The Human rights Portal

Human rights refers to the concept of human beings as having universal rights, or status, regardless of legal jurisdiction, and likewise other localizing factors, such as ethnicity and nationality. Philosophically, human rights can be based on social contract theories, conceptions of natural rights, or a combination thereof.

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The ICC's temporary headquarters in The Hague

The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, although it cannot currently exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. The Court came into being on July 1, 2002 — the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, entered into force — and it can only prosecute crimes committed on or after that date.

As of June 2008, 106 states are members of the Court. A further 40 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. However, a number of states, including China, India and the United States, are critical of the Court and have not joined.

The Court can generally exercise jurisdiction only in cases where the accused is a national of a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council. The Court is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes. Primary responsibility to investigate and punish crimes is therefore left to individual states.

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The 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay was met with protests by human rights groups particularly on the issue of Tibet. The Chinese government complained at the politicization of a sporting event. However, track-suited Chinese security officials who accompanied the torch in London were called "thugs" by both the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and chairman of the London Olympic Committee Lord Coe, because of their behaviour.

Did you know...

...the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into force on May 3, 2008?

Human rights topics

• Anti-war
• Apartheid
• Children's rights
• Civil rights
• Civilian casualties
• Freedom
• Freedom of speech
• Identity politics
• Liberty
• Nationality
• Nonviolence
• Ombudsman
• Pacifism
• Political prisoners
• Privacy
• Property
• Reproductive rights
• Right to bear arms
• Same-sex marriage
• Satyagraha
• Slavery
• Social democracy
• Transgender rights
• Women's rights
• Youth rights

Web resources

United Nations Resources

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights ratified 10 December 1948
• Office of the United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights
• More UN Human Rights Links

• Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights
• National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs Full listing of American torture-related service providers

WikiProjects

• WikiProject Human Rights

Related portals

The Human rights portal is a sub-portal of Portal:Law. You can browse it to complement your browsing experience. You may add information relevant to Human rights from the Law portal here.

Genocide

Human rights news

Wikinews human rights category

• November 13: Blown for Good author discusses life inside international headquarters of Scientology
• November 8: China offers Africa financial aid including $10 billion in loans
• November 5: New book Blown for Good reveals details inside Scientology headquarters
• October 27: Homophobic attack on trainee police officer in Liverpool
• October 26: Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić boycotts genocide trial
• October 26: Academy Award-winning film director Paul Haggis leaves Scientology
• September 26: Chechnyan president sues Russian activist over murder claim
• August 21: Police charge two people for leaking database of BNP members
• August 12: Dr. Aafia’s son freed by Kabul, flown to Islamabad
• August 11: UK group Liberty, Edinburgh city council on Scientology 'cult' signs
• July 14: British conductor Edward Downes and wife die in double assisted suicide
• July 4: Wife of British Prime Minister attends gay pride parade in London
• July 4: African Union refuses to arrest Sudan's President for war crimes
• June 28: Amnesty International tells Iran to free imprisoned journalists
• June 26: Iranian supreme leader insists government will not yield to protesters

Selected biography

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Devanagari: गांधी; Gujarati: મોહનદાસ; October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948) was a prominent political and spiritual leader of India and its struggle for independence from the British Empire. He was the pioneer^[1] and perfector of Satyagraha - the resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience strongly founded upon ahinsa (total non-violence) - which led India to independence, and has inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known and addressed in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi (from Sanskrit, Mahatma:Great Soul) and as Bapu (in many Indian languages, Father). Read more...

Quotes

• "Human rights in the sense of human solidarity has created a new universal and equal language going beyond racial, gender, ethnic or religious boundaries. That is why we consider it a doorway to dialogue for people of all socio-cultural groups and all ideologies." - Munir Said Thalib

• If you're not ready to die for it, put the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary. - Malcolm X

• The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear. - Aung San Suu Kyi

• We all have equal rights but different blessings. - Leonid S. Sukhorukov

Human rights lists

• Three generations of human rights
• List of Singaporean dissidents
• List of human rights organisations

Categories

Main category for Human rights-related articles is Category:Human rights and its sub-categories. If you find any Human rights-related article not in the Category:Human rights or its sub-categories, you should add it to some Human rights-belonging category.

Things you can do

Our main priorities are:

• Fixing Human rights-related stubs (Category:Human rights stubs). If you notice Human rights-related stubs marked as law stubs, classic stubs, or not marked at all - tag them with {{humanrights-stub}}.
• Writing articles about individual rights (e. g. Right to life, Right to be free from slavery, student defiance etc.)
• Expanding currently existing articles about Human rights.

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