Tiada Pemisahan dan Pengkategorian Hak
Pengkategorian yang paling biasa sekali dalam hak asasi manusia adalah dengan membahagikannya kepada hak sivil dan politik serta hak ekonomi, sosial dan kebudayaan.
Hak sivil dan politik tersemat dalam artikel 3 sehingga artikel 21 UDHR dan dalam ICCPR. Hak ekonomi, sosial dan kebudayaan pula tersemat dalam artikel 22 sehingga artikel 28 UDHR dan ICESCR. UDHR memasukkan sekali hak ekonomi, sosial dan kebudayaan serta hak sivil dan politik kerana ia didasarkan kepada prinsip bahawa hak yang berbeza itu hanya boleh wujud dengan jayanya dalam bentuk gabungan:
Ideal berkenaan dengan manusia yang bebas itu menikmati kebebasan sivil dan politik serta kebebasan dari ketakutan dan mahu hanya boleh dicapai jika syarat-syarat menuju kearahnya itu dicetuskan yang mana setiap orang itu boleh menikmati hak sivil dan politik serta hak sosial, ekonomi dan kebudayaannya.
- International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, 1966
Hal ini dilihat sebagai benar kerana tanpa hak sivil dan politik, maka orang awam tidak dapat menuntut hak ekonomi, sosial dan kebudayaannya. Sama juga halnya jika tanpa mata pencarian dan masyarakat yang bekerja, maka orang awam tidak dapat menuntut atau menggunakan hak sivil dan politiknya. Hal ini disebut sebagai full belly thesis atau tesis perut yang penuh.
Walaupun diterima sebagai penandatangan kepada UDHR, namun kebanyakan negara itu secara amalinya tidak mengamalkan pemberian hak yang saksama beratnya kepada pelbagai jenis hak. Kebudayaan Barat selalunya memberikan keutamaan kepada hak sivil dan politik walaupun kadang-kala ia menjejaskan hak ekonomi dan hak sosial seperti hak untuk bekerja, hak mendapatkan pendidikan, hak kepada kesihatan dan hak kepada perumahan. Sebagai contoh, tiada akses penjagaan kesihatan percuma yang sejagat di Amerika Syarikat pada saat ia diperlukan. Hal ini bukanlah menunjukkan bahawa kebudayaan Barat tidak menghiraukan hak ini sepenuhnya kerana negara kebajikan di Eropah Barat turut menjadi bukti kepada perhatian yang diberikan. Begitu juga dengan negara blok Soviet dan negara Asia yang cenderung untuk memberikan keutamaan kepada hak ekonomi, sosal dan kebudayaan namun gagal untuk memberikan hak kepada sivil dan politik.
Pengkategorian hak asasi manusia yang lain pula dibentangkan oleh Karel Vasak. Ia mengetengahkan mengenai hak asasi manusia tiga generation:
- Hak sivil dan politik - hak kepada kehidupan dan penyertaan dalam politik;
- Hak kepada ekonomi, sosial dan kebudayaan - hak kepada saraan hidup; dan
- Hak kepada perpaduan - hak kepada keamanan dan persekitaran yang bersih.
Jika setiap elemen hak asasi manusia yang mungkin itu dilihat sebagai penting dan perlu, maka tiada sesuatu pun yang akan dilihat seolah-olah ia adalah benar-benar penting.- Philip Alston
He, and others, urge caution with prioritisation of rights:
...the call for prioritizing is not to suggest that any obvious violations of rights can be ignored.
— Philip Alston[69]
Priorities, where necessary, should adhere to core concepts (such as reasonable attempts at progressive realization) and principles (such as non-discrimination, equality and participation.
— Olivia Ball, Paul Gready[70]
Some human rights are said to be "inalienable rights". The term inalienable rights (or unalienable rights) refers to "a set of human rights that are fundamental, are not awarded by human power, and cannot be surrendered".
The adherence to the principle of indivisibility by the international community was reaffirmed in 1995:
All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and related. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis.
— Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, World Conference on Human Rights, 1995
This statement was again endorsed at the 2005 World Summit in New York (paragraph 121).
