Human Rights Nature, Concept, Origin and Development
Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 1.
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 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it is independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 17
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, and housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to 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.
Thus, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated that the common standard of achievements for the enjoyment and protection of human rights, it was not legally binding on the states. The fact is that it was not intended to be legally binding the commission on Human Rights in 1947, while considering the preliminary draft of an international Bill of Human Rights prepared by the drafting committee, decided to draw up a separate covenant which would b e covenant on such specific rights as would lend themselves to binding legal obligations. The documents were to be known as international covenant on Human Rights[^44] . So, in this connection, the General Assembly on December 16, 1966 adopted the two covenants. International Covenant on civil and political rights, and Intentional covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights[^45] . The covenant on civil and political rights consist of 53 Articles and is divided into six parts, while in part I, II and III various rights and freedoms are enumerated, the other three parts are devoted with implementation procedures for effective realization of those rights along with the final clauses. Article I which refers to the right of peoples to self-determination states that all peoples have the right freely to determine their political status and feely pursue their economic, social and cultural developments. These article further states, that the state parties shall promote the realization of the right of self determination and shall respect that right. Part II stipulated rights and obligations of the states parties to the covenant. It included the obligations of the state to take necessary steps to in co-operate the provisions of the covenant in the domestic laws and to adopt such legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights recognized in the covenant. The states parties ensure the equal rights of men and women to enjoyment of all civil and political rights. Part III deals with the specific rights of the individuals and the obligations of the States Parties.
1. The right to life (Article 6).
2. Freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 7).
3. Freedom from slavery, servitude and forced labour (Article 8).
4. Right to liberty and security (Article 9).
5. Right of detune to be treated with humanity (Article 10).
6. Freedom from imprisonment for inability to fulfill a contractual obligation (Article 11).
7. Freedom of movement and to choose his residence (Article 12).
8. Freedom of aliens from arbitrary expulsion (Article 13).
9. Right to a fair trial (Article 14).
10. Non-retroactive application of criminal law (Article 15).
11. Right to recognition as a person before the law (Article 16).
12. Right to privacy, family, home or correspondence (Article 17).
13. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 18).
14. Freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19).
15. Prohibition of propaganda of war (Article 20).
16. Right of Peaceful assembly (Article 21).
17. Freedom of association (Article 22).
18. Right to marry and found a family (Article 23).
19. Rights of the child (Article 24).
20. Right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, to vote and to be elected (Article 25).
21. Equality before the law (Article 26).
22. Rights of minorities (Article 27).
The above rights set forth in the Covenant are not absolute and are subject to certain limitations[^46] .
The covenant on Economic, Social and cultural rights is consisted of 31 Articles which are divided in five parts. Part I deal with the rights of peoples to self-determination as provided in Article I of the Covenant of Civil and political rights. Other rights of the individuals are enumerated in Part III of the Covenant which included the following rights.
1. Right to work (Article 6).
2. Right to just and favourable conditions of work (Article 7).
3. Right to form and join trade unions (Article 8).
4. Right to social security (Article 9).
5. Right relating to motherhood and childhood, marriages and the family (Article 10).
6. Right to adequate food, clothing, housing and standard of living and freedom from hunger (Article 11).
7. Right to physical and mental health (Article 12).
8. Right to education including a plan for implementing compulsory primary education (Article 13).
9. Right relating to science and culture.
Part II of the Covenant laid down the undertakings of the States parties to the Covenant. Article II provided that each States Party undertakes to 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 Covenant by all appreciate means including particularly the adoption of legislative measures. Thus, the Covenant has set the standard which the States Parties are required to achieve in future[^47] .
On the other hand, the evolution of International law related to the protection of war-victims and to the conduct of war, known as International Humanitarian Law has been strongly affected by the development of human rights legal protection after the Second World War. The adoption of important international instruments in the field of human rights such as the UDHR ( 1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the International Covenant International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), Contributed to affirm the idea that everyone entitled to enjoyment of human rights , whether in time of peace or war[^48] . International Humanitarian law, May in the traditional sense of the term, be defined as the human rights components of law of war[^49] .
In other words, it can be said that International humanitarian law is that branch of human rights law which applies in International as well as Internal armed conflicts with the view to protect the human beings from the consequences of war. The major sources of International humanitarian law are the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and two 1977 Protocols additional to these conventions and notably:
Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, of August 12, 1949.
Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, sick, and shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of August, 1912, 1949.
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of August 12, 1949.
Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War, of August 12, 1949.
The two Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions are:
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions, of 12 August 1949 relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-internal Armed Conflicts (Protocol II)[^50] .