Human Rights Principles of Universality, Inalienability and Indivisibility

The concept of “Human Rights” is a powerful tool. One hundred eighty-nine countries are members of the United Nations. As such, these governments have made a commitment to the human rights principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948). The UDHR establishes the principle that fundamental human rights and basic freedoms are guaranteed to all persons. Civil society needs to understand the nature of human rights and governments’ responsibility to protect these rights. The knowledge provides civil society with a base upon which to demand governments take actions to protect the human rights of all persons.

All of us can educate and lobby our governments on how to fulfill their responsibility to uphold and make real the UDHR principles for all people. Human rights and universal, inalienable and indivisible. Human rights exist in the civil, political, economic, social and cultural spheres. Examples of human rights are the right to life, the right to work and a decent living, the right to freedom from discrimination and the right to education. They are based on fundamental principles of respect for human dignity, equality and non-discrimination.

Universality means that human rights belong to everyone, everywhere, and they are the same for all people. Rights exist without distinction, for example, without regard to nationality, race, sex, religion, class, ethnicity, language or age. All people have the same basic needs and rights, which need to be upheld and protected at all times. Inalienability means all rights belong to all persons from the moment of birth. We are born with rights and governments should assert human rights principles. No government or person has the right to deny anyone’s basic human rights.

Indivisibility means all human rights are related to each other; consequently rights are interrelated and interdependent. Civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights cannot be viewed as unconnected. They complement each other. One rights is not more important than another, one person’s rights are not more important than another person’s rights. The right to speak, or the right to choose the number and spacing of your children, is interdependent with other rights, for example, on the ability information, and equal rights within the family. No one set of rights can be sacrificed for another.

“The human rights of women and the girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights (…) the human rights of women should from on integral part of the United Nations human rights activities, including the promotion of all human rights instruments relating to women”. This statement, from the 1993 Vienna Declaration on Human Rights, represents the first official recognition that women’s rights are human rights by the international community.

Saying ‘women’s rights are human rights’ is not claiming ‘special rights’ for women. On the contrary, it is a call to recognize that women have the same basic human rights as men.

The traditional debate on, and interpretation of, human rights, has focused on men’s actions in the public sphere, such as repression of political speech and political participation. Women’s rights have been largely ignored in this debate, because women are typically seen as actors in the private sphere. As a result, their participation in the public sphere has been largely curtailed, and in the private sphere, controlled. To ensure that women enjoy all the rights they have, a good starting point is to examine the particular obstacles faced by women. For instance, although the right to education is an universal rights for all human beings, girls are more likely than boys to be uneducated. In times of poverty, parents tend to send boys to school rather than girls. Children have human rights in the same way that adults do. Children’s rights are of equal value to adults’ rights. However, some human rights have a special application to children, reflecting their need for special care and attention, their vulnerability and the difference between childhood and adulthood. Childhood in itself has a value. To recognize this, when we talk about human rights of children, the best interest of the child should be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children, over the interest of a parent or a state.

  The human rights of children are set out completely in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

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