The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights; Comparing Origins, Manifestations and Aspirations

Abstract

The concept of human rights is a dynamic one that constantly generates new defining and regulatory instruments. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights along with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, represent the principal foundation of the concept’s development in the modern era. Their creations were initially provoked by the atrocities of the Second World War, but they have come to constitute the inspiration for numerous other human rights instruments, both international and regional. The American Convention on Human Rights is currently one of the main regional instruments in existence, exemplifying a particular direction of the evolution of human rights thinking. All these instruments are created with the sole common objective of protecting and promoting human rights. However, due to variation in social and political contexts, each instrument is unique. Despite the similarities that the instruments generated by the United Nations share with the American Convention today, the pathways to formulation and possible ratification have differed greatly. The Americas have a very distinct turbulent political history that has posed a noticeable obstacle for human rights development in the hemisphere consequently resulting in a specific regional perspective on so-called universal human rights. In this thesis I emphasize such differences by comparing the historical conditions surrounding each instrument’s drafting and by analyzing specific articles of the documents. In addition to this I aim to identify the key factors that influence the content of the human rights instruments and to examine possible developments of the concept of human rights in the future.