What Are Human Rights?
By the BrainSnail editorial team. How these articles are written and checked, and how to tell us when one is wrong.
Human rights are rights held by every person simply for being human, rather than granted by a particular government. The modern framework was built deliberately after the Second World War, and understanding that origin explains a great deal about how it is structured.
The central claim: universality
The central claim is universality. A human right is not earned, granted or conditional on citizenship, good behaviour or contribution. On this view a government does not create your right to a fair trial, it recognises it.
This is a strong philosophical position and it has been argued about for centuries. What made it practically significant was the decision after 1945 to write it into international agreements with actual institutions behind them.
Where the modern framework came from
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, drafted in the aftermath of the war and the Holocaust. It was a declaration rather than a treaty, so it was not directly binding.
It was later given legal force through two treaties in 1966, one covering civil and political rights and one covering economic, social and cultural rights. Regional systems developed alongside, including the European Convention on Human Rights with its own court.
The main categories
Human rights are usually grouped into broad families:
- •Civil rights, such as freedom from torture and the right to a fair trial
- •Political rights, such as voting, assembly and free expression
- •Economic rights, such as fair working conditions
- •Social rights, such as education, health and an adequate standard of living
- •Cultural rights, including participation in cultural life and language use
Absolute and qualified rights
Not all rights work the same way. A small number are absolute and can never be limited for any reason, including the prohibition on torture and on slavery.
Most rights are qualified. Freedom of expression, for instance, can be restricted where necessary and proportionate to protect other interests such as public safety or the rights of others. Understanding this distinction prevents the common mistake of treating any limit on any right as automatically a violation.
The enforcement problem
This is the honest weak point. International human rights law depends heavily on states agreeing to be bound and on reporting, monitoring and diplomatic pressure. There is no global police force.
Regional courts can be more effective, with binding judgments that states usually comply with. Domestic incorporation matters most of all: rights enforceable in a country's own courts are worth far more in practice than those existing only in a treaty. There are also genuine debates about cultural specificity and about whether economic and social rights are enforceable in the same way as civil ones.
Who wrote the Universal Declaration
The drafting committee was more international than the document's critics sometimes assume. It was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt and included the Chinese diplomat and philosopher Peng Chun Chang, the Lebanese philosopher Charles Malik, and the French jurist Rene Cassin.
Chang in particular argued for language that would be acceptable across philosophical traditions, pressing for wording not tied to any single religious or cultural framework. Eight states abstained from the final vote rather than opposing it, including the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, and the reasons they gave still feature in debates about universality today.
The takeaway
Human rights are entitlements held by everyone simply as a human being, formalised internationally after 1945, and their real force depends far more on domestic courts than on international declarations.