RIGHT TO LIFE

Abstract

The most important socio-political event characterising the second half of the twentieth century is the international effort to determine and protect human rights. Because of activities and international agreements, particularly following World War II, the concepts of human rights and liberties are no longer simply abstract. They have attained a more concrete and detailed structure with increasing national and international endorsement. It is now a universally held belief that all human beings are born with an equal degree of freedom, rights and liberties. Included among the rights and liberties specifically emphasised in international documents are the rights: to life; to pursue a life without torture or suffering inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; to equality before the law, to being assumed innocent unless judged otherwise; to protection of one’s dignity and maintaining self-respect in the face of aggression; to freedom of thought, religion and conscience; to disseminate thought without being constrained by national borders; to ownership; the provision of state security for all; of unarmed and non-aggravated public assembly; to the freedom to establish an association or a union; of education and of political elections through popular representation.