Introduction to human rights

“As a preliminary warning, it should be pointed out that to deal correctly with this topic it is essential to rid ourselves of any feelings of pity or commiseration. We are not dealing with a strictly humanitarian problem, still less with a situation requiring our charity. Far from that, the treatment given to disabled persons defines the innermost characteristics of a society and highlights the cultural values that sustain it.”

Leandro Despouy, Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 'Human Rights and Disabled Persons', 1988

Information on this page:

• Introduction
• Defining “human rights"
• The nature of human rights
• Government-Free zones...
• Inalienable, indivisible and interdependent
• Conclusion

Introduction

I should be honest and admit that the information about human rights provided on this site will not do the subject justice. Although the phrase ‘human rights’ appears to have been used for the first time in 1945, the past 60-years have seen an awful lot said and written on the subject.

Pick up a standard textbook on human rights and there are likely to be references to ancient history, politics, law, philosophy and ethics. Add a dashing of obscure Latin phrases and you have the perfect recipe for curing insomnia!

Such writing appears to have very little to do with the passionate claim to social justice, to which so many disabled people (and others) have dedicated themselves. This is not to say, however, that our campaigning efforts can - or should - ignore theory, just an acknowledgement that for most of us, human rights is part of a daily struggle rather than a subject for academic study or debate.

Although I have done my best to ensure that the information provided on the site is accurate, keeping the detail within manageable proportions means that I don’t have the luxury of exploring all the various views and claims made about human rights and international law.

I have also made the assumption that anyone reading through these pages is looking for an accessible introduction to the subject. I hope that the site will be of interest to people committed to social justice and encourage those who need a more academic grasp of the subject to invest in one or more of the excellent books on the subject.

If human rights grab and hold your interest – and I hope that they will – then there are also some excellent resources on the Internet. I would particularly recommend the Human Rights Defender Manual available on the Australasian Legal Information Institute web site as an excellent – and free – manual on human rights and their promotion.

So, having emphasised the inadequacies of the site and pointed you in other directions, to business.

Defining “human rights"

There is no agreed definition of ‘human rights’, but the following three statements provide practical examples of what such a definition might look like:

• Human rights are those rights that a person enjoys simply because they are human;
• The minimum standards necessary to ensure that a person has the possibility of living with dignity;
• Those rights essential to recognise a person’s humanity.

The nature of human rights

Sounds simple enough but, as always, the more one looks into the subject, the more difficult it is to justify such straightforward claims. I have to say that each of these definitions work for me, if only because they are free from all the ‘ifs, buts and maybes’ that invariably litter law and international politics.

More importantly, such definitions make the importance of human rights very clear.

In taking such a wide approach to human rights, we are emphasising their 'aspirational' nature: they express a desire, hope or ambition, rather than what necessarily exists.

Again, that’s fine by me; I am bored with phrases like: ‘realpolitik’, ‘TINA [“There Is No Alternative’]’ ‘post-modernism’ and ‘post-structuralism’; no matter how naïve or unfashionable it may be, I like to think that the world can be a better place than it is.

A fundamental part of human rights is that they should be enjoyed without discrimination. I am not an advocate for some people’s human rights and not others, precisely because human rights either apply to us all, or they are meaningless.

Government-Free zones...

I don’t want to force my views on other people, but I do think that I – and you – have a fundamental right to hold and express our views (which, fortunately, is one of the human rights protected by International Law).

Whilst I accept that there has been a western (or capitalist, if you prefer) bias to the types of rights contained within human rights instruments, I think experience – and need – tell us that there is sufficient agreement about human rights for us to work with. Although the edges may get a little fuzzy and though people may not think in terms of ‘human rights’, there clearly is a high degree of agreement about the kinds of entitlements and protections included within human rights.

More importantly – and this goes to the heart of human rights – I think that governments (or the ‘state’, to use the phrase more often used in International Law) should put respect for the human rights of their citizens (and even 'non-citizens' for that matter) at the top of any list of priorities.

Unlike some (utilitarians, for example), I am made very uncomfortable by the idea that the end always justifies the means and less comfortable still with the idea that the rights of a minority of people can, or should, be sacrificed to the ‘greater good’. There are any number of reasons for holding that view, from personal and political preference to practical concerns, not least: 'who decides what the ‘greater good’ is and on what grounds?'

Equally, whilst I am fine with the police trying to protect me from crime, I think that making it a crime to hold views that are unpopular with a government is an entirely different matter. I accept that stopping anyone leaving their home after 7.00 p.m. would make it very much easier to catch some criminals, but I can’t help feeling that the cost of this sort of protection would be rather higher than we can afford!

I am not an anarchist, so I don’t have a problem with the idea of government, but I do have a problem with the government – or its employees – poking its collective nose into everything I do, say or think.

I have inflicted my opinions on you not because I think they are so vital as to be of concern or because I am planning to stand for election, but because these are the sorts of things with which human rights deal: the relationship between the state and me (and you). Whether you agree with my opinions or not (if you are that strongly against the sorts of views already described, then the bad news is that the site is not going to get any better for you!) is completely irrelevant, other than for the purpose of identifying subjects for debate and decision.

