Equality of rights for historically disadvantaged or subordinate groups is a long-standing concern of the human rights movement. Human rights documents repeatedly emphasize that all people, including women and members of ethnic and religious minorities, have equal human rights and should be able to enjoy them without discrimination. The right to freedom from discrimination is prominent in the Universal Declaration and subsequent treaties. The Civil and Political Covenant, for example, obliges States Parties to respect and protect the rights of their people “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”.
A number of standard individual rights are particularly important for ethnic and religious minorities, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination. Human rights instruments also include rights that specifically apply to minorities and grant them special protection. For example, Article 27 of the Civil and Political Covenant states that persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities “shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language.”
Feminists have often argued that standard lists of human rights do not sufficiently take into account the different risks faced by women and men. For example, issues such as domestic violence, reproductive choice and trafficking in women and girls for sex work did not feature prominently in early human rights documents and treaties. Lists of human rights had to be expanded “to include the humiliation and violation of women’s rights”. Human rights violations often occur at home by other family members rather than on the street through the police. Most cases of violence against women occur in the “private” sphere.
The question of how the articulation of human rights should respond to the different kinds of risks and dangers faced by different people is complex and arises not only in relation to gender, but also in relation to age, occupation, political affiliation, religion and personal interests. Due process rights, for example, are much more useful for young people (and especially young men) than for the elderly, as the latter are much less likely to violate criminal laws.
Since 1964, the United Nations has mainly dealt with the rights of women and minorities through special treaties, such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979); the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2007). See also the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Special treaties allow international norms to address the unique problems of particular groups, such as maternity care in the case of women, child custody issues and the loss of historical territories by indigenous peoples.
Minority groups are often targets of violence. Human rights norms call on governments to refrain from and provide protection against such violence. This work is partly done by the right to life, which is a standard individual right. It is also done by the right against genocide, which protects certain groups from attempts to destroy or exterminate them. The Genocide Convention was one of the first human rights treaties after World War II. The right against genocide is clearly a group right. It is held by both individuals and groups and provides protection to groups as groups. It is largely negative in the sense that it requires governments and other institutions to refrain from destroying groups; but it also requires the creation of legal and other protections against genocide at the national level.
Can the right against genocide be a human right? More generally, can group law be consistent with the general idea of human rights proposed earlier? According to this concept, human rights are the rights of all human beings. However, it may succeed if we broaden our idea of who can have human rights to include important groups that people form and nurture (see entry on group rights). Perhaps this can be made more palatable by recognising that the beneficiaries of the right against genocide are individuals who enjoy greater security from attempts to destroy the group to which they belong.