Kenya Human Rights Law :Where Do Human Rights Come from?

The modern human rights era can be traced to struggles to end slavery, genocide, discrimination, and government oppression. Atrocities during World War 11 made clear that previous efforts to protect individual rights from government violations were inadequate. Thus was born the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as part of the emergence of the United Nations (UN).The UDHR was the first international document that spelled out the “basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights that all human beings should enjoy.” The declaration was ratified without opposition by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948.When it was adopted, the UDHR was not legally binding, though it carried great moral weight. In order to give the human rights listed in the UDHR the force of law, the UN drafted two treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The division of rights between these two covenants is artificial, reflecting the global ideological divide during the Cold War. Though politics prevented the creation of a unified treaty, the two covenants are interconnected, and the rights contained in one covenant are necessary to the fulfillment of the rights contained in the other. Together, the UDHR, ICCPR, and ICESCR are known as the International Bill of Human Rights. They contain a comprehensive list of human rights that governments must respect, protect, and fulfill.