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The United States Declaration of Independence states several group, or collective, rights of the people as well as the states, for example the Right of the People: "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it" and the right of the States: "... as Free and Independent ...
The document was structured by Cassin to include the basic principles of dignity, liberty, equality and brotherhood in the first two articles, followed successively by rights pertaining to individuals; rights of individuals in relation to each other and to groups; spiritual, public and political rights; and economic, social and cultural rights.
The main body of the Declaration forms the four columns. The first column (articles 3–11) constitutes rights of the individual, such as the right to life and the prohibition of slavery. The second column (articles 12–17) constitutes the rights of the individual in civil and political society.
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the state .
Human rights groups, civil rights organizations, and social critics have criticized the United States for violating fundamental human rights through the use of disproportionately heavy penalties compared to many other countries, overly long prison sentences, over-reliance on police control, excessive control of individual behavior, and societal ...
For example, workers who are members of a group such as a labor union can be thought of as having expanded individual rights because of their membership in the labor union, such as the rights to specific working conditions or wages. [citation needed] There can be tension between individual and group rights.
One example of procedural rights is formal equality of opportunity. [3] The substantive rights granted in a society are not universal and change over time, [4] also called human rights inflation. Frequently human rights are connected with the western interpretation of rights with Judeo-Christian and/or Enlightenment heritage. [5]
In particular, courts look to whether the right is "so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental." [14] Individual states may guarantee other rights as fundamental. That is, States may add to fundamental rights but can never diminish and rarely infringe upon fundamental rights by legislative processes.