Appendix IV, A: J & P & Human Rights

1. A FEW MAJOR INTERNATIONAL TEXTS

A. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948)

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been pro claimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have deter mined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, therefore, the General Assembly proclaims

Article I. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and con science and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, in human or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11. 1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

Article 11.2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, not to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.

Article 13.2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

Article 14.2 This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.

Article 15.2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Article 23.2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Article 25.2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

Article 27.1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Article 27.2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

Article 29.2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, every one shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Article 29.3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

B. Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples (Algiers, 1976)

Article 1: Each people has the right to exist

Article 2: Each people is entitled to have its national and cultural identity respected

Article 3: Each people has the right to peacefully conserve its territory or to return to it if they have been expulsed from it

Article 4: No one may be subject for reasons of national or cultural identity to massacres, torture, persecution, deportation, expulsion or living conditions that would threaten the identity or integrity of the people to whom this person belongs

Article 5: Each people has the imprescribable and unalienable right to self-determination. It has the right to freely define its political status without foreign interference

Article 6: Each people has the right to freely sever any colonial link or any direct or indirect foreign domination and to liberate itself from any racist regime

Article 7: Each people has the right to give itself a democratic government representing all citizens without distinction of race, sex, belief or color with the capacity to truly insure human rights and fundamental freedoms

Article 8: Each people has an exclusive right to its natural wealth and resources. It has the right to recuperate them if they have been taken from it or if it was forced to pay some form of indemnity to use them

Article 9: Each people has the right to participate in that scientific and technological heritage which belongs to all of humanity

Article 10: Each people has the right to have its manpower equitably judged financially and to just and non-discriminatory terms in its international trade

Article 11: Each people has the right to freely choose its economic and social system and to pursue its own path to development without foreign intrusion

Article 12: The economic rights previously mentioned must be undertaken within a spirit of solidarity with the other peoples of the world all while respecting their proper interests

Article 13: Each people has the right to speak its own language, to preserve and develop its own culture by allowing it to contribute to the enrichment of the overall culture of all of humanity.

Article 14: Each people has a right to its artistic, historical and cultural treasures.

Article 15: Each people has the right to refuse a culture which is not its own.

Article 16: Each people has the right to conserve, protect and improve its environment.

Article 17: Each people has the right to use the common patrimony of humanity such as the high seas, the sea floor and celestial space.

Article 18: In the exercise of the previous rights each people must take into account the need to establish coordination and solidarity between the needs for its own development and that of the other countries of the world.

C. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (extracts):
Resolution 2200 of December 16th, 1966.

Article 1

  1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

  2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

  3. The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
Article 2
  1. Each State Party to the present Covenant under takes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.

  2. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

  3. Developing countries, with due regard to human rights and their national economy, may determine to what extent they would guarantee the economic rights recognized in the present Covenant to non-nationals.
Article 3
The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights set forth in the present Covenant.
Article 6
  1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right.

  2. The steps to be taken by a State Party to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include technical and vocational guidance and training programs, policies and techniques to achieve steady economic, social and cultural development and full and productive employment under conditions safe guarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual.
Article 7
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work which ensure, in particular:

(a) Remuneration which provides all workers, as a minimum, with:

(i) Fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value without distinction of any kind, in particular women being guaranteed conditions of work not inferior to those enjoyed by men, with equal pay for equal work;

(ii) A decent living for themselves and their families in accordance with the provisions of the present Covenant;

(b) Safe and healthy working conditions;

(c) Equal opportunity for everyone to be promoted in his employment to an appropriate higher level, subject to no considerations other than those of seniority and competence;

(d) Rest, leisure and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay, as well as remuneration for public holidays.

Article 8

  1. States Parties to the present Covenant under take to ensure:

    (a) The right of everyone to form trade unions and join the trade union of his choice, subject only to the rules of the organization concerned for the promotion and protection of his economic and social interests. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public order or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others;

    (b) The right of trade unions to establish national federations or confederations and the right of the latter to form or join international trade-union organizations;

    (c) The right of trade unions to function freely subject to no limitations other than those prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public order or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others;

    (d) The right to strike, provided that it is exercised in conformity with the laws of the particular country.

  2. This article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on the exercise of these rights by members if the armed forces or of the police or of the administration of the State.

  3. Nothing in this article shall authorize States Parties to the International Labour Organisation Convention of 1948 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize to take legislative measures which would prejudice, or apply the law in such a manner as would prejudice, the guarantees provided for in that Convention.
Article 9

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance.

Article 10

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that:

  1. The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, particularly for its establishment and while it is responsible for the care and education of dependent children. Marriage must be entered into with the free consent of the intending spouses.

  2. Special protection should be accorded to mothers during a reasonable period before and after childbirth. During such period working mothers should be accorded paid leave or leave with adequate social security benefits.

