Essay Questions
Question 1
The International Bill of Human Rights refers to the two international treaties that the United Nations (UN) established and the UN General Assembly Resolution. The documents that comprise the International Bill of Rights include the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which provides for two Optional Protocols, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ( Koh, Getgen & Sital, 2017) . The UDHR was the first to be adopted and proclaimed in 1948, through its resolution, 217 A (III) of the 10 th December 1948, as the universal standard for all nations and individuals that requires every societal organ and individual to continually strive through learning and teaching to promote value for the identified freedoms and privileges and to safeguard their useful and collective observance and acknowledgment through progressive international and national measures. On the other hand, the ICESCR and the ICCPR were adopted in 1966 following the General Assembly’s resolution 2200 A (XXI) of the 16 th December 1966 ( Koh, Getgen & Sital, 2017) . Finally, the covenants were adopted in 1976 after a viable number of countries ratified the protocols.
The development of further legal instruments was agreed upon during the drafting of the UDHR; however, the growth of the International Covenants was achieved in 1966, several years after the adoption of the UDHR in 1948, and took another ten years for the treaties to be enforced despite requiring ratification from only 35 states ( Bullard, 2008) . The delay is associated with some historical factors, including the reluctance of countries to concur with legal treaties that limited their capacity to exercise their sovereign power. Moreover, the final agreements failed to mainly ensure that states could be answerable to the stated obligations in the International Bill of Human Rights. After World War II, the states could not maintain this position since state sovereignty is above all other consideration and the international law could not dictate how a state handled its population ( Bullard, 2008) . Hence, given that states remained the essential actors in the global system, an advance in the development of limiting elements in their conduct was highly discouraged. Therefore, with the requirements of the international law, sovereign states were extremely reluctant to concur with any form of mandatory enforcement mechanism.
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The history of the Bill of Rights, which was adopted on the 15 th of December 1791, lies within the Anglo-American history ( Donahue Jr, 2016) . The Bill comprises a collection of individual rights that are mutually reinforcing guarantees as well as limitations of state and federal governments. The Bill emanated from England’s King John’s move to put his seal to the Magna Carta in 1215 to protect his subjects from the royal power abuses. The most crucial provisions of the Magna Carta dictated that all prosecution and proceeding must be per the law of the land. The requirements also banned the denial, delay, or sale of justice. The provisions of the Magna Carta, which mark the historical context through which the Bill of Rights emerged informed the content that constitutes the Bill as well as its possible implementation, since the provisions aimed at protecting the people as well as ensuring fairness in the justice system ( Donahue Jr, 2016) . Hence, to achieve these objectives, the implementation of the Bill was crucial to ensure that all individuals accessed their fundamental rights, including fairness in the justice system.
Question 2
The African Human Rights system was the last to be implemented of the three major regional human rights systems. The system was established with the support of the African Union (AU). The system’s unique features include the recognition of the element of the indivisibility of rights, it does not allow derogations, and the identification of all the people's rights, including the right to self-determination, and the people’s right to development (African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, 2018). On the other hand, the American human rights system is concerned with such functions as protecting, promoting, and monitoring human rights among the Organization of American States (OAS) members, consisting of 35 independent states.
The systems key feature is that it is composed of two major entities, including the American Court and the Commission on Human Rights. The critical function of the commission involves supporting and monitoring of diverse human rights activities, while the Court is responsible for issuing advisory opinions on matters concerning the explanation of the American instruments at the demand of the member states or the OAS organ. The American system also includes other additional bodies that specifically focus on the rights of groups or individuals. The bodies include the Protocol of San Salvador Working Group and the Inter-American Commission of Women among others.
The American and the African systems of human rights share several characteristics even though the two systems are distinct. First, both systems comprise of a court and a commission that bear complementary mandates. In the African context, the bodies that receive complaints pertaining to the violation of human rights include the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), the African Court on the Human and People’s Rights (AFCHPR), and the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR). Secondly, both systems proclaim the fundamental rights of individuals in their respective regions without discrimination (African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, 2018). Thirdly, both systems were created under the patronage of a stronger body, with the American system built through the support of the American Human Rights Convention, while the African system was designed with the 2support of the AU.
However, the two systems differ in that while the American system only refers to the political and civil rights while the African system comprises of the right of refugees, rights to solidarity, cultural and social rights, and economic rights. Moreover, each of the systems possesses a unique human rights protection mechanism, where the African system comprises of the People’s African Court as well as the African Commission of Human Rights, while the American system includes the American Court and Commission. Further, the two systems differ in that the African Commission comprises of 11 judges and 11 members from the African Court of Human and People’s Rights, with the judges selected by the assembly of the government heads. Conversely, the American system comprises of 6 board of judges of the courts and seven members in the Commission of Human Rights, all selected by the general assembly. Several factors make a regional human rights system useful, including setting up relevant treaties in pace and ensuring the implementation of corresponding systems to facilitate the application or monitoring of the treaties. Moreover, an effective system requires the establishment of a viable judicial procedure for purposes of deciding individual or inter-state human rights violation complaints.
Short Answer Questions
Question 1
The concept of human rights comprises a vast domain that can be studied in diverse disciplines, ranging from history, geopolitics, law, social sciences, philosophy, to international relations. Donnelly (2013) n otes that owing to the interdisciplinary nature of human rights; scholars identify a lack of political dimensions in the concept since the majority feel a strong presence of the law, ethics and philosophy in the idea of human rights. The idea as an interdisciplinary field refers to the idea that the field heavily borrows from other areas of study. Some of the critical approaches or theories that have facilitated the development of the concept of human rights include international law, sociology, anthropology, political science, moral theory, and political theory. Moreover, the concept of human rights addresses issues found in different fields of study, including politics, philosophy, and ethics among others. Some of these issues relate to the protection of human life, an element that seeks to prevent such occurrences as genocide, as well as respect for people’s rights, which include the right to development, worship, and speech among others. Hence, human rights is an interdisciplinary concept since it comprises elements borrowed from diverse disciplines and it also seeks to address issues that relate to various fields of study.
