September 18/2002
International Human Rights: The Framework
- Background
- Individual Human Rights (HR)
- Political/Civil rights
- Social rights
- Economic rights
- Collective Cultural Rights
- Ethno-cultural/Religious
- Collective rights of a “peoples”
- Categorical Rights
1) Background:
- Most human rights have existed as ideas. They started a long time ago.
- Right reasoning became secular natural law, ultimately the basis of international law.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) = moral principles and subsequent documents passed to refine human rights.
- Prior to WWII, human rights weren’t a focus of international concern. Human rights were treated as the exclusive jurisdiction of the country.
- Human rights came about as atrocities surfaced to public knowledge from WWII.
- Atrocities of WWII were systemic and extreme. It gave the international community reason to pursue international human rights.
- Nuremburg today is the international war crimes tribunal.
- Canada has a fairly active role in the tribunal.
- Countries struggling with internal conflict oppose international human rights.
- International Bill of Human Rights (IDHR) intended to end horrors like genocide.
- Attempts to implement human rights: