The Center for Economic and Social Rights was one of the first organizations to challenge economic injustice as violation of international human rights law. Through its projects in the U.S. and abroad, CESR aims to use human rights to hold decision-makers – be they governments or corporations – accountable for their actions.
CESR Factsheets on the Right to Work
CESR Reports on the Right to Work
PAPERS
Certifying International Worker Rights: A Practical Alternative by Jerome Levinson
This paper advocates requiring the U.S. Department of Labor to give a certification to countries that protect basic workers rights. No preferential trade status or investment decision could be made concerning a particular country until the Department of Labor granted this certification.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 23: “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”
click here for the UDHR in other languages
Preamble
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, therefore,
The General Assembly,
Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
Las Obligaciones de Derechos Humanos de los Gobiernos
Los derechos humanos establecen las condiciones mínimas – civiles, políticas, económicas y culturales necesarias– para vivir con dignidad. Nos pertenecen a todos y todas por el simple hecho de ser seres humanos. Cuando los derechos de los pueblos son respetados, protegidos y cumplidos, el pueblo puede vivir en paz y desarrollarse en su potencialidad como seres humanos.
This brief report describes the human rights violations against immokalee farmworkers.
Kabul, Afghanistan - I am a member of the loya jirga's silent majority -- or rather, silenced majority -- who came here to Afghanistan's capital expecting to shape our nation's future but instead find ourselves being dragged back into the past.
Human Rights Conditions
Over twenty years of successive armed conflicts and massive human rights violations have killed at least 1.5 million Afghans and rendered 6 million homeless. Even prior to 11 September and 7 October, the Afghan population suffered severe destitution and hardship: a ruined infrastructure, abysmal socio-economic indicators, the world’s largest population of refugees and internally displaced persons, the world’s highest concentration of land mines, three years of worsening drought, a repressive government and international isolation marked by economic sanctions.