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Debates on ‘rights’ have expanded from individual rights to collective rights;⁴⁹ and this has meant the gradual inclusion of different groups and people into the official world orbit of what it means to be human, alongside the monitoring of their progress. Full of controversy, they are still not always fully recognized in practice.⁵⁰

Children In 1946, UNICEF was established; in 1959, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child; in 1989, Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Women International Year of Women, 1975; Decade of Women, 1976–85. The Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, included ‘the elimination of all forms of violence against women’ as a key objective. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the 23rd special session of the UN General Assembly, 2000. The creation of UN Women, and the monitoring of their progress in the world: https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/brief-survey-womens-rights.

Ethnic persons In 1969, the UN International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Discrimination/Pages/discrimination_racial.aspx.

Disabled persons In 2006, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPDS) was adopted, to eliminate disability discrimination round the world (that is, for roughly 1 million people, 15 per cent of the world’s population): https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Discrimination/Pages/discrimination_disabilities.aspx.

Refugees The 1951 Refugee Convention: https://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html. And its 1967 Protocol, which defines the rights and duties of refugees.

Indigenous persons In 2007, the UN adopts the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP): https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Discrimination/Pages/discrimination_indigenous.aspx. Publication of a major report, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (4 vols, 2009–19). Survival International formed in 1969.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender persons In 2011, Human Rights Council and Resolutions on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Discrimination/Pages/LGBT.aspx. The Yogyakarta Principles, originally launched in 2007 (UNHRC).

So it is a complex problem. As rights are argued for, so traditional Western modes are established. As rights are critiqued, so they become undermined. And with this, so too the quest for humanity. Critical humanism recognizes the failings of rights theory and work, but claims that human rights have only been taken seriously for a couple of generations. There are many future battles to be fought for the strong and vital future of human rights.