Your most important fundamental rights are also protected by treaties and by international institutions. They are what we call “human rights”. Respecting people’s most essential goods and values thus become a matter of interest for the whole international community, and not just for each country or for each government of the world within its frontiers. The basic rights of every person are the same and mechanisms are in place to check that they are respected everywhere.
Universal human rights
Human rights protect the rights of every person. Non-discrimination is one of its basic principles. Everybody is equally entitled to human rights regardless of their sex, age, skin colour, ethnicity, language, disability, illness, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual characteristics, religion or ideology, property or socio-economic position.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the first human rights treaties were based on this principle of non-discrimination. Their authors believed that that principle would be sufficient to protect every person equally. However, time has shown that certain groups of people find it harder to access and to exercise their rights. Therefore, other treaties were signed that were no longer universal, as they were aimed at people with certain characteristics or in certain conditions, and which seek to provide those persons with additional protection and facilitate their access to universal rights. You can find out more about your human rights and those treaties in the attached files. Go to “Guaranteeing Your Human Rights” to learn about how the protection of those rights is guaranteed in practice.
The human rights of every person
Human rights of specific groups