Human Rights

1 What are Human Rights?

To begin with, a quotation from the American Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self - evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

1.1 Legal, Moral and Human rights

A right entitles us to have or to do certain things. Rights can be divided into three main groups: the legal, moral and human rights.

1.1.1 Legal Rights

Legal Rights are rights laid down in laws. For that reason, legal rights are the most solid of all rights, because they can be defended in a national court of law. Most, but not all, legal rights are written down. The basic legal law in some countries is a written constitution or bill of rights (like Germany or the United States of America). In these documents the countries have written down what citizens are allowed to do. British law works the other way round (like everything). There is nothing like a basic law guaranteeing people’s rights. In Britain people have the right to do everything, unless a law is forbidding it.

1.1.2 Moral Rights

In contrast to legal rights, moral rights are not facts, but are based on general principles of fairness and justice. A moral right may or may not be supported by the law of the land. Some of the moral rights are claimed by people in particular situations. They are not rights that can be claimed by all peoples in all situations. What the law lays down can sometimes conflict with what people see as their moral rights.

Human Rights

Human rights apply to all people at all times in all situations, so they are universal moral rights. By definition, human rights are not earned, bought or inherent. Human rights are possessed by everybody in the world because they are human. People are equally entitled to them regardless of their gender, race, colour, language, national origin, age class or religious creed.
Some human rights are more important than others. The right to life is the most basic of all, without it all other rights are in danger. Freedom of speech or the right to rest and leisure, for instance, count for very little if our right to life is not guaranteed. So the less important rights of one person must end where the basic rights of another person begin.

1.1.3.1 Liberty - oriented and Security - Oriented Rights

Liberty - oriented rights (or civil and political rights) are rights concerned with giving individuals freedom of action and choice. They tend to limit the scope of government, because they advance the rights of every individual.
Security - oriented rights (or economic, social and cultural rights) seek to protect people’s physical, material, social and economic well - being. The achievement of security - oriented rights requires governmental intervention and leads to greater interference in the lives of individuals. But the handicap is that it is very difficult to convert them into legal rights.

Through this contrast between liberty - oriented and security - oriented rights, it is very difficult to find a useful middle course.

2 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Many of the major problems we face today require international co - operation, so we need international commissions, conferences and organisations to solve these problems.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of these international operations. Spurred on the bloodshed and horror of the Second World War, the nations planned the details of an international organisation, the United Nations, which would work for a better and more peaceful future. A United Nations Charter, defining the purposes, principles, methods and structures of the new organisation, was signed by fifty nations in 1945.
Because of the inhumanity in the Second World War, the international protection of human rights was seen as one essential precondition of world peace. In 1946, the United Commission on Human Rights was founded to prepare an "international bill of rights".
The Commission worked out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948, as "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations".
Before 1948, a person was subjected to the laws of the nation. If those laws violated her or his rights, there was no internationally accepted organisation to help these people. With the Declaration of the Human Rights, the rights of a person are established regardless of what the law of the nation says. So it overrules the national laws.

2.1 International Covenants on Human Rights

On 16 December 1966, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were adopted by the UN General Assembly. The Universal Declaration and the two Covenants make up the International Bill of Rights.
The two Covenants differ from the Universal Declaration in a number of ways. They introduce a new right, the right of all peoples and nations to "self - determination". They also set up machinery for the international supervision of human rights, the Human Rights Committee.
Since 1966, more than 60 nations ratified the Bill of Rights.

2.2 Helsinki Conference

The Helsinki Conference was held in 1975, on Security and Co - operation in Europe between countries of the West and the Eastern bloc. During this conference, the Western countries wanted the former Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies to agree to reunite families and to permit freer contact between people living on either side of the Iron Curtain. They also demanded that the Eastern bloc countries sign a human rights pact.

