Hoffman, 2016). All countries from around the world have approved at least one or more of the four universal treaties of human rights.

In the United States for example, the Constitution protects human rights through the 9th Amendment. This amendment states that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” (Schmitt, 2010). The “certain rights” here are those that are taken care of or protected through other amendments in the Bill of Rights. However, there are also “others retained by the people,” and they include all other human rights that should be naturally enjoyed by a free people. A good example of these other rights are “the “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” identified by the Declaration of Independence” (Schmitt, 2010). They additionally include such natural rights as the right to defense of family and self, property, privacy, thought, communication, work, travel, education, and free association. In other terms, they are intensive rights that all human beings should inherently enjoy.

Human rights are symbiotic and inseparable. According to the international law, all human rights are dependent on each other. No person should be deprived of their social, civil, political, or economic rights. The right to life, right to equality, right to work, freedom of expression, and other rights are inseparable. Improvement of one of these rights translates to the development of all, and deprivation of one culminates in deprivation of all (Carrim, 2007). The fundamental purpose of this interrelation among all human rights is to ensure they are one so that governments or individuals will not improve some rights while depriving others. Thus, an abuse of a single human freedom is an abuse of all human rights.

Further, human rights facilitate peaceful living for all human beings. Most people believe that human rights are meant to emancipate the oppressed from oppression, but in the real sense, they apply to everyone (Hoffman, 2016). The rights protect individuals in their day to day activities. Without them, it would be impossible to express oneself, but due to the freedom of expression, everyone can speak up their minds (Hoffman, 2016). Freedom of speech gives ordinary people the power to condemn acts of the powerful as well as oppose abuse of power by state governments (Hoffman, 2016). In this regard, human rights empower ordinary people to the point that they can negotiate with those in power. It is through these rights that people have access to education, family life, and private life.

Noteworthy, human rights came to be universally accepted after the Second World War (Swimelar, 2009). Before then, people had no rights, and they got their freedoms from joining a family, religious organizations, and national groups. There are several materials that serve as the source of human rights and they include Magna Carta 1215, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights of 1791, and the French declaration of human rights of 1789 (McFarland, 2017). The formation of the United Nations played a significant role in the establishment of the international laws which enforce human rights. Slavery also contributed to the formulation of some human rights. In the year 1919, in efforts to put a stop to slavery, countries formed the International Labor Organization, which was meant to protect workers from harassment and guarantee their safety.

The League of Nations first raised concern over the abuse of human rights after the First World War. The countries involved were concerned about the sufferings that some minority groups had been subjected to. However, the efforts of the countries bore no fruits because the United States failed to join. The push for human rights arose again after the Second World War when the Nazis killed more than 6million Jews, disabled people, and gays (McFarland, 2017). The whole world was horrified by such high levels of cruelty. Some leaders from the defeated nations were tried in Tokyo and Nurnberg for committing crimes against humanity (McFarland, 2017). Governments across the world then decided to form the United Nations (UN), which would help prevent interstate conflicts and promote peace.

In 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his speech to the United Nations Congress mentioned the need for the establishment of four central freedoms, which were freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom from fear, and freedom from want (McFarland, 2017). Other countries called for the declaration of standard human rights to protect ordinary people living within the borders of their nations from war. Due to these calls, the United Nations Charter was drafted in the year 1945 (McFarland, 2017). Members of the organization affirmed their commitment towards promoting reverence for human rights for all people. In efforts to support this move, the UN formed a commission on human rights, which was then given the responsibility to come up with a document listing all the reasons discussed in the 1945 Charter.

Human rights came into existence to protect the weak and oppressed from mistreatment by those in power. Human rights assure all people of fair treatment as all individuals are equal irrespective of their color, sex, religion, or social class. The Second World War marked the peak for the push for human rights. The act of Nazis of killing more than 6million innocent people made the world see the need for the official declaration of human rights. It was among the major events that made the world realize the need for universal human rights, which are today enjoyed by billions of people across the world.

Carrim, N. H. (2007). Human rights and the construction of identities in South African education (Doctoral dissertation).

Hoffmann, S. L. (2016). Human rights and history. Past & Present , 232 (1), 279-310.

McFarland, S. (2017). The universal declaration of human rights: a tribute to its architects. Public Integrity , 19 (2), 108-122.

Schmitt, H. H. (2010). “Natural rights and the 9th amendment”. America’s Uncommon Sense . Retrieved May 12, 2020 from https://www.americasuncommonsense.com/2010/09/natural-rights-and-the-9th-amendment/

Swimelar, S. (2009). International human rights: a comprehensive introduction. Human Rights Quarterly , 31 (3), 821-826.

