Human rights are internationally agreed values, standards or rules regulating the conduct of states towards their own citizens and towards non-citizens. Human rights are, in the words of the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 'a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.' These rules, which states have imposed upon themselves , serve to restrict the freedom of states to act towards their entire population : Citizens as well non-citizens, men as well as women /adults as well as children, whites and nonwhites, believers, married persons and the unmarried , heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. The situation is different from the past, when states, or rather their princes.