Human rights

Human rights are generally held to be the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, entirely by virtue of their status as human beings.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence says that people are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This is based on the statement that every person is entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of property", which was altered to "happiness" to avoid conflicts with slavery (slaves could not own property).

The United Nations issued, in 1948, a list of human rights they deem inherent and inviolable.

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

—Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A number of totalitarian regimes continue to violate human rights, even when they have ratified the United Nations list.

The UN has done little since the Korean War to investigate or expose human rights violations, and in the early 21st century it rebuked America by voting it out of the Human Rights Council.^{[Citation Needed]}

Many organisations and NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House had abysmal records reporting on and exposing human rights violations during the Soviet era.^{[Citation Needed]}