Which of the following bodies is a constitutional body rather than a statutory one?

National Commission for Scheduled Tribes

Assertion (A): The recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission are binding on the government. Reason (R): The Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 requires the government to report to the Commission the action taken on its recommendations. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Under section 36(2) of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993, the Commission shall not inquire into a matter after the expiry of:

One year from the date of the alleged act

Three years from the date of the complaint

Six months from the date of the alleged act

Five years from the date of the alleged act

One year from the date of the alleged act

Which of the following form part of the International Bill of Rights? Select all that apply.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Convention on the Rights of the Child

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Which instrument states that "all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated"?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

Which of the following statements about the National Human Rights Commission after the 2019 amendment are correct? Select all that apply.

It may inquire into violations on its own motion

A person who has been a judge of the Supreme Court, not only a former Chief Justice of India, may be its Chairperson

It may directly investigate complaints against the armed forces and order prosecution

Its members are appointed by the Chief Justice of India

It may inquire into violations on its own motion

A person who has been a judge of the Supreme Court, not only a former Chief Justice of India, may be its Chairperson

Assertion (A): The obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are generally realised progressively. Reason (R): Article 2(1) of the ICESCR requires each State to take steps to the maximum of its available resources with a view to achieving progressively the full realisation of the rights. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

The National Commission for Backward Classes acquired constitutional status through:

The 102nd Amendment (2018), inserting Article 338B

The 105th Amendment (2021), inserting Article 338C

The 102nd Amendment (2018), inserting Article 338B

The 42nd Amendment (1976), inserting Article 338

The 89th Amendment (2003), inserting Article 338A

Human Rights Law: Concept and Development, Universalism and Cultural Relativism, the International Bill of Rights, Group Rights, and Protection and Enforcement in India

Unit VIII's items 6 to 10 concern human rights: their concept and development, the debate between universalism and cultural relativism, the International Bill of Rights, the rights of groups (women, children, persons with disabilities, elderly persons, minorities and weaker sections), and the institutions that protect and enforce human rights in India. The last item names six bodies, and they differ in a way examiners test closely: the National Human Rights Commission, the National Commission for Minorities and the National Commission for Women are statutory, while the Commissions for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes are constitutional.

1. Concept and development of human rights

Human rights are the rights a person has simply by being human: universal, inalienable, indivisible and grounded in the inherent dignity of the person. Their intellectual roots are in natural-law and natural-rights thought (Locke's life, liberty and property), and their legal history runs through Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and Bill of Rights (1791), and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789). After the Second World War the Charter of the United Nations (1945) made the promotion of human rights a purpose of the Organisation, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights followed in 1948.

The three generations of human rights
Generation (Karel Vasak, 1977)	Content	Linked value
First	Civil and political rights: life, liberty, fair trial, expression, religion, participation; mainly negative duties of restraint on the State	Liberty
Second	Economic, social and cultural rights: work, social security, health, education, an adequate standard of living; positive duties realised progressively	Equality
Third	Solidarity or collective rights: development, peace, a healthy environment, self-determination	Fraternity

⚠️ Generations do not mean hierarchy

Vasak's scheme describes the historical order in which rights were recognised, not their relative importance. The Vienna Declaration (1993) insists that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated, and must be treated in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing and with the same emphasis.

2. Universalism and cultural relativism

Universalism holds that human rights apply to every person everywhere because they derive from a common human dignity. Cultural relativism holds that rights and values are shaped by particular cultures, so that a single standard may impose one culture's values on others. The American Anthropological Association's Statement on Human Rights (1947), submitted while the Universal Declaration was being drafted, warned against a declaration conceived only in terms of Western values. At the regional preparatory meeting for the 1993 World Conference, the Bangkok Declaration of Asian States accepted universality but asked that human rights be considered in the context of national and regional particularities and different historical, cultural and religious backgrounds.

The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993) answered both positions in its fifth paragraph: the significance of national and regional particularities and of various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, but it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms. Jack Donnelly's "relative universality" states the common middle ground: the core of rights is universal, while the forms in which they are implemented may vary.

💡 A common grammar, many languages

Relative universality treats human rights like a grammar that every language must obey (no torture, no slavery, fair trial) while allowing each society its own vocabulary for expressing and implementing them. Strong relativism would deny the common grammar; strong universalism would insist on a single vocabulary.

