In broad terms, human rights are principles that establish standards for a fair and just society. They are generally considered inherent and inalienable, meaning that they belong to every person simply because they are human – regardless of characteristics like ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status or other factors. They encompass civil, political, economic and cultural rights – the right to freedom, equality and justice.
The idea of human rights is not a new concept – ideas about the dignity and worth of each person have been an important part of all societies throughout history. But it was not until the end of World War II that there was a worldwide effort to agree on a definition and set of rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 and, together with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Optional Protocols, form the core of a global body of law designed to protect the individual from tyranny and oppression. The development of this body of law was not an accident – governments that had fought against the Nazis in World War II understood that to defeat tyranny, they would have to fight it on all fronts.
One of the most significant achievements of this effort was to ensure that countries did not have the ability to claim that their own domestic laws were in violation of international law. To prevent that from happening, governments agreed that they should all be subject to regular reviews of their human rights records and that people should have a simple way to call them to account if they were not respecting their human rights.
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