HISTORY HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights
refers to "the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled"[1] Examples of rights and freedoms which are often thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to work, and the right to education.

Magna Carta or "Great Charter" was one of the world's first documents containing commitments by a sovereign to his people to respect certain legal rights
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. ”
—Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR}.

The history of human rights covers thousands of years and draws upon religious, cultural, philosophical and legal developments throughout recorded history. Though several ancient documents and later religions and philosophies included a variety of concepts that may be considered to be human rights, the Anglocentric concept is that human rights as a legal right stem primarily from the precedent set by the Magna Carta.
The Magna Carta is an English charter originally issued in 1215. The Magna Carta influenced the development of the common law and many constitutional documents, such as the United States Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights, and is considered one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy, being one of the most significant early influences on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today.

The Magna Carta was one of the first legal documents to limit the power of government in order to protect the rights of its citizens. For modern times, the most enduring legacy of the Magna Carta is considered the right of habeas corpus. This right arises from what are now known as clauses 36, 38, 39, and 40 of the 1215 Magna Carta. The Magna Carta also included the right to due process.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789Two major revolutions occurred during the 18th century, in the United States (1776) and in France (1789). The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 set up a number of fundamental rights and freedoms. The later United States Declaration of Independence includes concepts of natural rights and famously states "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Similarly, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen defines a set of individual and collective rights of the people. These are, in the document, held to be universal - not only to French citizens but to all men without exception.

Philosophers such as Thomas Paine,John Stuart Mill and Hegel expanded on the theme of universality during the 18th and 19th centuries.In 1831 William Lloyd Garrison wrote in a newspaper called The Liberator that he was trying to enlist his readers in "the great cause of human rights"so the term human rights probably came into use sometime between Paine's The Rights of Man and Garrison's publication. In 1849 a contemporary,Henry David Thoreau,wrote about human rights in his treatise On the Duty of Civil Disobedience which was later influential on human rights and civil rights thinkers.United States Supreme Court Justice David Davis,in his 1867 opinion for Ex Parte Milligan, wrote "By the protection of the law, human rights are secured; withdraw that protection and they are at the mercy of wicked rulers or the clamor of an excited people."

Many groups and movements have managed to achieve profound social changes over the course of the 20th century in the name of human rights.In Western Europe and North America,labour unions brought about laws granting workers the right to strike, establishing minimum work conditions and forbidding or regulating child labour. The women's rights movement succeeded in gaining for many women the right to vote. National liberation movements in many countries succeeded in driving out colonial powers.One of the most influential was Mahatma Gandhi's movement to free his native India from British rule.Movements by long-oppressed racial and religious minorities succeeded in many parts of the world,among them the civil rights movement,and more recent diverse identity politics movements, on behalf of women and minorities in the United States.

The foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross,the 1864 Lieber Code and the first of the Geneva Conventions in 1864 laid the foundations of International humanitarian law,to be further developed following the two World Wars.

The League of Nations was established in 1919 at the negotiations over the Treaty of Versailles following the end of World War I.The League's goals included disarmament, preventing war through collective security,settling disputes between countries through negotiation,diplomacy and improving global welfare.Enshrined in its Charter was a mandate to promote many of the rights which were later included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

At the 1945 Yalta Conference,the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to supplant the League's role.This body was to be the United Nations.The United Nations has played an important role in international human rights law since its creation. Following the World Wars the United Nations and its members developed much of the discourse and the bodies of law which now make up international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

The Geneva Conventions came into being between 1864 and 1949 as a result of efforts by Henry Dunant,the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross.The conventions safeguard the human rights of individuals involved in armed conflict, and build on the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions,the international community's first attempt to define laws of war. While first framed before World War I, the conventions were revised as a result of World War II and readopted by the international community in 1949.

