Hi, you all right? I hope you're well.

My name's Mrs. Tomassi, and I'm gonna be working through with you on your Citizenship lesson.

Hopefully you've got everything you need, you're settled, you're good to go, and we can get started.

The title of today's lesson is Are Human Rights Really Universal? This forms part of the unit on How Do Democratic Systems Work Around The World? Hopefully, by the end of the lesson today, you'll be able to explain what human rights are and what human rights violations are.

We've got three keywords to look out for in the lesson today.

They will be in bold throughout, so if you ever need to, refer back to them here.

I'm gonna go through them now with you.

First is human rights.

These are basic rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to.

Next is universal.

This relates to everyone in the world or everyone in a particular group or society.

Then, finally, we have violation.

Now this is an action that breaks a rule, law, or someone's rights, often causing harm or damage.

As I said, if you need to, they will be on this page.

So we've got two learning cycles.

We're gonna make a start on the first, which is what is meant by universal human rights? So start thinking about that question.

I mean, have you heard of human rights before? Obviously we've just said what universal might be, so what might universal human rights be about? So in the UK, rights are things that every person is allowed and entitled to by law.

It means we are all guaranteed to be given certain rights.

Laura said, "I thought that's what human rights are.

How do human rights differ?" Now this is a good point 'cause it does sound like this is human rights, doesn't it? Andeep says, "These rights are legal rights and depend on where you live.

Human rights should apply to everyone.

So when rights are protected by law, they are legal rights.

Now some countries will have their human rights protected by law, and this is why it might sound like this.

But there are countries where this doesn't happen, so this is important to distinguish.

So human rights are the rights every person is meant to have just because they're human.

It should not depend on where you're born, your background, or the government in charge.

They apply everywhere regardless of whether or not a country's laws agree.

Laura says, "So that's why I've heard people say human rights are universal." And that's very true.

It's not just based on the legal rights, it's this idea that they should apply everywhere.

So if we now go back and we look at after World War II, the United Nations, you might have heard of them before.

It's an international organisation, and they were set up as a place for the world's nations to come together and discuss common problems and find solutions.

It is made up of 193 member states.

So that's a lot considering there's 195 countries in the world.

Now, in 1948, the UN introduced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It's sometimes known as the UDHR, so you might hear that as well, and it's referring to the same thing.

This was a milestone because it was the first in the history of universal human rights 'cause it was the first time that there was an actual formal declaration.

But it's important to recognise that this isn't legally binding.

So just 'cause this declaration was set up doesn't mean that now universal human rights are protected by law.

So it was drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from many different regions of the world.

It involved lots of different people.

And it was proclaimed by the UN's General Assembly as a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations.

It was the first time that fundamental human rights were universally recognised, and it can be translated in over 500 different languages.

So again it shows the global involvement.

Do you know what's actually involved, or what it looks like, or some of the articles that are within it? Can you think of what you would expect to see in there? And then we're gonna have a look at some and we'll see how they compare.

So it contains 30 articles, or rights, which include things like Article 3, everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of person, no one should be held enslaved or servitude, the idea that everybody is equal before the law, entitled without any discrimination to equal protection to the law, and everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

These are just some examples.

Are they the kind of things that you did expect to be in there or maybe it goes into a bit more detail than what you were thinking? So can you match the correct right to the scenario? So which right matches to each scenario.

So we've got there Article 3: right to life, liberty, and personal security, Article 4: freedom from slavery or servitude, Article 7: equal protection under the Law, Article 18: freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

Then you've got the scenarios.

So can you match it to the correct ones? You've got a person is arrested for practising their religion peacefully, a factory is caught forcing children to work without pay, a person is unfairly treated in court because of their race, and a peaceful protestor is attacked by the police without cause.

If you need to, you could always pause and then unpause when you've got the correct matches.

So did you work it out? It's Article 3 is a peaceful protestor is attacked by the police without cause.

Article 4, a factory is caught forcing children to work without pay.

Article 7, a person's unfairly treated in court 'cause of their race.

And Article 18 is a person's arrested for practising their religion peacefully.

Then by having these different articles in place, it's this idea then that people would be protected against those rights.

As we said though, it's not actually legally binding.

So it did set a global standard for human rights and almost every country agreed with it.

And it even inspired nations to include these rights in their laws.

So to give you an example, in 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights was created.

That's the ECHR.

And it was created by the Council of Europe to protect people's rights and freedoms. All Council of Europe member states have ratified the ECHR and are legally bound by it.

So to give you an example, some countries have ratified this, and now this means that when we looked at the start, those legal rights, those human rights are actually legally protected in those countries.

