Essay Project: From Human Rights to Civil Rights

 ESSAY PROJECT: FROM HUMAN RIGHTS TO CIVIL RIGHTS

 

Brainstorm: a topic and do a writing outline
Draft: the essay
Revise for clarity of voice
Edit for spelling and punctuation
Publish due to me by Feb 21

Theme: From Civil Rights to Human Rights

Students may use any form of writing to present information on this year's theme.  This may include writing about any historical or contemporary individual(s), issue(s), or event(s) that have impacted human and civil rights.

Must include an alphabetical listing of works (internet sites, books, magazines,) researched as well as any woks cited. Use MLA style with parenthetical citations within the text of the paper.  Double space and use Times New Roman 12 point font.


Taken from Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights>
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.
Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, national origin, colour, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or disability;^[1][2][3] and individual rights such as privacy, the freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press, assembly and movement.
Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote.


Human rights are moral principles that set out certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in national and international law.^[1] They are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being."^[2] Human rights are thus conceived as universal (applicable everywhere) and egalitarian (the same for everyone). The doctrine of human rights has been highly influential within international law, global and regional institutions, in the policies of states and in the activities of non-governmental organizations and has become a cornerstone of public policy around the world. The idea of human rights^[3] suggests that, "if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights." The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature and justifications of human rights to this day. Indeed, the question of what is meant by a "right" is itself controversial and the subject of continued philosophical debate.^[4]
Many of the basic ideas that animated the human rights movement developed in the aftermath of the Second World War and the atrocities of The Holocaust, culminating in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The ancient world did not possess the concept of universal human rights.^[5] The true forerunner of human rights discourse was the concept of natural rights which appeared as part of the medieval Natural law tradition that became prominent during the Enlightenment with such philosophers as John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, and featured prominently in the political discourse of the American Revolution and the French Revolution.