An Afrocentiric Exposition of Social-Economic Rights on One Hand as Well as Civil and Political Rights on the Other Hand

Abstract

According to Black's Law Dictionary, a right means just, morally correct, consonant with ethical principles or rules of positive law. It is important to note that Human rights are defined by different scholars, that's why we are going to have different definitions in the following: human rights are rights we have simply because we exist as human beings and are not granted by the state but inherent. According to Equality and Humana Rights Commission, human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world from birth until death. They apply regardless of where one comes from, what he or she believes or how they choose to live their lives. They are based on shared values like dignity, equality, fairness, respect, and independence. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy, Human rights are norms that aspire to protect all people everywhere from severe political, legal, and social abuses. Generally, Human Rights are those rights which provide basic standard to humans to live with dignity and maintain status quo in the society. Human Rights can also be defined as the rights we have simply because we exist as Human beings and they are not granted by the state for they are inherent universally regardless of color, religion, language, or ethnic origin as they are fundamental such as right to life, education, work, health and liberty. The concept of Human Rights was evolved in 539 B.C when the city of Babylon was subjugated by the King of Ancient Oersia, Cyprus who stopped slavery and endorsed citizen to follow their necessary religion and outcasts any kind of racial discrimination and these rights are intrinsic in nature and should be provided to all human beings without any discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, color or language. The two world wars led to the foundation of United Nations, which was formed to maintain peace between countries and protect people from any kind of atrocities faced by them thus the UN (United Nations) body of law known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which created mandate to the government to provide necessary rights and protect them from their outrages. With the forming of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and establishing two important covenant which were the international covenant on civil and political rights and international covenant on economic, Social and cultural Rights which were treated as international law after their enforcement on 1976 they were treated as international law after their enforcement in 1976 they were new face of Human Rights guaranteed by these covenant would be dealt by international laws in any part of the world.