This includes countries like France, Germany, and Sweden.

So what we'll look at now is what this actually means when they're legally protected.

So in countries where the ECHR applies to, if someone's rights are violated, they can go to the national courts.

Now, if those national courts don't do enough, they can appeal their case to the European Court of Human Rights, which is in Strasbourg in France.

So this is showing the measures that have been put in place to help ensure that those rights are legally protected.

Now there are other, so it's not just the Council of Europe, there are other places across the world that have set up similar systems to ensure those universal human rights that we saw in the UDHR have gone on to make some form of impact legally, such as the American Convention on Human Rights in 1969 and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights in 1981.

True or false.

Countries that have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights are not legally required to uphold the rights it sets out.

This is false.

Why? Countries that have ratified the ECHR are legally bound to uphold the rights it sets out.

If they do not, citizens can appeal to the ECHR in Strasbourg.

So this moves us onto the first task today.

Can you design a universal human rights passport for a global citizen using the templates on the following slides.

The passport should explain what universal human rights are and include an example of a country that has legally protected human rights.

Of course if you've got a design that you wanna use, go ahead and use that.

If not, take a look at some of these.

So you've got there the front of the passport and the ideas there with what you want them to affirm.

And then on the back, you've got, I'm a global citizen and my passport allows me to.

And I once visited.

So these should help you get started with some ideas.

Take some time.

Once your passport's designed, if you unpause, we can have a look through some feedback together.

So how did you get on with that? Now your passport could have looked something like this.

So as a holder of this passport, I affirm that I'll respect and uphold the human rights of others, I'll speak out against injustice and inequality, and I will support efforts to protect human rights for all people everywhere.

And then the back of the passport is that I'm a global citizen and my passport allows me to explore all the countries that allow for universal human rights.

These are basic freedoms and protections that every person is entitled to simply because they are human.

These rights include the right to life, liberty, and security.

In 2025, I visited France.

France has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights.

This means human rights are legally protected here.

How did you get on? Have you got some of those ideas across? Great job if you managed to do that.

We're now gonna move on to the second learning cycle, which is what is meant by human right violations.

So this is something a little bit different.

So Laura says, "Well, this means human rights are universal." So based on what we looked at in the last learning cycle, is that the case? Well, although many nations have chosen to adopt human rights into their laws, the UDHR itself, do you remember, it's not legally binding.

So actually countries can ignore it without facing any real consequences.

So this is where human rights violations can occur and people are denied rights that they're meant to have.

So in 2025, to give you an example, Transparatem uncovered that some international clothing brands have been linked with child labour in cotton farms in India.

Now children as young as 10 years old were employed to work long hours, poor conditions for very low pay, with limited access to education and healthcare.

Can you think how this goes against human rights? Well, this is an example of a human rights violation because it breaks multiple articles in the UDHR, things like no one should be held in slavery, everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and wellbeing, and everyone has the right to education.

And this is what we're talking about when we're talking about human rights violations.

It's showing that where human rights have not been given and how it links to those articles in the UDHR.

We'll have a look at another example.

Malala Yousafzai, who's a Pakistani activist, she stood up for her right to education when she was living under the rule of the Taliban because they banned girls from attending school in her region, and she continued to attend her educational setting.

So in 2012, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on her way to school.

She survived and, after that, continued to raise awareness of the right to education.

And her commitment led to increased support initiatives for girls' education in Pakistan.

So have a think about this case study.

What human rights violations have existed here? Can you think of how it links? So here, there's the right to life, liberty, and security that's been violated, freedom of expression, and everyone has the right to an education.

All of those are violations that have occurred in this case.

We'll have a look at another case example now of Narges Mohammadi, who's an Iranian journalist and activist and has been imprisoned multiple times for speaking out against the Iranian Government's suppression of women and for campaigning to end the death penalty.

In 2023, she was awarded the Noble Peace Prize while still in prison.

Can you think here what human rights violations have occurred here? So it again breaks multiple articles in the UDHR, things like right to life, liberty, and security, no one should be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, freedom of expression, and right to peaceful assembly and association.

Can you identify which of the following scenarios are a violation of human rights? So you've got a, a journalist is put in prison for writing an article that criticises the government, b, a person peacefully protests without being arrested, c, a pupil is banned from wearing their religious clothing at school, d, a 10-year-old child is forced to work 12 hours a day and not allowed to go to school.

There are a few examples here.

So it is a, c, and d.

Laura says, "If the UDHR is not legally binding, can anything be done to stop violations of human rights?" Well, what do you think about this? Do you think it can't or can? Can you think of any examples where it might have happened? So even though it's not enforced by law, there are actually many international organisations that work to protect and promote human rights across the world.

