Human rights

1
HS-105/106 Pakistan studies
Jawad Hussain
Visiting faculty
Department of Humanities
Jawwadhussain7@cloud.neduet.edu.pk
Reference

➢ Pakistan: A Hard Country, 2012 Anatol liven

➢ Pakistan and World Affairs Shamshad Ahmed
➢ Editorials and articles
➢ CFR
➢ UDHR.
➢ HRCP
➢ Foreign affairs.
outline

1. Introduction.
2. Evolution
3. Islamic vs western.
4. Current situation.
What Are Human Rights?

HUMAN RIGHTS are the rights that all people have by

virtue of being human beings.
What Are Human Rights?

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings,

regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language,
religion, or any other status.
What Are Human Rights?

Human rights include:

➢ the right to life and liberty,
➢ freedom from slavery and torture,
➢ freedom of opinion and expression,
➢ the right to work and education, and many more.
➢ Everyone is entitled to these rights, without
discrimination.
What Are Human Rights?

RIGHTS – moral power

➢ to hold (rights to life, nationality, own property, rest and leisure)
➢ to do (rights to marry, peaceful assembly, run for public office,
education),
➢ to omit (freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading
punishment, freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile)
➢ to exact something (equal protection of the law, equal access to
public service, equal pay for equal work) HUMAN RIGHTS
 What Are Human Rights?

Charteristics of Human rights :

➢ INHERENT
➢ FUNDAMENTAL (article 8-28)
➢ UNTRANSFERABLE
➢ INDIVISIBLE
➢ UNIVERSAL
➢ INTERDEPENDENT
➢ Internationally guaranteed Legally protected (UDHR)
➢ Protects individuals and groups
➢ Cannot be taken away
➢ Obliges States and State actors
 Evolution

Throughout history, different schools of thought converged in the

generation and evolution of the consciousness of human rights,
which were formally recognized in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
➢ first historical stage in the origin and development of human
rights in religious and classical philosophical trends on natural
right.
 Evolution
➢ T he leading religious traditions, like Hinduism, Judaism,
Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam, in spite
of their differences, contradictions and conflicts, share
the same vision of and commitment to respecting the
dignity of all people and the resultant task of fraternity,
solidarity and protection of the defenseless and least
protected
 Evolution
Among these traditions, those that stand out are the schools of moral
Confucian philosophy in China, the Babylonian school promoted by
Hammurabi, and the different philosophical schools of Egyptian, Hindu
and Persian civilizations.
Evolution

Among them, it is necessary to mention Hammurabi’s Code and the

remarkable legal body developed by Roman law that
distinguished Ius Gentium (law of peoples) from Ius Naturae (natural
law). According to them, the laws of peoples derive from the nature
of peoples themselves and not from the state. They also establish
specific responsibilities and universal rights that are extended to
each and every human being, members of a worldwide community
understood as an “all”
 Evolution
A second stage, in which there was a monumental advance in the vision and
consciousness of human rights, would be identified by the five centuries that
comprise the Renaissance, the Reformation and the formation of national
states(1648), entering into the Enlightenment, the independence of the
United States of America(1776) and the French Revolution(1789). During this
time, from a rational and enlightenment philosophy and an ius naturae legal
perspective, individual rights and freedom were privileged, and in some
cases became absolute.
 Evolution

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu and others wrote

on the natural, inalienable and unalterable rights of all people to
equality, liberty and solidarity, which governments must pledge to
protect and respect through a social contract..
 Evolution
On the other side, formal protections of human rights
provoked opposing reactions from different societal sectors
with hierarchical interests, oligarchical privileges and with
racial or gender prejudices.
Opposition also came from governing authorities (emperors,
monarchs, prime ministers and presidents) who considered
human rights a threat to the principle of national sovereignty
and therefore to domestic sovereign jurisdiction, which they
interpreted to be free from any external or international
interference.
 Evolution
The grave upheavals produced by the two World
Wars led to the creation of the UN and to enactment
of international laws to safeguard human rights,
beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights of 1948
 Evolution
The Declaration is not a legally binding document.
However, through the general acceptance and practice of its
principles as law, it has become the Magna Carta and internationally
recognized legal and ethical framework for international, regional and
national human rights mechanisms. It also serves as a source for other
international and regional declarations and conventions on human,
civil
Political
economic
social and cultural rights
 Evolution
The growth of consciousness between civil society organizations, rights
activists, and supporters of self-determination had a crucial role in the
decolonization process.
From the end of the 1940s to the 1970s, numerous African, Asian and
Caribbean countries became independent from their British, North
American, French, Dutch or Belgian empires.
The apartheid regime was also abolished in South Africa.
 Evolution
The retrenchment of the concept of absolute sovereignty during the
Cold War era sparked a process of systematic persecution of human
rights activists and defenders, who were considered insurgents and a
threat to national security.
In this climate, the UN General Assembly adopted the 1970 Declaration
on the Strengthening of International Security, which reinforced the
interdependence of international security, human rights and
development, overcoming the national security logic linked to the use
of armed forces
 Evolution
With the end of the Cold War and the worldwide process of
democratization, civil society organizations and international
agencies assumed a fundamental role in denouncing
human insecurity and lack of protection and security, as
reflected in violence, hunger, poverty, preventable illnesses
and man-made disasters.
In this context, starting in the 1990s with the help of different
initiatives and the contributions from different disciplines,
including the fields of development, IR, political economy,
legal philosophy and human rights, a process began to
reform the concept of security.
 Evolution
From its traditional focus on the protection of sovereignty
and state territory against external and internal threats,
security began to evolve as a concept that placed
individual security as a top priority. This paradigm shift
propelled the UN Development Programme to coin the term
of “human security,” concerning itself with the population’s
security and not the territorial sovereignty of countries
International Human Rights Law

International human rights law lays down the

obligations of Governments to act in certain ways
or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote
and protect human rights and fundamental
freedoms of individuals or groups.