The Geneva Conventions are:

First Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field" (first adopted in 1864, last revision in 1949)
Second Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea" (first adopted in 1949, successor of the 1907 Hague Convention X)
Third Geneva Convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" (first adopted in 1929, last revision in 1949)
Fourth Geneva Convention "relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War" (first adopted in 1949, based on parts of the 1907 Hague Convention IV)
In addition, there are three additional amendment protocols to the Geneva Convention:

Protocol I (1977): Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts. As of 12 January 2007 it had been ratified by 167 countries.
Protocol II (1977): Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts. As of 12 January 2007 it had been ratified by 163 countries.
Protocol III (2005): Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem. As of June 2007 it had been ratified by 17 countries and signed but not yet ratified by an additional 68 countries.
All four conventions were last revised and ratified in 1949, based on previous revisions and partly on some of the 1907 Hague Conventions. Later conferences have added provisions prohibiting certain methods of warfare and addressing issues of civil wars. Nearly all 200 countries of the world are "signatory" nations, in that they have ratified these conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the controlling body of the Geneva conventions.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

"It is not a treaty...[In the future, it] may well become the international Magna Carta."Eleanor Roosevelt with the Spanish text of the Universal Declaration in 1949The Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR) is a non-binding declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, partly in response to the barbarism of World War II. Although the UDHR is a non-binding resolution, it is now considered to be a central component of international customary law which may be invoked under appropriate circumstances by national and other judiciaries.The UDHR urges member nations to promote a number of human, civil, economic and social rights, asserting these rights are part of the "foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world". The declaration was the first international legal effort to limit the behavior of states and press upon them duties to their citizens following the model of the rights-duty duality.

“ ...recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world ”
—Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948


The UDHR was framed by members of the Human Rights Commission, with Eleanor Roosevelt as Chair, who began to discuss an International Bill of Rights in 1947. The members of the Commission did not immediately agree on the form of such a bill of rights, and whether, or how, it should be enforced. The Commission proceeded to frame the UDHR and accompanying treaties, but the UDHR quickly became the priority. [8]Canadian law professor John Humprey and French lawyer Rene Cassin were responsible for much of the cross-national research and the structure of the document respectively, where the articles of the declaration were interpretative of the general principle of the preamble. The document was structured by Cassin to include the basic principles of dignity, liberty, equality and brotherhood in the first two articles, followed successively by rights pertaining to individuals; rights of individuals in relation to each other and to groups; spiritual, public and political rights; and economic, social and cultural rights. The final three articles place, according to Cassin, rights in the context of limits, duties and the social and political order in which they are to be realized.Humphrey and Cassin intended the rights in the UDHR to be legally enforceable through some means, as is reflected in the third clause of the preamble:

“ Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law. ”
—Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

Some of the UDHR was researched and written by a committee of international experts on human rights, including representatives from all continents and all major religions, and drawing on consultation with leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi.The inclusion of both civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights was predicated on the assumption that basic human rights are indivisible and that the different types of rights listed are inextricably linked. This principle was not then opposed by any member states (the declaration was adopted unanimously, with the abstention of the Soviet bloc, Apartheid South Africa and Saudi Arabia), however this principle was later subject to significant challenges.

The onset of the Cold War soon after the UDHR was conceived brought to the fore divisions over the inclusion of both econonic and social rights and civil and political rights in the declaration.[citation needed] Capitalist states tended to place strong emphasis on civil and political rights (such as freedom of association and expression), and were reluctant to include economic and social rights (such as the right to work and the right to join a union).[citation needed] Socialist states placed much greater importance on economic and social rights and argued strongly for their inclusion.

Because of the divisions over which rights to include, and because some states declined to ratify any treaties including certain specific interpretations of human rights, and despite the Soviet bloc and a number of developing countries arguing strongly for the inclusion of all rights in a so-called Unity Resolution, the rights enshrined in the UDHR were split into two separate covenants, allowing states to adopt some rights and derogate others.[citation needed] Though this allowed the covenants to be created, one commentator has written that it denied the proposed principle that all rights are linked which was central to some interpretations of the UDHR.
Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

