Civil and political rights

Civil and political rightsare a class ofrightsthat protectindividuals'freedomfrom infringement bygovernments,social organizations,and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and thestate.

Civil rights generally include ensuring peoples' physical and mental integrity,life,andsafety,protection fromdiscrimination,the right toprivacy,the freedom ofthought,speech,religion,press,assembly,andmovement.

Political rights includenatural justice(procedural fairness) inlaw,such as therights of the accused,including theright to a fair trial;due process;the right to seek redress or alegal remedy;and rights ofparticipationincivil societyandpoliticssuch asfreedom of association,theright to assemble,theright to petition,theright of self-defense,and theright to vote.

Civil and political rights form the original and main part of internationalhuman rights.^[1]They comprise the first portion of the 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights(witheconomic, social, and cultural rightscomprising the second portion). The theory ofthree generations of human rightsconsiders this group of rights to be "first-generation rights", and the theory ofnegative and positive rightsconsiders them to be generallynegative rights.

History

The phrase "civil rights" is a translation of Latinjus civis(right of the citizen). Roman citizens could be either free (libertas) or servile (servitus), but they all had rights in law.^[2]After theEdict of Milanin 313, these rights included the freedom of religion; however, in 380, theEdict of Thessalonicarequired all subjects of the Roman Empire to profess Catholic Christianity.^[3]Roman legal doctrine was lost during the Middle Ages, but claims of universal rights could still be made based on Christian doctrine. According to the leaders ofKett's Rebellion(1549), "all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with his precious blood-shedding."^[4]

In the 17th century,English common lawjudge SirEdward Cokerevived the idea of rights based on citizenship by arguing that Englishmen had historically enjoyedsuch rights.TheParliament of Englandadopted theEnglish Bill of Rightsin 1689. It was one of the influences drawn on byGeorge MasonandJames Madisonwhen drafting theVirginia Declaration of Rightsin 1776. The Virginia declaration heavily influenced theU.S. Bill of Rights(1789).^[5]

The removal by legislation of a civil right constitutes a "civil disability". In early 19th century Britain, the phrase "civil rights" most commonly referred to the issue of such legal discrimination against Catholics. In theHouse of Commons,support for civil rights was divided, with many politicians agreeing with the existing civil disabilities of Catholics. TheRoman Catholic Relief Act of 1829restored their civil rights.^[6]

In the United States, the term civil rights has been associated with thecivil rights movement(1954–1968), which fought against racism.^[7]The movement also fought segregation and Jim Crow laws and this fight took place in the streets, public places, government, and in the courts including the Supreme Court.^[8]The civil rights movement was also not the only movement fighting for civil rights as The Black Panthers were also a group focused on fighting racism and Jim Crow.

Protection of rights

T. H. Marshallnotes that civil rights were among the first to be recognized and codified, followed later by political rights and still later by social rights. In many countries, they areconstitutional rightsand are included in abill of rightsor similar document. They are also defined ininternational human rights instruments,such as the 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rightsand the 1966International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected. However, mostdemocraciesworldwide do have formal written guarantees of civil and political rights. Civil rights are considered to benatural rights.Thomas Jeffersonwrote in hisA Summary View of the Rights of British Americathat "a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of theirchief magistrate."

The question of to whom civil and political rights apply is a subject of controversy. Although in many countriescitizenshave greater protections against infringement of rights than non-citizens, civil and political rights are generally considered to be universal rights that apply to allpersons.

According to political scientist Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr., analyzing the causes of and lack of protection from human rights abuses in the Global South should be focusing on the interactions of domestic and international factors—an important perspective that has usually been systematically neglected in the social science literature.^[9]

Other rights

Customalso plays a role. Implied orunenumerated rightsare rights thatcourtsmay find to exist even though not expressly guaranteed by written law or custom; one example is theright to privacyin theUnited States,and theNinth Amendmentexplicitly shows that other rights are also protected.

TheUnited States Declaration of Independencestates that people have unalienable rights including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". It is considered by some that the sole purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty and property.^[10]

Some thinkers have argued that the concepts ofself-ownershipandcognitive libertyaffirm rights to choose the food one eats,^[11]^[12]themedicine one takes,^[13]^[14]^[15]and thehabit one indulges.^[16]^[17]^[18]

Social movements for civil rights

Civil rights guarantee equal protection under the law. When civil and political rights are not guaranteed to all as part of equal protection oflaws,or when such guarantees exist on paper but are not respected in practice, opposition, legal action and evensocial unrestmay ensue.

Civil rights movements in the United States gathered steam by 1848 with such documents as the Declaration of Sentiment.^[19]^{[full citation needed]}Consciously modeled after theDeclaration of Independence,theDeclaration of Rights and Sentimentsbecame the founding document of the American women's movement, and it was adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention, July 19 and 20, 1848.^[20]^{[full citation needed]}

Worldwide, severalpolitical movementsforequality before the lawoccurred between approximately 1950 and 1980. These movements had a legal and constitutional aspect, and resulted in much law-making at both national and international levels. They also had an activist side, particularly in situations where violations of rights were widespread. Movements with the proclaimed aim of securing observance of civil and political rights included:

thecivil rights movementin the United States, where rights of black citizens had been violated;
theNorthern Ireland Civil Rights Association,formed in 1967 following failures in this province of theUnited Kingdomto respect the Roman Catholic minority's rights; and
movements in many Communist countries, such as thePrague SpringandCharter 77inCzechoslovakiaand the uprisings in Hungary.

Most civil rights movements relied on the technique ofcivil resistance,usingnonviolentmethods to achieve their aims.^[21]In some countries, struggles for civil rights were accompanied, or followed, bycivil unrestand even armed rebellion. While civil rights movements over the last sixty years have resulted in an extension of civil and political rights, the process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not achieve or fully achieve their objectives.

Problems and analysis

Questions about civil and political rights have frequently emerged. For example, to what extent should the government intervene to protect individuals from infringement on their rights by otherindividuals,or fromcorporations—e.g., in what way shouldemployment discriminationin theprivate sectorbe dealt with?

Political theorydeals with civil and political rights.Robert NozickandJohn Rawlsexpressed competing visions in Nozick'sAnarchy, State, and Utopiaand Rawls'A Theory of Justice.Other influential authors in the area includeWesley Newcomb Hohfeld,andJean Edward Smith.

First-generation rights

First-generation rights, often called "blue" rights,^{[citation needed]}deal essentially with liberty and participation in political life. They are fundamentally civil and political in nature, as well as stronglyindividualistic:They servenegatively to protectthe individual from excesses of the state. First-generation rights include, among other things,freedom of speech,theright to a fair trial,(in some countries) theright to keep and bear arms,freedom of religion,freedom from discrimination,andvoting rights.They were pioneered in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century during theAge of Enlightenment.Political theories associated with the English, American, and French revolutions were codified in theEnglish Bill of Rightsin 1689 (a restatement ofRights of Englishmen,some dating back toMagna Cartain 1215) and more fully in the FrenchDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizenin 1789 and theUnited States Bill of Rightsin 1791.^[22]^[23]

They were enshrined at the global level and given status ininternational lawfirst by Articles 3 to 21 of the 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rightsand later in the 1966International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.In Europe, they were enshrined in theEuropean Convention on Human Rightsin 1953.