ballb 8th semester notes

1. GENERATIONS OF HUMAN
RIGHTS
Dr Navjeet Sidhu Kundal

2. LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of today’s lecture session the students will be able to:
LO1: Understand the Division of Rights into Generations
LO2: Assess the relevance of this classification and its Criticism.

3. INTRODUCTION
First Efforts to divide rights into three Generations was made by Karel Vasak
, a Czech Zurist. In November 1977, Karel Vasak, UNESCOs legal advisor and
distinguished human rights scholar, wrote an article for the UNESCO Courier,
introducing the idea of three generations of human rights. He called for
recognition of three Generation of Human Rights.
He believed that the world had experienced three revolutions which created
three Generations of Human Rights.
The term generation refers to Deepening layers or significant qualitative
shift.
People refer to First Second and third Generation to refer to different types
or categories of rights. These shifts can be inclusive as well as
developmental.
Emergent rights develop and expand the existing framework rather than
making it obsolete.

4. Contd…
It is probably the most practical, commonly used, and comprehensive
categorization of human rights
It encompasses the dichotomies used in major attempts of human
rights classification: negative vs. positive rights, individual vs.
collective rights, and national vs. international liability.

5. FIRST GENERATION:
The first generation regards negative rights and corresponds to civil and political
liberties.
Also called as Freedom Rights.
Deal with liberty and participation in political life.
Strongly individualistic and negatively worded.
can be exercised independently and singular.
Protect individuals from state.
Drawn from rights articulated in Magna Carta (1215) and included in such
milestone documents as the United States Bill of Rights (1791) and the
Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789).
Political rights, those that allow citizen participation at power
that refer to personal autonomy of the individual and the rights that enable
citizen participation in power in a society

6. Contd…
Legitimized and given status in International Law.
More absolute Rights (Article 2.1. of ICCPR requires states to
“respect and ensure”)
According to the traditional view only Civil and Political rights are
considered as rights par excellence and consequently warrant clearly
defined mechanism for their implementation.
Reflect Laissez fair doctrine of non-interference.

7. SECOND GENERATION:
The second generation of equality rights was a product of the rapid
nineteenth century industrialization and accompanying social and economic
inequalities(Socialism) (Wellman 2000, p. 640; Alston 1982, p. 317).
The consecration of these rights requires significant effort from the State
requires institutional support from the state,
Primarily positive rights, impose a duty upon the state to provide for peoples
basic needs satisfying what President Roosevelt said Freedom from Want.
In the context of the emerging ideological confrontation after WWII, the
communist camp staunchly supported the economic, social, and cultural
rights. Their distinct feature is the prerequisite for active state involvement.
While differentiating between the first and second generations of rights,
Vašák contrasted the negative character of the former and the positive of the
latter (Vašák 1977, p. 29). Moreover, both generations refer to individual
rights and impose the corresponding duties onto the nation state.

8. THIRD GENERATION:
Solidarity Rights, Group Rights.
Reflect the vindications for a fairer political and economic world order.
can not be exerted only by an individual, but only collectively,
the right of people to self-determination; the right to peace; the right to development; the right to
humanitarian assistance;
Collective rights that belong to this group were mentioned in the Stockholm Declaration (UN General
Assembly 1972), Rio Declaration (UN General Assembly 1992), and other international documents of
declaratory character.
Those rights include right to self-determination, economic and social development, healthy
environment, natural resources, and participation in cultural heritage (Vašák 1977, p. 29). Hence, such
rights are positive and collective and demand responsibility, which lies beyond the nation-state.
This generation is the most controversial and least institutionalized in international or domestic law.
Third generation rights cannot be exercised in isolation, it requires effort from both side that of State
and individual.
Thus, Vašák’s differentiation between the three generations quite neatly fits into the three
dichotomies based on the major approaches to human rights categorization: (1) negative (first
generation) and positive (second and third generations), (2) individual (first and second generations)
and collective (third generation), and (3) national (first and second generations) and international
(third generation) liability as summarized in Table 1.

10. FOURTH GENERATION OF RIGHTS
Since the 1980s—so for almost as long as talk about generations has been
around—there has been sporadic talk of a fourth. What fourth-generation
rights are supposed to cover has varied, from future generations or genetic
lineage to women, indigenous people, or technological change
In a world where more and more of our day to day lives relies on technology
and access to the internet, should our notions of human rights evolve to
catch up? Is access to technology something that every human should be
guaranteed? Many human rights scholars seem to think so, with one of the
most common notions of a ‘4th gen’ human right being that of access to the
internet. With more and more jobs and tasks requiring some element of
technology, the lack of access to it can leave individuals at a serious
disadvantage in their work and education.
biotechnology.
, increasingly more activities are captured as data and stored, sorted, and
processed. Digital data can be copied without loss of quality as many times
as one likes, and at great speed. More and more of what we do, say, or
believe, and more and more of our movements and interactions leave digital
marks, some potentially permanent

11. CRITICISM
Language of generations is Problematic.
Presupposes a questionable history of Human Rights.
True Interdependence of Human rights must be acknowledged.
This generations model hardly intends to capture a linear progression in which one
generation gives rise to the next and disappears. Instead, the generations are
interdependent and interpenetrating, much as needs recognized in one era would
In the contemporary usage of the concept of human rights, demarcation between
those positive and negative duties becomes increasingly blurred certain rights, like
the right to a fair trial, fall to both categories since it simultaneously guarantees the
individual right, but also requires the active state participation for its practical
cherishment. (Arbitrary detention and due process)
Noticeable dissonance emerged between Vašák’s notion of generations of rights and
the official UN position. Starting from the UN GA resolution 41/128 in 1986, the idea
of human rights indivisibility aimed to equalize all human rights in value, regardless
of their origin, history, or maturity. This process was reaffirmed in the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action (Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
1993).

12. CRITICISM
Amartya Sen on the basis of his study of Famine in India, argues that plight of
famine in the country only got better after the country got independence.
According to him, economic development that secures economic and social
rights enhances individual capabilities and enables enjoyment of freedoms.
(Sen 1992,1999).
Reports by UNDP provide further data and arguments that support the link
between equality and liberty. (Human Development Report 2000 and 2002)

13. Thanks