In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a number of human rights problems came to the forefront and began to be addressed internationally. First of all, these were the problems of slavery, serfdom, inhumane working conditions, and child labor. It was around this time that the first international agreements related to human rights were adopted. Although these agreements offered effective measures to protect rights, they were still based on reciprocal obligations between states. This is in sharp contrast to modern human rights treaties, where responsibilities are directly related to the holders of human rights.
In England and France, slavery was outlawed in the early nineteenth century, and in 1814 the British and French governments signed the Treaty of Paris for cooperation in suppressing the slave trade. The Brussels Conference of 1890 saw the signing of the Act against Slavery, which was later ratified by eighteen states. The intention was hereby proclaimed to put an end to the slave trade from Africa.
Better to die of hunger free than to be a well-fed slave. Aesop
However, this did not solve the problem of forced labor and the continuing brutal working conditions. Even the 1926 International Convention on the Suppression of the Slave Trade and Slavery, aimed at abolishing slavery in all its forms, failed to stop the daily use of forced labor until the 1940s.
The creation of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1919 was the materialization of the idea that universal and lasting peace could only be achieved through the principle of social justice. The ILO developed a system of international labor standards to ensure decent conditions for productive work, freedom, equality, safety and dignity of workers.
One of the ILO’s areas of work is to combat the exploitation of child labor, especially in its worst forms. Today this work takes place on many fronts, including the promotion of international agreements on child labor, such as ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor and Convention No. 138 on Minimum Age for Admission to Employment.
From 1899 to 1977, many important treaties in the field of international humanitarian law were concluded, and they outlined a new area of cooperation between states in its first phase. International humanitarian law brings armed conflicts into the legal sphere. There is no doubt that both international humanitarian law and human rights must be respected in all cases, for example with regard to prisoners of war. However, international humanitarian law describes in more detail special measures for conflict cases, for example on the permissibility of the use of weapons and military tactics.
The Twentieth Century
The idea of legislative protection of human rights from the arbitrariness of the ruling powers began to take shape in the twentieth century, especially with the creation of the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization (ILO) and their struggles for minority rights, workers’ rights, and other values. Individual countries had already recognized the importance of codifying these rights in written form, and the documents mentioned above were thus the early precursors of many of today’s human rights agreements. But it was the Second World War that really brought human rights to the international stage. After all the terrible atrocities committed in that war – including the Holocaust and massive war crimes – there was an urgent need for a new system of international legal standards and, above all, for a system of human rights measures as we know them today.
The Charter of the United Nations, signed on June 26, 1945, states that the main task of the UN is “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted by the UN Commission on Human Rights and adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948. Undoubtedly, the adoption of the UDHR was a great breakthrough, and today the Declaration remains the most important human rights instrument in the world. Even without being legally binding, the UDHR has inspired numerous commitments to human rights, whether at the national, regional or international level. Since then, the international community has developed and adopted a number of fundamental instruments designed to guarantee the declared principles. Further information on some of these international agreements can be found later in this chapter.