General Principles
Article 1: Freedom,Egalitarianism,Dignity,and Brotherhood·
Article 2: Universality of rights
Civil and Political Rights.
Treaty: International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights.
Article 3: Right to life,liberty and security of person·
Article 4: Freedom from slavery ·
Article 5: Freedom from torture and cruel, unusual punishment ·
Article 6: Right to personhood ·
Article 7: Equality before the law ·
Article 8: Right to effective remedy from the law ·
Article 9: Freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, and exile ·
Article 10: Right to fair trial ·
Article 11.1: Presumption of innocence ·
Article 11.2: Prohibition of retrospective law ·
Article 12: Right to Privacy ·
Article 13 Freedom of movement ·
Article 14: Right of asylum ·
Article 15: Right to a nationality ·
Article 16: Right to marriage and family life ·
Article 17: Right to property ·
Article 18: Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion ·
Article 19: Freedom of opinion and expression ·
Article 20.1: Freedom of assembly ·
Article 20.2: Freedom of association ·
Article 21.1: Right to participation in government ·
Article 21.2: Right of equal access to public office ·
Article 21.3: Right to universal suffrage
Social, Cultural and Economic Rights.
Treaty: International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights
Article 22: Right to social security ·
Article 23.1: Right to work ·
Article 23.2: Right to equal pay for equal work ·
Article 23.3: Right to just remuneration ·
Article 23.4: Right to join a trade union ·
Article 24: Right to rest & leisure ·
Article 25.1: Right to an adequate standard of living ·
Article 25.2: Right to special care and assistance for mothers and children · Article 26.1: Right to education ·
Article 26.2: Human rights education ·
Article 26.3: Right to choice of education ·
Article 27.1: Right to participate in culture ·
Article 27.2: Right to intellectual property
Context, limitations and duties
Article 28: Social order ·
Article 29.1: Social responsibility ·
Article 29.2: Limitations of human rights ·
Article 29.3: The supremacy of the purposes and principles of the United Nations · Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Human Rights Treaties

In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) were adopted by the United Nations, between them making the rights contained in the UDHR binding on all states that have signed this treaty.However they only came into force in 1976 when they were ratified by a sufficient number of countries (despite achieving the ICCPR, a covenant including no economic or social rights, the US only ratified the ICCPR in 1992).The ICESCR commits 155 state parties to work toward the granting of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) to individuals.

Since then numerous other treaties (pieces of legislation) have been offered at the international level. They are generally know as human rights instruments. Some of the most significant are:

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted 1948, entry into force: 1951)
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) (adopted 1966, entry into force: 1969)
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (entry into force: 1981)
United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) (adopted 1984, entry into force: 1984)
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (adopted 1989, entry into force: 1989)
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICRMW) (adopted 1990)
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (entry into force: 2002)

The United Nations

The UN General Assembly
The United Nations (UN) is the only multilateral governmental agency with universally accepted international jurisdiction for universal human rights legislation.All UN organs have advisory roles to the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Human Rights Council, and there are numerous committees within the UN with responsibilities for safeguarding different human rights treaties. The most senior body of the UN with regard to human rights is the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United Nations has an international mandate to:
“ ...achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. ”
—Article 1-3 of the United Nations Charter.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, created at the 2005 World Summit to replace the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, has a mandate to investigate violations of human rights.The Human Rights Council is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and reports directly to it. It ranks below the Security Council, which is the final authority for the interpretation of the United Nations Charter.Forty-seven of the one hundred ninety-one member states sit on the council, elected by simple majority in a secret ballot of the United Nations General Assembly. Members serve a maximum of six years and may have their membership suspended for gross human rights abuses. The Council is based in Geneva, and meets three times a year; with additional meetings to respond to urgent situations.
Independent experts (rapporteurs) are retained by the Council to investigate alleged human rights abuses and to provide the Council with reports.
The Human Rights Council may request that the Security Council take action when human rights violations occur. This action may be direct actions, may involve sanctions,and the Security Council may also refer cases to the International Criminal Court (ICC) even if the issue being referred is outside the normal jurisdiction of the ICC.

The Human Rights Committee is a United Nations body of 18 experts that meets three times a year to consider the five-yearly reports submitted by UN member states on their compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Committee is one of seven UN-linked human rights treaty bodies.

