(2) human rights

When and how did the idea that all humans have innate rights originate?

• slaughter of millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals + disabled people during WW2 provided impetus for global effort to formulate what human rights might be

• the UN was established in 1945 & one of the first concerns of its members was to produce a doc. identifying the fundamental rights + freedoms all humans should have —> Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 1948

  • includes 30 “Articles” eg. Article 5 = no one shall be subjected to torture or inhuman treatment

  • 1998 Human Rights Act made these part of UK domestic law

Why does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights not necessarily provide a worldwide standard against which social harms can be judged, despite the fact that nearly every state in the world has signed up?

• Declaration has been adapted by some countries in order to align with religious beliefs

  • eg. in 1990, member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference issues the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) which argues that Sharia law takes precedence > secular law

  • hence men + women don’t have equal rights to marry >1 person/ divorce their spouse

• Eric Posner (2014): though all gov.s use lang. of human rights, they use it to make radically different arguments about how countries should behave

  • China cites the “right to development” to explain gov.’s priority of economic growth > political liberalisation

  • Putin cited rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine to justify his military interventions

• individual articles subjective eg. does “freedom of expression” enable prejudice?

Who pointed out that though all governments use the language of human rights, they use to to make radically different arguments about how countries should behave?

Eric Posner (2014)

Which act made the Universal Declaration of Human Rights part of UK domestic law?

1998 Human Rights Act