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view of participants during the 32nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on July 1st, 2016. Photo: Human RightsCouncil | FlickrCC. |
Human rights are an important
topic of discussion and action around the world. They are central to many of
the most important movements of the last century and a half, and their
recognition, or dismissal, can have a huge impact on the global political stage.
But what are human rights?
Broadly speaking, human rights
are those rights granted to each and every part of the human family, regardless
of who they are, where they were born, or what they believe.
When people are denied their
human rights, those denying the rights are essentially saying, “These are not
people,” or “These are only people in some cases.” Neither statement is an
acceptable stance.
When people talk about their
human rights, they are generally referring to rights as outlined in the United
Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which was proclaimed on December 10th, 1948 in
Paris.
Although it took some
inspiration from various earlier documents, such as the Constitution of the
United States, or the Rights of Man
by Thomas Paine, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was very much
written in the aftermath of World War II, and it reflects a sadness and anger
at the events of that war, and a desire to prevent such events from occurring
again.
The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights includes things like banning slavery (Article 4) and arbitrary
arrest (Article 9), grants everyone the right to fair trial (Article 10), and
freedom of thought and speech (Article 18), states that none of these rights
grant the right to impinge on anyone else’s rights.
The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights grants these rights, and others, but they are not always upheld. Since
1948 countries around the world have found ways to undermine them or simply
ignore them. This is why people still bring them up in political discussions al
over the world.
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