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Human Rights Essay in english for Children and Students

Table of Contents

Human Rights Essay: Human Rights are basically the rights that every person has by virtue of being a human being. These are protected as legal rights ranging from municipal to international law. Human rights are universal. This is to say that these are applicable everywhere and at every time. Human rights are said to be a set of norms that portray certain standards of human behaviour. Protected as legal rights in municipal as well as international law, these rights are known to be incontrovertible fundamental rights that a person is entitled to just because he or she is a human being.

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Long and Short Essay on Human Rights in English

Here are essays on Human Rights of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exams/school assignments. You can choose any Human Rights essay as per your need and requirement:

Human Rights Essay 1 (200 words)

Human rights are a set of rights that are given to every human being regardless of his/her gender, caste, creed, religion, nation, location or economic status. These are said to be moral principles that illustrate certain standards of human behavior. Protected by law, these rights are applicable everywhere and at every time.

Basic human rights include the right to life, right to fair trial, right to remedy by competent tribunal, right to liberty and personal security, right to own property, right to education, right of peaceful assembly and association, right to marriage and family, right to nationality and freedom to change it, freedom of speech, freedom from discrimination, freedom from slavery, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of movement, right of opinion and information, right to adequate living standard and freedom from interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence.

While these rights are protected by law, many of these are still violated by people for different reasons. Some of these rights are even violated by the state. The United Nations committees have been formed in order to ensure that every individual enjoys these basic rights. Governments of different countries and many non-government organizations have also been formed to monitor and protect these rights.

Human Rights Essay 2 (300 words)

Human rights are norms that illustrate certain standards of human behaviour. These are fundamental rights to which every individual is inherently entitled just because he or she is a human being. These rights are protected by law. Here is a look at some of the basic human rights:

Right to Life

Every individual has the inherent right to live. Every human being has the right of not being killed by another person.

Right to Fair Trial

Every person has the right to fair trial by an impartial court. This includes the right to be heard within a reasonable time, right to public hearing and right to counsel.

Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion

Every person has the freedom of thought and conscience. He/she also has the freedom to choose his/her religion and is also free to change it at any time.

Freedom from Slavery

Slavery and slave trade is prohibited. However, these are still practised illegally in some parts of the world.

Freedom from Torture

Torture is prohibited under the international law. Every person has freedom from torture.

Other universal human rights include right to liberty and personal security, freedom of speech, right to remedy by competent tribunal, freedom from discrimination, right to nationality and freedom to change it, right to marriage and family, freedom of movement, right to own property, right to education, right of peaceful assembly and association, freedom from interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence, right to participate in government and in free elections, right of opinion and information, right to adequate living standard, right to social security and right to social order that articulates this document.

Though protected by law, many of these rights are violated by people and even by the state. However, many organizations have been formed to monitor the violation of human rights. These organizations take steps to protect these rights.

Human Rights Essay 3 (400 words)

Human rights are those rights that every person on this earth is entitled to merely on account of being a human being. These rights are universal and are protected by law. The idea of human rights and liberty has existed since centuries. However, it has evolved over the period of time. Here is a detailed look at the concept of human rights.

Universal Human Rights

Human rights include basic rights that are given to every human being regardless of his caste, creed, religion, gender or nationality. Here is a look at the universal human rights:

Right to Life, Liberty and Personal Security
Right to Equality
Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal
Right to Recognition as a Person before law
Freedom from Discrimination
Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile
Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty
Right to Fair Public Hearing
Freedom of Movement
Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
Right to Asylum in Other Countries from Persecution
Right to Nationality and Freedom to Change it
Right to Marriage and Family
Right to Education
Right to Own Property
Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections
Freedom of Belief and Religion
Freedom of Opinion and Information
Right to Adequate Living Standard
Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community
Right to Social Security
Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions
Right to Rest and Leisure
Right to Social Order that Articulates this Document
Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the Above Rights

Violation of Human Rights

Though human rights are protected by various laws, these are still violated by people, groups and even by the state at times. For instance, freedom from torture is often violated by the state during interrogations. Similarly, freedom from slavery is said to be a basic human right. However, slavery and slave trade is still carried out illegally. Many institutions have been formed to monitor human right abuses. Governments and certain non-government organizations also keep a check on these.

Every individual deserves to enjoy the basic human rights. At times, some of these rights are denied or abused by the state. Government is taking measures to monitor these abuses with help from certain non-government organizations.

Human Rights Essay 4 (500 words)

Human rights are said to be universal rights that every person is entitled to regardless of his/her gender, caste, creed, religion, culture, social/ economic status or location. These are norms that depict certain standards of human behaviour and are protected by law.

