In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, making it the first formal recognition of human rights in history (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). It states that the equal, inalienable rights of all human beings is the basis for freedom, justice, and peace worldwide. However, a hierarchy of rights have emerged which have been both politically and ideologically motivated. Since the 1970s, human rights have been divided into three categories: civil and political rights (first generation), social and economic rights (second generation), and solidarity rights (third generation). Some states (most notably, the United States) typically have preference for first generation rights, stating that those are of utmost importance and form the basis of a free and functioning democracy. Others argue that second generation rights are paramount, believing that without social and economic rights in place, civil and political rights are useless. However, human rights should be thought of as interdependent and indivisible. Human rights have a mutually reinforcing relationship; one generation of rights would need the other generation of rights to be sufficiently realized in society. Additionally, states picking and choosing which generation of human rights to champion or prefer has led to a politicization of human rights and neglects the moral basis of human rights.
The Generations of Human Rights
Human rights being divided into three generations was an idea first proposed by Czech-French jurist Karel Vasak in the 1970s and is now commonly used, particularly in Europe (Wilmer, 2015). The division of Human rights into three generations echoes the principles of the French Revolution, “liberty, equality, and fraternity” (Wilmer, 2015). The first generation of human rights deals with liberty. First generation rights aim to protect the individual from the excesses of the state and therefore, are concerned with civil and political rights which include (but are not limited to) freedom of speech, due process, and the right to life. The second generation of human rights are social and economic rights, mirroring the principle of equality. These rights include the right to labor, to leisure, and social services. The third generation of rights are cultural and group rights, or rights of solidarity. They reflect the idea of fraternity because they are collective rights. The right to peace, the right to be free of genocide, the right to a clean environment, and the right to development are all examples of third generation rights. These three generations of rights are all equally important, yet throughout the discourse of human rights, some states attempt to prioritize one generation over the other.
The idea of human rights classed into generations could imply that an older generation would be tossed aside in favor of a new generation of human rights (Pocar, 2015). On the other hand, it could also suggest the succession of human rights. As one generation of rights is created and guaranteed, another generation of rights follows, and so on. However, the issue therein lies not in the terminology, but in how states maintain their views on human rights. A state may decide to champion or grant a priority to one generation of rights over the others but this could lead to the abuse or suppression of different rights.
Ideologies, the Cold War, and Human Rights
During the Cold War, there was a schism of ideology between the Western Democratic states and the Eastern Socialist states. At surface level, the Cold War is seen as an ideological war between democracy (the United States and their allies) and communism (the Soviet Union and their allies), mixed in with the nuclear arms race. However, the schism went deeper. Human rights became the central arguments between the two blocs (Chong, 2014). While Western Democratic states championed liberalism, democracy, and the individual, the Eastern Socialist states placed an emphasis on economic and social equality. Naturally, the West (states such as the United States, France, and the U.K.) prioritized first generation rights since it focused on the rights of the individual in the political and economic arena (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). The Eastern states (namely, the Soviet Union and its allies) stressed the importance of social and economic rights. They believed that a focus on individual liberties would not take into account economic disparities and injustices. Developing countries also shared this viewpoint following the process of decolonialization, supporting the short term suppression of first generation rights to secure the stability necessary for economic stability (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). The support of the Marxist ideas of the Soviet Union and the championing of second and third generation rights led to a North-South divide over human rights, in addition to the East-West split (Chong 2014).
The dispute over the importance of rights was enough motivation for the two blocs to engage in proxy wars and military confrontations (Chong, 2014). Millions of people were killed as a result of this ideological schism. The initial drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights believed that rights are indivisible and interdependent and had hoped that a single international treaty would be created and enacted to protect all human rights (Chong, 2014). However, international human rights law split into two treaties in 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (Chong, 2014). This legally separated human rights and further politicized them in the international arena. Additionally, it suggests that the states dictate human rights laws, picking rights that are in the state’s best interest and neglecting those that are not. This directly contradicts the view that all human rights are inalienable to all human beings, which was stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Chong, 2014).
Favoring One Generation Over Another
First generation rights grant citizens of a state the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, due process, and the right to vote, amongst other rights. However, emphasizing civil and political rights to the exclusion of socioeconomic and collective rights could potentially create socially and economically disadvantaged groups within a society (Twiss, 1998). This has the potential to create disruption in a society, producing a response to this form of repression (Twiss, 1998). Critics of the prioritization of civil and political rights in the West, like Henry Shue, tend to point out that “hunger kills as surely as torture and execution” (Wilmer, 2015). This lines up with the African “full belly thesis” which essentially argues the pointlessness of “one man, one vote” unless “one man, one bread” is fulfilled (Callaway & Stephens, 2007).
The prioritization of second generation rights in many parts of the world is due to the belief that civil and political rights should wait until basic needs are secured (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). It is believed that prioritizing the guarantee of a basic level of well being through economic and social stability first should take precedence over civil and political rights. In many post-colonial African states, underdevelopment and extreme poverty undermine the democratic electoral processes (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). The need for immediate survival (food, water, and shelter) far surpasses the need for civil and political liberties. This is evident through the countless anecdotes of political figures giving out rice for votes (Callaway & Stephens, 2007).
Second generation rights guarantee grants the rights to housing, the right to adequate food, the right to education, and many others. However, disregarding first and third generation rights in favor of socioeconomic rights risks creating a situation where advancing socioeconomic welfare could become inequitable, due to a lack of political participation (Twiss, 1998). By disallowing people the rights to civil and political liberties, backlash in the society has the potential to occur, particularly if the socioeconomic goods are being inequitably distributed (Twiss, 1998). Western liberal scholars have argued that civil and political rights are essential to establishing a stable social order which is needed for a society to exist in the first place (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). Additionally, these scholars have argued that civil and political rights are essential to creating and securing an equitable distribution of wealth.
