HUMAN RIGHTS

What are Human Rights?

Human beings are all different, of course. Some are stronger than others some have dark skin, some have light skin; there are different religions they belive in; there are man and women, adults and children. But however we are, surley none of us should be treated unfairly or cruelly?

To protect all of these different creatures we have got human rights.

Legal, Moral and Human rights

A right entitles us to have or to do certain things. Rights can be divided into three main groups: the legal, moral and human rights.

Legal Rights

Legal Rights are rights laid down in laws. For that reason, legal rights are the most solid of all rights, because they can be defended in a national court of law. Most, but not all, legal rights are written down. The basic legal law in some countries is a written constitution or bill of rights (like Germany or the United States of America). In these documents the countries have written down what citizens are allowed to do. British law works the other way round (like everything). There is nothing like a basic law guaranteeing people's rights. In Britain people have the right to do everything, unless a law is forbidding it.

Moral Rights

In contrast to legal rights, moral rights are not facts, but are based on general principles of fairness and justice. A moral right may or may not be supported by the law of the land. Some of the moral rights are claimed by people in particular situations. They are not rights that can be claimed by all peoples in all situations. What the law lays down can sometimes conflict with what people see as their moral rights.

Human Rights

Human rights apply to all people at all times in all situations, so they are universal moral rights. By definition, human rights are not earned, bought or inherented. Human rights are possessed by everybody in the world because they are human. People are equally entitled to them regardless of their gender, race, colour, language, national origin, age class or religious creed.

Some human rights are more important than others. The right to life is the most basic of all, without it all other rights are in danger. Freedom of speech or the right to rest and leisure, for instance, count for very little if our right to life is not guaranteed. So the less important rights of one person must end where the basic rights of another person begin.

American Declaration of Independence and Universal Declaration of Human Rights

When American colonies became independent of Britain they issued a Declaration if Independence. This stated that `all men are created equal´ and have certain rights, including `life, liberty, and the pursiute of happiness´. A few years later another ten articles where added and they called it `The Bill of Rights´.

This was the foundation for the American Declaration of Independence. I want to give you a quotation from the American Declaration of Independence now:

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'

Many of the major problems we face today require international co-operation, so we need international commissions, conferences and organisations to solve these problems.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of these international operations. Spurred on the bloodshed and horror of the Second World War, the nations planned the details of an international organisation, the United Nations, which would work for a better and more peaceful future. A United Nations Charter, defining the purposes, principles, methods and structures of the new organisation, was signed by fifty nations in 1945.

Because of the inhumanity in the Second World War, the international protection of human rights was seen as one essential precondition of world peace. In 1946, the United Commission on Human Rights was founded to prepare an 'international bill of rights'.

The Commission worked out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948, as 'a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations'.

Before 1948, a person was subjected to the laws of the nation. If those laws violated her or his rights, there was no internationally accepted organisation to help these people. With the Declaration of the Human Rights, the rights of a person are established regardless of what the law of the nation says. So it overrules the national laws.

Human Rights in Danger

Everybody knows about the violation against the human rights in the not "non-civilised" countriesm, like South Africa with their apartheid political system and Latin America, where people are tortured every day. Also in Europe we must see that human rights are in danger. Since 1990, there has been a bloody war in Yugoslavia, where the human rights were abused. Western organisations and nations were not able to stop that war for years. The Western European countries have no clean human-rights record. They did not want to have the refugees in their countries, so they sent them back their home countries where they are persecuted. Also some minorities are not treated equally in the Western countries (like the gypsies in most European countries).

Another force against human rights developed in the last few years, the economical interests. Western firms only work for more profit, without regard for human needs and rights.

Human Rights Organisations

Amnesty International

Amnesty was founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, a Catholic lawyer who had English and Russian parents. Benenson hit upon the idea of working for the release of people imprisoned for their beliefs by means of letter-writing campaigns.

At the end of 1961, Amnesty International groups had been established in twelve countries (ten Western European countries, Australia and the USA). Benenson had also designed the symbol of the organisation, the candle in barbed wire.

Today, Amnesty has over 250,000 members in about 140 countries. The International Secretariat, in London, numbers 150 employees, nearly half of them involved in researching the details in human rights violations. Amnesty groups are strongest and most active in Western Europe.

Amnesty's aims and techniques have changed since its foundation.

Its fundamental concern is to achieve the immediate release of political prisoners.

It also works to ensure that political prisoners are given a fair and prompt trail.

Its third aim is to seek the abolition of the death penalty and the elimination of the use of torture.

The Anti-Slavery Society

Helsinki Watch

Vocabulary