Top 1200 Human Rights Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

American labor rights activist, on activities of the National Farm Workers Association Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may.

The doctrine that 'human rights' are superior to 'property rights' simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others.

Racism is an attack on the very notion of the universality of human rights. It systematically denies certain people the enjoyment of their full human rights because of their colour, race, ethnicity, descent or national origin.

From my experience both as DPP and previously as a human rights lawyer, I know that human rights and effective protection from terrorism are not incompatible. On the contrary, they go hand in hand.

Specific protection must be granted to human rights defenders and whistleblowers who have in some contexts been accused of being unpatriotic, whereas they perform, in reality, a democratic service to their countries and to the enjoyment of human rights of their compatriots.

It is a great problem for the true international agenda of human rights that the United States, uniquely among industrialised countries, has not ratified three main instruments, has not ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and we could have so much richer a debate and dialogue on international human rights standards if the superpower would sign up to the agenda.

I don't have any doubts either about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps some more should be added to the list, but I don't have the slightest doubt about human rights.

So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.' Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general-but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

US law and international human rights law have radically diverged in the past years in terms of the recognition of indigenous people's rights. International human rights law now looks at not whether or not the tribes have formal ownership or legal title in a Western legal conception might have it, but rather they look at the tribe's historical connection to that land.

When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket.

If the Olympics fail, human rights will suffer. The government would stop paying any attention to the rest of the world. I personally think: we want the Games and we want human rights to be respected.

The Human Rights Act is not a terrorists' charter. It enables ordinary citizens to seek redress when the government breaches fundamental freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights such as the right to a fair trial, the right to life and free expression.

I think part of what we're seeing in the rise of white nationalism is their response to Black Lives Matter, is their response to an ever-increasing fight for equal rights, for civil rights, and for human rights.

Human rights are particularly cherished by the West, which has never acknowledged economic rights. Human rights mean freedom from politcal oppression, tyranny and abuse, while economic oppression, tyranny and abuse are built into the very structures of globalization.

I believe we should try to move away from the vocabulary and attitudes which shape the stereotyping of developed and developing country approaches to human rights issues. We are collective custodians of universal human rights standards, and any sense that we fall into camps of "accuser" and "accused" is absolutely corrosive of our joint purposes. The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the "victim" mode.

To me and to a number of other activists from the U.S., we believe that the human rights movement has to evolve and understand the global implications of structural racism. This means engaging the United Nations and a variety of other human rights bodies.

Look at what I've done my entire life. I have been working on behalf of civil rights, women's rights, human rights for years and I know how challenging it is to change our political system and I have the highest regard for those who have put themselves on the line.

Relativism should be confronted where it damages fundamental human rights, because we're not relativists if we believe that the human being should be at the centre of society and the rights of every human being should be respected.

Human rights in China should absolutely play a role in broader U.S. policy toward China. When we look the other way on fundamental issues of human rights, we are also responsible.

I support the rights of all people to practice their religious beliefs privately, but I oppose the idea of respecting religions. In truth, I have no respect for any religion. I believe religion is not compatible with human rights, women's rights, or freedom of expression.

One cannot have a trade union or a democratic election without freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly. Without a democratic election, whereby people choose and remove their rulers, there is no method of securing human rights against the state. No democracy without human rights, no human rights without democracy, and no trade union rights without either. That is our belief; that is our creed.

The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights. Human rights is the fruit of various civilizations. I know of no civilization that tolerates or justifies violence, terrorism, or injustice. There is no civilization that justifies the killing of innocent people. Those who are invoking cultural relativism are really using that as an excuse for violating human rights and to put a cultural mask on the face of what they're doing.

This, then, is the truth of the discourse of universal human rights: the Wall separating those covered by the umbrella of Human Rights and those excluded from its protective cover. Any reference to universal human rights as an 'unfinished project' to be gradually extended to all people is here a vain ideological chimera - and, faced with this prospect, do we, in the West, have any right to condemn the excluded when they use any means, inclusive of terror, to fight their exclusion?

Human rights means protecting another's freedom, seeing that the other person is also like oneself. Human rights is giving others security, letting them live.

In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If 'natural rights' means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception.

We have a human rights interest. Then there is the immigration problem. The human-rights violations have caused people to take to boats and flood not only the United States, but other countries in the region, creating great instability.

