INTERNATIONAL STATUS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Modern international human
rights movement emerged out of the ashes of the World War II during which
Allies declared that the purpose of victory was to defend liberty, religious
freedom, and preserve human rights and justice. Following the horrific
experiences of the Holocaust and World War II, and amid the grinding poverty of
much of the world's population, people sought to create a mechanism that would
capture the hopes, aspirations, and protections to which every person in the
world was entitled and ensure that the future of humankind would be different.
The most important factor that has contributed to current
prominence of human rights issues was readiness of international community to
address some of the most critical problems that faced the world after World War
II. Governments of large number of countries committed themselves to
establishing the United Nations, with the primary goal of bolstering
international peace and preventing conflict. People wanted to ensure that never
again would anyone be unjustly denied life, freedom, food, shelter, and nationality.
The calls came from across the globe for human rights standards to protect
citizens from abuses by their governments, standards against which nations
could be held accountable for the treatment of those living within their
borders. These voices played a critical role in the San Francisco meeting that
drafted the United Nations Charter in 1945. Member states of the United Nations
pledged to promote respect for the human rights of all. To advance this goal,
the UN established a Commission on Human Rights and charged it with the task of
drafting a document spelling out the meaning of the fundamental rights and
freedoms proclaimed in the Charter.
On December 10, 1948 the 56 members of the United Nations adopted
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has
become the most important international source of human rights. The 30 articles
of the Declaration together form a comprehensive statement covering economic, social,
cultural, political, and civil rights. The document is both universal (it
applies to all people everywhere) and indivisible (all rights are equally
important to the full realization of one's humanity). The Declaration, however,
is not a treaty and lacks any enforcement provisions. Rather it is a statement
of intent, a set of principles to which United Nations member states commit
themselves in an effort to provide all people a life of human dignity.
The Declaration was intended to become a common standard of
achievement for all people and all nations. In this document, human rights were
envisioned to be as central to life as food, water, air and shelter. People
were no longer to be denied the right to life, liberty and security, nor to
freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Over the years the Declaration has
acquired the status of customary international law because most states treat it
as though it were law. However, governments have not applied this customary law
equally.
Among other international documents, the most important are International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights both adopted
in 1966, and came into force in 1976. Neither of these two covenants was
intended to break new ground so much as to reinforce the terms of the original
Declaration. Along with Universal Declaration these two documents constitute
International Bill of Rights.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights details the
basic civil and political rights of individuals and nations. Among the rights
of nations are: the right to self determination, the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence. Among the
rights of individuals are: the right to legal recourse when their
rights have been violated, even if the violator was acting in an official capacity, the right to life, the right to liberty and freedom of movement, the right to equality before the law, the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the right to appeal a conviction, the right to be recognized as a person before the law, the right to privacy and protection of that privacy by law, freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of assembly and association.
The covenant forbids torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, slavery or involuntary servitude, arbitrary arrest and detention, and debtor's prisons. It forbids propaganda advocating either war or hatred based on race, religion, national origin, or language.
It provides for the right of people to choose freely whom they will marry and to found a family, and requires that the duties and obligations of marriage and
family be shared equally between partners. It guarantees
the rights of children and prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, color, national
origin, or language
It also restricts the death penalty to the most
serious of crimes, guarantees condemned people the
right to appeal for commutation to a lesser penalty, and forbids the death penalty entirely for people under 18 years
of age.
The covenant permits governments to temporarily suspend some of
these rights in cases of civil emergency only, and lists
those rights which cannot be suspended for any reason. It also establishes the UN Human Rights Commission.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights describes the
basic economic, social, and cultural rights of individuals and nations,
including the right to: self-determination, wages sufficient to support a minimum standard of
living, equal pay for equal work, equal opportunity for advancement, form trade unions, strike, paid or otherwise compensated maternity leave, free primary education, and accessible education at all levels, copyright, patent, and trademark protection for
intellectual property. In addition, this convention forbids
exploitation of children, and requires
all nations to cooperate to end world hunger.
Each signatory nation that has agreed to ratify this covenant was
required to submit annual reports on its progress in providing for these rights
to the Secretary General, who is to transmit them to the Economic and Social
Council.
The fourth major international document is the Vienna Declaration of the World
Conference on Human Rights, 1993. This document seeks to
provide a comprehensive statement of the subject. It is 46 pages long and
contains 39 articles in the introductory declaration, plus 100 more on
coordination within the UN system, and on equality, dignity, and tolerance,
cooperation and development of human rights, education, and implementation and
monitoring of progress in their fulfillment. Ratification of documents
mentioned above has led to significant improvement in human rights conditions.
Second important political factor that has contributed to current
prominence of human rights issues was the end of the Cold War. The Cold War (c. 1945-1990)
was the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between groups of nations practicing
different ideologies and political systems. On one side were the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and its allies, often referred
to as the Eastern bloc. On
the other side were the United States and its
allies, usually referred to as the Western bloc. The struggle was called the Cold
War because it did not actually lead to fighting, or "hot" war,
on a wide scale. The term was first used by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947.
However, there were real wars,
sometimes called "proxy wars" because they were fought by Soviet and
American allies rather than the superpowers themselves -- along with
competition for influence in the Third World, and a major superpower arms race.
The Cold War was characterized by mutual distrust, suspicion, and
misunderstandings by both the United States and the Soviet Union, and their
allies. At times, these conditions increased the likelihood of a third world
war. The United States accused the Soviet Union of seeking to expand its
version of Communism throughout the world. The Soviets, meanwhile, charged the
United States with practicing imperialism and with attempting to stop
revolutionary activity in other countries.