The third generation of rights has been somewhat neglected by the discourse of human rights. Individual rights (both first and second generation rights) in the international political arena seem to take precedence than group or communal rights, particularly in Western Democratic states (Juss, 1998). Western rights discourse has a tendency to view the individual as the bearer of rights, rather than the community (Juss, 1998). Solidarity rights, particularly the right to development, are harder to fully realize due the partial requirement of cooperation of actors and institutions beyond the state (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). Third generation rights, or solidarity rights, include the right to a healthy environment (clean air, clean water, etc.) and peace, minority rights, the right to prosperity, and the right to development. The right to development has proven particularly important to many developing and underdeveloped countries. Over 1 billion people still live in absolute poverty and many still do not have access to adequate food, clean water, or heath care (Juss, 1998). When the idea of human rights are brought up in regions of the world suffering from these issues, they think of rights in the form of the right to food, water, and shelter, basic rights that are required to live (Juss, 1998). Many underdeveloped countries lack the economic resources to develop their countries so they cannot fully realize their right to development in their own country. In order for this right to be realized by these countries who are not able to, the international community to come together and realize the obligation they have under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to give assistance (Juss, 1998). Regardless, by placing a stronger emphasis on solidarity rights rather than civil and political rights or socioeconomic rights, a backlash against civil political repression can still occur (Twiss, 1998). Additionally, the equitable distribution of socioeconomic goods could be undermined (Twiss, 1998). Without both first and second generation rights, the solidarity of the society would then struggle to continue. The Interdependency of Human Rights
All of the generations of rights are equally important. First generation rights grants people the right to freely express themselves and to participate in and shape the society that they live in, amongst other things. Second generation rights secure economic and social stability, allowing people to live in decent conditions, gives people access to healthcare, gives them the right to work and to an education. Third generation rights are meant for the solidarity of the community. Amongst these rights are the right to development, the right to peace, the right to a clean environment, and minority rights. Although the term generation implies that these rights come in sets, human rights should be thought of as interdependent, interrelated, and indivisible (Pocar, 2015).
Human rights that are associated with one generation of rights often has components that pertain to the other generations of rights or assumes that other generations of human rights are in place (Twiss, 1998). For example, the right to education is classed as a second generation right, however, it still requires the other generations of rights in order for it to be successfully realized. Education involves investing social resources into schooling (second generation), protecting individual’s freedom of expression (first generation), and the local self-governance of school-districts (third generation) (Twiss, 1998). Human rights have a mutually reinforcing relationship in the sense that “the effective implementation of one set of rights can contribute to the implementation of another set of rights, and vice versa” (Quane, 2012).
A human rights lawyer argued that a “hungry man does not have much freedom of choice. But equally true, when a well-fed man does not have freedom of choice, he cannot protect himself against going hungry.” (Quane 2012). The interdependency of human rights means that the realization of civil and political rights cannot be met unless economic, social and cultural rights can be exercised. However, this is equally true for the fact that economic, social, and cultural rights cannot truly be realized unless political and civil rights can be exercised. Human rights are all equally important and interdependent. Implying that human rights may vary according to their generation could bring up arguments about the entitlement of human rights (Pocar, 2015). Therefore, they should not be separated or grouped through generations or categories.
The Importance of Basic Rights
Violations of human rights are not weighed with equal importance which reinforces hierarchical thinking (Donnelly & Whelan, 2017). Although it has been established that human rights are indivisible and interdependent, even human rights activists tend to place more importance on some types of human rights violations than others. Among advocates, homelessness and unemployment are not treated as severe human rights violations, compared to torture or arbitrary executions (Donnelly & Whelan, 2017). Both torture and arbitrary executions are violations of first generation rights. However, both are also violations of physical security.
Rather than choosing a generation of rights as being essential to ensuring human rights, Henry Shue argued that basic rights are the foundation for human rights. When a right is basic, any attempt to secure or enjoy another right by sacrificing the basic right would be impossible (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). A basic right, as defined by Shue, would be physical security rights, which are rights that protect humans’ physical security (freedom from persecution, torture, rape, and murder), and subsistence rights, which are rights that allow humans to live active and healthy lives (right to clean water and air, right to food, and the right to shelter) (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). Humans must be guaranteed the right to security and a right to subsistence in order to full exercise and enjoy any other right. For example, without ensuring the right to physical security, one cannot exercise their right to be free to assemble since the threat of detainment or beatings would exist (Callaway & Stephens, 2007). Therefore, one would not be free to assemble. The guarantee and enjoyment of the right to security and subsistence allows for the enjoyment and exercise of all other rights.
Conclusion
After the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established, there was a split between which rights to champion which led to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The championing of different generations of human rights has led to a politicization of human rights and neglects the moral basis of human rights. However, when considering human rights, they should be thought of as indivisible and interdependent, rather than thought of in the three traditional generations of civil and political rights, social and economic rights, and solidarity rights. It is difficult to enjoy civil and political rights without the guarantee of social, economic, and solidarity rights, and vice versa. Categorizing human rights brings up the potential argument of the entitlement of human rights and allows states to pick and choose which rights they believe are beneficial to their society. That notion contradicts the idea that human rights are inalienable to all and are non-derogable. Simply being a human being should be enough to guarantee the right to enjoy all human rights.