3. The International Bill of Rights

The instruments of the International Bill of Rights
Instrument	Adopted and in force	Key features
Universal Declaration of Human Rights	Adopted by the General Assembly on 10 December 1948 (resolution 217A) in Paris, with no votes against and eight abstentions	Thirty articles covering both civil and political and economic and social rights; not a treaty, but many of its provisions are regarded as customary law; drafted by a commission chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, with Hansa Mehta of India securing the wording "all human beings are born free and equal"
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights	Adopted 16 December 1966; in force 1976	Immediate obligations; monitored by the Human Rights Committee; the First Optional Protocol (1966) allows individual complaints and the Second Optional Protocol (1989) aims at abolition of the death penalty
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights	Adopted 16 December 1966; in force 1976	Progressive realisation to the maximum of available resources (Article 2(1)); monitored by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; an Optional Protocol of 2008 allows communications

India acceded to both Covenants on 10 April 1979, with declarations, but has not joined either Optional Protocol to the ICCPR or the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR.
The Human Rights Council, created in 2006 to replace the Commission on Human Rights (1946), reviews every UN member through the Universal Periodic Review; the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was created in 1993 after the Vienna Conference.
Part III of the Indian Constitution corresponds broadly to the ICCPR and Part IV to the ICESCR, and the courts have read Covenant rights into Article 21 where domestic law is silent.

🧠 Declaration, Covenants, Protocols

The International Bill of Rights is the Universal Declaration (1948) plus the two Covenants (1966) and the ICCPR's Optional Protocols. The year pairs to remember are 1948 for the Declaration and 1966 adopted, 1976 in force for the Covenants.

4. Group rights

Group rights: international and Indian law
Group	International instrument	Indian law
Women	Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979); India ratified in 1993	Articles 14, 15(3) and 16; the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005; the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2013; Vishaka (1997) read CEDAW into Article 21
Children	Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989); India acceded in 1992	Articles 21A, 24 and 39(e) and (f); the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009; POCSO 2012; the Juvenile Justice Act 2015; the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act 2005
Persons with disabilities	Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006); India ratified in 2007	The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016, which recognises 21 specified disabilities and reserves 4 per cent of government posts for persons with benchmark disabilities
Elderly persons	UN Principles for Older Persons (1991); Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (2002); no dedicated treaty	Article 41; the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007
Minorities	Article 27 of the ICCPR; the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992)	Articles 29 and 30; the National Commission for Minorities Act 1992
Weaker sections	International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965); India ratified in 1968; UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)	Articles 17 and 46; the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989; the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019 after NALSA v Union of India (2014)

🎯 Why group rights sit uneasily with individual rights

Some group rights protect individuals because of a shared vulnerability (women, children, persons with disabilities); others protect the group as such (a minority's right to run its educational institutions under Article 30). The second kind can conflict with the rights of individual members, which is why courts insist that group autonomy be exercised consistently with fundamental rights.

5. Protection and enforcement of human rights in India

The Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 defines human rights (section 2(1)(d)) as the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants and enforceable by courts in India. The National Human Rights Commission, constituted on 12 October 1993, is chaired, since the 2019 amendment, by a person who has been Chief Justice of India or a judge of the Supreme Court. Its members are appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee headed by the Prime Minister, which includes the Speaker, the Union Home Minister, the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. It inquires into violations on petition or on its own motion (section 12), may intervene in court proceedings, visit prisons and review safeguards, and makes recommendations, which are not binding (section 18). It cannot inquire into a matter more than one year after the alleged act (section 36(2)), and for the armed forces it may only seek a report from the Central Government (section 19). The Act also provides for State Human Rights Commissions and Human Rights Courts.

The six national bodies named in the syllabus
Body	Basis	Status
National Human Rights Commission	Protection of Human Rights Act 1993	Statutory
National Commission for Minorities	National Commission for Minorities Act 1992; the notified minorities are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis (1993) and Jains (2014)	Statutory
National Commission for Women	National Commission for Women Act 1990; constituted on 31 January 1992	Statutory
National Commission for Scheduled Castes	Article 338; a separate Commission since the Eighty-ninth Amendment (2003) bifurcated the earlier combined body	Constitutional
National Commission for Scheduled Tribes	Article 338A, inserted by the Eighty-ninth Amendment (2003)	Constitutional
National Commission for Backward Classes	Article 338B, inserted by the 102nd Amendment (2018); the 105th Amendment (2021) restored the States' power to prepare their own lists of socially and educationally backward classes	Constitutional (the earlier Commission, set up in 1993, was statutory)

⚠️ NHRC recommendations are not binding

The Commission can recommend compensation, prosecution or other action, and the government must report what it has done, but it cannot enforce its recommendations. The chairpersons of the other national commissions, including those for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, Minorities, Women and Children, and the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, are deemed members of the NHRC for specified functions.

