4.2.4.1 The Scope of Human Rights
The scope of human rights was globally agreed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which has considerable legitimacy.
The UDHR (Appendix 1) has a wide scope and therefore provides a useful starting point to define human rights. It was drafted as a result of international negotiations after the Second World War and it was ratified by the UN General Assembly, so it has a high degree of political legitimacy although it was not a legally binding document. It can be broadly categorised into moral, political, legal and socio-economic rights – with many of its Articles having several overlapping aspects.
The United Nations Human Rights Council “is an intergovernmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 States responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe”. It website describes how it works:
“● Serves as an international forum for dialogue on human rights issues with UN officials and mandated experts, states, civil society, and other participants;
● Adopts resolutions or decisions during regular sessions that express the will of the international community on given human rights issues or situations. Adopting a resolution sends a strong political signal which can prompt governments to take action to remedy those situations;”
Human rights issues are only legally binding if the countries concerned have signed treaties to that effect. The European Convention on Human Rights is legally binding on all EU members for example. Although these treaties all enjoy considerable political support, none of them has been adopted by every country in the world. American Treaty Ratification is incomplete, for example:
“The United States has played a critical role in drafting numerous international treaties and documents on human rights. However, it has ratified or is otherwise bound to only a handful of treaties in their entirety, including the following:
● Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention)
● International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
● International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)
● Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)”
This illustrates the fragmented national political adoption of human rights. When the term ‘human rights’ is used in this book, it normally refers to the UDHR – which can be regarded as an overarching benchmark of acceptability.
This page is intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. An archived copy of it is held at https://www.patternsofpower.org/edition04/4241b.htm