I get goosebumps every time I open the Universal Declaration. It's the most important document in the world, while simultaneously outlining the massive failings of the UN, leading to thoughts of...
Exemplary
I get goosebumps every time I open the Universal Declaration. It's the most important document in the world, while simultaneously outlining the massive failings of the UN, leading to thoughts of what could have been instead of it.
The UN is the only body that lets countries legally help those who're brutalized by their own governments. This is the foundation of all those interventions.
This document was written after a world war had just taken place, showing all those horrors, the brutality and the treatment of people with differing politics, views, sometimes in the most brutal and immoral ways imaginable.
While society sure has developed since 1948, that founding principle of basic decency and rights due to being a human being and those rights being inalienable irrespective of actions/transactions, that is an insight built on the back of a total, world war that took tens of millions of lives.
In meeting holocaust survivors, WWII veterans, the blameless children of those who chose the wrong side in the war, those who fought for nazism, all those people say one thing:
If we compromise our values for the sake of expediency or practicality, or because we deem that others have lost their innate rights as human being due to their actions, we lose the moral legitimacy that underpins society, the rul:e of law and the legitimacy of how we run countries. Further, we enable bad societies to point fingers and say: "look, ____ developed and rich country does something somewhat similar which we'll construe to be exactly the same. Stay out of it, international society, these are our internal affairs"
If we argue that ignoring the inalienable rights all humans deserve is okay in certain circumstances, say it's necessary to reach certain (political) aims, we seriously denigrate and underestimate society.
Again, it's with mixed feelings I read the UDHR. It also shows all the things not protected, that leads to misery for millions all over the world.
How countries are free to brutalize their own populations without outside intervention from the rest of humanity. How democracy, or lack thereof, can leave millions out of luck, how we determine that they're stuck in their misery, how the weak organization of the UN gives too little room for sanction to stop the wrong happening in the world, how a few powerful countries can stop international intervention for selfish reasons and national aims.
The definitions of these rights are vague. The document is necessarily short and summary. That leads to misunderstanding and disagreement as counties and cultures view them to fit what they want, and view others' interpretations to be lacking.
It'd be very powerful if we'd at some point manage to create international consensus and legally binding definitions for many of these rights. That'd also require difficult deliberations where one must balance one of the universal rights against another of them.
I think the problem stems from bad-faith interpretations of what people's rights should be. The 10th amendment has it right...that just because some rights are listed doesn't preclude the people...
I think the problem stems from bad-faith interpretations of what people's rights should be.
The 10th amendment has it right...that just because some rights are listed doesn't preclude the people having more rights, and that they should have them by default.
That said, it's become blatantly obvious that too many powers that be are more concerned with consolidating power than helping and protecting people.
Short answer after taking a brief look: I don't know if I agree or not, because I haven't studied and don't understand the implications yet. To expand on that, it seems like there is a lot of...
Short answer after taking a brief look: I don't know if I agree or not, because I haven't studied and don't understand the implications yet.
To expand on that, it seems like there is a lot of abstract talk about rights from a moral perspective, but more concretely they are something granted as part of a set of rules, or part of a legal system. So for traffic law, we might talk about someone having "right of way" meaning that they get to go first in certain circumstances. This has some effect on what drivers do (to the extent that they follow the rules), and legally it means that if there is an accident, it plays a role in determining who is at fault.
But many times human rights are written in abstract language that makes it hard to figure out what they would mean in practice. So one approach would be to go through the list of rights and figure out what each one is supposed to imply for a nation's legal system.
So for example, I would guess that Article 1 means no slavery or apartheid, and yes that makes sense. I'm not sure if "equal in dignity and rights" is intended to be taken literally to say that people should actually have equal rights worldwide. In particular, it seems like it's probably not meant to imply open borders, which would be the case if everyone had the same rights when it comes to where they are legally allowed to live and work. (Article 13 would not be needed if that were the case.) In the next sentence, it's not obvious if "endowed with reason and conscience" or "spirit of brotherhood" are supposed imply anything about a nation's laws?
I could go through the others in a similar way, but it would take a while, and I'm not a human rights lawyer so I'm just guessing. Maybe there is an explanation somewhere about how they are usually interpreted?
I like how Article 29 covers basically anything I'd go "Yes, but..." to, expecting it to be like the American First Amendment which many take to imply similarly, but can be stretched as a...
I like how Article 29 covers basically anything I'd go "Yes, but..." to, expecting it to be like the American First Amendment which many take to imply similarly, but can be stretched as a justification for dangerous speech.
I'm a Social Democrat, I guess, in that I think the state should provide the basics for citizens, offer some control of the economy (to be determined as needed, basically), while still being democratic to maximize the liberty of the individual.
Are these rights owed by society to every person?
Yes. The only exception would be if somebody commits a crime that requires the temporarily revocation of one or more rights on a temporary basis, or permanently for the most severe (repeat offense after prosecution, large scale). If somebody tries to do harm to another country, their freedom of movement outside of their country should be restricted until they pose no risk. If they attempt to do significant harm to their country, their freedom of movement should be restricted in their country unntil they are no longer a threat.
I just happen to be taking a class on "Contemporary Moral Issues," with one of the textbooks being "Human Rights, a very short introduction," by Robert Clapham, who points out some issues with it, but I'll paraphrase and stretch a concern of his: Do you apply the rights to one culture, or as defined by each culture? What if there's a conflict between two cultures? There's not really a way to cover for this in the Declaration, but honestly, I don't think there's a way to go about solving this without forcing one culture on another anyway, except to leave it to global consensus to determine when to step in. It's also my understanding that this is what the United Nations exists for in the first place.
