Human rights are universal legal protections for individuals and groups against acts and omissions affecting their fundamental freedoms, rights and human dignity. Human rights are inherent to all human beings and are based on respect for everyone’s dignity and worth. They are based on essential human values that unite all cultures and civilizations. Human rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights treaties ratified by states and other instruments adopted since World War II. In addition, there are regional human rights instruments, and most countries have adopted constitutions and other laws that formally protect people’s rights and freedoms. International treaties and customary law, along with the interpretative practice of treaty bodies, form the basis of international human rights law. Other instruments, including declarations, recommendations and principles that are internationally adopted but not legally binding, contribute to the understanding, implementation and extension of human rights.
The characteristics of human rights
Human rights are universal, inalienable, interrelated, interdependent and indivisible. Together, these characteristics in Figure III ensure the realization of all human rights: civil and political (e.g. right to participate in public life, freedom from torture and arbitrary detention), economic, social and cultural (e.g. right to food, social protection, education) or collective rights (e.g. right to development, rights of indigenous peoples) for all people at all times, except in certain situations of limited rights in accordance with due process of law. The degree to which one right is realized depends on the realization of other rights. For example, the right to vote and the right to participate in public life may not matter much to those who have nothing to eat. Moreover, the full realization of these rights depends, for example, on the realization of the right to education. Likewise, improvement in the realization of one human right cannot be accomplished at the expense of the realization of any other right. Thus, the realization of civil rights is no less important than the realization of economic rights.
Human Rights Obligations
At the core of human rights is the definition of rights-holders, who have rights by virtue of being human, and obligation-bearers, who have legal obligations to respect, protect and fulfill3 those rights (Box 2). When exercising rights, it is important not only to identify the elements that count as rights, but also to identify all actors that have obligations to ensure those rights.4 Thus, there are rights of individuals or groups of individuals, and there are corresponding obligations – individual or collective – primarily of states. Human rights law obliges the state and other duty-bearers not to infringe upon fundamental human rights and freedoms and to take measures to implement them.