History of Human Rights in Austria

In 1848, the first establishment of the basic rights was written down. The basic law from the 21 of December, 1867 about the general rights of the citizens contains the main part of the basic rights and is still valid. This declaration was improved through the following acts:

law about protecting the house law treaty of Saint Germain (1918) treaty of Vienna (1955) European treaty about the protection of human rights and basic freedoms (1958)

4 Human Rights in Danger

Everybody knows about the violation against the human rights in the not "non - civilised" countriesm, like South Africa with their apartheid political system and Latin America, where people are tortured every day. Also in Europe we must see that human rights are in danger. Since 1990, there has been a bloody war in Yugoslavia, where the human rights were abused. Western organisations and nations were not able to stop that war for years. The Western European countries have no clean human - rights record. They did not want to have the refugees in their countries, so they sent them back their home countries where they are persecuted. Also some minorities are not treated equally in the Western countries (like the gypsies in most European countries).
Another force against human rights developed in the last few years, the economical interests. Western firms only work for more profit, without regard for human needs and rights.

5 Human Rights Organisations

5.1 Amnesty International

Amnesty was founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, a Catholic lawyer who had English and Russian parents. Benenson hit upon the idea of working for the release of people imprisoned for their beliefs by means of letter - writing campaigns.
At the end of 1961, Amnesty International groups had been established in twelve countries (ten Western European countries, Australia and the USA). Benenson had also designed the symbol of the organisation, the candle in barbed wire.
Today, Amnesty has over 250,000 members in about 140 countries. The International Secretariat, in London, numbers 150 employees, nearly half of them involved in researching the details in human rights violations. Amnesty groups are strongest and most active in Western Europe.
Amnesty’s aims and techniques have changed since its foundation.
Its fundamental concern is to achieve the immediate release of political prisoners.
It also works to ensure that political prisoners are given a fair and prompt trail.
Its third aim is to seek the abolition of the death penalty and the elimination of the use of torture.
This organisation works so effectively because of the highly respected quality of Amnesty’s research, which means that any decision to help imprisoned people is based on a carefully compiled system of facts. Another asset is the great volunteer support - without these volunteers postal campaigns are impossible.
Amnesty’s policy of limiting itself to defending just a few basic rights enables it to be an efficient and effective group.
Critics of Amnesty often say that the organisation only works for people in the capitalist countries of the "rich north". This brings us to further criticism that its strength is in fact a weakness in that it overlooks violations of some human rights. Amnesty responds by saying that the defence of some basic rights helps the protection of other rights. If people’s voices are not stilled by imprisonment, it will be easier to achieve food, clothing and other basic needs for all.

5.2 The Anti - Slavery Society

It is the world's oldest human rights organisation. Founded in 1839, the Anti - Slavery Society works to end all forms of slavery and it also tries to protect the rights of those who are in social, geographical or political isolation. Recent activities includes a campaign against the exploitation of tribal peoples by the Philippine government. Homelands had been invaded and industrial plans started, without consultation or agreement.

5.3 Helsinki Watch

Helsinki Watch pays attention to human rights in the thirty - five countries in Eastern and Western Europe and North America which signed the Helsinki agreement on security and co - operation. It publishes violations of human rights, supports international protests against offending governments and organises meetings.

Glossary

abolition	Abschaffung, Aufhebung
allies	Alliierten
barbed wire	Stacheldraht
conscience	Gewissen
constitution	Verfassung
covenant	Vertrag
creed	Glaubensbekenntnis
death penalty	Todesstrafe
decision	Entscheidung, Entschluß
exploitation	Ausbeutung
former	ehemalig, früher
inalienable	unveräußerlich, unverkäuflich
inherent	angeboren
pursuit	Verfolgung
refugee	Flüchtling
scope	Spielraum, hier: Macht
spur	Ansporn
to claim	fordern, beanspruchen
to demand	fordern, verlangen
to endow	ausstatten
to entitle	berechtigen
to establish	festsetzen, errichten, gründen
to imprison	inhaftieren
to persecute	verfolgen
to reunite	wiedervereinigen
to subject	unterwerfen, abhängen
to violate	verletzen, brechen
trail	hier: Strafprozeß
valid	gültig

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