ULUSLARARASI KAMU HUKUKU I

I.   Equally applicable to all

II.  Inherent in all human beings by virtue of their being humans

IV. Fundamental and inalienable rights

The concept of human rights dates back to antiquity.

A sovereign can define the scope of liberties of its subjects.

II.  They were limited in their objectives. 

III.They were related to certain minorities. 

IV. They were not extended to the rights of the individual.

The second generation consists of economic, social and cultural rights, which were propagated and recognized after the advent of socialism in the twentieth century.

The promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental
freedoms without any distinction

I.  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

II.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

IV.  The International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights

10 December 1948

NOT: Bu soruyu hazırlayan öğretim üyesi tarafından doğru cevap "B" şıkkı, yani "The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women," olarak belirtilmiştir. Ancak doğru cevap D şıkkı, yani "The Commission on Human Rights" olmalıydı. Ders kitabının 214-216 sayfalarında bu konular anlatılmakta ve 215. sayfasında da "In 2006, the Commission on Human Rights was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council" şeklinde açık ifade yer almaktadır. Dolayısıyla eğer soru sınavda sorulmuşsa iptal edilmeli, ancak "deneme/alıştırma sorusu" şeklinde sistemde kullanılmışsa, doğru cevap D olarak değiştirilmelidir.

I. An individual can make the application directly to the Court
II. The Court adjudicates the contentious cases between the states on the unlawful use of force
IV. The final judgment of the Court is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers

The concept of human rights is based on the
belief that every human being is entitled to enjoy
her/his rights without discrimination. Human
rights differ from other rights in two respects.
First, human rights are characterized by being:
• Inherent in all human beings by virtue of
their being humans;
• Inalienable;
• Equally applicable to all.
Second, the main duties deriving from human
rights fall on states and their authorities or agents,
not on individuals.
As a corollary of this, human rights must be
protected by law (‘the rule of law’).

The chief exponent of this theory was John Locke.
Natural rights theory emphasizes the moral worth
of the individual. Accordingly, the individual
possesses basic human rights and everyone is
inherently entitled to these rights as a human
being, independent of whether or not these rights
are recognized by the ruler. These rights cannot
be denied to any person or taken away from a
person by the ruler or the society. Any denial by
the ruler will constitute a double violation; on the
one hand, it constitutes a violation of the rights
of the individual and, on the other, it constitutes
a violation by the ruler of his duty to protect the
individual.

“Marx regarded the natural law approach to
human rights as idealistic and ahistorical. He
saw nothing natural or inalienable about human
rights. Concepts such as law, justice, morality,
democracy, and freedom are considered historical
categories whose contents are determined by the
material conditions of and the social circumstances
of a people. As the conditions of life change, so the
content of notions and ideas may change” (Shestack,
1998: 210). While the focal point of Marxism is
to recognize the contextuality of human rights
in terms of the conditions of a society, conceiving
human rights chiefly in a materialistic frame has
been one of its significant weaknesses.

Human rights postulates of liberal democracy
and the rule of law are also being challenged. In
fact, the emphasis on the individual rights may
contradict the democratic theory. The idea that
the individual has rights which he/she can plead
against the state is sustained by a conviction that
the single person is of such an intrinsic worth that
he/she deserves to be protected from the harmful
consequences of a majority or abstract will. Instead,
it may be that the group rights make the individual
to realize his/her true potential by achieving his/
her interests in a given group.
This understanding has led to the emergence
of group rights, particularly as emphasized
by the developing world.

The first generation consists of civil and political rights, mainly based on natural rights philosophy of the eighteenthcentury thinkers such as Locke and Rousseau. The second generation consists of economic, social and cultural rights, which were propagated and recognized after the advent of socialism in the twentieth century. The emphasis in both has been on the individual’s rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
which is the embodiment of the rights of both
these generations, attaches equal importance to
political and economic rights and consider them
as interdependent. However, in the 1970s, a “third
generation” rights emerged with the predominant
support of the developing countries. In contrast to
the individual’s rights (i.e., the first two generations
rights), these are collective or group rights such
as the right to development, right to healthy
human environment, right to peace, and right to
self-determination. They are enshrined in the 1986
Declaration on the Right to Development.

The UN Charter, which has played the catalyst
role in the human rights movement, does not give
a definition of fundamental freedoms and human
rights, nor does it provide any machinery to secure
their observance. This task has been fulfilled by the
subsequent United Nations instruments. The First
critical instrument was the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, adopted by the General
Assembly on December 10, 1948. It defined
expressly certain human rights and fundamental
freedoms that need to be protected.

In 1947 the CHR established a SubCommission on the Prevention of
Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, a
panel of 26 experts that was entrusted with the task
of prevention of discrimination and protection of
racial, national, religious and linguistic minorities.
The role of the Sub-Commission ended upon the
establishment of the Human Rights Council,
but a number of its functions subsist within the
Council.

The European Court of Human Rights was
set up at Strasbourg on 21 January 1959. The
number of judges of the Court is equal to that
of the members of the Council of Europe. The
Court’s formation should be reflective of the
contracting parties’ different legal systems. To
consider a case, the Court sits in single-judge
formation, in committees (consisting of three
judges), chambers of seven judges, and Grand
Chamber of seventeen judges. The state party’s
judge sits as an ex-officio member of the Court,
other judges are appointed by the President.
“The judges are elected by the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe from lists of
three candidates proposed by each State. They
are elected for a non-renewable term of nine
years” (www.echr.coe.int). There is no bar on two
judges having the same nationality.

Unlike the
EU, the Council of Europe cannot make binding
law, but it does have the power to adopt treaties
and agreements and monitor their enforcement.
Among the most important of its agreements are:
• 1950 European Convention on Human
Rights;
• 1954 European Cultural Convention;
• 1961 European Social Charter;
• 1987 European Convention on the
Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment and Punishment;
• 1995 Framework Convention for the
Protection of National Minorities;
• 1997 Convention on Human Rights and
Biomedicine.

The Charter draws upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the two International
Covenants on Human Rights and the Cairo
Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.

In 2014, the member States of the Arab League,
by way of a treaty, adopted the Statute of the Arab
Court of Human Rights.