What are the basic elements of international human rights law?

International human rights law, in one sense, offers great promise and hope because of the lofty ideals it espouses and, in another sense, great disappointment because of the gap between what these idealistic statements proscribe in terms of aspiration for all of humanity and the reality under which most people live. If all the rights that are said to exist under international human rights bill actually existed, a global utopia would have emerged. Yet, all over the world, routine violations of the rights set forth in foundational documents that outlaw the rights humanity is supposed to enjoy simply occur as a result of the fact that we are human.

The body of rights that is largely claimed to exist stems from three main documents which are said to be the ‘international bill of rights’. This is made up of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR). These three conventions are said to represent first generation universal human rights, second generation universal human rights and third generation universal human rights in respective order. Critics of the international human rights law project raise their objections on the grounds that the idea of ​​universal rights is a Western concept that is imposed without any sensitivity to the cultural practices of cultures that have developed independently of a system rights-based law. While this is true in some respects, there are also human rights advocates within these cultures who accept the universality of the idea of ​​human rights and say that this intellectual objection to the notion of human rights is often an excuse for cover up the many human rights atrocities committed by governments around the world. In any case, the global recognition of human rights has existed for more than 60 years in an internationally codified form and seems unlikely to cease any time in the near future as relevant political discourse.