Question 2
The human rights norms are categorized into three major types, including the collective-development standards, the socio-economic norms, and the civil-political norms. The socio-economic and the civil-political norms represent claims that individual persons can hold against the state, and they include the standards that are firmly accepted and documented in the international conventions and treaties. On the other hand, the collective-development norms pertain to the claims that groups and individuals can hold against the state, but which lack both political and legal recognition. The civil-political rights are further subdivided into two major categories; the first category includes the norms that relate to civil-political empowerments or liberties, such as freedom of religion, conscience, and thought; the freedom to political participation, and the freedom of voluntary association and assembly. The second category pertains to the civil and physical security, including such elements equality, arbitrary arrest, inhumane treatment, slavery, and torture.
The socio-economic human rights are divided into norms that pertain to the provision of goods that meet economic needs, such as fair wages, social security, and adequate living standards; and the models that relate to the provision of products that aim at meeting social needs, such as education, healthcare, shelter, and nutrition. Finally, the collective-developmental human rights are divided into the religious and individual rights of ethnic minorities, such as the right to enjoy their languages, cultures, and religions; and the self-determination of people’s cultural development, cultural, social, and economic, political status. Czech introduced the division of human rights into three distinct generations in 1979, which align with the three fundamental tenets of the French Revolution, including fraternity, equality, and liberty ( Macklem, 2015) . The first-generation, defined as civil-political rights, deals with the participation and freedom in political life. The first generation corresponds to the French Revolution’s liberty tenet. The first generation human rights are highly individualistic, and they are mainly negatively constructed for purposes of protecting individuals from the state.
On the other hand, the second-generation human rights, defined as the socio-economic rights, about the human rights that guarantee equal treatment and conditions. Individuals do not directly possess the powers; preferably, they constitute affirmative duties that require the government to fulfill and respect them. The second-generation rights started gaining recognition by the government following World War II, and they correspond to the French Revolution equality tenet ( Macklem, 2015) . Finally, the third-generation rights, described as the collective-developmental rights, comprise of the reasons that groups and people hold against their respective states, and they correspond to the final French Revolution tenet, Fraternity. The rights include a broad class of rights that have attained acknowledgment in the international treaties and agreements, although they are more contested compared to the first and second generation rights.
Question 4
The concept of progressive realization of the right to health refers to the idea of global health institutions progressively realizing that providing health services is directly connected to the available resources. Hence, denying even the necessary levels of health coverage in the domestic context and permitting international assistance towards health remains completely unrestricted. The right to health refers to the global human right of accessing the maximum achievable standard of mental and physical health, and it provides the ethical and legal principles that guide the formulation of goals that aim at replacing the health-related millennium development goals. However, the law of progressive realization limits the contribution of the right to the global equity and health policy, since it conditions the provision of health needs, including the essential requirements by adequate resource availability.
The limitation creates a loophole that is significant enough to nullify the guarantees of the ICESCR in the sense that governments are likely to illegitimately argue that they lack the resources to meet their respective obligations. In this context, the progressive recognition of the right to health may act to allow nearly any sort of health deprivation in the short-term. The idea is hugely in contrast with the fundamental human rights objective of safeguarding human dignity and life (World Health Organization, 2018). The right to health is defined as an inclusive right that encompasses the underlying health determinants such as access to housing food, water, and health information as well as the right to acquire appropriate and timely health care. However, the right acknowledges the existence of resource constraints, and it is subjective to the progressive realization concept. However, the right imposes several obligations on the states, which pose immediate effects, including the guarantee that the right is to be exercised in the absence of any discrimination as well as the obligation to take targeted, concrete, and deliberate steps to ensure its full realization.
The statement that the right to health is inseparable or indivisible from the internationally agreed standards refers to the idea that human rights cannot be forfeited and they are universal. In this context, the statement pertains to the fact that human rights to health apply equally everywhere, to all people, and without distinction. Moreover, the statement relates to the fact that all human rights, which includes the right to be free from torture, right to education, health, and food are interrelated (World Health Organization, 2018). Hence, it is impossible to separate the right to health from the other privileges, and the advancement of one right helps in the advancement of the others. Similarly, the deprivation of one right equally affects the other human rights.
References
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. (2018). African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights / Legal Instruments / ACHPR. Retrieved from http://www.achpr.org/instruments/achpr/
Bullard, A. (2008). Human rights in crisis . Aldershot, England Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Donahue Jr, C. (2016). Magna Carta in the Fourteenth Century: From Law to Symbol: Reflections on the Six Statutes. Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. , 25 , 591.
Donnelly, J. (2013). Universal human rights in theory and practice . Cornell University Press.
Forman, L., Ooms, G., Chapman, A., Friedman, E., Waris, A., Lamprea, E., & Mulumba, M. (2013). What could a strengthened right to health bring to the post-2015 health development agenda?: Interrogating the role of the minimum core concept in advancing essential global health needs. BMC international health and human rights , 13 (1), 48.
Koh, S. A., Getgen, J. E., & Sital, K. (2017). Enhancing enforcement of economic, social, and cultural rights using indicators: A focus on the right to education in the ICESCR. In Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (pp. 211-268). Routledge.
Macklem, P. (2015). Human rights in international law: three generations or one?. London Review of International Law , 3 (1), 61-92.
World Health Organization. (2018). Human rights and health. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/human-rights-and-health
