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Human Rights – Universal Panacea? Some reflections on the so-called human rights of the third generation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

P.H. Kooijmans
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The UNESCO Courier of November 1977 carried an article in which Karel Vasak, the Director of the Organization's Division of Human Rights and Peace, called for the recognition of a ‘third generation’ of human rights: solidarity rights. The idea of solidarity rights was not new, but Vasak was the first to attempt to provide these rights with a conceptually valid place in the whole catalogue of human rights. For this purpose, he chose an attractive and, at first sight, an appealing formula. He took as his starting point three basic concepts and three types of revolution. The first revolution was the French Revolution of 1789, with its motto, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. In the course of this revolution it was, however, only the so-called freedom rights, the basic civil and political rights, which were actually realised. It was thanks to the Mexican and, in particular, the Russian Revolutions that a second generation of Human Rights gradually achieved universal recognition; these were the so-called equality rights: economic, social and cultural. We are currently experiencing a third revolution: the emancipation of colonized and dominated peoples, linked to total interdependence. One world or no world.

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Articles
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Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , December 1990 , pp. 315 - 329
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Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1990

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References

1. Norgaard, C.A., The Position of the Individual in International Law (1962) p. 1Google Scholar.

2. Vasak, K., ‘A 30-Year Struggle: The Sustained Effort to Give Force of Law to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, UNESCO Courier (11 1977) p. 29Google Scholar.

3. The theoretical underpinning can be found in Vasak, K., ‘Pour une troisième génération des droits de l'homme’, in Swinarski, C., ed., Etudes et Essais sur le droit international humanitaire et sur les principes de la Croix-Rouge en I'honneur de Jean Pictet (1984) p. 837 et seqGoogle Scholar.

4. Vasak, , loc cit. n. 3, p. 839Google Scholar.

5. Ibid., pp. 846–850.

6. See, for example, Marks, S.P., ‘Emerging Human Rights: A New Generation for the 1980s?’, 33 Rutgers LR (1981) p. 435 et seqGoogle Scholar.

7. Marks says on this point: ‘That text does not state explicitly that there is a human right to a clean and ecologically balanced environment, but it does express the issue in human rights terms. This is typical of the process of the emergence of human rights’, loc. cit. n. 6, p. 443.

8. G.A. Res. 33/73 of 15 December 1978.

9. G.A. Res. 41/28 of 4 December 1986.

10. Alston, P., ‘A Third Generation of Solidarity Rights: Progressive Development or Obfuscation of International Human Rights Law?’, 29 NILR (1982) p. 316CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, Baehr, P.R., Mensenrechten (1989) p. 16Google Scholar.

11. Donnelly, J., ‘Human Rights, Individual Rights, Collective Rights’, in Berting, J. et al. , eds., Human Rights in a Pluralist World (1990) p. 48Google Scholar: ‘they [rights to peace and to development] provide a convenient basis for repressive regimes to shift the blame for their failures onto the shoulders of others’.

12. Vasak, was very clear on this point: ‘De la liberté-autonomie à la liberté-participation; des droits individuels aux droits collectifs et aux droits des collectivités: tel paraît être le sens des mesures à prendre pour faire face à la double faiblesse potentielle, mais probablement congénitale des Droits de l'Homme: ègoïsme et solitude’: loc. cit. n. 3, p. 838Google Scholar.

13. See, inter alia, Kühnhardt, L., Die Universalität der Menschenrechten, Studie zur ideengeschichtlichen Bestimmung eines politischen Schlüsselbegriffes (1987) p. 71 et seqGoogle Scholar.

14. Locke's views were effectively paraphrased by Sabine, G. H., A History of Political Theory, 3rd rev. edn. (1964) p. 528Google Scholar: ‘[Locke] conceived all natural rights in the same line as property, that is to say, as attributes of the individual person born with him, and hence as indefeasible claims upon both society and government. Such claims can never justly be set aside, since society itself exists to protect them; they can be regulated only to the extent that is necessary to give them effective protection’.

15. According to Burgers, J.H., ‘The Function of Human Rights as Individual and Collective Rights’, in Berting, et al. , eds., op. cit. n. 11, p. 65Google Scholar.

16. McLachlan, J., Human Rights in Retrospect and Reality, The Essex Hall Lecture (1986) p. 13Google Scholar. Marks expresses the same idea, when he states, ‘The freedoms of the first generation had meant for the majority of the working classes and peoples of conquered lands the right to be exploited and colonized’; loc. cit. n. 6, p. 438.

17. Burgers, has it as follows: ‘Human Rights embody standards for the relationship between the rulers and the ruled against the backdrop of their basic asymmetry of power which is inherent in the state system’; loc. cit. n. 15, p. 64Google Scholar.

