Protection and violation of civil and political rights: History
While it is true that the approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a before and after regarding the rights of people, we must not forget that the fight for them began much earlier, and that the document adopted byThe United Nations General Assembly that 1948 turned out to be the culmination of a contest that carried out several centuries.
From ancient times (Greece or the Roman Empire) there were timid measures that had the purpose of improving the quality of life of the citizen, but the truth is that it was not until the 18th century, in the middle of the illustration, when the different thesis began to gain strengthof several philosophers and thinkers who proposed a series of measures that had as a central axis the freedom of man. These ideas were precisely those that served as an inspiration for the bourgeois revolutions of the late eighteenth century that sought to end the absolute control that the State exerted on them and achieve their emancipation as human beings. While the ancient subjects became considered citizens, they were attributed a wide range of rights and obligations that would become known as civil and political rights. At the same time, a democratic feeling was developed in them. The liberal state was born.
It would not be until the nineteenth century at the time of industrialization when, as a consequence of the workers’ movements that occurred throughout Europe, it will begin to speak of what, consequently, today we know as second generation rights, that is, ofeconomic, social and cultural rights, which were based on equality and intended to guarantee a decent life to the workers’ masses of the time. Taking these ideas such as Blazon, among others, the innovations of the Weimar Republic, the Russian and Latin American revolutions or the US New Deal politics were produced to fight the consequences of the great depression. Thus, these new rights, which claimed the role of the State to guarantee real equality, sought to become a place in newborn liberal states.
It would not be, however, until the mid -twentieth century when, having contemplated the many human rights violations that occurred throughout the two world wars, the international community realized the need to protect civil and political rights,as well as to recognize and promote economic, social and cultural rights. However, while the former maintained a privileged character, the latter were barely assigned guarantees for their respect and fulfill.
That is why it was argued that while civil and political rights only required the abstention of the State for their realization, these were considered immediate application for the State Members of the United Nations. On the other hand, it was considered that economic, social and cultural rights required a state intervention to be able to make them effective, and therefore, as reminiscence of these bourgeois revolutions, it was agreed that their application was progressive, an issue that, as we will see moreahead, it has given a wide margin of discretion to the current states for the management and development of the same.
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