Human Rights doctrine believes that all people have certain fundamental rights only from the fact that they are human beings. Those rights are universal, egalitarian, inalienable and inviolable. Although Human Rights doctrine originates from liberal British philosophy of XVIII and XIX century the main act which constitutes human rights as the concept which should be considered by all states in the world is Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by United Nations’ General Assembly in 1948. Another important documents are European Convention of Human Rights from 1950 and Convention of the Rights of Child from 1989.
Human rights are usually divided into three generations: civil and political rights (the oldest, which can be found in such documents like Magna Carta from 1215 or American Bill of Rights from 1789), economic, social and cultural rights and third-generation solidarity rights (right to peace, right to clean environment).
Human rights enlisted in the Declaration are among others:
– Right to life
– Freedom from torture
– Freedom from slavery
– Right for a fair trail
– Freedom of speech
– Freedom of thought, conscience
– Freedom of religion
The universal status of Human Rights is often questioned. Many thinks that it’s European concept (historically it’s true) which is not applicable in other cultures (for instance in those in which society comes before individual). I believe Human Rights are functional for all societies (all statistics confirms that in the places were HR are respected the quality of life is higher) the question is only how we understand in different cultures very general often statements and how it should work in practice. The fact is in many countries still are not respected the most basic Human Rights and therefore there is long way for all engaged in HR education to change this situation together with politicians, enterpreneurs etc.
Sources
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
COMPASS: A Manual on Human Rights Education with Young People CoE 2004
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
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mexicoenuvole 