A/HRC/12/27 page 6 II. INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY AS A PRINCIPLE OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW A. Evolution, content, scope and nature of solidarity rights and obligations 10. Collective human rights were first advanced in the 1960s by the Non-Aligned Movement. The recognition of the right of peoples to self-determination reshaped the destiny of the international community of States, international law and relations. The extension of peoples’ rights to include more categories was meant to be effected through the elevation of the duty to cooperate to achieve the objectives of the Charter of the United Nations, in combination with an emerging principle of solidarity. In this way, the correlative duties implicit in human rights were supposed to be transformed into concrete obligations.1 These initiatives reached their high point in the 1970s, when a range of peoples’ rights were enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which contained various relevant binding legal obligations. Subsequent efforts saw the recognition of, inter alia, the rights to development, peace and environment, and those of minorities and indigenous peoples. The emerging principle underscored the recognition of several other rights; some of such other rights were entrenched in treaty provisions, and continued to evolve as reflected in law, policy and practice. Accordingly, the principle of international solidarity is itself well established. 11. Peoples’ rights are firmly established in international law.2 Referred to also as solidarity or third-generation rights, they have become a legal norm in human rights law. They are embodied in both hard- and soft-law instruments; with regard to the latter, the challenge is in the effective implementation and enforcement of norms. Soft-law norms need to progressively develop into hard law in the processes involved in the making of international law. Solidarity rights are conceived of as a product of social history, with the understanding that, with time, within the international community, new, justified claims will arise and need to be addressed and adjudicated to provide a higher level of protection to people. Rather than operating through the empowerment of the individual, collective rights function at a societal level to assure public benefits that can only be enjoyed in common with similarly situated individuals, but that cannot be fulfilled solely through individual rights mechanisms. Collective rights have proven effective in shifting the balance of power in international relations, creating widely recognized, if not always realized, entitlements in international law and responding to the societal effects of globalization.3 In the multiple crisis situations of today’s world, the importance of solidarity rights is phenomenal. Human rights, which are by nature dynamic and constantly evolving, need to accommodate new rights, just as each generation should contribute to their evolution, in keeping with the aspirations and values of the time. 1 P. Alston (ed.), Peoples Rights, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001. 2 J. Crawford, “Some conclusions”, in James Crawford (ed.), The Rights of Peoples, 1988. 3 B.M. Meier, “Advancing health rights in a globalized world: responding to globalization, through a collective human right to public health”, 35 Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 2007.