States that have signed the First Optional Protocol (currently 104 countries) have agreed to allow persons within the member state to obtain an opinion from the Committee regarding violations of that Covenant.For those countries, the Human Rights Committee can thus function as a mechanism for the international redress of human rights abuses, similar to the regional mechanisms afforded by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights or the European Court of Human Rights. The First Optional Protocol came into effect on 23 March 1976.

The Second Optional Protocol, in force since 11 July 1991, addresses the abolition of the death penalty and has been ratified by 53 states.

The Human Rights Committee should not be confused with the more high-profile Commission on Human Rights, a Charter-based mechanism, or its replacement, the Human Rights Council. Whereas the Commission on Human Rights was a political forum where states debated all human rights concerns (since June 2006, replaced by the Council in that function), the Human Rights Committee is a treaty-based mechanism where a group of experts examines reports and rules on individual communications pertaining only to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It remains disputed whether the Human Rights Committee's in principle non-binding final views qualify as decisions of a quasi-judicial body or simply constitute authoritative interpretations on the merits of the cases brought before them for the members of the Optional Protocol of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The members of the Human Rights Committee, who must be "of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights", are elected by the member states but on an individual basis, not as representatives of their countries. They serve four-year terms, with one-half of their number elected every second year at the General Assembly.

Members

Name State Term
Christine Chanet : Chair France 2006–2010
Abdelfattah Amor Tunisia 2006–2010
Nisuke Ando Japan 2006–2010
Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati India 2006–2010
Yuji Iwasawa Japan 2006–2010
Walter Kälin Switzerland 2006–2010
Zonke Zanele Majodina South Africa 2006–2010
Iulia Antoanella Motoc Romania 2006–2010
Sir Nigel S. Rodley UK 2006–2010
José Luis Sánchez Cerro Peru 2006–2010
Ruth Wedgwood USA 2006–2010
Roman Wieruszewski Poland 2006–2010
Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen Argentina 2006–2010
Maurice Ahanhanzo Glèlè-Ahanhanzo Benin 2004–2008
Alfredo Castillero Hoyos Panama 2004–2008
Ahmed Tawfik Khalal Egypt 2004–2008
Edwin Johnson López Ecuador 2004–2008
Rajsoomer Lallah Mauritius 2004–2008
Michael O'Flaherty Ireland 2004–2008
Elisabeth Palm Sweden 2004–2008
Rafael Rivas Posada Colombia 2004–2008
Ivan Shearer Australia 2004–2008


The African Union (AU)
is a supranational union consisting of fifty-three African states.
Established in 2001, the AU's purpose is to help secure Africa's democracy, human rights, and a sustainable economy, especially by bringing an end to intra-African conflict and creating an effective common market.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) is a quasi-judicial organ of the African Union tasked with promoting and protecting human rights and collective (peoples') rights throughout the African continent as well as interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and considering individual complaints of violations of the Charter. The Commission has three broad areas of responsibility:

Promoting human and peoples' rights
Protecting human and peoples' rights
Interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
In pursuit of these goals, the Commission is mandated to "collect documents, undertake studies and researches on African problems in the field of human and peoples, rights, organise seminars, symposia and conferences, disseminate information, encourage national and local institutions concerned with human and peoples' rights and, should the case arise, give its views or make recommendations to governments" (Charter, Art. 45).

With the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (under a protocol to the Charter which was adopted in 1998 and entered into force in January 2004), the Commission will have the additional task of preparing cases for submission to the Court's jurisdiction.In a July 2004 decision, the AU Assembly resolved that the future Court on Human and Peoples' Rights would be integrated with the African Court of Justice.

The Court of Justice of the African Union is intended to be the “principal judicial organ of the Union” (Protocol of the Court of Justice of the African Union, Article 2.2].Although it has not yet been established, it is intended to take over the duties of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, as well as act as the supreme court of the African Union, interpreting all necessary laws and treaties. The Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights entered into force in January 2004 but its merging with the Court of Justice has delayed its establishment. The Protocol establishing the Court of Justice will come into force when ratified by 15 countries.
There are many countries in Africa accused of human rights violations by the international community and NGOs.

