Go back to your list of 10 human rights. Now rank them in order of importance.

That was probably quite a difficult activity. Most lists would probably end up like this:

• At the top, one or two rights that seem absolutely essential, such as the right to life.

• In the middle, lots of rights that were extremely difficult to put in any order.

• At the bottom, one or two rights that seemed less important than the rest.

The fact is that some rights are more important than others (which means equally that some are less important).

But most rights in practice are completely interdependent. This means that even if one right may seem more important than another, they still depend on each other for their effectiveness.

Here is an example:

Most people would say that everybody having enough to eat was a more important right than freedom of the media. Yet the Nobel-prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has observed that famines never occur in countries with a free press. This seems to be almost always true.

Sen was particularly comparing his native India under the repressive colonial regime, when famine was rife, with the post-colonial situation when the press was relatively free.

This is not to say that media freedom is more important than the right to food, or that it somehow comes before it. Clearly if people did not have food then they would not have the money to spend on radios, televisions or newspapers. The point is simply that they are interdependent and it does not make any sense to say that one right comes ahead of another.

Here is another example:

Most people would say that having a job and a decent wage was a more important right than freedom of association. Yet rights of association - in the form of the trade union movement - have been one of the most important ways that workers throughout the world have been able to win some guarantees of a job and enough money to live on.

Once again the point is not to say that one set of rights is more important than another set - simply that they all depend on each other.

Yet rights are very often divided up into different categories. Some people - especially governments that want to deny rights - then argue that one category of rights is more important than others.

Sometimes rights are described in terms of three generations of rights:

First generation = civil and political rights

Second generation = social and economic rights

Third generation = collective rights (such as environmental rights) and cultural rights; these are also called community rights. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights especially recognises the rights of peoples, such as the right of all people to self-determination.

The three generations of rights

Look at the following lists of rights. Which generation does each of these belong to? Click on the answer.

You will have seen from that short activity that the 'correct' answers are not all obvious. Why, for example, is the right to life a first generation right? Obviously it is the most important right, but is it not economic as much as civil and political?

The courts in India have expanded the right to life to include the right to education and the right to livelihood (earn a wage), both of which are second generation rights.

And why is the right to your own religious beliefs first generation (freedom of conscience), rather than third generation (cultural rights)? The right to human dignity is dependant on the right to shelter, food, water - all social and economic rights. How can people exercise their right to dignity if they don't have a roof over their heads?

It can be argued that the different generations represent different types of right:

• Civil and political rights are sometimes described as negative rights. They are aimed at stopping anyone else (especially governments or powerful interests in society) from interfering with your ability to do something. Thus, for example, governments are prohibited from torturing or killing their citizens.

• Economic and social rights are sometimes described as positive rights. They require governments to take certain steps to make sure that they are observed and complied with. For example, they have to allocate sufficient resources to education or health to ensure that people's needs (and rights) are fulfilled.

• Third generation rights are usually thought of as rights that belong to communities and other collective bodies. They can also be seen as involving the rights of future generations.

• For example, the San people of Southern Africa have recently taken legal action to protect their rights to indigenous knowledge to prevent individuals from using this knowledge for their benefit. This generation involves new types of rights such as the right to development.

What do you think of these arguments?

Here are our thoughts.

The great danger is that by dividing rights into generations we accept that one or other set of rights takes priority over the others.

Western governments often give priority to first generation rights. They are reluctant to acknowledge that economic, social and environmental rights are of equal importance - nor that they themselves bear responsibility for the lack of respect for these rights in many parts of the world.

For example, the United States is prepared to launch a war against Iraq, citing the government's 'gassing its own people' at Halabja in 1988 (at a time, incidentally, when the US supported the Iraqi regime). Yet the chief executive of Union Carbide, the US company responsible for 'gassing' thousands of Indians at Bhopal walks free nearly two decades later.

Asian governments have long argued that 'Western' concepts of human rights do not apply in their countries. They stress the importance of economic development ahead of political freedoms.

African governments have often been heard to advance the same argument. In addition they argue that the collective nature of African society means that individual civil rights are less important.

Each of these arguments is very dangerous because it can be used as a justification for violating rights.

In addition, they don't actually make much sense.

We have already looked at some examples of how first and second generation rights are interdependent. The same argument can be applied to third generation rights.

Freedom of expression will not be a top priority in societies devastated by the consequences of global warming - yet freedom of expression is precisely what is needed to make governments and corporations cut back on the smoke pollution that is causing the problem.

A closer look at the rights shows that they do not exactly fit in with the characteristic assigned to them.

Not all 'first generation' rights are negative and don't cost anything. Positive measures are required, for example, to allow negotiating rights to trade unions. Governments have to spend money on establishing and maintaining courts, providing legal aid, maintaining prisons and facilities for child offenders, and so on.

Not all 'second generation' rights are positive. For example people may often require 'negative' protection to stop their land being seized, so that they can produce enough food.

The 'third generation' is not the only place that collective rights can be found. For example, freedom of association and the right to national self-determination are classic examples of 'first generation' collective rights. And again, the rights and responsibilities of communities to manage and improve the environment on which their livelihoods depend are linked to the right to life, land, clean water, a healthy environment, and a decent livelihood.

When the United Nations conducted studies to define exactly what was meant by the 'right to development', it concluded that media freedom and freedom of information were an important part of this.

Listing rights in order of importance

Read the following case study. List the rights involved. Can you rank them in order of importance?

Casestudy1.pdf

At least the following rights are referred to in this case study:

• right to life;
• right to livelihood;
• right to shelter;
• right to land;
• right to national self-determination;

• right to work;
• right to vote;
• right to education;
• right to protect the environment;
• right to freedom of expression/media freedom;
• right to a fair trial/independence of the judiciary.

And which are more important? Clearly it is impossible to say. As in most real life situations, all these different rights are so bound up together that it makes no sense to prioritise them.

Listing rights in order of importance

Here is another example. Again, list the rights involved. Can you rank them in order of importance?

Casestudy2.pdf

At least the following rights are referred to in this case study:

• right to life;
• right to livelihood;
• right to an adequate standard of living;
• right to development;

• right to land/shelter/food;
• right to national self-determination;
• right to work;
• right to protect the environment.

And which are more important? Again it is impossible to say as the different rights are all bound up together.