International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) is, together with
the United Nations’ Universal Declaration
on Human Rights (UDHR) and the
International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), one
of the key constituents of the International
Bill of Rights. Unlike the UDHR,
the two Covenants were each designed
as legally binding treaties. The need for
treaties, and indeed for treaties which
enumerated two very different categories
of rights, stemmed from the ideological
cleavage which divided states after
World War Two and which was associated
with the cold war. The UDHR
had the handicap of listing rights which
were privileged by the ‘free world’, or
those on the capitalist side of the ideological
cleavage (see capitalism), along
with rights which were privileged by
those on the socialist and communist
side of the ideological cleavage (see
socialism; communism). The antagonism
between these sides was such that those
on the right did not consider economic,
social and cultural rights to be rights as
such, while those on the left felt that civil
and political rights meant nothing if the
subject of these rights had neither food
nor shelter. The political way forward
was the creation of two covenants, each
a UN Treaty. They were drafted by the
Human Rights Commission of the UN’s
Economic and Social Council.