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Lesson Five: Human Rights
Lesson Five:
Human Rights
PLTS:
Independent enquirers, team workers FUNCTIONAL SKILLS: Speed reading and skim reading, sorting information for relevance, introduction to working with legal documents, time management and working as a team OBJECTIVES:
- Students will explore what human rights are in the UK context, where they come from and how they are protected
- Students will understand the difference between absolute and non-absolute human rights, and the circumstances in which some human rights may be limited
- Students will learn to apply the rights contained in human rights treaties to relevant situations OUTCOMES:
- Students will be able identify the human rights that are protected through national and international law
- Students will be to explain what human rights are for KEYWORDS: Absolute and non-absolute rights, limited rights
Lesson Five - Lesson Plan
Lesson Five: Human Rights
Ask the students: What do you consider human rights to be? Try writing down a sentence or two that explains what human rights are.
5.1 Introduction: Human Rights
Read or paraphrase the following for the class: You may have heard the term ‘human rights’ being used in different situations, often with someone saying that a person’s human rights have been violated. In this lesson we are going to learn what human rights are, where they come from, and how they are protected.
5.1.1 STARTER ACTIVITY: What Are Human
Rights? – Teacher-led discussion
Students should come out of the discussion understanding that human rights are rights that everybody possesses by virtue of being human and which every person needs in order to live happily, healthily and with dignity.
5.1.2 STARTER ACTIVITY: What Are Human
Rights? - Background for teachers
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Lesson Five: Human Rights
5.2.2 ACTIVITY 2: Brainstorming on Human Rights
- Printouts for students In groups of four or five: What rights should all people be entitled to in order to live decently and with dignity? Try to think of four human rights that you consider important.
Now look at the student version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In your groups, can you find similar rights in the UDHR to the four you wrote down? Write the article number from the UDHR next to your answers above.
Lesson Five: Human Rights
Class discussion: Compare your answers with the rest of the class. Of the human rights that you wrote down, which do you think is the most important and why?
Lesson Five: Human Rights
- Draw out from the class one or two human rights that the students are already familiar with.
- Divide students into groups of four or five to brainstorm on four more rights amongst themselves.
- Stick a few copies of the UDHR to the board/wall and ask the students to get up from their desks to check their answers. This encourages speed reading. Otherwise distribute one copy for each group so they can check their answers sitting down. Ask students to use the UDHR to check their answers. Tell the students that they only need to skim or speed read the UDHR rather than read in detail. Give them 5 minutes to complete this task.
- Get feedback on their answers as a class. As they feed back, use the set of cards and write the relevant articles on the board as they mention them, so students are able to visualise their existing knowledge.
- Based on the cards you have put on the board, lead a class discussion on which human rights the students consider to be important and why. The point of the exercise is to find out what students’ concepts of human rights are and to understand that different people may prioritise rights differently according to their individual needs and perspectives.There is no right or wrong answer to which of the rights should be included in the list, but an important point to make is that many rights are interconnected and being deprived of one right may impact on the ability to enjoy another. For example, without the right to life, none of the other rights can be enjoyed. Without the right to education, the right to work may be affected.
5.2.4 ACTIVITY 2: Brainstorming On Human
Rights - Instructions for teachers (15 minutes)
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Lesson Five: Human Rights
The three broad categories of human rights There are three broad categories of human rights: civil and political rights, socio- economic rights and collective rights. Although there is a small overlap between the categories, in general: Civil and political rights^1 are rights that protect individual liberty and security and also protect individuals from an abuse of power by the state. They allow individuals to take part equally and without discrimination in the civil and political life of their countries. Examples of civil and political rights include: right to life, freedom from torture and slavery, right to liberty, freedom of thought, freedom of expression. Socio-economic rights^2 are rights that allow individuals to enjoy social, economic and cultural development equally and without discrimination. Countries are required to implement socio-economic rights progressively, to the maximum extent possible as permitted by their resources. Examples of socio-economic rights include: the right to work and decent working conditions, the right to a decent standard of living and social security, the right to education and the right to be free from hunger. Collective rights^3 can be described as the collective-developmental rights of people. They consist of rights that allow people to determine their future development (self-determination) as well as certain special rights of ethnic and religious minorities to enjoy their culture, religion and language. Examples of collective rights include: the right to enjoyment of one’s environment and natural resources, the right to communicate, the right to enjoyment of cultural heritage, language and religion.
