“Sadly, even human rights can be used as a justification for an inordinate defence of individual rights or the rights of the richer peoples…To speak properly of our own rights, we need to broaden our perspective and to hear the plea of other peoples and other regions than those of our own country.”(Pope Francis, 2013)
On December 10, the world will observe the 65th International Human Rights Day and the theme is “Our Rights. Our Freedoms. Always.” This day will mark the launch of “a year-long campaign for the 50th anniversary of the two International Covenants on Human Rights: the international Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which were adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on December 16, 1966.
“The two Covenants, together with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, form the International Bill of Human Rights, setting out the civil, political, cultural, economic, and social rights that are the birth right of all human beings.”
The ICESCR “calls on its State Parties to undertake and to work towards the granting of economic, social, and cultural rights to individuals, including labour rights and the right to health, the right to education, and the right to an adequate standard of living” (www.ag.gov.tt/Features/The-Law-and-You) . It was ratified by T&T on December 8, 1978. This country reserves the right to restrict the right to strike of those engaged in essential occupations.
The ICCPR is a multilateral treaty which commits its State Parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, electoral rights, rights of due process and to a fair trial, and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Convention came into force on March 23, 1976.
T&T ratified the ICCPR in 1978. In 1980 it ratified the ICCPR Optional Protocol allowing for individual complaints before the Human Rights Committee. In 1991 T&T joined the American Convention on Human Rights, a regional Treaty modelled on the ICCPR. T&T later denounced the ICCPR Optional Protocol (May 26, 1998). It re-acceded with a reservation and after a December 1999 decision by the Human Rights Committee, it denounced the ICCPR Optional Protocol in its entirety on March 27, 2000. It also denounced the American Convention on Human Rights. (See Lady Linda Dobbs’ speech delivered in T&T on May 18, 2015 – Who’s afraid of Human Rights: The judges’ dilemma (http://www.ttlawcourts.org/)
The Report of the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights (2001) rightly states that: “Human rights can only flourish in an environment of good governance that is respectful of the rule of law. But even these attributes are not, in themselves, sufficient conditions.” Our challenge is to “translate support for human rights into concrete measures and actions”.
(http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/371/huma/rep/rep02dec01-e.htm)
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In the midst of individualism and moral relativism, it is essential that we share our Catholic vision of human rights, remembering that one has no right to do what is wrong, and that just because something is legal does not make it ethical/moral.
Part 1, Chapter 3, IV of the Compendium on the Social Doctrine of the Church focuses on Human Rights: “…the roots of human rights are to be found in the dignity that belongs to each human being…The ultimate source of human rights is not found in the mere will of human beings, in the reality of the State, in public powers, but in man himself and in God his Creator. These rights are ‘universal, inviolable, inalienable’.
“Human rights are to be defended not only individually but also as a whole: protecting them only partially would imply a kind of failure to recognise them. They correspond to the demands of human dignity and entail, in the first place, the fulfillment of the essential needs of the person in the material and spiritual spheres.
“These rights apply to every stage of life and to every political, social, economic and cultural situation. Together they form a single whole, directed unambiguously towards the promotion of every aspect of the good of both the person and society…The integral promotion of every category of human rights is the true guarantee of full respect for each individual right” – St John Paul II. He drew up a list of rights in his encyclical Centesimus Annus, the right to life from the moment of conception to its natural end being the most fundamental of rights upon which all others are based.
