There are several categories of human rights. Sometimes these are referred to as 'generations' of human rights. Initially human rights were considered to be claims for non-intervention by governments in the lives of citizens. This first category or generation of rights came to be known collectively as civil and political rights. Subsequently, human rights were also regarded as claims for positive intervention of government in order to correct social injustice. This second category of rights came to be known as economic, social and cultural rights.
These two categories of rights are considered to be 'indivisible' and 'interdependent'. In other words, the protection of one category of rights is dependent upon the protection of the other.
This concept is embodied in the Preambles to the two International Covenants: On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and on Civil and Political Rights. For example, the third paragraph of the Preamble to the latter Covenant states that, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "the ideal of free human beings enjoining civil and political freedom and freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his civil and political rights as well as his economic, social and cultural rights".
The rights in each of these categories of rights are 'individual rights' that is to say, they inhere to individual people. The third category of rights- collective rights- is now also recognized.
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