Philosophies of human rights

Several theoretical approaches have been advanced to explain how and why human rights become part of social expectations.
One of the oldest Western philosophies on human rights is that they are a product of a natural law, stemming from different philosophical or religious grounds.
Other theories hold that human rights codify moral behavior which is a human social product developed by a process of biological and social evolution (associated with Hume).Human rights are also described as a sociological pattern of rule setting (as in the sociological theory of law and the work of Weber). These approaches include the notion that individuals in a society accept rules from legitimate authority in exchange for security and economic advantage (as in Rawls) - a social contract.

Natural law and Natural rights]

Natural law theories base human rights on a “natural” moral, religious or even biological order which is independent of transitory human laws or traditions.
Socrates and his philosophic heirs, Plato and Aristotle, posited the existence of natural justice or natural right (dikaion physikon, δικαιον φυσικον, Latin ius naturale). Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law, although evidence for this is due largely to the interpretations of his work of Thomas Aquinas.
The development of this tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics.

Some of the early Church fathers sought to incorporate the until then pagan concept of natural law into Christianity. Natural law theories have featured greatly in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, and John Locke.

In the Seventeenth Century Thomas Hobbes founded a contractualist theory of legal positivism on what all men could agree upon: what they sought (happiness) was subject to contention, but a broad consensus could form around what they feared (violent death at the hands of another). The natural law was how a rational human being, seeking to survive and prosper, would act. It was discovered by considering humankind's natural rights, whereas previously it could be said that natural rights were discovered by considering the natural law. In Hobbes' opinion, the only way natural law could prevail was for men to submit to the commands of the sovereign. In this lay the foundations of the theory of a social contract between the governed and the governor.
Hugo Grotius based his philosophy of international law on natural law. He wrote that "even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or abrogate" natural law, which "would maintain its objective validity even if we should assume the impossible, that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." (De iure belli ac pacis, Prolegomeni XI). This is the famous argument etiamsi daremus (non esse Deum), that made natural law no longer dependent on theology.

John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and philosophy, especially in Two Treatises of Government. Locke turned Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler went against natural law and failed to protect "life, liberty, and property," people could justifiably overthrow the existing state and create a new one.
The Belgian philosopher of law Frank van Dun is one among those who are elaborating a secular conception of natural law in the liberal tradition. There are also emerging and secular forms of natural law theory that define human rights as derivative of the notion of universal human dignity.
The term "human rights" has replaced the term "natural rights" in popularity, because the rights are less and less frequently seen as requiring natural law for their existence.


Social contract
The Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested the existence of a hypothetical social contract where a group of free individuals agree for the sake of the common good to form institutions to govern themselves. This echoed the earlier postulation by Thomas Hobbes that there is a contract between the government and the governed - and led to John Locke's theory that a failure of the government to secure rights is a failure which justifies the removal of the government.

International equity expert Paul Finn has echoed this view:

“ the most fundamental fiduciary relationship in our society is manifestly that which exists between the community (the people) and the state, its agencies and officials. ” —Paul Finn

The relationship between government and the governed in countries which follow the English common law tradition is a fiduciary one. In equity law, a politician's fiduciary obligations are not only comprised of duties of good faith and loyalty, but also include duties of skill and competence in managing a country and it's people. Originating from within the Courts of Equity, the fiduciary concept exists to prevent those holding positions of power from abusing their authority. The fiduciary relationship between government and the governed arises from the governments ability to control people with the exercise of its power. In effect, if a government has the power to abolish any rights, it is equally burdened with the fiduciary duty to protect such an interest because it would benefit from the exercise of its own discretion to extinguish rights which it alone had the power to dispose of.

Reciprocity
The Golden Rule, or the ethic of reciprocity states that one must do unto others as one would be treated themselves; the principle being that reciprocal recognition and respect of rights ensures that one's own rights will be protected. This principle can be found in all the world's major religions in only slightly differing forms, and was enshrined in the "Declaration Toward a Global Ethic" by the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993.

