Civil/political rights of man can be divided into criterion of rights relating to civil security and civil/political liberties. These rights include the right to liberty and security, equal protection, free from torture, freedom of assembly, religion, movement and expression, freedom from discrimination, access to a judicial system and information, right to participate in politics, right to private and family life and the right to seek asylum. Furthermore, economic/social rights can as well be placed into two subdivisions with one division having rights referring to the needing and distribution of items for social needs such as education, housing, food and medical care. Economic/social human rights also include standards relating to the provision of items fulfilling economic needs of individuals such as the right to social security, employment, fair wages and satisfactory living standards. These two sets of human right have been consistently divided. There have been arguments on which is the significant one however it can be stated that both are important for people as one set of rights cannot exist without the other.
The civil/political rights, first generation of subjective rights, were attained through writing and force. These rights arose from the fight against absolute power when notions of right and freedom of states developed in the minds of the people. These ideas came to the people from the writings of philosophers as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The achievement of the fight for the first generation of rights is shown in the writing and passing of documents such as The American Declaration of Independence (1776), The Bill of Rights (1689), Magna Carta (1215) and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789). These documents lessened the absolute power of monarchies by developing protection again the installation of taxes without the consent of the Parliament, affirming the freedom of speech and the right to petition. The documents indicated focus on individuals as initially expressed in the French Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights (1789).
Individual freedom and the right to take part in government are constituents of the first generation of rights. The initial development of such rights was the result of the needed protection of the individual from the state. These particular rights of freedom and the right in government are influenced by the rights explained in the United States Bill of Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Additionally, civil/political rights were a granted legal position in international law by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Articles 3 to 21 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
Furthermore, it is deemed that the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights scripts in the most effective way the notion that there are inherent, fundamental human rights. It is considered to be the first generation of human subjective rights. These rights focused on the individual. In the recent times, these rights for the individual have been written in international documents, constitutions and other laws. In Europe, the European Court of Human Rights was created based on the European Convention on Human Rights and protocols.
Whilst the first generation of human rights placed an emphasis on the individual, the focus shifted towards the group in economic/social rights during the nineteenth century. Economic/social rights started to be identified by the government after World War II. They were expressed in the Universal Declaration’s Articles 22 to 27 and also mentioned in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. People do not straightly retain these rights but instead it is the function of the government to recognize and execute them. Economic/social rights have came from positive law and also international law. Furthermore, these rights need backing of the State while civil/political rights can be granted easily. The State has to step in for building a system that would grant the rights of such as social security and health care.
Another reason why these rights are divided and differentiated is due to their wording and explanation in documents. Civil/political rights are written in a manner in which their importance is shown. They are to be passed right away. However, social/economic rights appear in words that show less importance. These rights require resources to be passed. Therefore, States have the right on how they will be implemented.
Furthermore, economic/social rights have been connected with social or democratic states whilst civil/political rights have been connected to liberal states. During the Cold War, civil/political right were given an importance in the Western nations. The economic/social rights were seen as relating to socialist ideas. In the advancing world economic prosperity was seen as something that could overcome civil/political rights. Additionally, these rights were further divided and differentiated with the notions that civil/political rights could be applied right away but economic/social rights could be applied in the future or gradually. It was considered that civil/political rights placed a negative burden on States whilst the other right put a positive burden on them. In 1982, the United States government discussed that rights that no government can undermine and limit would never be lowered and placed on the same level of importance as those rights that the government was not required to fulfill.
Nevertheless, this differentiation between the rights created a rift and division between the UN and ICCPR/ICESCR. Although, the ICCPR and ICESCR were initially thought to be part of a single document, the issues of the Cold War required additional documents. This was due to the reason that the Communist countries wanted economic/social rights inserted as human rights but the Western countries did not want this. Thus, the ICESCR deals with rights relating to social and economic categories while the ICCPR focusses on political and civil rights. With the application of the ICESCR, the state has to first view the resources that it has accessible to grant the rights. However, the ICCPR is not reliant of the available resources and could instead maintain and uphold the rights. Lastly, a similar divide also occurred in Europe between the ECHR and ESC. The ECHR granted political and civil rights while the ESC supported economic and social rights.
It has become clear that civil/political and social/economic rights are related and dependent on one another. Both are equally important for the people. A reason why economic/social rights are difficult to implement is due to cost. Albeit the fact that economic/social rights are harder to implement and enforce due to them not being built on the national legal system, both rights are equally important.
Both, civil/political and social/economic rights are interdependent and therefore not be a hierarchical system of rights. The Vienna Declaration place an importance on the ending of the division between civil/political and social/economic rights. In Part I, Paragraph 5 it is stated, “All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated…it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.” This specific statement acknowledges the notion that these rights cannot be separated. States should pursue the equal implementation of these rights as one right cannot exist without another. The support of this idea is witnessed in Joe Oloka-Onyango, a Ugandan lawyer’s question "What does it mean to have a right to vote if one is too hungry to lift the ballot paper?”
Furthermore, the judicial courts of certain countries treat civil/political and social/economic rights equally. In India, the constitution is used to support both rights. In the Supreme Court case of Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) the court had to expand its definition of the right to life in accordance with social/economic rights. Some people residing in the slums sued the local council for taking away their source of shelter and in return giving them no other shelter. The Supreme Court ruled that this went against the peoples’ right to life and thus States should use the Constitution to make decisions on human rights disregarding the fact of whether they are civil/political or social/economic. In another case, Paschim v. State of West Bengal (1996), the petitioner got injuries from falling off a train and he was refused treatment at a number of hospitals. The Court came to the decision that the right to life in Article 21 of the Constitution and so there is responsibility on the State to grant and protect the right of life of each person. These cases present that economic/social rights are of importance and thus countries have been implementing them.
Furthermore, can be argued that the Constitution of South Africa protects both civil/political rights. In the Minister of Health v. Treatment Action Campaign (2005), it was decided that the non-distribution of anti-retroviral drug was a violation of the right of health care and so ordered the government to make the drug available to the population.
Lastly, all human rights are connected and each hold an importance. People who do not know how to read or write cannot find sufficient work. Additionally, due to the lack of education these individual also cannot take part in the government or express themselves. People need health care to survive and end illnesses. Survival is a right the government should fully grant to the people.
Civil/political and social/economic right have been divided. However, countries and documents have been attempting to present that they are interrelated, one cannot exist without the other. Both set of rights are required for the survival of humans.