National 7 (Spotlight Weekly)

New Dimensions of Human Rights

By LALIT BAHADUR BASNET

The right to live with human dignity is the core theme of human rights. All democratic movements of the world have prioritized human rights and placed them as the basic component of constitutionalism and democracy. The mark of all civilizations is respect of human dignity and freedom. Without respect for and protection of human rights, there can be no civilization or democracy. Only tyranny and darkness can prevail.

Human rights generally tend to be defined as only political liberties and democratic freedom. This is a wrong definition. We have to take human rights in the broad sense of allowing human beings to live with dignity. Human rights mean not only civil and political rights that are vital for a democratic society but also economic social and cultural rights that enable an individual to live with dignity. Human dignity means not only freedom from torture but also freedom from starvation. It means freedom to vote, right to education, freedom of belief and right to health. The right to live with human dignity is core theme of human rights and all movements should be directed toward this end.

If we study the history of human rights development, the legal foundation was laid by the slogan of French Revolution "liberty, equality and fraternity". This was a milestone that deemed that all people had certain natural and unalterable rights. The French Revolution recognized political and civil rights, but ignored social economic and cultural rights.

After the Second World War, members of United Nations produced two successors to the French Declaration. The first is the Universal Declaration of Human Right-1948, which has been recognized as historic landmark in the quest for human justice. The second is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Today, some of the human right organizations are thinking about bringing the rights to food, health care and fair wages into their remit. Amnesty International, the world's largest human rights movement, met in Dakar and decided to expand its mandate on social cultural and economic rights. Civil and political rights (which are called first-generation and negative rights) are easier to implement because the adjudication they require are simpler. First-generation rights are said to be negative liberties (freedom from rather than freedom to). They call for acts of omission rather than commission and tend to protect these rights.

In contrast, economic, social and cultural rights (which are called second-generation and positive rights) are widely ignored, especially in Third World countries. It is argued that "positive liberties" such as rights to health care, right to food, shelter, may be very expensive to provide and governments often ignore these rights on the ground of economic necessity. Second-generation rights are more expensive to protect and are enormously costlier than first-generation rights.

During the Cold War, capitalists were keen on civil and political rights, while communists focused on social and economic rights. When western lobbyists accused the Soviet Union of violating its citizens' civil rights, the Moscow government replied that economic and social rights of its people were more important. Today, the Chinese make much of the same arguments. Until now, the positive liberties have been used less widely to promote rights that enshrine mainly economic benefits such as housing, food, health care and fair wages. Now, western human rights activists, who have traditionally focused only on civil and political violations, are looking economic, social and cultural rights and hope eventually to persuade governments to place the right to a house or meal on an equal footing with the right to vote.

Over the past six years, Amnesty International's main policy committee has passed resolutions to expand its mandate to incorporate economic and social rights. UN bodies are also keen to extend this concept. Since 1998, the World Health Organization has been asking the international community to recognize health as a human right. The UN Human Rights Commission recently stated that international trade law ought to be harmonized with international human rights law.

Michael Ignateffi, the director of the Carr Centre of Human Rights Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, insists that the ambit of human rights organizations must expand their traditional mandate. "Look at Botswana" he says. "All the gains in civil and political rights there will be wiped out by the catastrophic losses in economic and social rights." The fact that Botswana's citizens suffer from the world's highest incidence of AIDS proves that democracy and press freedom are not prophylactics. Michael argues that getting the medicine for AIDS patients is the human right and getting bread is a human right to hungry people.

America, the self-styled human rights protector, has not yet ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. George Mose, US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission, has explained that his country was "concerned" about changes in international law that would "lead in the direction of the creation of legal, enforceable, entitlement to economic social and cultural rights" because "that would mean citizens could sue to their government for enforcement of rights.

The integration of human rights and human development can result in significant improvements in human society, facilitating the dignity, well being and freedom of individual in general. The conception of human development cannot ignore the importance of political liberties and democratic freedoms. The Declaration on the Right to Development, which stated unequivocally that the right to development is a human right, was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1986 by an overwhelming majority, with the US casting the single dissenting vote. The first Article of the Declaration states that† "The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to and enjoy economic social, cultural and political development in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized."

The four main propositions of the declaration are:† (a) The right to development is human right; (b) The human right to development is a right to a particular process of development in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized; (c) The meaning of exercising these rights consistently with freedom implies free, effective and full participation of all the individuals concerned in decision making and implementation of the process. Therefore, the process must be transparent and accountable, individuals must have equal opportunity of access to the resources for development and receive fair distribution of benefits of development;† (d) The right confers unequivocal obligation on duty holders - individuals in the community, states at the national level and states at the international level.

In pursuing a human-rights-based approach to development, additional indicators that stress on participation, empowerment, transparency, accountability, democracy are required to measure the levels of enjoyment of human right.

Human rights and human development are the two sides of the same coin. Human rights express the bold idea that all people have claims to social arrangements that protect them from the worst abuses and deprivations and that secure the freedom for a life of dignity. Human development in turn is a process enhancing human capabilities to expand choices and opportunities so that each person can lead a life with respect and value. Human development brings a dynamic long-term perspective to the fulfillment of rights. It directs attention to the social and economic context in which rights can be realized. In short, human development is essential for realizing human rights and human rights are essential for human development.