Declarations and Foundational Rights Instruments

Formal declarations that assert a right, a freedom or a break from an existing authority without themselves constituting a new government's full architecture, including the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the two 1966 international human rights covenants, and the Emancipation Proclamation, a unilateral executive proclamation extending a foundational right rather than a legislature-adopted declaration, filed here as the nearest fit for its declarative character rather than given its own single-member bucket. Belongs here: a text whose primary act is asserting or extending a right or a claim of independence. Does not belong here: a text that itself sets up a government's ongoing institutions, grouped under Constitutions and Founding Charters, or a right-bearing instrument agreed between states as a binding international convention, grouped under Treaties and International Agreements.