The Cold War continued from the end of World War II until the breakup of the
Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
The Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan were some of the occasions when the tension between those
two ideologies took the form of an armed conflict, but much of it was conducted
by or against surrogates and through spies and traitors who were working
undercover. In those conflicts, the major powers operated in good part by
arming or funding surrogates. Their major focus was to maintain and expand
zones of influence. Consequently, they paid very little or almost no attention
to human rights conditions in countries under domination. The end of the Cold
War resulted in sharp decline in superpowers' involvement in
international and regional conflicts, which resulted, among other things, in significant political changes in number
of most abusive countries and the acceleration of international dialogue on
human rights.
Third factor that has played a very important role in promoting the role of human rights internationally has been the emergence of human rights movement and growth of human rights organizations. In 1961 a group of lawyers, journalists, writers, and others, offended and frustrated by the sentencing of two Portuguese college students to twenty years in prison for having raised their glasses in a toast to "freedom" in a bar, formed Appeal for Amnesty, 1961. The appeal was announced on May 28 in the London Observer's Sunday Supplement. The appeal told the stories of six "prisoners of conscience" from different countries and of different political and religious backgrounds, all jailed for peacefully expressing their political or religious beliefs, and called on governments everywhere to free such prisoners. It set forth a simple plan of action, calling for strictly impartial, non-partisan appeals to be made on behalf of these prisoners and any who, like them, had been imprisoned for peacefully expressed beliefs.
The response to this appeal was larger than anyone had expected. The one-year appeal grew, was extended beyond the year, which gave new strength and dimensions to the human rights movement. This movement didn't invent any new principles. However, It was different from what preceded it primarily in its explicit rejection of political ideology and partisanship, and its demand that governments everywhere, regardless of ideology, adhere to certain basic principles of human rights in their treatment of their citizens.
This appealed to a large group of
people, many of whom were politically inactive, not interested in joining a
political movement, not ideologically motivated, and didn't care about creating
"the perfect society" or perfect government. They were simply
outraged that any government dared abuse, imprison, torture, and often kill
human beings whose only crime was in believing differently from their
government and saying so in public. They (naively, according to many
detractors) took to writing letters to governments and publicizing the plights
of these people in hopes of persuading or embarrassing abusive governments into
better behavior.
Like the early years of many
movements, the early years of the modern human rights movement were rocky.
"Appeal for Amnesty, 1961" had only the most rudimentary
organization. The modern organization named Amnesty International gained the
structure it has mostly by learning from mistakes. Early staff members operated
with no oversight, and money was wasted. This led to establishing strict
financial accountability. Early staff members and volunteers got involved in
partisan politics while working on human rights violations in their own
countries. This led to the principle that AI members were not, as a matter of
practice, asked or permitted to work on cases in their country. Early campaigns
failed because Amnesty was misinformed about certain prisoners. This led to the
establishment of a formidable research section and the process of
"adoption" of prisoners of conscience only after a thorough
investigation phase.
Over the years other human rights
groups emerged. Among them were groups which later merged to form Human Rights
Watch, the first of them being Helsinki Watch in 1978. Regional human rights
watchdog groups often operated under extremely difficult conditions, especially
those in the Soviet Block. Helsinki Watch, which later merged with other groups
to form Human Rights Watch, started as a few Russian activists who formed to
monitor the Soviet Union's compliance with the human rights provisions in the
Helsinki accords. Many of its members were arrested shortly after it was formed
and had little chance to be active.
Other regional groups formed after
military takeovers in Chile in 1973, in East Timor in 1975, in Argentina in
1976, and after the Chinese Democracy Wall Movement in 1979.
Although there were differences in
philosophy, focus, and tactics between the groups, for the most part they
remained on speaking terms, and a number of human rights activists belonged to
more than one.
Recognition for the human rights
movement, and Amnesty International in particular, grew during the 1970s.
Amnesty gained permanent observer status as an NGO at the United Nations. Its
reports became mandatory reading in legislatures, state departments and foreign
ministries around the world. Its press releases received respectful attention,
even when its recommendations were ignored by the governments involved. In 1977
it was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for its work.
Today, all
states have accepted the idea of human rights in some form. The concept of
human rights has been incorporated in virtually all national constitutions. Needless to say,
universal political and legal acceptance does not guarantee equal respect for
human rights.
Unfortunately,
the international community cannot take pride in its global human rights
record. The struggle for the universal application and promotion of the
principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international
human rights documents is far from over. While the issue of human rights and
the need for governments to respect them are now more present than ever, the
continuing abuses in many parts of the world (Afghanistan, Burundi, Cambodia,
Cuba, Former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Rwanda, Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, Zaire)
demonstrate that universal acceptance of the idea of human rights has not been
achieved.
The world
continues to encounter formidable challenges including widespread poverty and
famine, underdevelopment, inadequate health care and education systems,
millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, violence against women
and children, racial discrimination, summary executions and torture, all
illustrative of the obstacles still to be overcome. No country's human rights
record is perfect. Improvements are both possible and necessary in every part
of the globe. Yet, there is a sound basis for hope. Governments and non-governmental
organizations, regional and international organizations are joining their
efforts in advocacy of human rights.
Learn more about international perspective on human rights by
visiting the following Web sites:
Background
Information on Countries of the World
State
Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Human Rights Reports in the UN
System
United Nations Documents on Human
Rights
International Human
Rights Documents by Topic
International Human Rights Organizations
The UN's Record in the
Field of Human Rights
