IB Global Politics Definitions and Views on Rights

Context: In June 2021, China's State Council published "China's Practice of Human Rights Protection" - the latest in a series of white papers since 1991 systematically articulating China's alternative human rights framework that positions subsistence and economic development as the foundational human rights , rather than civil and political freedoms. China argues that lifting approximately 800 million people out of extreme poverty since 1978 represents the most significant human rights achievement in history, and that Western insistence on prioritising civil and political rights reflects cu

Context: The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights - known as the Banjul Charter - was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity in 1981 and entered into force in 1986. It is the only international human rights instrument that includes collective (peoples') rights alongside individual rights and imposes duties on individuals , making it a fundamentally different approach to human rights from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Charter reflects African philosophical traditions emphasising communal solidarity, colle

Context: The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) , adopted in 1950 and enforced by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, is the world's most advanced regional human rights enforcement system, allowing individuals to petition directly against their own governments and producing binding rulings that states are legally obligated to comply with. The ECHR represents the closest real-world approximation of the universalist ideal embedded in the UDHR, translating abstract rights principles into enforceable legal obligations with an independent court, binding judgme

Context: In May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in Google Spain SL v. AEPD and Mario Costeja Gonzalez that individuals have the right to request that search engines delist results containing personal information that is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant." This landmark ruling established what became known as the "right to be forgotten" - a concept that has reshaped global privacy law. The right was subsequently codified in Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) , which came into effect in 2018, granting EU citizens the right to