The Rights of ‘Peoples’ and Individual Rights: Conflict or Harmony?

Abstract

Abstract In 1966 the United Nations General Assembly was unable to agree to include civil and political rights in the same document as economic, social, and cultural rights. The resulting human rights instruments, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR), were each formulated, in the main, in terms of individual rights. At least some civil and political rights now command respect as rights in customary international law, whereas it is doubtful that economic, social, and cultural rights are more than political aspirations. For this reason, among others, attempts have been made, within UNESCO and elsewhere, not only to emphasize fundamental economic, social, and cultural rights but also to reformulate certain individual rights as collective rights or rights of ‘peoples’. International law presently affords limited protection to ‘peoples’: the right to self-determination, the right to physical existence under the Genocide Convention of 1948, the right to ‘permanent’ sovereignty over natural resources, and the rights of indigenous peoples and of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities under Article 27 of the ICCPR have been cited as examples.