Defensor del Pueblo - Your rights - The human rights

In accordance with different juridical conceptions, Human Rights could be be defined as those rights which acknowledge the basic and fundamental freedom inherent to every person, as a human being, and which are essential to guarantee a dignified life.

From a social point of view, Human Rights are considered to be rights which acknowledge the basic conditions that allow the creation of an integrated relationship between a person and society.

By definition, the concept of Human Rights is universal and egalitarian, and it is incompatible with all systems based on superiority of castes, races, peoples, groups or specific social classes. Its recognition is independent from specific factors such as social status, sex, ethnicity or nationality.

Due to the fact that Human Rights are inherent to persons, they are of an irrevocable, non-assignable, non transferable and inalienable nature. According to the conception of traditional natural rights, they are timeless and independent from social and historical contexts.

Nowadays, Human rights exert considerable moral power and are gaining more and more support. Moreover, the Human Rights doctrine surpasses the Law, forming an ethical and moral base that constitutes the basis of regulating the political contemporary order. Human Rights are legally acknowledged in international agreements and in the Internal Legislation of many Countries, usually within their constitutional texts. They are referred to as fundamental rights, as in the Spanish Constitution which includes them in Heading I. 

The relationship between the concepts of Human Rights and fundamental rights has been studied by many authors and two different positions have basically been adopted. On one hand, those who uphold the theory of natural rights, who think that the existence of Human Rights is independent from their recognition as constitutional rights and that, consequently, they should be directly applied. And on the other hand, the supporters of dualist theories, who attach importance both to the moral foundation of the rights and to their positivity in the constitutional texts, and are in favour of the concepts of Human Rights and constitutional rights having the same content.

To learn more about this matter, a wide range of documentation exists that can be consulted, and extensive bibliography in the website, as well as in many libraries in universities and Human Rights institutions, such as the Defensor del Pueblo.