Unit 13 Human Rights Key terms

Amnesty International (AI) – is an international NGO which defines its mission as "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated." Founded in London in 1961, AI draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international law and standards. It works to mobilize public opinion to exert pressure on governments who perpetrate abuses. The organization was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its "campaign against torture " and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978.

Apartheid – is the South African policy of racial discrimination

Basic human needs – Adequate food intake (in terms of calories, proteins, and vitamins), safe drinking water, sufficient clothing and shelter, literacy, sanitation, health care, employment, and dignity.

Discrimination – The unfair treatment or denial of privi­leges to persons only because they belong to some arbitrarily selected group or class.

Human rights – The political rights and civil liberties recog­nized by the international community as inalienable and valid for individuals in all countries by virtue of their humanness. These are freedoms to which all people are entitled, even though many such inalienable privileges are not universally protected by the laws of states.

Human Rights Watch – a nongovernmental organization estab­lished in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of interna­tionally recognized human rights among the signatories of the Helsinki Accords. It is supported by contributions from private indi­viduals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds directly or indirectly. It was originally founded as "Helsinki Watch" to support the citizens' groups that formed throughout the Eastern bloc countries to monitor their governments' compliance with the Helsinki Accords.

Individualism – The belief in the importance of the needs and rights of the indi­vidual over those of the group. The concept that rights and liberties of the individual are paramount within a society relations. Powers claimed by a president that are not expressed in the Constitu­tion, but are inferred from it.

Legal rights (sometimes also called civil rights or statutory rights) – are rights conveyed by a particular polity, codified into legal statues by some form of legislature (or unenumerated but implied from enumerated rights), and as such are contingent upon local laws, customs, or beliefs.

Natural rights (also called moral rights or unalienable rights) – are rights which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of a particular society or polity. Natural rights are thus necessarily universal, whereas legal rights are culturally and politically relative.

Prisoners of conscience – are people who have been put into prison for their political or social beliefs or for breaking the law while protesting against a political or social system.

Relativists – A group of people who subscribe to the be­lief that human rights are the product of cultures.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are entitled. It consists of 30 articles which have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions and laws. The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols. In 1966 the General Assembly adopted the two detailed Covenants, which complete the International Bill of Human Rights; and in 1976, after the Covenants had been ratified by a sufficient number of individual nations, the Bill took on the force of international law.

Universalists – A group of people who subscribe to the belief that human rights are derived from sources ex­ternal to society, such as from a theological, ideologi­cal, or natural rights basis