Human rights in Europe

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The current human rights situation in Europe on the whole is good, although there are several human rights problems ranging from the treatment of asylum seekers and the Roma to reports of police brutality. Most European states are mentioned in the yearly Amnesty International Reports for different human rights violations ^[1]. Some culprits are Belarus and Russia.

Contents 1 History of Human rights in Europe 1.1 Pre-1945 human rights developments 1.2 1945-1984 1.3 1984-present 2 Council of Europe 3 Human rights articles by country 4 See also 5 References

[edit] History of Human rights in Europe

The history of human rights in Europe is marked by a contradictory combination of, on the one hand, legislative and intellectual progress, and, on the other hand, violations of fundamental human rights in both the colonies of Europe, and at home.

[edit] Pre-1945 human rights developments

1367: Statutes of Kilkenny

15th to 19th centuries: African slave trade.

1529: Statutes of Lithuania.

1550-1551: Bartolomé de Las Casas debates Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda on human rights (Valladolid debate).

1689: The English Bill of Rights, England.

1689: The Claim of Right, Scotland.

1690: The Second Treatise of Civil Government by John Locke.

Between 1750 and 1860: The majority of the Inclosure Acts, a number of United Kingdom Acts of Parliament inclosed common land in the country taking away the rights that people once held, to graze animals on these areas when not planted by crops. N.B: Common usage is enclosure, but this is not the name of the acts.

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.

1845: Another United Kingdom General Inclosure Act allowed for the employment of inclosure Commissoners who could inclose land without submitting a request to parliament. The people's right of common land gradually ceased to exist in the UK in the sense previously understood.

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.

1932-1945: The Holocaust.

Universal suffrage was introduced in these the following European countries in these years:

• Finland -- 1906 (note: Finland gave full parliamentary rights to women as the first country in the world in 1906. New Zealand had given women the vote before Finland but not the right to stand as candidates in elections.)
• Norway -- 1913
• Denmark -- 1915
• Iceland -- 1915
• Russia -- 1917
• Lithuania -- 1917
• Latvia -- 1917
• Estonia -- 1917
• After the Central Powers' defeat in World War I
  • Austria -- 1918
  • Germany -- 1918
  • Hungary -- 1918
  • Poland -- 1918
• Czechoslovakia -- 1918
• Luxembourg - 1918
• The Netherlands - 1919
• Sweden -- 1919
• Ireland -- 1922
• Romania -- 1923
• United Kingdom -- 1928
• Turkey -- 1930
• Spain -- 1931 (but women lost the vote under Franco in 1936 and did not vote again until 1976)
• France -- 1944

[edit] 1945-1984

• 1954–62: Torture by the French of Algerians during the Algerian War of Independence.

• 1954-1956: Torture and killing of at least 50,000 Kenyans, perhaps far more, by the British during the Mau Mau Rebellion.

• Government sanctioned Human Rights abuses leading to massacres in Europe:

Paris massacre of 1961

• 1978: Ruling by The European Court of Human Rights that alleged torture by the British government of suspect IRA members constituted "cruel and inhuman treatment".

Universal suffrage granted in these countries in the following years:

• Italy -- 1945
• Yugoslavia -- 1946
• Malta -- 1946
• Belgium -- 1948
• Greece -- 1952
• Cyprus -- 1960
• San Marino -- 1960
• Monaco -- 1960
• Switzerland -- 1971
• Portugal -- 1975
• Liechtenstein -- 1984

Beginning of the European Committee of Social Rights Human right protected by national laws (Constitutions...)

[edit] 1984-present

Following the collapse and break-up of the Soviet Union, its history of severe human right abuses were laid in the open. The situation has since improved in the majority of former-Communist states of Europe, mainly those in Central Europe. These Central European states aligned themselves with the EU (most of them becoming members in 2004), and underwent a rigorous reform of human rights laws, most notably regarding freedom of speech and religion, and the protection of minorities, particularly the Roma. However, the former USSR states, including Russia itself, have made far slower progress. Despite all but 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", 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 Belarus' post-independence elections match the outward forms of a democracy, election monitors have described them 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 six states of the former Yugoslavia, (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, 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.

There has been a growing awareness of human trafficking as a human rights issue in Europe (see main article: trafficking in human beings). The end of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia has contributed to an increase in human trafficking, with the majority of victims being women forced into prostitution. [1] [2] The conflicts in the former Yugoslavia have also been a key factor in the increase of human trafficking in Europe. [3] [4] [5]

The The Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings was adopted by the Council of Europe on 16 May 2005. The aim of the convention is to prevent and combat the trafficking in human beings. Of the 46 members of the Council of Europe, so far 23 have signed the convention and none have ratified it yet (15 December 2005). [6] Amnesty International has called on European states to sign and ratify the convention as part of the fight against human trafficking. [7]

[edit] Council of Europe

See main article: 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.

The Council of Europe is not part of the European Union.

[edit] Human rights articles by country

[edit] See also

• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
• List of human rights articles by country
• Human rights in East Asia
• Human rights in the United States

[edit] References