Introduction To Human Rights

Introduction

Human rights are understood as rights which belong to an individual as a consequence of being human and for no other reason. Hence human rights are the rights people are entitled to simply because they are human beings, irrespective of their citizenship, nationality, race, ethnicity, language, gender, sexuality, or abilities; human rights become enforceable when they are codified as Conventions, Covenants, or Treaties, or as they become recognized as Customary International Law. No one needs to possess a qualification in order to enjoy their human rights. It is important that one exercise their human rights otherwise they would feel like their “rights” are being infringed upon. Human rights are mandated to protect citizens and

Human rights are interdependent and indivisible which means the deprivation of one rights adversely affects the other rights and that all human rights have the same basic characteristics and should be upheld through the medium of equally potent and enforcement mechanisms. Thus:

“Promotion of principles of universality, interdependence and indivisibility collectively represents an attempt to invalidate sectional pretences as an excuse for the violation of certain human rights and seeks to upgrade all human rights as a uniform set of equally compelling conditions for better living conditions and a human existence for all.”

The idea of human rights was developed largely in the West and hence the western idea of human rights was introduced in the legal systems many non-western cultures through colonialism. For this reason, human rights tends to be associated with cultural imperialism and is seen very often as a pretext for continued intervention by former colonial western

Cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect each other's differences. The phrase "cultural diversity" is also sometimes used to mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. Cultural diversity widens the range of options open to everyone; it is one of the roots of development, understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more adequate intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence. Culture has been defined as ‘the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterise a society or social group. It includes the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and belief.’ According to Marek Thee, the universality of human rights has been taken for granted. There are much instances where diverse religious beliefs, traditions and habits do not conform to accepted Western patterns and the understanding of human rights. Thee continues to give an example with regards to the status of women in the relationship between the state and citizen, family and society and in conflicting attitudes to capital and labour. Thee then concludes