HUMAN RIGHTS

Human Rights

Human Rights

The freedom of opinion and expression to human for participating in government, private property and choice of employment are some of the rights that people around the globe needs to consider as part of human rights and should be provided accordingly (Baker, 1992). Human rights are considered as strong tools to address and implicate injustice across the globe. The language of human rights can be understood under the prevalence of parliamentary provisions of English laws through the cases and legislations of the subject matter. Human rights are usually divided into three categories. This essay is however going to focus only on first and second generation, which consists of economic, cultural, political and last but not the least cultural rights (Donnelly, 1984). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 includes rights that are considered to be rights of both generations, but does not make the distinction between generations itself. While the first generation was further embodied in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), whereas the second generations is consisted in International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). These two together were initially adopted in the single UN General Assembly resolution in the same day in 1966. However, it is claimed that the actual conception was to create one covenant, which would include rights of both generations.

There are significant differences between the rights contained in each of the Covenants. The main difference is in the nature of the obligation. While Article 2 of ICCPR contains obligation which require immediate action to ensure and respect the political and civil rights through appropriate legal provisions. Article No.2 of ICESCR provides realization that is progressive of social, economic and cultural rights: "Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures". That means that state parties must not perform these obligations in full and at once, but according to their resources and with the aim of complete realization of cultural, social and economic rights. Not only has this, but civil and political human rights are also sometimes distinguished from cultural, economic and social rights by referring to duties of the state that they should not intervene as opposed to duties to take positive measures, which are typical for second group. However, this distinction is general and not strictly applicable in every instance. Civil and political human rights usually include mainly negative obligation of the state, but that does not mean that there is no positive obligation as well. For instance, states obligation that say not to torture people does not only consists of the right to be free from torture, but also positive obligation to protect people from torture by private actors. Also the wording of two Covenants is substantially ...