5.2.5 ACTIVITY 2: Brainstorming On Human
Rights - Background for teachers
Lesson Five: Human Rights
5.3.2 ACTIVITY 3: Absolute and Non-Absolute
Rights - Printouts for students
The right to life
The right not to be tortured
The right to liberty
Lesson Five: Human Rights
You may choose to do this activity if there is time.
- Put the class into groups of four or five. Give one set of cards to each group. Ask them to think about whether the right on each card is absolute or non-absolute. Ask them to think about when and why these rights might be limited.
- Discuss the answers as a class. As a class, think about and discuss circumstances in which the right should not be applied or where the right is limited.
5.3.3 ACTIVITY 3: Absolute and Non-Absolute
Rights - Instructions for Teachers (15 minutes)
Absolute rights are rights that are guaranteed all the time and which may not be limited in any way, for example the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; prohibition of slavery and forced labour; no punishment without law and the right to marry. Non-absolute rights are ‘derogable’ and some of those ‘derogable’ rights are also ‘limited.’ A right that is ‘derogable’ may be suspended for the greater good in times of public emergency. Most of the rights in the Human Rights Act are derogable rights. The criteria for derogating from rights is that it should be necessary and proportionate to do so (in light of the emergency that the country is facing) and the derogation must be in accordance with the country’s other international law obligations. For example, a country may be facing a terrorism threat and so a government may suspend the right to liberty for security reasons such as imposing a curfew on people. Some of the derogable rights are also limited. Limited rights are those whose scope may be limited by law in certain circumstances prescribed by the law in normal times (that is, where there is no public emergency.) For example, the right to liberty is a derogable right and also a limited right. Even where there is no public emergency people may have their liberty deprived by being imprisoned in accordance with the law where they have committed an offence. (This is explained further below in the answers to the exercise.)
5.3.4 ACTIVITY 3: Absolute and Non-Absolute
Rights - Background for teachers
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Lesson Five: Human Rights
Derogation The right may be derogated from in times of public emergency which, in the UK, means that the Secretary of State orders derogation where he/she considers necessary. For example, two months after the 9/11 attacks in New York, the UK Government introduced a derogation order to the effect that it intended, because of the threat of terrorism, to derogate from the Article 5 right to liberty under the European Convention on Human Rights in certain terrorism-related circumstances. Limitation The right to liberty is limited. A person may be deprived of his liberty in the following circumstances: (a) the lawful detention of a person after conviction by a competent court; (b) the lawful arrest or detention of a person for non-compliance with the lawful order of a court or in order to secure the fulfilment of any obligation prescribed by law; (c)the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence or fleeing after having done so; (d) the detention of a minor by lawful order for the purpose of educational supervision or his lawful detention for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority; (e) the lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spreading of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts or vagrants; (f) the lawful arrest or detention of a person to prevent his effecting an unauthorised entry into the country or of a person against whom action is being taken with a view to deportation or extradition. Case study on indefinite detention without trial (You may wish to present the case study to students on paper or simply explain the facts to them.) In 2004, the House of Lords ruled on a case^8 concerning nine foreigners who were being detained indefinitely in the UK on suspicion of terrorism links. The detainees argued that their detention infringed their right to liberty in Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Although a derogation from this right is possible, this is only allowed in times of emergency and must be necessary and proportionate to the threat. The House of Lords ruled that indefinite detention was not necessary and proportionate in this case and that the test of emergency was whether there was ‘threat to the life of the nation’ which was not fulfilled in this case.
Lesson Five: Human Rights
5.4 Where do the rights contained in the Human
Rights Act come from?
Points 2, 3 and 4 are optional.