Human rights are about setting the ground rules of what the state can and should be doing in its relationship with you, me and everyone else in the state.

Inalienable, indivisible and interdependent

There are some essential ideas about the nature of human rights, chief amongst them the claim that human rights are:

• inalienable
• indivisible, and
• interdependent.

Human rights are inalienable

Our human rights cannot be taken away from us and, for that matter, neither can we voluntarily give them up.

On the face of it, this seems a rather silly thing to say. As history and current affairs repeatedly remind us, there are plenty of governments whose human rights record is abysmal. Not only are there governments with appalling records, there are governments that treat human rights and their promotion as a direct threat (they may be right, given free choice, there probably aren’t many people who would choose tyranny as their preferred method of governance) and those who make the mistake of promoting human rights risk death and imprisonment.

But here’s the thing: no matter how abusive of human rights a government may be, it cannot deny that you are entitled to enjoy your human rights. It may make it completely impossible for you to enjoy them, but it cannot remove your right to those rights (I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me), they are inalienable. Human rights provide a standard below which governments must not fall and the claim that individuals aren’t concerned cannot provide justification for failing to protect those rights.

Human rights are indivisible

Our human rights cannot be separated into different parts and some given less attention than others.

Once again, this statement appears rather ridiculous at first glance; the right to education or to take part in the government of our country is pretty much irrelevant if our right to life has been abused.

Before dismissing this principal, consider the matter from another angle: Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that:

‘Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.’

Were the government to claim that the most satisfactory way to achieve this right was to 'protect' everyone by putting them in a secure cell, it would be a little surprising if there were a great many people willing to take up the offer.

This may be an extreme example, but were human rights to be ‘graded’ there is a very real risk that some governments would deny some rights and seek to defend having done so by claiming that other rights are more important.

In actual fact, precisely this argument is used on a regular basis by governments around the world, many of which would loudly deny that they were indifferent to human rights. Security provides a good example in view of current events; there are plenty of democratic states that routinely and repeatedly breach some human rights in order to protect the security of the country and those within it. Many people would say that this is perfectly acceptable and I would certainly agree that security is difficult to promote at the same time as liberty, but do you see the moral and practical maze that we are led down by putting some rights above others?

Perhaps a less controversial example is the distinction between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other (don’t worry too much about what these rights include, common-sense definitions will be fine for now).

There are plenty of governments, some of them far closer, geographically, to the UK than you might imagine, who claim that civil and political rights are far more important so, in order to ensure that such rights are honoured, economic, social and cultural rights must be given a lower priority.

Agreed, the right to vote and to take part in the government of our country is pretty important, but could it be claimed that these rights are so important as to defeat a right to a basic education? Can an electorate take full advantage of their right to vote – to make an informed decision about it – if they have been denied access to any education at all?

Is the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose where we live (Article 12, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) more important than the right to pay that is adequate to provide a decent living for themselves and their families (Article 7, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)?

Such questions are avoided – and abuse made less likely in some cases – by insisting that all human rights are indivisible. It is not to claim that difficult decisions, about spending priorities, safety and many other matters, don’t have to be made, merely that they should not be made on the basis that some rights can simply be ignored, as the justification for ensuring others.

Human rights are interdependent

Human rights cannot exist or survive without each other

To a large extent, much of what was said in the section immediately above could be repeated here: how can a right to participate in government be meaningful without the right to freedom to think and express oneself? Can such participation be significant without the chance to obtain some education?

However, this principle is not the same as saying that human rights are indivisible – that they are as important as each other – it is emphasising that human rights cannot be said to be a reality unless all human rights exist.

Conclusion

I have tried to provide an accessible introduction to human rights, rather than a definitive guide or academic text - plenty of which are already available. This was a deliberate decision, as the disability movement already has enough to deal with, without trying to become human rights experts as well!

This is not to say - as I hope the remainder of this site makes very clear - that I do not think that human rights are important, I think they are fundamental and encourage individuals and organisations to see for themselves how the UN Convention on the rights of disabled people - and other human rights instruments - deal with issues that affect you every day.

Some will claim - as they have to me - that it is for us to speak [and, by implication, understand the technical language] of human rights; I think such claims are too simplistic: the disability convention was required because research - and the lived experience of disabled people - showed the extent to which our human rights are denied or ignored, so change will come from human rights agencies - governmental or non-governmental - mainstreaming disability in their work, not from our movement being able to 'talk the talk' on someone else's terms.

Put simply, any claim that one has to be a human rights expert to enjoy equal access to such rights is, in my opinion, arrogant and patronising clap-trap!

Ensuring disabled people's equal access to human rights is a responsibility to be shared between disabled people, government and the wider civil society; it can only be achieved by a partnership of equals, each bringing their particular skills and priorities to the discussion.

Eventually, legal theory and practice will catch up with the mismatch between fine sounding laws and treaties and the lives they are intended to protect. Until then, it is an active and politicised disability movement that we need, not more 'human rights experts'.

Finally, if all the foregoing still seems unclear, simply hold on to two words; in my opinion, they summarise human rights far more effectively than a shelf of legal texts:

Dignity and respect