Human rights in the Middle East

The functioning of human rights in the Middle Eastern States has been affected by the colonial expansion into the Middle East in the late nineteenth and twentieth Century. The 2004 UN Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) claims that although Arab-Islamic tradition does hold unique importance for ideas of human welfare, history has proven that "they were not sufficiently prevalent in society to foster a culture based on a political contract, and allow for the legitimacy of differences of opinion, dialogue and transfer of power." Issues of good governance, the validity of democracy in the region and human rights are at the very centre of the challenges facing Middle Eastern society today.

In 1948 Egypt, Iran and Pakistan signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Saudi Arabia did not arguing that it "failed to take into consideration the cultural and religious context of non-Western countries."

The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam was adopted by 45 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in August 1990. This declaration undermines many of the rights the UDHR guarantees allowing all the member states to abide by a set of human rights based on Shari'a law. For example, Article 18 of the UDHR establishes that everyone has the "right to freedom of religion, freedom to change his religion and freedom to manifest his religion in teaching, practice, worship and observance". Article 10 of the CDHRI establishes that "It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism."

The Arab Human Rights Committee, was established in 2009 to oversee compliance with the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which entered into force in March 2008. As of the beginning of October 2009, ten Arab states ratified the Arab Charter on Human Rights. These are: Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. As of February 2015, another four States ratified the Arab Charter. These were: Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Sudan, and Yemen. The Charter creates a process through which the Committee receives and reviews state reports and makes recommendations as appropriate. The Charter does not provide for a complaints mechanism.

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