LEGAL STUDIES ASSESSMENT
CONTEMPORARY HUMAN RIGHTS
ISSUES
Dylan Stone
Year 12- 2015

INTRODUCTIONWhat are human rights?

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?
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“Human rights are entitlements that are fundamental. They are things to which every human being is entitled just because they are human”. All people have a claim to human rights as they are fundamental in ensuring peace and security for all peoples. They cannot be ‘given’ by governments, instead they are an inherited set of rights which automatically belong to each member of humankind.
Society (especially in the 20th century after
WWII) began changing their values to suggest that all human beings have a common core.
Division along language barriers, gender lines, skin colours or sexual orientation began to be superseded by the theory that human beings are fundamentally equal and that vast similarities lie between each person. While this view has been widely held for centuries, it began gaining more support after the atrocities of WWII were showcased on the world stage.

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?
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In short, human rights are recognised rights which are-

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Universal,

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Indivisible,

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Inherent,

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Inalienable.

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The three types of human rights are-

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Civil and political rights,

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Economic, social and cultural rights,

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Collective rights.

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?
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Civil and Political- Civil and Political Rights are best preserved in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which was adopted on 16th December 1966 and enforced on 23rd March 1976. They are a set of rights which protect peoples freedom from infringements from governments/private organisations. They also allow all humans the right to participate in the political and civil life of a state without repression or discrimination.
Some of the civil rights protected in the ICCPR include “all peoples have the right of selfdetermination” (Article 1) and “there shall be no restriction upon or derogation from any of the fundamental human rights recognized or existing in any State Party to the present
Covenant.” (Article 5.2).

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?
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Economic, Social and Cultural- Economic,
Social and Cultural rights are an extremely broad category of human rights which are guaranteed by the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR). ICESCR was adopted by the UN
General Assembly through resolution 2200
(XXI) on December 16th, 1966.
Some of the basic rights which are protected and classified as economic, social and cultural rights include the right to work, the right to education, the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, the right to adequate housing, the right to food and the right to water.
(underlined rights are direct from http://www.amnesty.org/en/economic-socialand-cultural-rights) WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?
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Collective- Collective human rights (otherwise known as group rights), are human rights which are held by a group of people, not through people individually.
One example of a collective human right is the right to self-determination.

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?
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The concept of human rights (HR) and formal human rights declarations aren’t new, however, only in the last seventy years have many significant advanced occurred to recognise human rights.
A limited amount of formal human rights documents have appeared throughout historythe Magna Carta 1215, the French Bill of
Rights 1789 and the US Bill of Rights 1791.
However more recent Human Rights documents have been signed/ratified- the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),
International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR).

INTRODUCTION IIWhat is Genocide?

WHAT IS GENOCIDE?
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The term ‘genocide’ was derived in 1943 by
Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin was a Jewish lawyer who escaped Nazi occupation of Poland during the
Holocaust. Genocide means “the