Basic Human Rights

Human rights have been divided into two broad categories. These are the civil and political rights, and the social rights that also include the economic and cultural rights. Here is a detailed look at the basic human rights given to every individual:

Every human being on earth has the right to live. Each individual has the right of not being killed by anyone and this right is protected by the law. However, this right is subject to issues such as death penalty, self defence, abortion, euthanasia and war.

Freedom of Speech

Every human being has the right to speak freely and voice his opinions in public. However, this right comes with certain limitations such as obscenity, slur and crime provocation.

Every state gives its citizens the right to think freely and form conscientious beliefs. An individual also has the right to follow any religion of his choice and change it as per his free will at any point in time.

Under this right every individual has the right to fair trial by impartial court, right to be heard within reasonable time, right to counsel, right to public hearing and right to interpretation.

As per the international law, every individual has the right to freedom from torture. This has been prohibited since the mid 20 th century.

This means that every individual has the right to travel, live, work or study in any part of the state he resides in.

As per this right, slavery and slave trades are prohibited in every form. However, unfortunately these ill practices still go on illegally.

While every human being is entitled to human rights, these rights are often violated. The violation of these rights occurs when actions by state ignore, deny or abuse these rights.

The United Nations committees are set up to keep a check on human rights abuses. Many national institutions, non-governmental organizations and governments also monitor these to ensure that individuals are not denied of their basic rights.

These organizations work towards spreading awareness about the human rights so that people are well informed about the rights they have. They also protest against inhumane practices. These protests have led to calls for action many a times and eventually improved the situation.

Human rights are the basic rights given to every individual. Known to be universal, these rights are guarded by the law. However, unfortunately many a times these are violated by states, individuals or groups. It is almost inhuman to deprive a person of these basic rights. This is the reason why many organizations have been established to guard these rights.

Human Rights Essay 5 (600 words)

Human rights are said to be incontrovertible rights that every person on earth is entitled to just because he/ she is a human being. These rights are inherent in every human being irrespective of his/her gender, culture, religion, nation, location, caste, creed or economic status. The idea of human rights has been there for much of the human history. However, the concept differed in the earlier times. Here is a detailed look at this concept.

Classification of Human Rights

Human rights have broadly been classified into two categorizes at the international level: civil and political rights, and social rights that include economic and cultural rights.

Civil and Political Rights

Also known as classic rights, these limit the government’s power in respect of actions impacting individual’s autonomy. It grants people the chance to contribute in the participation of government and determination of laws.

Social Rights

These rights direct the government to act in a positive and interventionist way in order to devise conditions required for human life and development. Government of each country is expected to ensure the well-being of all its citizens. Every individual has the right to social security.

Here is a look at the basic human rights for every individual:

Every human being has the right to life. This right is protected by law. Every person is entitled to the right of not being killed by another person. This right is, however, subject to the issues of self defence, capital punishment, abortion, war and euthanasia. As per human rights activists, death penalty violates the right to life.

Every individual has the freedom of thought and conscience. He/she can think freely and hold conscientious beliefs. A person also has the freedom to choose and change his religion at any point in time.

This means that a citizen of a state has the right to travel, reside, work or study in any part of that state. However, this should be within the respect for rights of others.

Torture is prohibited under the international law since the mid-20 th century. Even though torture is considered to be immoral, organizations that monitor violation of human rights report that states use this extensively for interrogation and punishment. Many individuals and groups also inflict torture on others for different reasons.

Every individual has the right to fair trial by a competent and impartial court. This right also includes the right to be heard within reasonable time, right to public hearing, right to counsel and right to interpretation. This right has been defined in various regional and international human rights instruments.

As per this right, no one shall be held in slavery. Slavery and slave trades are said to be prohibited in all forms. However, despite this slave trade still goes on in many parts of the world. Many social groups are working to curb the issue.

Every individual has the right to speak freely and express his opinion. This is sometimes also referred to as the freedom of expression. However, this right is not given in absolute in any country. It is usually subject to certain limitations such as obscenity, defamation and provocation for violence or crime, etc.

Human Rights, the basic rights given to individuals on the account of them being human beings, are almost the same everywhere. Every country grants these rights irrespective of an individual’s caste, creed, colour, gender, culture and economic or social status. However, at times these are violated by individuals, groups or the state itself. So, people need to stay on their guard against any violation of human rights.

Other Helpful Resources on Human Rights

Introduction to Human Rights - Essay Example

Subject: History
Type: Essay
Level: Undergraduate
Pages: 2 (500 words)
Downloads: 7
Author: smithfilomena

Extract of sample "Introduction to Human Rights"

Introduction to Human Rights Introduction The issue of human rights plays a crucial role in the modern international context. A well-balanced human rights protection of countries and their attitude to this issue in the modern global world guarantee successful cooperation of different countries in the international arena. Human rights are an internationally recognized standard, which refers to personal needs. “Human rights do not require a comprehensive political framework for their implementation; their protection is compatible with the multiplicity of governance, including democratic state government, characteristic of global politics.

