Human rights belong to everyone. They are the basic rights we all have simply because we are human, regardless of who we are, where we live or what we do. Human rights represent all the things we need to flourish and live together as human beings. They are expressed in internationally agreed laws, and cover many aspects of everyday life ranging from the rights to food, shelter, education and health to freedoms of thought, religion and expression.
The roots and origins of human rights and the struggles to bring them about lie deep in the history of many different societies, civilisations and individuals. However, the first universally agreed statement of human rights did not emerge until 1948, with the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ (UDHR). The UDHR is the most famous, most translated, and probably most important, human rights document. All other human rights laws take the UDHR as their starting point – it is the foundation of modern human rights law.