Chapter 19: Applying human rights standards to selected issues
Ko te pumautanga o ngā tika tangata i roto i nga take motuhake
1. Introduction — Timatatanga
Human rights provide a framework for protecting citizens and holding Governments accountable through international obligations reflected in domestic human rights instruments. 'Although the term human rights has passed into everyday language only since the Second World War, it reflects the age-old issue of how individual human beings live in society'(NZ
Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade, 2003). The underlying purpose of the human rights framework is to protect the dignity of all human beings, no matter what their status or condition in life. Different societies apply these principles in different ways at different times. New Zealanders and New Zealand Governments are constantly reviewing the application of the fundamental human rights principles in law, policy and practice. New and significant human rights issues constantly arise. This paper briefly discusses some of the issues that currently confront us, and that we need to address.
While the international human rights instruments often provide clear guidance, new issues sometimes emerge that were yet to be thought of at the time these documents were written (and so are not explicitly covered by international standards), but to which the fundamental human rights principles of the dignity and equality of all people are directly applicable.
This chapter looks at four such issues to show how an approach that is based on human rights and international cooperation or comparison can help resolve complex challenges in New Zealand. Those four issues are:
- biotechnology and the developments relating to the human genome
- unpaid work
- breastfeeding
- discrimination against homosexual, transsexual and intersex people.
A human-rights-based approach to each issue should:
- emphasise the participation of individuals and groups in decision-making
- introduce accountability for actions and decisions, so that individuals and groups can complain about decisions that affect them adversely
- seek non-discrimination of all individuals through the equal application of rights and obligations to all
- empower individuals and groups by allowing them to use rights as leverage for action and legitimise their voice in decision-making
- link decision-making at every level to the internationally agreed human rights norms, as set out in the various human rights covenants and treaties.
