The Humanitarian Charter principles and their legal basis: principle 1

The Humanitarian Charter principles and their legal basis: principle 1

We shall now look in more detail at some of the laws that underpin the principles in the charter.

Human rights

First, we shall look at human rights laws – these provide the framework for the first principle of the charter, the right to life with dignity.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was one of the first documents to be recognised internationally. It is not legally binding in itself but it is still used as a source document for human rights law.

It outlines some fundamental principles of the law, about:

• equality
• non-discrimination
• civil society’s responsibility to maintain the social and international order

Note the reference to dignity in the quotation above, and to the underlying principle of equality.