A human rights act is a statute that sets out individual rights and freedoms under the law. Many jurisdictions have bills of rights enshrined into law and called the "Human Rights Act". This naming convention is commonly used in Commonwealth nations. The following nations have human rights acts:
Australia
- ACT Human Rights Act 2004
- Victoria Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2004
Canada
- Canadian Human Rights Act, 1977
- Human Rights Act 2003, an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut
Republic of Ireland
- European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003
New Zealand
- Human Rights Act 1993
United Kingdom
- Human Rights Act 1998
United States
- DC Human Rights Act 1997
Famous quotes containing the words rights act, human, rights and/or act:
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)
“How has the human spirit ever survived the terrific literature with which it has had to contend?”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)