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Definition of HR

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Definition of HR, History and development-starting from Cyrus cylinder

till Second World War, classification, characteristic, differences between


Human Rights and fundamental rights

Definition of Human Rights


Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex,
nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights
include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom
of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. 
Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

International Human Rights Law

International human rights law lays down the obligations of Governments to


act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and
protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.

One of the great achievements of the United Nations is the creation of a


comprehensive body of human rights law—a universal and internationally
protected code to which all nations can subscribe and all people aspire. The
United Nations has defined a broad range of internationally accepted rights,
including civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. It has also
established mechanisms to promote and protect these rights and to assist states
in carrying out their responsibilities.

The foundations of this body of law are the Charter of the United Nations and
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly
in 1945 and 1948, respectively.  Since then, the United Nations has gradually
expanded human rights law to encompass specific standards for women,
children, persons with disabilities, minorities and other vulnerable groups,
who now possess rights that protect them from discrimination that had long
been common in many societies.

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document
in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal
and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was
proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December
1948 by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) as a common standard of
achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time,
fundamental human rights to be universally protected. Since its adoption in
1948, the UDHR has been translated into more than 500 languages - the most
translated document in the world - and has inspired the constitutions of many
newly independent States and many new democracies. The UDHR, together
with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its
two Optional Protocols (on the complaints procedure and on the death penalty)
and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and
its Optional Protocol, form the so-called International Bill of Human Rights.

History and development-starting


It has been over twenty years since Wolfgang Sachs boldly proclaimed the
“end of development” in his postdevelopment studies collection, The
Development Dictionary. Sachs and his fellow contributors were not alone in
their desire to relegate the idea to the dustbin of history. Indeed, since the late
1980s, the concept of development as applied to the peoples of Africa, Asia,
and Latin America has come under intense fire, not only from academics but
also from within mainstream policy circles. For a time, under the onslaught of
such scrutiny, it looked as if the critics might be right, and that we might be
witnessing development’s last rites and requiem. Yet today, more than two
decades later, the central tenets of the development discourse continue to
persist and permeate the minds of policy makers and analysts, seemingly
impervious to criticism and meaningful reform. In face of such persistence and
comeback, even across as significant a historical watershed as the end of the
Cold War, historians and other social scientists in a variety of fields have
embarked upon a different and novel approach, one which treats

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development as history.2 In other words, to paraphrase Nick Cullather, they
propose to use history as the methodology for studying and understanding
development, rather than constructing development theories to explain history
and to provide predictive models for the future.3
Cyrus Cylinder
The Cyrus Cylinder or Cyrus Charter is an ancient clay cylinder, now broken
into several pieces, on which is written a declaration in Akkadian cuneiform
script in the name of Persia's Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great.It dates from
the 6th century BC and was discovered in the ruins of Babylon in
Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) in 1879. It is currently in the possession of the
British Museum, which sponsored the expedition that discovered the cylinder.
It was created and used as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest
of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was invaded by
Cyrus and incorporated into his Persian Empire.

Second World War,


This article is about the western political concept. For the Maoist political
concept, see Three Worlds Theory. For the online virtual world, see Second
Life. For the global war fought between 1939 - 1945, also known as the
Second World War, see World War II."Communist world" redirects here.
The Second World is a term used during the Cold War for the
industrial socialist states that were under the influence of the Soviet Union. In
the first two decades following World War II, 19 communist states emerged;
all of these were at least originally within the Soviet sphere of influence,
though some (notably, Yugoslavia and the People's Republic of China) broke
with Moscow and developed their own path of socialism while retaining
Communist governments. But most communist states remained part of this
bloc until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991; afterwards, only
five Communist states remained: China, North Korea, Cuba, Laos,
and Vietnam. Along with "First World" and "Third World", the term was used
to divide the states of Earth into three broad categories.

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The concept of "Second World" was a construct of the Cold War and the term
is still largely used to describe former communist countries that are between
poverty and prosperity, many of which are now capitalist states, such as
Eastern Europe. Subsequently, the actual meaning of the terms "First World",
"Second World" and "Third World" changed from being based on political
ideology to an economic definition.[1] The three-world theory has been
criticized as crude and relatively outdated for its nominal ordering (1; 2; 3)
and sociologists have instead used the words "developed", "developing", and
"underdeveloped" as replacement terms for global stratification (which in turn
have been criticized as displaying a colonialist mindset —nevertheless, the
three-world theory is still popular in contemporary literature and media. This
might also cause semantic variation of the term between describing a region's
political entities and its people

The Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries and is


quantified by looking at a country's human development such as life
expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators. The scale is 0-1 and
they are put into one of 4 categories; 0-.55 is low, .55-.70 is medium, .70-.80
is high and very high tops out at .80-1.0. The Second World countries from the
Cold War era currently range from medium human development to very high
human development in terms of HDI

Some examples of Second World countries


are Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Mongolia, North
Korea, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic
Republic. Second World countries were countries that were more stable and
more developed than Third World countries which existeed in parts of Africa,
South and Central America and south Asia, but less stable and less developed
than First World countries such as the United States. Developing countries are
countries that are less industrialized and have a lower per capita income levels.

