The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN sixty years ago this week. Today, as a member of Amnesty International, I helped out at a petition tabling in Balfour, and some interesting discussions and arguments began, especially when I spoke with certain members of this class.
I don’t necessarily agree with everything Amnesty International does, or how we go about things. As for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I have a few problems with it. I know it can’t technically be “universal.” I have a lot of issues with the UN in general, actually. There is also the problem of mixing things that are human rights with things that should, by nature, be civil rights, which the Declaration does.
That being said, I think that most of the values the document lays out are still a significant part of our global society. These rights should be common sense. People should be treated equally. They should not be tortured or enslaved. It’s all quite simple, really. It goes back to the concept of “Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.” Yet we see the UDHR violated every day. We see political prisoners and torture, and we see people being denied basic rights that make us human.
To be honest, I have no clue how to fix these problems, and stop the horrors caused by violators. And I don’t think anyone does have a perfect solution, because no matter what we do, we will be encroaching on the rights of governments to make decisions for themselves.
If we do find a way to overcome these obstacles, I believe we should find an alternative to the UDHR. I think it’s a good way to take a stand against issues like torture, but it still has problems. Right now, it seems like it is merely symbolic. Even a revision might be helpful. Until then, I believe it is the best we can do for a temporary stand for human rights.
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As a member of Amnesty International myself, I understand the significance of this event. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a critical step towards the promotion and advocacy for international concensus on the status of human rights and the definition of crimes against them. However, the critical flaw in this document is that there cannot be full support for it - there are too many aspects of it that people won't agree with on varying levels. A declaration is something that (nearly) everyone has to disagree with - and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has components to it that people will disagree (one notably being Amnesty International's advocacy for abolishing the death penalty - an issue of which many disagree).
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