Human Rights

Convention Names, Generational rights, more in depth details

What is the convention/treaty for children’s rights?

Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

ICESCR stands for?

International Covenant of Economics, Social and Cultural Rights

ICCPR?

International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights

What is the convention/treaty for indigenous peoples’ rights?

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

What is the convention/treaty for workers’ rights?

International Labour Organization (ILO)

What is the convention/treaty for womens’ rights?

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

1st Generation Rights

Negative liberty

Kings lose their absolute power → they’re subjected to rule and law

• Civil and political rights protect individuals’ liberty from the state e.g life, liberty and property, freedom from torture, freedom of thought

• Developed as early as 1251

• Mainly negative rights (article 3-21 of the UDHR) → led to ICCPR

• The west mainly focus on this more

2nd Generation Rights

Positive liberty

Focuses on providing equal opportunities for people in terms of economic, social and cultural aspects e.g free education, right to adequate standard of living, adequate rest leisure

• Mainly positive rights article 22-27 of the UDHR → led to ICESCR

• It isn’t widely recognised, the ICESCR itself states that the realization of these rights only needs to be gradual

3rd Generation Rights

community / solidarity rights

applies more to society e.g right to self-determination, right to healthy environment, right to development → economically, socially, 

^ not found in the UDHR but can be found in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights

Right to development example: poor countries are bound to trade their materials to richer countries without enough attention to develop theirs (neo-colonialism), debt-trap diplomacy

^ developing countries can take advantage of 3rd generation rights to violate labor laws

• 3rd generation of rights are the least popular since it’s newer than the 1st generation

• Not widely recognized, against corporations, people who need power

Why not put everything into one treaty? (ICCPR and ICESCR)

People disagreed about the importance of the rights. Many states do not see the rights as equally important, even though human rights are supposed to be indivisible.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

declaration = not binding but its contents is already a key part of international law that states follow

Which states did not ratify ICESCR/ICCPR?

• ICCPR was not ratified in China.

• ICESCR was not ratified in USA → principle of progressive realization slowly implementing in the state

  • Malaysia didn’t ratify ICESCR (wanting to treat chinese malays as second class citizens)

  • Singapore didn’t ratify because of death penalty, allows media censorship

  • Saudi arabia requires to be muslim, death penalty

Capital Punishment

aka death penalty

right to life (UDHR article 3)

Remember in the exam to write: “Everyone has the right to life according to Article 3 of the UDHR and Article 6 of the ICCPR. The right to life means that nobody, including the government, can try to end your life.” —

Racial Discrimination rights?

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

Rights for migrant workers

International Convention of the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CPRAWMTF/CMW)