Human rights are generally understood to be those rights that are inherent to a person from birth. The concept of human rights implies that each individual can enjoy his or her human rights regardless of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, parents, or other status.

In a legal sense, human rights are guaranteed by human rights law that protects individuals and groups from actions that infringe on fundamental freedoms and human dignity. They find expression in treaties, customary international law, codes of principles, and other sources of law.

Human rights law obligates states to act in certain ways and prohibits them from engaging in certain activities. However, law itself does not establish human rights. Human rights are inalienable and arise from each person’s membership in the human race. Treaties and other sources of law usually serve to formally protect the rights of individuals and groups against the acts or omissions of governments that interfere with their enjoyment of human rights.

Some of the most important features of human rights are the following:

  1. Human rights are grounded in the respect, dignity, and worth of every human being;
  2. Human rights are universal, meaning that they apply equally and without discrimination to all people
  3. human rights are inalienable in the sense that no one can be deprived of their human rights; they can be restricted in specific situations (for example, the right to liberty can be restricted if someone has been convicted of a crime by a court)
  4. human rights are not indivisible, interrelated and interdependent for the reason that it is not enough to respect some human rights without respecting others. In practice, the violation of one right often affects respect for a number of other rights. As such, all human rights must be treated as having equal importance and importance for the respect, dignity and worth of every human being.