Solidarity, the Individual and Human Rights

Carl Wellman

I. Introduction

In his inaugural lecture to the tenth study session of the International Institute of Human Rights in 1979, Karel Vasak presented a brief but systematic theory of what he called "the third generation of human rights." 1 The first generation of human rights included primarily those defined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). 2 The second generation consisted mainly of the human rights specified in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). 3 Although no third covenant was under consideration until 1981, Vasak argued that several new human rights, such as the rights to development, to a healthy environment, and to peace, were already beginning to emerge in international law. He suggested that these three generations of human rights corresponded respectively to the three ideals proclaimed in the French revolution: liberty, equality and fraternity. 4 Accordingly, these new human rights should be thought of as solidarity rights. 

Now is an appropriate time to reflect upon the emergence of the human rights to development, to a healthy environment, and to peace in international law over the past two decades and to consider whether they do, or even should, conform to Vasak's theory. Sections Two and Three of this article explain his theory of solidarity rights more fully and clearly than he did himself. The fourth section will report on the current legal status of these three human rights. Last, in the fifth section, this article gives and briefly defends a critical assessment of the conception of solidarity rights.

II. A Third Generation?

When speaking of solidarity rights, is the label "third-generation rights" appropriate and illuminating? It was introduced by the advocates of these alleged rights primarily to mark the development of human rights through time. The natural rights tradition assumed that the fundamental moral rights universally possessed by all human beings are eternal and changeless. However, the creation and maintenance of human rights in international law is a temporal process moving from general declaration through the formulation of specific legal norms to the elaboration of procedures and mechanisms of implementation. Thus, the civil and political rights were first declared in the eighteenth century; the economic, social and cultural rights were not widely proclaimed until early in the twentieth century; and rights such as the right to development and the right to peace only began to emerge in international law late in the twentieth century. Whatever may be true of human rights considered as fundamental moral rights, often thought to be eternal and changeless, something like this history of the development of human rights in international law is true.

The advocates of these new rights believe that one can understand the nature and importance of new human rights only by relating them to the historical context in which they emerge. It is no accident that the civil and political rights were first proclaimed in the Declarations of the American and French Revolutions because the purpose of those rights is to protect the liberty of the individual against the tyranny and abuse of the state. Again, the significance of the economic, social and cultural rights can be seen most clearly against the background of the Mexican and Russian Revolutions opposing the capitalist exploitation of workers and, more generally, unjust social inequality. What, then, did the advocates of these third generation rights find relevant in their historical context? They were primarily concerned about the urgency of certain global problems such as securing peace after the First and Second World Wars, achieving freedom for colonial peoples, reducing the gross economic inequalities between developed and underdeveloped countries, and preserving a healthy environment when the [End Page 640] technologies in one nation seriously damage an environment shared by all nations.

To speak of successive generations of human rights is, of course, to use a metaphor, and metaphors are misleading as well as illuminating. One generation consists mainly of the parents of the next generation.