Universal Human Rights v Civil Liberties Approaches

When people first encounter Rights Aotearoa, they sometimes ask why we frame our work around universal human rights rather than civil liberties. It's a very fair question, particularly in a context where civil liberties organisations have done vital work protecting free speech, due process, and privacy. But the distinction matters profoundly—not as an academic exercise, but as a question of who gets protected and what justice actually looks like in Aotearoa.

The civil liberties framework asks a crucial but inherently limited question: what can't the government do to me? It focuses on negative rights—freedoms from interference, restraint, and persecution. These protections are essential. The right to criticise the state without arrest, to protest without repression, to receive a fair trial—these civil and political liberties form the bedrock of democratic society. Civil liberties organisations have defended these freedoms admirably, and their work remains vital.

But an approach based on universal human rights asks a fundamentally different question: what does every person need to live with dignity? This framework recognises that freedom from government interference means little when you're sleeping in a car, when your children go hungry, when untreated mental illness leaves you unable to function, or when systemic discrimination denies you opportunities available to others. Thinking in terms of universal human rights encompasses civil and political liberties, but it doesn't stop there. It insists that economic, social, and cultural rights are equally fundamental and indivisible from civil liberties.

This distinction becomes concrete in Aotearoa's context. When we consider housing, a civil liberties lens might ensure that eviction processes follow proper legal procedures. A universal human rights lens asks whether people have adequate housing in the first place—recognising that shelter isn't a commodity but a fundamental right. When many New Zealanders lack stable housing, procedural fairness in evictions doesn't address the underlying violation of human dignity.

The difference manifests starkly in how we approach systemic inequality. Civil liberties frameworks tend to treat rights violations as isolated incidents requiring individual remedies. Universal human rights recognise structural injustice. When Māori are disproportionately represented in our prison population, when Pasifika children experience poverty at three times the rate of Pākehā children, when rainbow rangatahi face dramatically higher rates of self-harm and suicide—these aren't isolated failures of procedural fairness. They're symptoms of systems that perpetuate inequality, and they require structural transformation, not just better processes.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi itself demonstrates why the universal human rights framework better serves Aotearoa. Te Tiriti isn't merely a civil liberties document establishing procedural protections. It's a human rights framework that establishes partnership, guarantees tino rangatiratanga, and recognises cultural rights as fundamental. A civil liberties approach struggles to engage meaningfully with Treaty obligations because it lacks the vocabulary for collective rights, self-determination, and positive obligations to address historical injustice. Universal human rights provide that vocabulary through frameworks like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirm rights to cultural preservation, control over traditional territories, and genuine self-determination.

The limits of civil liberties thinking become particularly evident in debates affecting trans, non-binary, and intersex communities. When Alex died and RNZ's coverage was challenged, a civil liberties framework centres narrow questions about RNZ's speech rights and procedural questions. But universal human rights asks different, more fundamental questions: Was Alex's inherent dignity respected? Were his rights to identity, health, and non-discrimination upheld? Did media coverage reinforce harmful narratives that contribute to systemic discrimination? One framework protects process. The other protects people.

Economic and social rights take on particular urgency in our current moment. When working families rely on food banks, when rangatahi wait months for mental health support, when disabled people face barriers to full participation, when climate change threatens Pacific communities—these are human rights crises that demand comprehensive responses. A civil liberties framework lacks the tools to address them because it conceptualises rights primarily as shields against government action rather than as affirmative obligations requiring state action to fulfil.

This isn't to diminish civil liberties work. Protecting free expression, ensuring fair trials, and guarding against surveillance overreach remain essential. Rights Aotearoa absolutely defends these freedoms. But we situate them within a broader framework that recognises human dignity requires more than the absence of persecution. It requires access to healthcare, education, housing, and cultural participation. It requires addressing systemic discrimination, not just ensuring procedural fairness. It requires positive obligations on the state to create conditions where all people can flourish.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 with New Zealand's active support, rejected the artificial separation between civil-political and economic-social-cultural rights. It recognised what lived experience confirms: these rights are interdependent and indivisible. You cannot meaningfully exercise freedom of expression when poverty consumes your energy. You cannot participate politically when discrimination excludes you from education. You cannot live with dignity when systemic inequality denies you basic security.

Rights Aotearoa centres universal human rights because this framework aligns with both international standards and our bicultural foundation. It provides tools for addressing systemic inequality, honouring Te Tiriti, and defending the full range of rights—civil, political, economic, social, and cultural—that human dignity requires. It demands not just that the state refrain from violation, but that it actively work to fulfil rights and address structural injustice.

In a time of rising authoritarianism globally and persistent inequality locally, we need frameworks adequate to the challenges we face. Civil liberties remain vital, but insufficient. Thinking in terms of universal human rights offers the comprehensive approach Aotearoa needs—one that protects liberties while also demanding justice, that restrains state power while also requiring state action, that defends individual freedom while also recognising collective rights.

This is why Rights Aotearoa chooses universal human rights. Not as an abstract principle, but as a practical commitment to defending the dignity of every person in Aotearoa.