Applied Human Rights Accummulated Important Notes

Without all of their intricacies, what are human rights?

The fundamental rights believed all people should have simply because they are people. Human rights affirm treating people with dignity, respect, and equality.

What are the 4 different types of categories for human rights?

1. Generational categorisation

2. Soft and Hard

3. Positive and Negative

4. Collective vs Individual

What are the 3 different generational categorisations for human rights?

1. 1st generation rights - rights regarding a person and the government

2. 2nd generation rights - rights regarding social equality

3. 3rd generation rights - a category still being debated but which includes things beyond the previous 2, including right to environment, culture, self-determination, and development

What are soft vs hard rights?

Soft rights are rights that we have ideas about but are not necessarily enshrined in law

Hard rights are rights that are enshrined in law

What are collective vs individual rights?

Collective rights are rights that apply to everyone, and no one person can own them. Although everyone has these rights, they also have a responsibility to ensure everyone else can continue to access them as well.

E.g. right to clean air, to infrastructure like highways, etc

What are negative vs positive rights?

Negative rights are rights providing protection against something occurring.

e.g. right to not be tortured

Positive rights are rights providing something we don’t have

e.g. right to food and housing

Which rights are human rights?

Defining human rights can be quite tricky, which is why the Roosevelt committee made the UDHR, which was adopted by the UN in 1948. This is the most widely accepted list of human rights today.

List the very main events that occurred in history to bring human rights to where they are today

1. Throughout ancient philosophy, principles of human rights were taught e.g. Buddha taught about respect for life

2. The Roman Empire produced the idea of natural rights

3. Major religions developing taugh of principles consistent with HR, including justice, love for one another, and tolerance

4. The Magna Carta was signed, placing noone above the law

5. England created their Bill of rights, which outlined representative democracy

6. France created the Declaration of the rights of Man, and of the Citizen, which enshrined freedom and equality

7. The US created their Bill of Rights which enshrined freedom of speech and assembly

8. The UN was created in 1945 in response to the atrocities of WWI and WWII, to prevent these attrocities from ocurring again and improve the quality of life for all people

9. The UDHR was adopted by the UN in 1948

10. Numerous conventions regarding human rights have been formed and adopted by the UN, and ratified by different countries. The UN is limited in its power but functions as best it can to promote and ensure HR in the world.

What are the 2 human nature theories that have been applied to shape human rights as they are today?

1. Functionalism

2. Conflict theories

How has functionalism been linked to human rights?

This is a theory about how society works:

Functionalism sees morality and respect as serving a purpose in society, and that all societal institutions need to work together to ensure human rights can be realised.

How have conflict theories been linked to human rights?

This is a theory about how society works:

Conflict theories see society as being grouped into different groups, e.g. upper, middle and lower class; male and female

It sees that people in these categories have different needs, and each require different thigns to happen to ensure human rights.

E.g. feminist conflict theories see society through the interaction between male and female, with males oppressing females. Consequently, it sees males rights as needing to tone down a bit to ensure women can also all have their human rights.

In all aspects of life, human rights have to give way to another right at some point, e.g. the right to move your body around stops short of hitting someone else, as it is their right to be safe.

What are the 2 human nature theories that pertain to human rights?

1. Essentialist theories

2. Constructivist theories

How do essentialist theories apply to human rights?

This is a theory about the nature of human beings:

It says that all humans have certain ways of doing things built into them. These are ways of doing things that are moral.

Effectively, this is starting to get at natural law, which is a key principle of human rights.

How do constructivist theories apply to human rights?

This is a theory about the nature of human beings:

Is says that everything human beings do is socially constructed through socialisation, and that this is how we learn how to act.

Why is it important to study the history of human rights, and of social oppressions?

When we study the history of something, we can understand why that thing happened, and the effects it had for people. 

This allows us to not only prevent something similar happening, but also have a greater awareness of how things have been in society, which we can use to evaluate where we are today.

What is something that always occurs regarding human rights claims?

Society engages in discourse about what human rights should be, a group come to a consensus, and different members of society fight with each other for these rights to occur.

What are the 4 basic characteristics of human rights?

1. Universality - they apply to all humans no matter what

2. Inherent - they apply as soon as a human is born

3. Inalienability - They cannot be taken away

4. Indivisibility - No one right is more important than the other

What are the different sections of the UN relevant to human rights laws?

1. General assembly - includes every country and is where countries meed to debate recommendations for human rights

2. Secretariat - Adopts and follows up human rights documents

3. Security Council - Attempt to enforce peace

4. ICJ (International Court of Justice) - is a worldwide court where states can go to settle disputes

5. ICC - (International Criminal Court) - is a criminal tribunal used for trials about the most serious breaches of international law, such as genocide

How are human rights enforced?