The Nature and Development of Concepts of Human Rights

State sovereignty;

• State Sovereignty recognises that nations have the right to govern themselves and to determine their own destiny. Other nations or organisations have no right to interfere in the internal affairs of another nation.
• Concept grew after WWII.

Natural law;

• The fundamental human rights that exist today bear a strong relationship to the principles of natural law. Governments are considered to be answerable to a higher authority: that of the international community and its representative, the United Nations.
• Laws derived from the law of God as discerned through the Bible are termed ‘natural’ laws.
• Natural law was seen to be above the state. Laws made by the state were termed positive law, but these carried less authority than natural law.
• The idea of natural law presented a danger to the concept of sovereignty because it suggested that there was an authority higher than the sovereign.

Historic constitutional documents;

• The Magna Carta (1215)-  drafted as a means of resolving a power struggle between King John of England and his nobles.
• The English Bill of Rights (1688)- ensured that parliament could function without royal interference.
• The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (1776)- held the concept that every person has the right to live their own life and to be free from the oppression of others.
• Constitution of the United States of America (1787)- who advocated the separation of powers in order to prevent any branch of government becoming too powerful.
• United States Bill of Rights- consists of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances)
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789)- Similar to US Bill of Rights. The rights were said to apply to all people and not just citizens of France. This made the declaration the first attempt to develop universal rights.

Slavery abolition;

• The thirteenth amendment of the US Constitution formally outlawed slavery in 1865.
• After much exposure in WWI, The Slavery Convention of 1926 was negotiated, but signatories were only required to end slavery ‘as soon as possible’. The end of the Second World War also exposed the widespread use of forced labour by the Nazis and in the Soviet Union.
• A new Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery came into being in 1956.
• Slavery is also banned under Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Trade Unionism;

• Is an associations of employees that is created to protect the rights of workers in a particular trade (a single employee has very little power when dealing with management, but many workers combined in a single cause have a great deal of power).
• Early trade unions played a very important role in establishing that employers owed a responsibility to their employees.
• Trade union rights are now entrenched in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 23 (4) of the declaration states that ‘everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his or her rights’.

Universal suffrage;

• Women couldn’t vote, and started suffrage groups in the 1890s. The right to in Australia is only fairly recent, happening in the mid 1900s.
• Granting women the right to vote removed the political distinction between the sexes, and was a major step towards recognising universal human rights. 
• The right to vote is now protected under Article 21 (3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Universal education;

• People of all social classes recognised that education offered a means of ensuring the future of their children. The lower classes especially saw education as a means of upward social mobility.
• Today a right to education is something all Australians enjoy. Many nations, however, have educational standards that remain poor and an education is often beyond the reach of most families.
• The United Nations has recognised that education is an essential component of the alleviation of poverty, the adoption of family planning and the improvement of the status of women, and has invested a great deal of money in improving the level of basic education throughout the world.
• The right to education is protected under Article 26 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.