What is International Human Rights Law
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
BASIC CONCEPTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights have been described as those activities, conditions, and freedoms that all human beings are entitled to enjoy, by virtue of their humanity and regardless of their status. Human rights are ideally thought of as being inherent, inalienable (i.e., they cannot simply be waived when they are violated by another agent, such as a state or a business), interdependent (i.e., realization of one right contributes to the realization of others), and indivisible, which means that they cannot be granted or taken away or selectively ignored.
One person’s enjoyment of human rights depends on universal respect for such rights and the actions of other members of society to the extent that such actions have an impact on that person’s enjoyment of his or her rights.
For further inquiries see Chapter 3 of The Constitution of Sierra Leone, 1991, Act No. 6 of 1991. Which makes provision for the Fundamental Human Rights of each and every one in Sierra Leone.
HOW DID THE VARIOUS SOURCES OF HUMAN RIGHTS CAME ABOUT
A variety of sources have been referred to in identifying and describing human rights, including the teachings of all the world’s major religions, moral philosophy, natural law, and legal positivism; however, human rights transcend laws or cultural traditions. Human rights should be protected under the law, and human rights law has evolved into a complex area that has attracted an abundance of theorists and raised basic questions relating to the scope of human rights and which parties, including States and non-State actors such as businesses, have a legal duty to ensure that a particular human right held by another party (the “rights holder”) is respected.
LEGAL EFFORTS MADE TOWARDS THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN OUR WORLD TODAY
A wide range of efforts have been made to develop and enforce legally binding human rights standards through international treaties that establish rules and standards for how States should treat people and how people should treat one another. Various categories of human rights have been recognized including fundamental rights (i.e., the right to life, non-discrimination, and the idea that everyone is born equal); rights in the legal system; rights in society; political, economic and social rights; and cultural rights. The human rights system also includes efforts to create oversight authority for legal bodies to ensure that human rights are respected, protected and enforced, and that rights holders have recourse to remedies for violations of their rights.
WHAT LED TO THE CREATION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
The creation of what has become known as the international human rights law began with the activities of the United Nations (“UN”) when it was first established in the aftermath of World War II and it has since grown to include a comprehensive library of treaties (there are nine core international human rights treaties and several important regional treaties) and domestic laws defining human rights, a global community of international, regional, and national bodies to monitor and interpret human rights and an expanding array of tools to enforce human rights and respond to violations of those rights by States and other actors.
Specific attention should be paid to the fundamental principles the so-called “International Bill of Human Rights”, which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 and two important UN human rights treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
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