  3. Special measures of protection and assistance should be taken on behalf of all children and young persons without any discrimination for reasons of parentage or other conditions. Children and young persons should be protected from economic and social exploitation. Their employment in work harmful to their morals or health or dangerous to life or likely to hamper their normal development should be punishable by law. States should also set age limits below which the paid employment of child labour should he prohibited and punishable by law.
Article 11
  1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

  2. The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures, including specific programs, which are needed.

    (a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources;

    (b) Taking into account the problems of both food importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.

Article 12

  1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

  2. The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for:

    (a) The provision for the reduction of the still birthrate and of infant mortality and for the healthy development of the child;

    (b) The improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene;

    (c) The prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases;

    (d) The creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness.
Article 13

  1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education. They agree that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity, and shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. They further agree that education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups, and further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

  2. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that, with a view to achieving the full realization of this right:

    (a) Primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all;

    (b) Secondary education in its different forms, including technical and vocational secondary education, shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education;

    (c) Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education;

    (d) Fundamental education shall be encouraged or intensified as far as possible for those persons who have not received or completed the whole period of their primary education;

    (e) The development of a system of schools at all levels shall be actively pursued, an adequate fellowship system shall be established, and the material conditions of teaching staff shall be continuously improved.

  3. The States Parties to the present Covenant under take to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities, which conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

D. We can also study the Islamic Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1981) which has the following Preamble:

"Considering that the constant aspiration of humans seeking a more just world order where peoples could live, develop and prosper in an environment free of fear, oppression, exploitation and privatization is far from being satisfied;

considering that the overabundant means of economic subsistence that Divine Mercy has granted humanity are presently wasted or unequitably or unjustly refused to the earth's inhabitants;

considering that Allah had given humanity, through revelations in the Holy Koran and the Sunna of his Saint Prophet Mohammed, a lasting legal and moral framework allowing the establishment and the administration of institutions and human relations;

considering that human rights ordained by the Divine Law have as their purpose to grant dignity and honor upon humans and are destined to eliminate oppression and injustice;

considering that in view of their divine source and sanction these rights cannot be restricted, abrogated, nor transgressed by any authority, assembly or other institution, nor can they be abdicated nor alienated,

Therefore we Muslims

(There then follows a series of articles on various rights: life, freedom, equality, prohibition of all discrimination, justice, fair trial, protection against abuses of power, protection against torture, protection of one's honor and reputation, sanctuary, minorities participating in public affairs, freedom of belief, though and speech, religious freedom, free association, economic rights, protection of property, dignity of workers, social security, founding a family, married women, education, privacy, freedom of movement and of residency)



2. RIGHTS ACCORDING TO THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH (found in Pacem in Terris and in the Justice and Peace Commission Letter of 1975)

a) Associational rights

b) Religious rights

c) Sexual and family rights

d) Communication rights

e) Economic rights

f) Rights to movement

g) Bodily rights

h) Political rights

i) Individual rights





3. METHODOLOGY OF THE "FRAY F. DE VITORIA" CENTER (Mexico)

The Center is the result of brothers and sisters working together with many lay persons in order to defend human rights within Mexico and to make people aware of these problems. The Center publishes a review entitled Justicia y Paz .

The core team writes up a data base of the complaints received. It is extremely important that these complaints of violations be thoroughly researched and verified so as to be certain about the events, their constitutional basis and the legality of the right; along with this data, other facts are also transmitted to them by other friendly associations (network). This data bank is expanded on a continuous basis. Those responsible make sure that the following points are always kept up to date:

There are ten categories under which the violation can fall:

There are six ways in which these rights can be violated:

Each year the center publishes an updated version of the statistics on the state of human rights in Mexico. Every year a calendar is put out containing the actions undertaken for the defense of human rights and any new national legislation that may have been passed.

Helpful bibliography:

UNESCO and the International Institute of Philosophy: " Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights," 1986, UNESCO.

" Human Rights and the Teachings of the Church ; from John XXIII to John Paul 2 " Vatican library, 1992.

J. Murcia Florian " Educacion en valores y derechos humanos, " ASPI, Bogota, 1994.

two addresses:

International Human Rights Services: BP 16, CH 1211, GENEVA 20 CIC, Switzerland. This NGO, created in 1984 promotes actions by other associations in favor of human rights. It publishes a magazine called "Moniteur des droits de l'homme," (Monitoring Human Rights).

FI-ACAT ( International Federation - Action des chrétiens contre la torture): 27 rue de Mauberge, 75009 PARIS (fax 33.1.42.80.20.89). This coalition of associations seeks to mobilize Christians against torture and other related forms of violence. FI-ACAT has branches:

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