Key takeaways

Human rights run from Magna Carta (1215) to the UN Charter (1945); Vasak's three generations are civil-political, socio-economic and solidarity rights, all indivisible under the Vienna Declaration (1993).
Relativism (the 1947 anthropologists' statement; the Bangkok Declaration of 1993) against universalism is answered by paragraph 5 of the Vienna Declaration and Donnelly's relative universality.
International Bill of Rights: UDHR (10 December 1948, thirty articles) and the ICCPR and ICESCR (adopted 1966, in force 1976); India acceded to both in 1979 but to none of the Optional Protocols.
Group rights: CEDAW (1979), CRC (1989), CRPD (2006) with the RPwD Act 2016, ICERD (1965) and the Senior Citizens Act 2007.
NHRC (1993) is statutory with non-binding recommendations and a one-year limit; NCM (1992) and NCW (1990) are statutory; NCSC (Art. 338), NCST (Art. 338A) and NCBC (Art. 338B) are constitutional.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly on:
1. 24 October 1945
2. 10 December 1948
3. 12 October 1993
4. 16 December 1966
Show answer
Answer: B — 10 December 1948
The UDHR was adopted in Paris on 10 December 1948, now observed as Human Rights Day. The Charter entered into force on 24 October 1945, the Covenants were adopted on 16 December 1966, and the NHRC was constituted on 12 October 1993.
Which of the following bodies is a constitutional body rather than a statutory one?
1. National Commission for Scheduled Tribes
2. National Commission for Women
3. National Human Rights Commission
4. National Commission for Minorities
Show answer
Answer: A — National Commission for Scheduled Tribes
The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes rests on Article 338A. The NHRC (Protection of Human Rights Act 1993), NCW (1990 Act) and NCM (1992 Act) are statutory bodies.
Assertion (A): The recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission are binding on the government. Reason (R): The Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 requires the government to report to the Commission the action taken on its recommendations. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: D — A is false, but R is true
A is false: under section 18 the Commission recommends compensation, prosecution or other steps, but its recommendations have no binding force. R is true: the government must forward its comments and the action taken, which the Commission may publish; that duty to report is the Act's substitute for enforceability.
Under section 36(2) of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993, the Commission shall not inquire into a matter after the expiry of:
1. Three years from the date of the complaint
2. Six months from the date of the alleged act
3. Five years from the date of the alleged act
4. One year from the date of the alleged act
Show answer
Answer: D — One year from the date of the alleged act
The Commission cannot inquire into any matter after one year from the date on which the act constituting the alleged violation was committed. The other periods are not in the Act.
Which of the following form part of the International Bill of Rights? Select all that apply.
1. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
2. The Convention on the Rights of the Child
3. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
4. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Show answer
Answer: A — The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; C — The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; D — The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The International Bill of Rights comprises the UDHR, the ICCPR with its Optional Protocols, and the ICESCR. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) is a core human rights treaty but a separate, group-specific instrument.
Which instrument states that "all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated"?
1. The Charter of the United Nations (1945)
2. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
3. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993)
4. The Bangkok Declaration (1993)
Show answer
Answer: C — The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993)
Paragraph 5 of the Vienna Declaration contains this formula and adds that particularities must be borne in mind but States must protect all rights. The Bangkok Declaration stressed regional particularities; the UDHR and the Charter predate the formula.
Which of the following statements about the National Human Rights Commission after the 2019 amendment are correct? Select all that apply.
1. It may directly investigate complaints against the armed forces and order prosecution
2. Its members are appointed by the Chief Justice of India
3. It may inquire into violations on its own motion
4. A person who has been a judge of the Supreme Court, not only a former Chief Justice of India, may be its Chairperson
Show answer
Answer: C — It may inquire into violations on its own motion; D — A person who has been a judge of the Supreme Court, not only a former Chief Justice of India, may be its Chairperson
The 2019 amendment widened eligibility for the chair, and section 12 allows suo motu inquiries. For the armed forces the Commission may only seek a report from the Central Government (section 19), and members are appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee headed by the Prime Minister.
Assertion (A): The obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are generally realised progressively. Reason (R): Article 2(1) of the ICESCR requires each State to take steps to the maximum of its available resources with a view to achieving progressively the full realisation of the rights. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A. The progressive-realisation clause in Article 2(1) is why ICESCR obligations are described as progressive, in contrast to the ICCPR's immediate obligation to respect and ensure rights.
The National Commission for Backward Classes acquired constitutional status through:
1. The 105th Amendment (2021), inserting Article 338C
2. The 102nd Amendment (2018), inserting Article 338B
3. The 42nd Amendment (1976), inserting Article 338
4. The 89th Amendment (2003), inserting Article 338A
Show answer
Answer: B — The 102nd Amendment (2018), inserting Article 338B
The 102nd Amendment inserted Article 338B in 2018. The 89th Amendment created Article 338A for Scheduled Tribes, the 105th Amendment restored the States' power over their backward-class lists (there is no Article 338C), and Article 338 is original.
How many articles does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contain? Type the number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 30
The UDHR has thirty articles: civil and political rights largely in Articles 3 to 21, and economic, social and cultural rights in Articles 22 to 27, with duties and limitations in Article 29.