International Human Rights Seminar 1 – Overview of Development of
International Human Rights Law
Reading
What are Human Rights For? Three Personal Reflections
Navanethem Pillay – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
The power of human rights makes it possible to claim freedom, equality, justice and well-being
UN Secretary General notes that recent food emergencies, demise of our natural environment, unrest,
and financial turmoil hit hardest a frontline of people wo are also likely to be the victims of human
rights violations
Kenneth Roth – Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
Human rights law ‘should be seen as a… last resort when domestic rights legislation fails’ (page 7)
Human rights law ‘helps to build public morality that finds such discrimination and inequality wrong’
(page 8)
‘Shame can be a powerful motivator’ (Page 9)
Hina Jilani – Director of Aghs Legal Aid Centre and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan
Difficult to answer the questions as to what humans rights are for in the context and reality of
everyday life
About effective remedies for victims, effective ways to create an environment where freedoms can
exist for defenders of them.
Chapter 1 – History
Hersch Lauterpacht, a professor of international law in 1945 stated that the concept of a body of
international human rights law was difficult to conceive of because it would require ‘restrictions on
sovereignty more far-reaching in their implications than any yet propended in the annals of
international utopias’ (page 15)
2) Domestic Human Rights
Many different sources to human rights dating back hundreds of years from many different
civilizations and religious teachings – to choose one starting point could risk politicising human rights
so instead it is viewed as coming from many threads
Following shall deal with the origins of the legal measures on human rights
Magna Carta of 1215 a legal basis – about limiting the power of the ruler against primarily rich
barons, but contained statements such as ‘to none will we sell to none deny or delay, right or justice’.
Bill of Rights of 1689 – source of limited number of defined rights
Enlightenment Thinkers
Hobbe’s Leviathan of 1651 spoke of a world where rulers had absolute power to prevent against the
greater evil of disorder, but the ruler was expected to exercise the power responsibly – idea that
power to govern comes from the consent of the governed
Locke’s Two Treatises of Government of 1690 advocated natural liberty and equality of human beings
and believed it was the state’s responsibility to secure this. Leaders should be able to be opposed
when they abuse their power
The Enlightenment Movement – Leading figures of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire and Kant – idea
that everyone was born with certain natural rights which no authority could take away (page 18)
Human Rights Transformed into Positive Law
US Declaration of Independence 1776 – Document listed grievances against George III and inspired
successful prosecution of the American War of Independence. Also set out view ‘that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights’.
Virginia Declaration of Rights 1776 – ‘all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the
people’
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