- Read or paraphrase the following: Following the two World Wars, there was general recognition among countries that such widespread suffering and loss of human dignity should be prevented from happening again.The modern framework for human rights emerged after the Second World War in the form of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”) which was agreed through the framework of the United Nations in 1948 as a common standard of rights that all human beings in the world are entitled to by virtue of being human. Although the UDHR did not start out as a binding legal document (ie, of itself enforceable), some of its content has now become part of customary international law (ie, law that has become so reflective of how states actually behave that it is generally applicable to all countries whether or not they have formally signed a treaty concerning it). It has also gone on to inspire many human rights treaties both internationally and regionally that commit states which have signed up to them to upholding the rights they contain eg the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and indeed the European Convention on Human Rights.
- Ask the class the question: Which other international human rights treaties can you name?
- Ask the class the following question and discuss as a class: How exactly do these treaties protect our rights? You may think, for example, that is all very well that children’s rights are set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but how does that actually result in protection for children all around the world?
5.4.1 Where do the rights contained in the
Human Rights Act come from?
- Teacher-led introduction (5-15 minutes)
Lesson Five: Human Rights
- Ask the class the question: Which other international human rights treaties can you name? Students may name any of the following: International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Convention on the Rights of the Child International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities European Convention on Human Rights American Convention on Human Rights African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Arab Charter on Human Rights
- Ask the class the following question and discuss as a class: How exactly do these treaties protect our rights? You may think, for example, that is all very well that children’s rights are set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but how does that actually result in protection for children all around the world? It is up to the countries that have signed up to international treaties to make sure that the rights in the treaties are ensured for the people within their countries. In some countries, international treaties automatically become part of national law without the country having to do anything to make them enforceable.^9 In the UK (and some other countries) a new national law has to be passed in order for the international law rights to be enforceable. 10 A right being enforceable means that if that right were violated, you’d be able to do something about it: stopping the violation and/or making sure the offender is punished and/or you are compensated. The responsibility for the protection lies with the country that is party to the treaty. For example, the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights (a regional treaty) are brought into national law by the Human Rights Act (a piece of
5.4.2 Where do the rights contained in the
Human Rights Act come from?
Lesson Five: Human Rights
national law) whereas much (but not all) of the content of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is reflected in different pieces of legislation. Having explained the fact that the rights contained in the Human Rights Act are derived from the European Convention which is derived from international law treaties and principles, you may like to use the diagram that you drew on the board for the students showing all the different places in law where a right may exist on national, regional and international levels.
Lesson Five: Human Rights
- They are approached by a man who tells them that he will take them to the capital where they can work as maids and earn a lot of money. As the girls are desperate and have been sleeping on the streets, they agree to go with him.
- When they get there, they are very badly treated and made to work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, with little food. Look at the student version of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Anglonia is a country that is party to this treaty. Think about which treaty rights Anglonia is not respecting. Write the article numbers here.:
Lesson Five: Human Rights
5.4.4 ACTIVITY 4: Student Version of the Conven-
tion on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - Printouts
for students
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)
Set 1
Article 1—Everyone under 18 has these rights. Article 2—All children have these rights, no matter who they are, where they live, what their parents do, what language they speak, what their religion is, whether a boy or a girl, what their culture is, whether they have a disability, whether they are rich or poor. No child should be treated unfairly on any basis. Article 3—When decisions are made that affect children, the interests of children should be the most important consideration. When those in government make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children. Article 4—The government has a responsibility to make sure children’s rights are protected, by making laws that respect children’s rights. Article 5—A child’s family has the responsibility to help him learn to exercise his rights, and to ensure that his rights are protected. Article 6—All children have the right to life, survival, and development. Article 7—All children have the right to a name, which will be officially recognised by the government. All children have the right to a nationality (to belong to a country). Article 8—All children have the right to an identity—an official record of who they are. No one should take this away from them. Article 9—All children have the right to live with their parents, unless it is not in their best interests. They have the right to live with a family who cares for them. Article 10—If a child lives in a different country from his/her parents, they have the right to be in contact with each other. Article 11—All children have the right to be protected from kidnapping. Article 12—A child’s views must be considered and taken into account in all matters affecting him/her. Article 13—All children have the right to information and to share what they think with others. However, this right can be limited if it infringes the rights or harms the reputations of others, or if it is for the protection of national security, public order, or public health or morals.