Looks good to me overall, I like article 23-24, there's some work to be done on those :
Looks good to me overall, I like article 23-24, there's some work to be done on those :
Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
I'd like an expansion of that: The primary purpose of work should be to improve everyone's environment and lives. So when technology makes work more efficient, that additional efficiency should be...
I'd like an expansion of that:
The primary purpose of work should be to improve everyone's environment and lives. So when technology makes work more efficient, that additional efficiency should be directed to expanded leisure, and not expanded work.
Leisure yields productive labor too. I would probably be more involved in community service if I had more free time to do so.
I get goosebumps every time I open the Universal Declaration. It's the most important document in the world, while simultaneously outlining the massive failings of the UN, leading to thoughts of what could have been instead of it.
The UN is the only body that lets countries legally help those who're brutalized by their own governments. This is the foundation of all those interventions.
This document was written after a world war had just taken place, showing all those horrors, the brutality and the treatment of people with differing politics, views, sometimes in the most brutal and immoral ways imaginable.
While society sure has developed since 1948, that founding principle of basic decency and rights due to being a human being and those rights being inalienable irrespective of actions/transactions, that is an insight built on the back of a total, world war that took tens of millions of lives.
In meeting holocaust survivors, WWII veterans, the blameless children of those who chose the wrong side in the war, those who fought for nazism, all those people say one thing:
If we compromise our values for the sake of expediency or practicality, or because we deem that others have lost their innate rights as human being due to their actions, we lose the moral legitimacy that underpins society, the rul:e of law and the legitimacy of how we run countries. Further, we enable bad societies to point fingers and say: "look, ____ developed and rich country does something somewhat similar which we'll construe to be exactly the same. Stay out of it, international society, these are our internal affairs"
If we argue that ignoring the inalienable rights all humans deserve is okay in certain circumstances, say it's necessary to reach certain (political) aims, we seriously denigrate and underestimate society.
Again, it's with mixed feelings I read the UDHR. It also shows all the things not protected, that leads to misery for millions all over the world.
How countries are free to brutalize their own populations without outside intervention from the rest of humanity. How democracy, or lack thereof, can leave millions out of luck, how we determine that they're stuck in their misery, how the weak organization of the UN gives too little room for sanction to stop the wrong happening in the world, how a few powerful countries can stop international intervention for selfish reasons and national aims.
The definitions of these rights are vague. The document is necessarily short and summary. That leads to misunderstanding and disagreement as counties and cultures view them to fit what they want, and view others' interpretations to be lacking.
It'd be very powerful if we'd at some point manage to create international consensus and legally binding definitions for many of these rights. That'd also require difficult deliberations where one must balance one of the universal rights against another of them.
I think the problem stems from bad-faith interpretations of what people's rights should be.
The 10th amendment has it right...that just because some rights are listed doesn't preclude the people having more rights, and that they should have them by default.
That said, it's become blatantly obvious that too many powers that be are more concerned with consolidating power than helping and protecting people.
Short answer after taking a brief look: I don't know if I agree or not, because I haven't studied and don't understand the implications yet.
To expand on that, it seems like there is a lot of abstract talk about rights from a moral perspective, but more concretely they are something granted as part of a set of rules, or part of a legal system. So for traffic law, we might talk about someone having "right of way" meaning that they get to go first in certain circumstances. This has some effect on what drivers do (to the extent that they follow the rules), and legally it means that if there is an accident, it plays a role in determining who is at fault.
But many times human rights are written in abstract language that makes it hard to figure out what they would mean in practice. So one approach would be to go through the list of rights and figure out what each one is supposed to imply for a nation's legal system.
So for example, I would guess that Article 1 means no slavery or apartheid, and yes that makes sense. I'm not sure if "equal in dignity and rights" is intended to be taken literally to say that people should actually have equal rights worldwide. In particular, it seems like it's probably not meant to imply open borders, which would be the case if everyone had the same rights when it comes to where they are legally allowed to live and work. (Article 13 would not be needed if that were the case.) In the next sentence, it's not obvious if "endowed with reason and conscience" or "spirit of brotherhood" are supposed imply anything about a nation's laws?
I could go through the others in a similar way, but it would take a while, and I'm not a human rights lawyer so I'm just guessing. Maybe there is an explanation somewhere about how they are usually interpreted?
I like how Article 29 covers basically anything I'd go "Yes, but..." to, expecting it to be like the American First Amendment which many take to imply similarly, but can be stretched as a justification for dangerous speech.
I'm a Social Democrat, I guess, in that I think the state should provide the basics for citizens, offer some control of the economy (to be determined as needed, basically), while still being democratic to maximize the liberty of the individual.
Yes. The only exception would be if somebody commits a crime that requires the temporarily revocation of one or more rights on a temporary basis, or permanently for the most severe (repeat offense after prosecution, large scale). If somebody tries to do harm to another country, their freedom of movement outside of their country should be restricted until they pose no risk. If they attempt to do significant harm to their country, their freedom of movement should be restricted in their country unntil they are no longer a threat.
I just happen to be taking a class on "Contemporary Moral Issues," with one of the textbooks being "Human Rights, a very short introduction," by Robert Clapham, who points out some issues with it, but I'll paraphrase and stretch a concern of his: Do you apply the rights to one culture, or as defined by each culture? What if there's a conflict between two cultures? There's not really a way to cover for this in the Declaration, but honestly, I don't think there's a way to go about solving this without forcing one culture on another anyway, except to leave it to global consensus to determine when to step in. It's also my understanding that this is what the United Nations exists for in the first place.
Looks good to me overall, I like article 23-24, there's some work to be done on those :
I'd like an expansion of that:
The primary purpose of work should be to improve everyone's environment and lives. So when technology makes work more efficient, that additional efficiency should be directed to expanded leisure, and not expanded work.
Leisure yields productive labor too. I would probably be more involved in community service if I had more free time to do so.