Human rights are commonly understood as "inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being.” Human rights are thus conceived as universal (applicable everywhere) and egalitarian (the same for everyone). In simple words Human Right refers to right of equality for every individual human being.
Human being is a life form that has many advantages being most intellectual species of life form still needs air, water and food to survive; Shelter and cloth for adapting and protection against weather; Interact and gather freely to grow and reproduce. Hence every human being must have right to breath freely, access to clean water and food, possess cloth and shelter, and ability to interact, gather and stay with others by his or her will.
As human grew powerful and intellectual discrimination or control of one human by another started as if right to survive being vested with the fittest; the discrimination take forms in many different ways where the classification started based on sex, work nature, who has more muscle power(slavery), slowly turning into political power. Classification based on religion, economy, creed, region. And with invent of technology and time the distinction kept on increasing the gap between the humans created on these basis, that continue even today.
To overcome the issue of distinctions and reform the society many codes/ reforms/ laws were introduced now known as Human Rights. The existence of such human rights precedents in ancient codes like the “Code of Hammurabi” and the “reforms of Ashoka”; the modern sense of human rights can be traced to Renaissance Europe and Protestant Reformation in Middle Ages. Two major revolutions occurred during the 18th century, in the United States (1776) and in France (1789), leading to the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen respectively, both of which established certain legal rights.
These were followed by developments in philosophy of human right which attempts to examine the underlying basis of the concept of human rights and critically looks at its content and justification. The two theories that dominate contemporary human rights discussion are the interest theory and the will theory. Interest theory argues that the principal function of human rights is to protect and promote certain essential human interests, while will theory attempts to establish the validity of human rights based on the unique human capacity for freedom.
In the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery. Many groups and movements have achieved profound social changes over the course of the 20th century in the name of human rights. Labor unions brought about laws granting workers the right to strike, establishing minimum work conditions and forbidding or regulating child labor. The women's rights movement succeeded in gaining for many women the right to vote. National liberation movements in many countries succeeded in driving out colonial powers. Movements by long-oppressed racial and religious minorities succeeded in many parts of the world.
The United Nations has played an important role in international human-rights law following the World Wars, the United Nations and its members developed much of the discourse and the bodies of law that now make up international humanitarian law and international human rights law codified and defined in the International Bill of Human Rights, composing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Most sensitive issue under Human Right and the one which is always in debate is the right to live. Many activists of Human Rights argue for elimination of the death sentences in any form may it be for a one time killer, serial killer or a terrorist. This has no way a simple solution as by many laws extreme criminal acts are punishable by law with as severe as death sentence this is although contrary to the human right fundamentals. I do not deny the fact that these should not be discussed or questioned but in 2012 there are lot many other issues to be dealt with to ensure Human Rights for millions of people who have been denied by most basic rights.
Most daunting task is of developing the under developed nations in order to secure the human rights of millions of people living in those countries. UNO is doing a great deal for ensuring everyone’s right to a standard of living adequate for the health, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond ones control. World Health Organization is continuing to put its efforts in promoting health on daily basis or in case of disaster incidence as happened in tsunami or may it be earth Quake in Japan.
Now we are living in 21st century year 2012 where ease in travel and communication made it easy to live in world known as “Global Village”. But still we are unaware of human atrocities happening in places like Uganda where Joseph Kony head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan guerrilla group a single human ordered the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers. This raises the question of Human rights being effective or not, what the UN has done to stop this case of violation in past 26 years? In my opinion United Nation should have taken such violators on its list and taken action in stopping them on time before a mishap could actually happen.
When a group of people from “Invisible Children Inc.” proposed to stop Kony and promote its demand to raise efforts in capturing Kony and bring him to justice and also to liberate and present people of Uganda with human rights then why can’t UNO take this on priority and spreading the awareness atleast if they are incapable of taking any action? This also raises the concern Why don’t Human Rights organizations or media around the world spend efforts on spreading awareness in order to increase demand for action?
UDHR also advocates right of education but in developing and under developed countries there are still children who are not able to complete the elementary education owing to lack of facilities, awareness poor economic condition when a child has to enter employment in struggle for survival. The article on education also throws a light on miss use of quota system implemented in countries like India at higher education. If the quality elementary education and a fair examination system is available to evaluate the growth of student then atleast the professional and Technical education must be on merit basis to uphold the right of deserving human. Moreover Quota system increases the gap rather than bridging it as there is a form where you purposely identifying a person based on a classification.
In today’s world, there is one more classification which is added due to number of laws being formed and amended over the ages this factor is always hidden but exists it is nothing but the law itself. Merely set of rules laid down by set of people for rest of the people living by the law. Has anyone thought are these laws easy enough to be understood by common man? Why there is a separate Hindu and Muslim law being a secular country? Isn’t the law making discrimination by having such separate laws? The Human Rights should be above any law and this is also acknowledged in the UDHR Article 7.
I would be happy to live in a world where there is nowhere required to mention my religion, nationality or race then only we would be able to achieve a world as Global Village where everyone enjoys equal human rights. So let us take a pledge to abide by this Article and take the responsibility in raising the voice for securing the rights of humans may it be for the people of Uganda or for the right of a child in your neighborhood for his/her basic education who is deprived for due to any reason.
