Civil and political rights

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Civil Rights
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Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the state.

Civil rights generally include ensuring peoples' physical and mental integrity, life, and safety, protection from discrimination, the right to privacy, the freedom of thought, speech, religion, press, assembly, and movement.

Political rights include

right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote
.

Civil and political rights form the original and main part of international

negative rights
.

History

The phrase "civil rights" is a translation of Latin jus civis (right of the citizen). Roman citizens could be either free (libertas) or servile (servitus), but they all had rights in law.[2] After the Edict of Milan in 313, these rights included the freedom of religion; however, in 380, the Edict of Thessalonica required all subjects of the Roman Empire to profess Catholic Christianity.[3] Roman legal doctrine was lost during the Middle Ages, but claims of universal rights could still be made based on Christian doctrine. According to the leaders of Kett's Rebellion (1549), "all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with his precious blood-shedding."[4]

In the 17th century,

U.S. Bill of Rights (1789).[5]

The removal by legislation of a civil right constitutes a "civil disability". In early 19th century Britain, the phrase "civil rights" most commonly referred to the issue of such legal discrimination against Catholics. In the House of Commons support for civil rights was divided, with many politicians agreeing with the existing civil disabilities of Catholics. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 restored their civil rights.[6]

In the United States, the term civil rights has been associated with the civil rights movement (1954–1968), which fought against racism.[7]

Protection of rights

T. H. Marshall notes that civil rights were among the first to be recognized and codified, followed later by political rights and still later by social rights. In many countries, they are constitutional rights and are included in a bill of rights or similar document. They are also defined in international human rights instruments, such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected. However, most

natural rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America that "a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate
."

The question of to whom civil and political rights apply is a subject of controversy. Although in many countries

citizens have greater protections against infringement of rights than non-citizens, civil and political rights are generally considered to be universal rights that apply to all persons
.

According to political scientist Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr., analyzing the causes of and lack of protection from human rights abuses in the Global South should be focusing on the interactions of domestic and international factors—an important perspective that has usually been systematically neglected in the social science literature.[8]

Other rights

Custom also plays a role. Implied or unenumerated rights are rights that courts may find to exist even though not expressly guaranteed by written law or custom; one example is the right to privacy in the United States, and the Ninth Amendment
explicitly shows that other rights are also protected.

The United States Declaration of Independence states that people have unalienable rights including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". It is considered by some that the sole purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty and property.[9]

Some thinkers have argued that the concepts of

habit one indulges.[15][16][17]

Social movements for civil rights

Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Croatian Spring participant; Europe's first female prime minister

Civil rights guarantee equal protection under the law. When civil and political rights are not guaranteed to all as part of equal protection of laws, or when such guarantees exist on paper but are not respected in practice, opposition, legal action and even social unrest may ensue.

Civil rights movements in the United States gathered steam by 1848 with such documents as the Declaration of Sentiment.

Declaration of Rights and Sentiments became the founding document of the American women's movement, and it was adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention, July 19 and 20, 1848.[19][full citation needed
]

Worldwide, several political movements for equality before the law occurred between approximately 1950 and 1980. These movements had a legal and constitutional aspect, and resulted in much law-making at both national and international levels. They also had an activist side, particularly in situations where violations of rights were widespread. Movements with the proclaimed aim of securing observance of civil and political rights included:

Most civil rights movements relied on the technique of

civil unrest
and even armed rebellion. While civil rights movements over the last sixty years have resulted in an extension of civil and political rights, the process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not achieve or fully achieve their objectives.

Problems and analysis

Questions about civil and political rights have frequently emerged. For example, to what extent should the government intervene to protect individuals from infringement on their rights by other individuals, or from corporations—e.g., in what way should employment discrimination in the private sector be dealt with?

Political theory deals with civil and political rights. Robert Nozick and John Rawls expressed competing visions in Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia and Rawls' A Theory of Justice. Other influential authors in the area include Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, and Jean Edward Smith
.

First-generation rights

First-generation rights, often called "blue" rights,[

English Bill of Rights in 1689 (a restatement of Rights of Englishmen, some dating back to Magna Carta in 1215) and more fully in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 and the United States Bill of Rights in 1791.[21][22]

They were enshrined at the global level and given status in international law first by Articles 3 to 21 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In Europe, they were enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights in 1953.

Civil and political rights organizations

There are current organizations that exist to protect people's civil and political rights in case they are infringed upon. The

AFL–CIO, which is America's union that represent the working-class people nationwide.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ A useful survey is Paul Sieghart, The Lawful Rights of Mankind: An Introduction to the International Legal Code of Human Rights, Oxford University Press, 1985.
  2. ^ Mears, T. Lambert, Analysis of M. Ortolan's Institutes of Justinian, Including the History and, p. 75.
  3. ^ Fahlbusch, Erwin and Geoffrey William Bromiley, The encyclopedia of Christianity, Volume 4, p. 703.
  4. ^ "Human Rights: 1500–1760 – Background". Nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 2020-08-07. Retrieved 2012-02-11.
  5. ^ "Bill of Rights: The 1st Ten Amendments". Bill of Rights Institute. Archived from the original on 12 November 2023. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
  6. ^ "The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829". www.princeton.edu. Archived from the original on 2024-01-25. Retrieved 2024-01-25.
  7. ^ "Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events & Leaders". HISTORY. 2024-01-22. Archived from the original on 2020-04-11. Retrieved 2024-01-25.
  8. S2CID 143449409
    .
  9. ^ House Bill 4 Archived 2012-10-01 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ Robert Book (March 23, 2012). "The Real Broccoli Mandate". Forbes. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  11. ^ Meredith Bragg & Nick Gillspie (June 21, 2013). "Cheese Lovers Fight Idiotic FDA Ban on Mimolette Cheese!". Reason. Archived from the original on September 25, 2013. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  12. from the original on December 25, 2016. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  13. ^ Kerry Howley (August 1, 2005). "Self-Medicating in Burma: Pharmaceutical freedom in an outpost of tyranny". Reason. Archived from the original on April 29, 2013. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  14. ^ Daniel Schorn (February 11, 2009). "Prisoner Of Pain". 60 Minutes. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  15. ^ Emily Dufton (Mar 28, 2012). "The War on Drugs: Should It Be Your Right to Use Narcotics?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on February 19, 2019. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
  16. ^ Doug Bandow (2012). "From Fighting the Drug War to Protecting the Right to Use Drugs – Recognizing a Forgotten Liberty" (PDF). Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom. Chapter 10. Fraser Institute. pp. 253–280. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24.
  17. .
  18. ^ "Signatures to the Seneca Falls Convention 'Declaration of Sentiments'". American History Online, Facts On File, Inc.
  19. ^ Cullen-DuPont, Kathryn. "Declaration of Rights and Sentiments". Encyclopedia of Women's History in America, 2nd ed. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2000. American History Online.[ISBN missing][page needed]
  20. ^ Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash (eds.), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present Archived 2023-08-20 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford University Press, 2009. Includes chapters by specialists on the various movements.
  21. ISSN 1874-6306
    .
  22. ^ "Types and Generations of Human Rights". faculty.chass.ncsu.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-11-04. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  23. ^ "About the ACLU". American Civil Liberties Union. Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  24. ^ "Civil Rights Organizations — The Civil Rights Project at UCLA". www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu. Archived from the original on 2017-08-04. Retrieved 2020-10-26.

External links