Finally, human rights articulate aims rather than mechanisms” (Goodhart, 2008). It is relevant to focus on modern approaches and methodologies applied in the field of human rights by modern researchers and scientists in order to assess a current position of the issue in the international relations. Human rights in the international relations: a modern view In the book “Human Rights in International Relations” (2009) by David Forsythe the issue of the importance of human rights in the international context is discussed.

In the beginning of the book the author underlines the importance of liberalism. Individual and political rights should be developed harmoniously in liberal democracies. Human rights issues are widely violated and the creation of international committees and courts, where human rights are defended, - all these steps do not guarantee appropriate individual defense on the international level. Moreover, it is underlined that liberal principles are on the way of their development and it needs time, material resources, political and social reforms all over the world in order to pay a special attention and a real assistance for human rights protection.

After a brief introduction into human rights protection internationally the author makes an attempt to find the roots of human rights in philosophy. Philosophical background of human rights is a starting point for further discussion about the importance of human rights in the international relations. A peaceful and friendly global society is reached in case human rights are protected. The International Bill of Rights and UN attitude to human rights protection is a focal point for contemporaries to initiate further developments and improve this political and social crucial issue.

There is a direct relation between human rights protection and democracy. It is claimed that in case of hegemonic regime human rights are violated. Thus, the book by Forsythe is a multifaceted work devoted to the origin, history and development of human rights as a concept and as a political and social phenomenon in the world. Another book written by Jack Donnelly “International Human Rights” (2007) is focused on the issue of human rights and its origin. The main attention is paid to post WWII period and it is correlated with the modern challenges of human rights with regards to globalization and terrorism.

New players in the international arena, such as UN and NGO are positioned by the author as parties able to influence on the human rights position in the modern world. Moreover, the author’s manner to compare and contrast past years (post war period) and modernity is an interesting methodology, which is based on case studies of countries, where human rights are violated. A success of the modern society the author finds in the human rights’ observance. The Universality of Human Rights is a relevant view on the human rights issue in the modern globalized society.

On the one hand, it is relevant to take into account the needs of different countries in the field of human rights, but on the other hand globalized society is a uniform integrated organism, where is necessary to pay attention to rights protection of the actors (i.e. to human rights protection). Conclusion As far as we can see, in the modern world a special attention is paid to human rights protection. The issue of human right protection is very important. In order to develop and improve this field, previous experience of different countries, philosophical ideas and correlation with historical events are taken into account.

As a result, we can see a real progress in the field of human rights protection and international community attention to the issue. Works cited 1. Donnelly, Jack. International Human Rights. 3rd. edition. Westview Press, 2007. 2. Forsythe, David. Human Rights in International Relations. 2nd. Edition. Cambridge, 2009. 3. Goodhart, M. Human Rights and Global Democracy. Ethics & International Affairs, 2008: 22 (4), 395 - 400.

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PDF Human Rights: A Brief Introduction
the concept of human rights, this essay will examine the tensions between human rights and state sovereignty, the challenges to the universality of human rights, the enumeration of rights recognized by the international community, and the means available to translate the high aspirations of human rights into practice. II.
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500+ Words Essay on Human Rights. Human rights are a set of rights which every human is entitled to. Every human being is inherited with these rights no matter what caste, creed, gender, the economic status they belong to. Human rights are very important for making sure that all humans get treated equally. They are in fact essential for a good ...
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Human rights can broadly be defined as a number of basic rights that people from around the world have agreed are essential. These include the right to life, the right to a fair trial, freedom from torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the rights to health, education and an adequate standard ...
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To excel at writing human rights essays, follow these 10 tips: 1. Choose a topic you are passionate about. First and foremost, you need to find a topic you are truly passionate about. Human rights are such a broad field of study and can be linked to nearly any other subject - from history and anthropology to technology and medicine.
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(PDF) Human Rights: A Brief Introduction
Lynn Hunt, in an essay on "The Trade, founded in 1783. The valuation of Revolutionary Origins of Human Rights," every individual through natural rights was a affirms that: break with the earlier determination of rights and duties on the basis of hierarchy and Most debates about rights originated in status.
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Human Rights Essay 3 (400 words) Human rights are those rights that every person on this earth is entitled to merely on account of being a human being. These rights are universal and are protected by law. The idea of human rights and liberty has existed since centuries. However, it has evolved over the period of time.
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10 Tips for Writing a Human Rights Essay

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The complex origins, development, and meanings of human rights

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