Human rights in Europe
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Human rights in Europe are on the main upheld and defended with few exceptions. The most obvious culprits are Belarus, Russia and Turkey, although the latter has undergone major reforms to improve its human rights record in its attempt to gain European Union membership, including banning the death penalty and giving increased rights to its large Kurdish minority.
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History of Human rights in Europe
Pre-1945
1689: The English Bill of Rights, England.
1689: The Claim of Right, Scotland.
1690: The Second Treatise of Civil Government by John Locke.
1772: British court ruling by William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield set a precedent that slavery had no basis in law.
1789: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, France.
1790: The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine.
1794: France abolished slavery.
1802: France re-introduced slavery.
1804: The Napoleonic code, France and French conquests under Napoleon.
1807: British abolition of the slave trade (but not of slavery itself).
1832: British Reform Act extended voting rights and made trade unions legal.
1833: British abolition of slavery.
1848: French abolition of slavery.
1859: On Liberty by John Stuart Mill.
1861: Russian abolition of serfdom.
1863: Netherlands abolition of slavery.
1867: British Second Reform Act extended voting rights to all urban male householders.
1884: British Representation of the People Act extended male voting rights from the town to the country.
1906: Finland introduced universal suffrage in national elections (and in 1917 this was extended to local elections).
1918: Another British Representation of the People Act removed most the restrictions on male voting rights, permitting nearly all men to vote and also granting the vote to women over 30 if they owned property.
Universal suffrage was introduced in these remaining European countries in these years:
- Norway -- 1913
- Denmark -- 1915 (with Iceland)
- Russia -- 1917
- Ireland -- 1918
- After the Central Powers' defeat in World War I
- Luxembourg - 1919
- The Netherlands - 1919
- Sweden -- 1921
- Lithuania -- 1922
- Romania -- 1923
- United Kingdom -- 1928
- Spain -- 1931
- Turkey -- 1934
- France -- 1944
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1945-1990
Universal suffrage granted in these countries in the following years:
- Italy -- 1945
- Belgium -- 1948
- Greece -- 1952
- Portugal -- 1976
- Liechtenstein -- 1984
- Switzerland -- 1990
Beginning of the Europian Council Social rights Human right protected by national laws (Constitutions...)
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1991-present
Following the collapse and break-up of the Soviet Union, its history of severe human right abuses were laid in the open. Since then he situation has improved in most former Soviet states, mainly those in central Europe. These central European states aligned themselves with the EU instead of former master Russia, and underwent a rigorous reform of human rights laws, most notably regarding freedom of speech and religion, and the protection of minorities, particularly the Romany. However, the more eastern of the former USSR states, as well as Russia itself, have made far slower progress. Despite all bar Belarus becoming members of the Council of Europe, constant conflict between minority group separatists in the Caucasus has meant that successive governments in these states have passed strict laws with the aim of limiting the chance of rebellion.
Belarus itself, often described as "Europe's last dictatorship", (and the only European state on the U.S.'s list of "outposts of tyranny"), has retained a shocking record on human rights, at least compared to its European neighbours. The press is strictly censored and controlled by the government, and the freedom to speech and protest has been removed. Although pertaining to be a democracy, election monitors have described Belarus' post-independence elections as unsound.
Russia too has kept hold of many Soviet-era laws giving the government great powers at the expense of the people's liberty, including the replacing of elected governors with appointed ones, and censorship of the press. It claims many of these measures are needed to maintain control over its volatile Caucasus border, where several rebel groups are based.
Following the collapse of communism in Yugoslavia, the state held together by the strong rule of Josip Broz Tito, several of the nations which made it up declared independence. What followed was several years of bloody conflict as the dominant nation, Serbia, attempted at first to hold the state together, and then instead to hold onto Serb-populated areas of neighbouring nations, in order to create a "Greater Serbia". Within Serbia itself there was conflict in the region of Kosovo, where Serbs are a minority.
The now five states of the former Yugoslavia, (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro1, and Slovenia) are in various stages of human rights development. Slovenia, which suffered least in the Yugoslav wars, has since joined the EU and is widely considered to have a good human rights record and policy. Croatia, FYR Macedonia and Montenegro, which have formed stable government, have a fair human rights record, with only a few criticisms of the treatment of Serb and Albanian minorities. Croatia is also an EU applicant.
However, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia retain poor human rights records, the former is entirely governed under UN mandate, while the former's Kosovo region is too. Bosnia-Herzegovina is the most ethnically diverse of the current states of former Yugoslavia, with large groups of Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. This is what has made peace hard to come by in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and has restricted the growth of human rights. Although several laws are in place, policing them is a difficult task.
The states of the EU, as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the European microstates, have world-class human rights records, although certain laws passed in the wake of the fears over the "war on terrorism" have encroached on human rights; e.g. the UK's anti-terrorism laws enabling police to detain an individual without charge for an infinite length of time. Criticism has also surrounded the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools and the French legislation for the prevention and repression of cultic groups. The Vatican is unable to follow human rights guidelines fully on religious aspects due to its state and reason for existence.
Despite this, the prospect of EU membership is what has done most to encourage many European states to improve their human rights, most notably Croatia and Turkey, especially on key human rights issues such as freedom of speech and the banning of the death penalty.
1 Serbia and Montenegro are due to hold a referendum on independence from each other in 2006.
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is responsible for both the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. These institutions bind the Council's members to a code of human rights which, though strict, are more lenient than those of the United Nations charter on human rights.
The Council also promotes the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the European Social Charter
to be expanded
Human rights articles by country
Human rights in:
| Europe | |
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| Culture of Europe | Economy of Europe | Geography of Europe | History of Europe | Politics of Europe | |
