The Contentious History Of The International Bill Of Human Rights

This book shows how a series of contradictions worked their way into the International Bill of Human Rights.

Human rights activists frequently claim that human rights are indivisible, and the United Nations has declared the indivisibility, interdependency, and interrelatedness of these rights to be beyond dispute. Yet in practice a significant divide remains between the two grand categories of human rights: civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights on the other. To date, few scholars have critically examined how the notion of indivisibility has shaped the complex relationship between these two sets of rights. In Indivisible Human Rights, Daniel J. Whelan offers a carefully crafted account of the rhetoric of indivisibility. Whelan traces the political and historical development of the concept, which originated in the contentious debates surrounding the translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into binding treaty law as two separate Covenants on Human Rights. In the 1960s and 1970s, Whelan demonstrates, postcolonial states employed a revisionist rhetoric of indivisibility to elevate economic and social rights over civil and political rights, eventually resulting in the declaration of a right to development. By the 1990s, the rhetoric of indivisibility had shifted to emphasize restoration of the fundamental unity of human rights and reaffirm the obligation of states to uphold both major human rights categories—thus opening the door to charges of violations resulting from underdevelopment and poverty. As Indivisible Human Rights illustrates, the rhetoric of indivisibility has frequently been used to further political ends that have little to do with promoting the rights of the individual. Drawing on scores of original documents, many of them long forgotten, Whelan lets the players in this drama speak for themselves, revealing the conflicts and compromises behind a half century of human rights discourse. Indivisible Human Rights will be welcomed by scholars and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding the realization of human rights.

The full text and complete story of the most exciting, most important document of our times, and what it means for our future.

This volume explores the place of human rights in history, providing an alternative framework for understanding the political and legal dilemmas that these conflicts presented, with case studies focusing on the 1940s through the present.

10 The right to life

Essay from the year 2020 in the subject Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, grade: 4.0, , language: English, abstract: The legal status of the UDHR in International law has engendered great debate and discourse. For years, scholars and authors alike have posited a myriad of theories regarding what many have described as a highly contentious subject. The purpose of this paper is to bring clarity to an issue that has befuddled and continues to befuddle students of law. The paper offers an intriguing and a multi-faceted approach to the enforceability of the UDHR on both the world domestic Ghanaian stages. It takes the reader through a refreshing description of basic concepts that encapsulate human rights and expatiates in conjunction with case law the legal effects of the UDHR from the Ghanaian perspective against an international backdrop.