There are unprecedented numbers of movements for human rights and freedoms. But the dominant worldviews in academia, like materialism and naturalism, deny the reality of freedom, reducing humans to robots. So where does the concept of human rights come from?

The left takes credit for being the political aisle promoting human rights and fighting oppression, but in the case of Cuba, its adherents promoted oppression and human rights abuses for decades by glorifying the Castro regime and its savage enforcer, Che Guevara.

Some of the occurrences leading up to and immediately following the Berlin World Championships have infringed not only my rights as an athlete but also my fundamental and human rights, including my rights to dignity and privacy.

There's a worldwide linking of environmental activists, developmental experts and human rights advocates. And they're using the two frameworks, in particular environmental standards and human rights.

My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

We as a human family are on this train that is taking us into more and more war and more and more abuse of human rights where a lot of civilians are being killed and where human rights and international law are being set aside by America and NATO.

The idea of "human rights," for example - sometimes it bothers me. Not in itself, but because the concept of human rights has replaced the much grander idea of justice.

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

In general, talking about human rights tends to be very persuasive for people who care about human rights.

The world has got more democracies than ever, and human rights are high on almost every country's agenda. Still, corruption and oppression are far too common threats to the democratic society. And we have seen a dramatic increase, the last 10-15 years, of ethnical conflicts and humanitarian crises with human rights violations as important elements., but also more of corruption. Human rights are praised more than ever - and violated as much as ever.

Look at the Israel-Palestine conflict, for example. If you look at a map from 1947 to now, you'll see that Israel has gobbled up almost all of Palestinian land with its illegal settlements. To talk about justice in that battle, you have to talk about those settlements. But, if you just talk about human rights, then you can say, "Oh, Hamas violates human rights," "Israel violates human rights." Ergo, both are bad.

In this role my wish is to build our understanding of what it means to protect the rights and human dignity of all Australians. Upholding human rights is about looking out for each other, taking the idea of fairness seriously. And it goes to the heart of who we are as a nation.

Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective: Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us.

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it's one that's easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world, I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country.

The UN Commission on Human Rights, whose membership in recent years has included countries - such as Libya and Sudan - which have deplorable human rights records, and the recent Oil-for-Food scandal, are just a few examples of why reform is so imperative.

The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.

I've gone beyond civil rights and human rights to creation rights.

I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived from the constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity.

Additionally, any Human Rights Council reform that allows countries with despicable human rights records to remain as members, such as China and Saudi Arabia, is not real reform.

China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the U.N. Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights.

Our human responsibility for animal rights, plant rights, and the rights of the earth to its health and wholeness is self-evident. Whatever our beliefs about the hereafter we are the temporary custodians of the here-and-now, and if we neglect our obligations or abuse our powers then we abrogate any rights to a further share in this planet's delights.

It was in that uncertain world that the European Convention on Human Rights was shaped. Written by Conservatives, it set out the principles which should lie behind a modern democratic state, where human rights were respected.

Human rights, human freedoms... and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world... while the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God.

We are fighting for the right to live as free humans in this society. In fact, we are actually fighting for rights that are even greater than civil rights and that is human rights.

I want to take human rights out of their box. I want to show the relevance of the universal principles of human rights to the basic needs of health, security, education and equality.

The presumption of innocence, the benefit of the doubt, walking without worrying - these should not be hallmarks of white privilege. They are human rights - human rights - that should be enjoyed by all.

Human rights and international criminal law both illustrate the contradictory potential of international law. On one level, the imposition of human rights norms is a restraint on interventionary diplomacy, especially if coupled with respect for the legal norm of self-determination. But on another level, the protection of human rights creates a pretext for intervention as given approval by the UN Security Council in the form of the R2P (responsibility to protect) norm, as used in the 2011 Libyan intervention. The same applies with international criminal accountability.

the right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right ... Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.

Human rights transcend local or ethnocentric values, conferring equal dignity and value on all humanity regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion. It is in the West that human rights are most respected.

Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective, Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us.

Is the Reformed faith opposed to human rights? Yes, very much so. It is not human rights but Divine law which is the foundation of liberty and the safeguard against tyranny. It is not something proceeding from man (rights), but something proceeding from God (revealed law) which is to order Christian society.

The religion of Islam actually restores one's human feelings, human rights, human incentives, human, his talent.