When did human rights law develop?
Human rights law is a body of international, regional, and national laws that protect the rights of individuals. The development of human rights law dates back centuries to ancient civilizations who wrote and enforced their own laws to protect the rights of their citizens. However, human rights in the modern sense began to take shape after World War II. The atrocities committed during the war created a need to establish a formal international legal system that would protect the rights of individuals globally. This gave birth to the United Nations (UN) and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The UN Declaration was the first global recognition of the inalienable rights of individuals to live free of oppression, discrimination, and violence. Since then, a plethora of global and regional treaties and organizations have been created to further advance human rights. The European Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights are two examples of such treaties. Furthermore, the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia are judicial bodies which provide justice to those accused of human rights violations. In North Carolina, human rights laws are upheld by the state’s Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, gender, disability, and other protected characteristics. The Act also ensures the right of individuals to be free from unfair treatment in the workplace and provides remedies for those who have experienced discrimination.
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