Universalism vs cultural relativism
The UDHR enshrines, by definition, rights that apply to all humans equally, whichever geographical location, state, race or culture they belong to.
Proponents of cultural relativism suggest that human rights are not all universal, and indeed conflict with some cultures and threaten their survival.
Rights which are most often contested with relativistic arguments are the rights of women. For example, Female genital mutilation occurs in different cultures in Africa, Asia and South America. It is not mandated by any religion, but has become a tradition in many cultures. It is considered a violation of women's and girl's rights by much of the international community, and is outlawed in some countries.
Universalism has been described by some as cultural, economic or political imperialism. In particular, the concept of human rights is often claimed to be fundamentally rooted in a politically liberal outlook which, although generally accepted in Europe, Japan or North America, is not necessarily taken as standard elsewhere.
For example, in 1981, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, articulated the position of his country regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by saying that the UDHR was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing the Islamic law.[71] The former Prime Ministers of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, and of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohamad both claimed in the 1990s that Asian values were significantly different from western values and included a sense of loyalty and foregoing personal freedoms for the sake of social stability and prosperity, and therefore authoritarian government is more appropriate in Asia than democracy. This view is countered by Mahathir's former deputy:
To say that freedom is Western or unAsian is to offend our traditions as well as our forefathers, who gave their lives in the struggle against tyranny and injustices.
— Anwar Ibrahim in his keynote speech to the Asian Press Forum title Media and Society in Asia, 2 December 1994
and also by Singapore's opposition leader Chee Soon Juan who states that it is racist to assert that Asians do not want human rights.[72][73]
An appeal is often made to the fact that influential human rights thinkers, such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill, have all been Western and indeed that some were involved in the running of Empires themselves.[74][75]
Relativistic arguments tend to neglect the fact that modern human rights are new to all cultures, dating back no further than the UDHR in 1948. They also don't account for the fact that the UDHR was drafted by people from many different cultures and traditions, including a US Roman Catholic, a Chinese Confucian philosopher, a French Zionist and a representative from the Arab League, amongst others, and drew upon advice from thinkers such as Mahatma Gandhi.[22]
Michael Ignatieff has argued that cultural relativism is almost exclusively an argument used by those who wield power in cultures which commit human rights abuses, and that those whose human rights are compromised are the powerless.[76] This reflects the fact that the difficulty in judging universalism versus relativism lies in who is claiming to represent a particular culture.
Although the argument between universalism and relativism is far from complete, it is an academic discussion in that all international human rights instruments adhere to the principle that human rights are universally applicable. The 2005 World Summit reaffirmed the international community's adherence to this principle:
The universal nature of human rights and freedoms is beyond question.
— 2005 World Summit, paragraph 120
State and non-state actors
Companies, NGOs, political parties, informal groups, and individuals are known as non-State actors. Non-State actors can also commit human rights abuses, but are not subject to human rights law other than International Humanitarian Law, which applies to individuals.
Multi-national companies play an increasingly large role in the world, and are responsible for a large number of human rights abuses.[77] Although the legal and moral environment surrounding the actions of governments is reasonably well developed, that surrounding multi-national companies is both controversial and ill-defined. Multi-national companies' primary responsibility is to their shareholders, not to those affected by their actions. Such companies are often larger than the economies of the states in which they operate, and can wield significant economic and political power. No international treaties exist to specifically cover the behavior of companies with regard to human rights, and national legislation is very variable. Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights on the right to food stated in a report in 2003:
the growing power of transnational corporations and their extension of power through privatization, deregulation and the rolling back of the State also mean that it is now time to develop binding legal norms that hold corporations to human rights standards and circumscribe potential abuses of their position of power.
— Jean Ziegler[78]
In August 2003 the Human Rights Commission's Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights produced draft Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights.[79] These were considered by the Human Rights Commission in 2004, but have no binding status on corporations and are not monitored.[80] Additionally, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 aims to substantially reduce inequality by 2030 through the promotion of appropriate legislation.[81]