18. See Donnelly, , loc. cit. n. 11, p. 40Google Scholar: ‘A has a right to X (with respect to B)’ – the paradigmatic statement of the principal relationships established and governed by rights – specifies a rightholder (A), an object of the right (X), a duty-bearer (B). A is entitled to X (with respect to B). B stands under correlative obligations to A (with respect to X). And, should it be necessary, A may make special claims upon B to discharge these obligations'.

19. See, for example, Kühnhardt, , op. cit. n. 12, p. 33Google Scholar: ‘In der Tat stellen sich viele derjenigen Anliegen, die als soziale Rechte Eingang in die internationalen Menschenrechtsinstrumente gefunden haben, als Ausdruck des menschlichen Strebens nach sozialer Gerechtigkeit dar. Da aber nicht jedes Staatsziel und jede Gerechtigkeitsforderung als Menschenrecht zu begründen sind, erweist sich die Distinktion zwischen universell geltungskräftigen Menschenrechten (the classic Lockian rights) und menschlichen Bedürfnissen, die gesellschaftsgebunden und abhängig vom Entwicklungsstand einer Volkswirtschaft bleiben (the economic and social rights), als durchaus sachgerecht’.

20. In 1979 President Carter submitted both Covenants to the Senate for advice and consent. Neither the Reagan administration nor the Bush administration has given any follow-up to this initiative.

21. See the author's: ‘Is There a Common Ground for a Human Rights Theory and a Human Rights Policy?’, Wiener Blätter zur Friedensforschung (1990) no. 1, p. 8 et seq.

22. Bilder, R. B., ‘Rethinking International Human Rights: Some Basic Questions’, WisconsinLR (1969) p. 175Google Scholar.

23. Tomuschat, C., ‘Human Rights in a World-Wide Framework. Some Current Issues’, 45 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (1985) p. 560Google Scholar.

24. Dimitrijecvic, V., ‘The Interrelationship Between Peace and Human Rights and the Possible Right to Peace’, in Nowak, M., Steurer, D. and Tretter, H., eds., Fortschritt im Bewusstsein der Grund- und Menschenrechte, Festschrift für Felix Ermacora (1988) p. 596Google Scholar.

25. G.A. Res. 39/11 of 12 November 1984.

26. In the Kitok case the Committee on Human Rights opined that ‘the author of the claim, as an individual, could not claim to be the victim of a violation of the right of self-determination enshrined in Article 1 of the Covenant’ since that Article ‘deals with rights conferred upon peoples’. (Comm. 197/1985).

27. Donnelly, , loc. cit. n. 11, p. 49Google Scholar. Donnelly himself is an opponent of the idea of rights belonging to collectivities. He takes the view that in the case of the so-called collective rights, the right belongs to individuals, as members of the group and not to the group as such (p. 43). He calls, for example, the right of self-determination ‘an explicitly collective dimension of some wellestablished individual human rights’. But if he adds to this that ‘the right remains a right of individuals acting collectively’ (author's italics), then one cannot but conclude that the right is exercised by the collectivity.

28. For a recent article on thi problem, see Hentze, H.-J., ‘Völkerrecht und Indigenous Peoples’, 50 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (1990) p. 39 et seqGoogle Scholar.

29. In Art. 27 of the UN Covenant on civil and political rights, attention is paid to the problem of minorities, and although the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion and to use their own language is guaranteed to the individual members of the minority, it is expressly stated that they must be able to exercise the right ‘in community with the other members of their group’.

30. Tomuschat describes the right of self-determination as a right ‘das einem unter fremde Herrschaft stehenden Volk die rechtliche Legitimation für sein Streben nach Selbstverantwortlichkeit und Eigenstandigkeit verschaffen solt’; ‘Recht auf Frieden. Ein neues Menschenrecht der dritten Generation?’, in Europa-Archiv (1985) p. 273.

31. In 1986 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution which stated that any new declarations and treaties on human rights ‘should be sufficiently precise to give rise to identifiable and practicable rights and obligations’, G.A. Res 41/120. One may well ask if the General Assembly kept to its own guideline when, on the same day, it passed the Declaration on the Right to Development.

32. Vasak, , loc. cit. n. 3, p. 843Google Scholar.

33. Art. 55 of the Charter reads as follows: ‘With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote… (c) universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’. And Art. 56 adds: ‘All members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in cooperation with the Organization for the achievement of the purposes set forth in Article 55’ (author's italics).

34. Report of the Sixty-Second Conference of the ILA (Seoul 1986) p. 2 et seq.

35. van Boven, T., ‘Human Rights and Development. Rhetorics and Realities’, in Fortschritt im Bewusstsein der Grund- und Menschenrechte, Festschrift für Felix Ermacora (1988) p. 577Google Scholar.

36. Alston, , loc. cit. n. 10, p. 322Google Scholar.

37. Alston, P., ‘Conjuring up New Human Rights: A Proposal for Quality Control’, 78 AJIL (1984) p. 613CrossRefGoogle Scholar.