Chapter 12 Key Terms Quiz 1

Inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because he or she is a human being. Conceived as universal and egalitarian, these rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights in both national and international law.

A multilateral treaty the United Nations General Assembly adopted on December 16, 1966, and in force from January 3, 1976. It commits the parties to work toward the granting of economic, social, and cultural rights to individuals, including labor rights, the right to health, the right to education, and the right to an adequate standard of living.

In international law, a reference to the Law of Nations or the legal norms that have developed through the customary exchanges between states over time, whether based on diplomacy or aggression.

Based on the principles of individualism and noninterference, these are “negative” rights based on the Anglo-American principles of liberty. Developed under a strong mistrust of government, they have evolved into “civil” or “political” rights.

A philosophy of law that emphasizes the conventional nature of law—that it is socially constructed and even codified. According to legal positivism, law is synonymous with positive norms, that is, norms made by the legislator or considered as common law or case law.

An informal name given to one United Nations General Assembly resolution and two international treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) with its two Optional Protocols, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966).

People forced to flee their home but who remain within that country’s borders.

A human rights treaty setting out the civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights of children.

Part of the Charter of the United Nations that deals with action regarding threats to peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression.

A multilateral treaty the United Nations General Assembly adopted on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976. It commits the parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights, and right to due process and a fair trial.

The principle that an individual human’s beliefs and activities are understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture.

The illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery.