International Human Rights and the International Human Rights System A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions 3. THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS The characteristics of human rights were definitively agreed at the Second World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna, Austria, in 1993. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA) said: Human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings …14 All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated.15 These statements supplemented the opening words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) referring to “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”. Based on these and other internationally negotiated and approved texts, human rights are said to have five essential characteristics that distinguish them from all other kinds of rights. Human rights are: • • • • • inherent universal inalienable indivisible interdependent. These characteristics are essential in that they go to the core of what human rights are. Each characteristic is important individually but collectively they express what constitutes human rights. Inherent means that human rights derive from the humanity of each person. They are, in the words of the UDHR, “the birthright of all human beings”; the entitlements of each human being from the beginning, not somehow conferred by government grant or gift or concession. Because they are inherent, part of the humanity of each person, they are not given and they cannot be taken away. Governments cannot confer human rights and they cannot abolish human rights. They can only respect and protect them or violate them. Universal means that all human beings have the same human rights. The foundational human rights document, the UDHR, makes this point in its very title. Human rights are the rights of all people, “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”.16 The vision statement of the Australian Human Rights Commission expresses it well: “human rights: everyone, everywhere, everyday”.17 The VDPA describes the relationship between universality and national and local customs and traditions. While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.18 Inalienable means that human rights cannot be given up. A person can decide not to exercise a right on a particular occasion or at all but she or he cannot give the right away. So, for example, someone could decide not to express an opinion on an issue of public concern or not to participate in an assembly or not to join an association. However, the person cannot give away forever the right to freedom of expression or freedom of assembly and movement or freedom of association. If human rights define what it means to be human, then a person who gives up a right would be less than human. No human being can be less than human. 14 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action; Part I; para. 1. 15 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action; Part I; para. 5. 16 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; article 2. Article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights contains a similar formulation. 17 See: www.humanrights.gov.au/about/index.html. 18 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action; Part I; para. 5. Chapter 2: What are human rights? | 7