Article 28 – Protection of human rights
Especially at night, I'm back where I was again. Human lives are in your hands. Peace, freedom, security. There, you see what it does to people.
Wim van Esch, Afghanistan veteran and guest lecturer of war law (view the video below)
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Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
What does this right mean?
Article 28 gives citizens the right to legal systems and organisations, nationally and internationally, which actually protects human rights. Within states themselves, but also by means of collaboration between states worldwide. So Article 28 has the goal of giving ‘hands and feet’ to all other human rights in the Universal Declaration.
The greatest danger today is the attempts to undermine and even abolish the entire multilateral framework designed to protect human rights and prevent conflict.
What is the history of this right?
One of the main drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the French lawyer and philosopher René Cassin, saw the Declaration as a Greek temple. The first two articles in it, freedom and equality, are the foundation. On top of it, there are four columns: (1) individual rights, (2) civil and political rights, (3) public, religious and political freedoms and (4) social, economic and cultural rights. The last three articles of the Universal Declaration (28-30) connect these four columns (see the triangular pediment on the photo below). Article 28 does so by giving everyone the right to a legal system in which human rights are actually protected in practice.
Like Article 22, the right to social security, is meant to protect everyone's economic and social rights, Article 28 is meant to support all human rights from the Universal Declaration. The Universal Declaration contains an entire series of human rights. But these human rights have little practical meaning if nobody stands up for them. Long discussions were held on the wording of Article 28 in order to create an international and societal order in which all these rights are realised. The United Nations themselves, as an organisation, and all its member states were seen as the most important players to make that order possible.
Where and how is this right documented?
Article 28 is a kind of umbrella article: it is about general protection and realisation of human rights. The right itself is therefore almost nowhere to be found as a right. One of the exceptions to that is the Netherlands. The Constitution of the Netherlands states in Article 90 that the government promotes the international legal order. This also includes the protection of human rights.
Article 28 was also the start for the development of the international human-rights system. Since 1948, the member states of the United Nations have adopted an entire series of international human-rights treaties, in which human rights are securely legally documented. With this, states take on the duty to actually enforce human rights. Special committees oversee that. Human rights are also protected by the UN Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and special UN reporters. For instance, the Human Rights Council has appointed a special reporter for the promotion of a democratic and just international order.
Collaboration in Europe
The Universal Declaration also led to better protection of human rights within Europe. Already back in 1950, a group of European countries, including the Netherlands, adopted the European Convention on Human Rights. That Convention also resulted in the founding of the European Court of Human Rights, an international court people can go to if a state does not protect their human rights sufficiently. Later on, more human-rights treaties were added to that in Europe, for instance to protect social rights. The European Union has also started to protect human rights.
The Netherlands
And maybe even the most important: protection of human rights takes place more and more often within countries, in the Netherlands as well. Such as laws against discrimination or torture, or to prosecute perpetrators of domestic violence. Whoever believes his or her human rights are violated can go to court, which can also examine the matter based on international and European human rights. Human rights institutes also exist in more and more countries, such as The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights. There, everyone can file a complaint on discrimination or bring up other human rights problems free of charge.
The purpose of the Universal Declaration is to create a free and honest world with peace and wealth. For this, an international and societal order is needed to protect rights. All laws, institutes and organisations mentioned above contribute to this order protecting human rights.
How topical is this human right?
All over the world, the collaboration between countries to meet international agreements, such as those on human rights, are under pressure. That also makes the work of the human rights institutes of the United Nations more difficult.
At the same time, countless people ensure that the protection of human rights continues. From judges in their daily work to human rights activists' protests. From the ombudsman's work to investigative journalists challenging human rights violations.
From human rights organisations such as Amnesty International to national human rights institutes such as The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights.
And the UN Human Rights Council observes for each country, including the Netherlands, how human rights are enforced in the so-called Universal Periodic Review every five years.
Supporting on the obligation’s states entered into under human rights treaties, all of them form an ecosystem for the protection of human rights.