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Human rights are a set of principles that say every person is entitled to certain things simply because they’re born human. These include things like food, water and shelter. While there are still millions of people who don’t have these basics, by naming them as human rights we can work towards ensuring that everyone has them.
The idea that humans have rights isn’t a recent Western invention. Many cultures and traditions around the world have ideals and systems that aim to ensure justice for all.
These ideals vary from place to place, but they all share some common features. For example, all of them recognise that the basic standards of human dignity and equality are universal. They also recognise that a government cannot be allowed to exercise its power indiscriminately, but that it must limit itself to what is necessary for the dignity of the citizens within its jurisdiction.
When we have the language of human rights to call on, it helps us hold our governments to account when they don’t meet their responsibilities. However, it is important to understand that realising our rights isn’t a one-off event, but a continuous journey.
There are a lot of things that can get in the way of our human rights, and some of these obstacles can be difficult to overcome. For example, some governments, political parties or candidates, social and economic players and civil society actors use the language of human rights but don’t actually uphold the rights that they talk about. Sometimes this is due to a lack of understanding of what the standards call for; at other times, it may be deliberate abuse, to misrepresent themselves as respecting human rights while ignoring them.
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