All human rights for all

Not long after the founding of the United Nations, a committee was charged with writing an international bill of rights that was to apply to all people in all countries. On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. It defines the civil, political, economic and cultural rights of human beings.

We may group these specific rights into six groups:

• security rights that protect people against crimes such as murder, massacre, torture, and rape;

• liberty rights that protect freedoms in areas such as belief, expression, association, assembly, and movement;

• political rights that protect the liberty to participate in politics through actions such as communicating, assembling, protesting, voting;

• due process rights that protect against abuses of the legal system such as imprisonment without trial, secret trials, and excessive punishments;

• equality rights that guarantee equal citizenship, equality before the law, and nondiscrimination;

• welfare rights (or "economic and social rights") that require provision of education to all children and protections against severe poverty and starvation.