Suleiman Usman Santuraki

One of the purposes of the United Nations as proclaimed by the UN Charter is to promote and encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.1 Soon after the introduction of human rights into international discourse through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the ideological divide between the West and the East found its way into negotiations for a framework towards recognition and protection.2 This divide resulted in the creation of a dichotomy of human rights along the existing Cold War groupings with the traditional West placing emphasis on civil and political rights and the East showing a preference for economic, social and cultural rights. With the emergence of the global South, a third category of human rights now known as collective or group rights entered into the picture.3