What are Human Rights?  The fundamental rights that humans have by the fact of being human, and that are neither created nor can be destroyed by any governmentfundamental rights  Governments can only protect or violate the rights of their people  Supported by several international conventions and treaties (such as the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human rights in 1948

Examples of Human Rights…  Right to life  Right to liberty  Right to an education  Right to equality before the law  Right of association  Right of belief/religion  Right of free speech/expresssion  Right to movement  Governments are not required to protect these rights, but they serve as a standard of concern for people and form the basis of many modern national constitutions.

United Nations- Universal Declaration of Human Rights  Written in 1948  Created as a result of WW2  It sets out, for the first time, a global declaration of the fundamental human rights to be universally protected  Consists of thirty articles  Eleanor Roosevelt was a major force in the writing of the declaration  48 countries voted for the declaration  The following abstained from voting:  the Soviet Union, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, People's Republic of Poland, Union of South Africa, Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Honduras and Yemen