What are Human Rights?

A view of participants during the 32nd session of the United Nations Human
Rights Council in Geneva on July 1^st, 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.