Other theories of human rights

The philosopher John Finnis argues that human rights are justifiable on the grounds of their instrumental value in creating the necessary conditions for human well-being.Interest theories highlight the duty to respect the rights of other individuals on grounds of self-interest:
“ Human rights law, applied to a State's own citizens serves the interest of states, by, for example, minimizing the risk of violent resistance and protest and by keeping the level of dissatisfaction with the government manageable ” —Niraj Nathwani in Rethinking refugee law.
The biological theory considers the comparative reproductive advantage of human social behavior based on empathy and altruism in the context of natural selection.

Human rights violations;

Human rights violations occur when any state or non-state actor breaches any part of the UDHR treaty or other international human rights or humanitarian law. In regard to human rights violations of United Nations laws. Article 39 of the United Nations Charter designates the UN Security Council (or an appointed authority) as the only tribunal that may determine UN human rights violations.

Human rights abuses are monitored by United Nations committees, national institutions and governments and by many independent non-governmental organizations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, World Organisation Against Torture, Freedom House, International Freedom of Expression Exchange and Anti-Slavery International. These organisations collect evidence and documentation of human rights abuses and apply pressure to enforce human rights.

Only a very few countries do not commit significant human rights violations, according to Amnesty International. In their 2004 human rights report (covering 2003), the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Costa Rica are the only (mappable) countries that did not (in their opinion) violate at least some human rights significantly.
Wars of aggression, War crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide, are breaches of International humanitarian law and represent the most serious of human rights violations.Human rights violations occur when any state or non-state actor breaches any part of the UDHR treaty or other international human rights or humanitarian law. In regard to human rights violations of United Nations laws. Article 39 of the United Nations Charter designates the UN Security Council (or an appointed authority) as the only tribunal that may determine UN human rights violations.

Human rights in the future

With the advances of technology, medicine, and human philosophy, the status quo of human rights thinking is constantly challenged. New, unforeseen possibilities and events occur, which can affect existing rights or potentially require new ones.

There is no current universal human right to water, binding or not, enshrined by the United Nations or any other multilateral body. In November 2002, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a non-binding comment affirming that access to water was a human right:
“ the human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights. ”
—United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
This principle was reaffirmed at the 3rd and 4th World Water Forums in 2003 and 2006. This marks a departure from the conclusions of the 2nd World Water Forum in The Hague in 2000, which stated that water was a commodity to be bought and sold, not a right.There are calls from many NGOs and politicians to enshrine access to water as a binding human right, and not as a commodity.

Human rights of intrauterine or unborn babies have been a controversial subject. The point at which a new person is alive as an idividual, and the point at which that person becomes conscious, are disputed by pro-life and pro-choice groups on particular. Those who are pro-life believe that the moment of conception is the moment of a new individual life coming into being and therefore that individual has equal rights to any other person. Others, including many pro-choice groups, argue that until the point at which that life is viable (or could survive alone), the rights of that person are secondary to those of the mother. This topic has become more controversial as the advancement of medical science makes it a possibility to save the life of younger and younger babies.

The onset of global warming and a heightened knowledge of environmentalism has created potential conflicts between different human rights. Human rights ultimately require a working ecosystem and healthy environment, but the granting of certain rights to individuals may damage these. In the area of environmental rights, the responsibiliities of multi-national companies, so far relatively unaddressed by rights legislation, is of paramount consideration.

Future technological advances, such as the possibility of mass space travel, the advances in the internet and the possibility of access to huge amounts of information, and others, all raise the possibility of new rights.

Human responsibilities;

Human Responsibilities refers to universal responsibilities of human beings regardless of jurisdiction or other factors, such as ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sex.
The idea of human responsibilities arises as a natural counter-balance to the philosophical idea of human rights. Several groups and individuals have suggested what exactly these responsibilities might be[citation needed], perhaps the most well known being those proposed[1] by the InterAction Council[2], an international council of former heads of state, in 1997 partly to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

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