Know Your Rights

To take hold, human rights must be known to those who seek them. They must be understood.

Human rights are universal and guaranteed by international law.

They’re also guaranteed by many national laws around the world. People ask for their human rights to be respected, to be upheld, to be defended in the wake of adversity and injustice. But what are they?

The universal declaration of human rights lists them as follows:

Article 1	Right to Equality
Article 2	Freedom from Discrimination
Article 3	Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security
Article 4	Freedom from Slavery
Article 5	Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment
Article 6	Right to Recognition as a Person before the Law
Article 7	Right to Equality before the Law
Article 8	Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal
Article 9	Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile
Article 10	Right to Fair Public Hearing
Article 11	Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty
Article 12	Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
Article 13	Right to Free Movement in and out of the Country
Article 14	Right to Asylum in other Countries from Persecution
Article 15	Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to Change It
Article 16	Right to Marriage and Family
Article 17	Right to Own Property
Article 18	Freedom of Belief and Religion
Article 19	Freedom of Opinion and Information
Article 20	Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Article 21	Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections
Article 22	Right to Social Security
Article 23	Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions
Article 24	Right to Rest and Leisure
Article 25	Right to Adequate Living Standard
Article 26	Right to Education
Article 27	Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community
Article 28	Right to a Social Order that Articulates this Document
Article 29	Community Duties Essential to Free and Full Development
Article 30	Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above Rights

Pretty straightforward, at first glance, self-evident, but you’d be surprised at what we take for granted. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to define.

So much for universal rights. As far as nationally-defined human rights go, one must research their local and national databases to find out what they are.

The problem is that most of the people living in deprivation or injustice can’t research their rights because they lack the resources and/or capabilities. It’s a vicious circle from which they can’t get out, a black hole hungry for livelihoods. To escape it, help must come from above or the side.

This, of course, presents a problem. It’s usually in the name of rights that rights are trampled, so interfering to save others can’t be taken for granted. But neither can staying put and watching people suffer. It’s truly tricky business, helping someone, especially on the mass scale, a process larger than any generation, and which bears fruit long after initiatives are launched.

So here we are, eager to improve the world and make things better for ourselves. It’s taken us roughly three thousand years to reach the stage where we are now. One would say we’ve come a long way, others that we’ve done very little in the grand scheme of things. Where we go from here and how we fare from now on depends on how well we grasp the history of human rights and the nature of their content. Without local leaders to champion and enact these rights on regional levels, in ways that not only sound good on paper, but which function on the ground, they’re nothing more than squiggles on paper, fancy words that the privileged exploit in the name of those in whose interest they claim to intervene, making matters worse, feeding that black hole.

References:

http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-5/8_udhr-abbr.htm

http://www.humanrights.com/#/home