“Today I use the phrase to refer to those countries in Eastern Europe and
Central Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and Southeast Asia, which are both

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rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, Post modern and pre-modern,
cosmopolitan and tribal - all at the same time.” 

Classification, characteristic, differences between Human Rights and


fundamental rights

Classification
Human rights can be classified and organized in a number of different ways, at
an international level the most common categorisation of human rights has
been to split them into civil and political rights, and economic, social and
cultural rights.
Civil and political rights are enshrined in articles 3 to 21 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and in the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Economic, social and cultural rights are enshrined in articles 22 to 28 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and in the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

Characteristic

 The following are the basic characteristics of human rights:


1. Inherent –  Human Rights are inherent because they are not granted by any
person or authority.  Human rights do not have to be bought, earned or
inherited; they belong to people simply because they are human. Human rights
are inherent to each individual.
2. Fundamental - Human Rights are fundamental rights because without
them, the life and dignity of man will be meaningless.
3. Inalienable - Human rights cannot be taken away; no one has the right to
deprive another person of them for any reason. People still have human rights
even when the laws of their countries do not recognize them, or when they
violate them - for example, when slavery is practiced, slaves still have rights
even though these rights are being violated. Human rights are inalienable.
Human Rights are inalienable because:
a. They cannot be rightfully taken away from a free individual.
b. They cannot be given away or be forfeited.

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4. Imprescriptible - Human Rights do not prescribe and cannot be lost even if
man fails to use or assert them, even by a long passage of time.
5. Indivisible -  To live in dignity, all human beings are entitled to freedom,
security and decent standards of living concurrently. Human rights are
indivisible. Human Rights are not capable of being divided. They cannot be
denied even when other rights have already been enjoyed.
6. Universal - Human Rights are universal in application and they apply
irrespective of one’s origin, status, or condition or place where one lives.
Human rights are enforceable without national border. Human rights are the
same for all human beings regardless of race, sex, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin. We are all born free, and equal in dignity
and rights— human rights are universal.
7. Interdependent - Human Rights are interdependent because
the fulfillment or exercise of one cannot be had without the realization of the
other.

Human Rights and Fundamental Rights


Although lawfully they are different, human rights and rights have numerous
viewpoints in like manner. Basically, both go for making a lawful system in
which individual and social orders can live in peace and in regard of
everybody's correspondence and assorted variety. A portion of the principle
likenesses between the two classes of rights are recorded beneath:
1. The object of both fundamental and human rights is to ensure people and
make amicable and just social orders;
2. Both aim for furnishing people with the way to live
and to understand their maximum capacity;
3. Both rights can be upheld by lawful components and bodies, although
general human rights must be authorized by international bodies (i.e.
International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, and so forth.);
4. Both start from the possibility of a humanized, just and rise to society; and
5. Both are a characteristic and central piece of our life as people and as
individuals from society.

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The dissimilarity between Human Rights and Fundamental Rights
Generally, human rights and fundamental rights overlap with each other but
there are some key contrasts between them. Specifically concerning their legal
nature and their enforceability. Actually, human rights are essential and basic
rights that ought to be delighted in by all people paying little respect to
nationality, race, ethnicity, and sex, though fundamental rights are appreciated
by all individuals that fall under the jurisdiction of the constitution of a
specific nation, without assumption or cost of the benefit. A portion of the
fundamental contrasts between the two classes of rights are recorded beneath:
1. Human rights are outlined out in the International Bill of Human Rights and
in a progression of global traditions and conventions that characterize the
breaking points and ward of International law (i.e. Tradition on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities, Convention Against the Use of Torture and Other
Cruel and Inhuman Treatments, and so forth.). On the other hand, fundamental
rights are delineated in each nation's national constitution, thus they can vary
from nation to nation;
2. Governments are expected to enforce human rights treaties only if they have
ratified the relevant conventions otherwise, international organizations (i.e. the
United Nations, the Human Rights Council, and other pertinent systems) can
just recommend the legislatures to ratify such conventions and treaties but
cannot take direct action to verify the implementation of the various
provisions. On the other hand, governments and national legitimate
components have the obligation to regard the fundamental rights laid out in
their national Constitution;
3. Fundamental rights are nation particular and are based on the standards of
individual flexibility and self-assurance, alternately, human rights are
universally perceived and are based on cultivated social orders and on the
privilege to a stately life.
When all is said in done, the usage and authorization of global human rights
are more dangerous than the requirement of basic rights because of the

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specific idea of the universal lawful structure. Although human rights have an
all-inclusive nature, the ward of the different agreements and bargains just
applies inside the nations that have sanctioned the pertinent traditions and
arrangements. Besides, some global cures must be looked for once all
household cures are depleted.

References

1.  Margaret L. Andersen; Howard Francis Taylor


(2006). Sociology: Understanding a Diverse
Society. Thomson/Wadsworth. p. 250. ISBN 978-0-534-61716-5.
2. ^ 4. Bankoff, G., & Oven, K. (n.d.). What happened to the
Second World? Earthquakes and postsocialism in
Kazakhstan. DISASTERS, 44(1), 3–
24. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12362
3. ^ Second World Countries Population. (2019-10-24). Retrieved
2020-02-21, from http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/second-
world-countries/

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