These organisations cannot force change, but they do play a role in supporting those whose rights are at risk.

You might know some organisations.

Could you think of some? We're gonna go through some now.

So have a look and see if they're the ones you thought of, or if you didn't know any, we'll find out about them now.

So we've got Amnesty International.

Now they're a global NGO, which is non-government organisation, that invests and exposes human rights abuses.

It's a movement of more than 10 million people in over 150 countries.

Now how do they do this? Well, what they do is they campaign for justice, fair trials, release of political prisoners, and they pressure governments through public awareness and activism.

They run so many different programmes of different cases across the world.

The next one we're gonna look at is the UN's Human Right Council, which is the UNHCR.

And this is part of the UN.

So if you remember, the UDHR again was part of the UN as well.

And what they're there to do is to review countries' human rights records, make recommendations.

And then they can send investigators, issue public reports to hold the countries accountable for what is going on in that country.

To give you an example of something they've done, in 2024, following the Venezuelan presidential election, the UNHRC investigated human rights violations in Venezuela.

Now the government there rejected the findings.

However, the UN recommended that the International Criminal Court should continue its investigations, which is still ongoing now, which is what is insuring and allowing that fair trial to find out what has really happened and if human rights violations have occurred.

Then we have a third group, which we're gonna look at, which is the Human Rights Watch.

Again, it's an independent organisation and has over 14 million audience members.

They monitor human rights worldwide, publish detailed reports on abuses, especially in conflict zones.

So they use the evidence to pressure governments and influence international policy.

For example, in 2023, Human Rights Watch supported the Deciding is My Right coalition, which was in Mexico, to push for legal reform to protect the rights of people with disabilities and older people.

Human Rights Watch's advocacy in this saw a guardianship law abolished, which has now allowed all adults to have the right to make their own decisions with support if needed.

Can you identify two organisations that support with human rights violations across the world? So places like Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch.

If you knew some others that you've already heard of before, they would be good examples as well.

Now we're gonna move on to the final task for today.

So Laura and Andeep are debating the question, should countries intervene when rights are violated elsewhere? Laura says, "Countries should intervene because human rights should be universal and must be protected.

Andeep says, "Countries should not intervene when rights are violated 'cause it could make situations worse and lead to war.

Therefore, only international organisations should intervene." Decide who you agree with more and add your own evidence to support their view.

So take some time.

I mean, if you've got someone there with you, you might wanna debate with them.

If not, have a think where you stand on this issue.

Add an additional point of evidence to support it.

When you're ready, if you unpause and we can look through the feedback together.

How did you get on with that? So if you agreed with Laura, your response could look like this.

I agree with Laura.

Countries should intervene if human rights are being violated, 'cause if countries ignore human rights abuses in other parts of the world, it sends the message that those lives do not matter.

For example, after Malala Yousafzai was attacked for speaking out about girls' education in Pakistan, the international community stood behind her.

Her advocacy led to some improvements and initiatives for girls' education in Pakistan.

Intervention does not always mean military force.

It can be through sanctions or helping local activists.

So if you've agreed with Laura, did you get something like that? I mean, if you didn't, could you understand this viewpoint and could you give an argument back to this as well if we was to continue the debate? Now, if you did agree with Andeep, you could have something like this.

I agree with Andeep.

Countries should not intervene if human rights are being violated 'cause this could make situations worse and lead to war.

However, as other international organisations could support with human rights violations, such as Amnesty International and the UNHRC.

For example, following the Venezuelan presidential elections in 2024, the UNHRC recommended the ICC should continue its investigation into the Venezuelan Government.

Therefore, international organisations can help to hold the countries accountable, raise awareness, and pressure governments to change, as well as support victims without escalation.

So what did you think about that? Was that similar to the points that you had or did you have something different? It's a hard one to come to a conclusion on because there's gonna be many pros and cons to both sides of the argument, but hopefully you've managed to start to see maybe where you would sit with this.

We're now gonna summarise.

So universal human rights are rights that everyone's entitled to and apply everywhere regardless of if a country's laws agree.

In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR, was created by the UN.

It stated for the first time that fundamental human rights were to be universally recognised.

The UDHR is not legally binding and countries choose whether to implement it.

This can lead to human rights violations across the world.

Some organisations set out to expose and support those experiencing human rights violations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

And that brings us to an end.

So as I said, hopefully you've got a bit of an understanding and you're able to decide now if human rights really are universal.

Thanks for working with me today and enjoy the rest of your day.