WHAT ABOUT THE UDHR?

16/4/2020

Use this post to share your first thoughts/insights about the UDHR.
The guiding questions below might help you, but feel free to add any relevant ideas that occur to you (examples you think about, ideas from your life, other connections to the course, opinion on their relevance etc)

What are your first thoughts on reading the declaration?
Do you think it is an important document? A necessary document? An effective document?
Are there any rights you feel should not be included? Any that have been missed out?

10 Comments

JiWon

17/4/2020 08:16:12 am

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important document as many governments of states who are the members of the UN commit themselves and their people to progressive measures that secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the human rights set out in the Declaration. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional, sub-national, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.

However, the members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah", without any discrimination on grounds of "race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations". The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is criticised to be written with an alleged Western bias. In other words, the declaration was written without any cultural, religious context of other parts of the world than the West. The declaration also as ambiguity in some articles. For example, Article 5 states that: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." It is not specified what “cruel”, “inhuman” or “degrading” treatments or punishments are. Additionally, the declaration does not take an explicit stance on the death penalty.

Jaehyuk Choi

17/4/2020 08:42:45 am

Scribble of ideas

Article 1
How much is this relevant in states that acknowledges the royal family. For example, in UK there are many privileges that the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II can enjoy. It is possible to view this as a discrimination as the royal family is under special laws, different to the public.

Article 3
This could be connect to the abortion issue: right of the unborn, but a living baby.

Article 5
Torture is still in practice. It is tacitly used in many information agencies to eliminate potential national security threats especially when it is related to an urgent matter.

Article 9
To what extent does arbitrary mean? In reality in Korea, individual prosecutors are considered as a small judicial agencies themselves, having the right to investigate, prosecute, and execute to certain level.

Article 14
The 2015 and 2016 Refugee crisis in Europe well shows the irony. Although migration is said to be a universal individual right, there was many cases that opposed this view.

Article 19 and 20
Free speech and hate speech issue in America. The initial free speech concept assumes that individuals are responsible and rationale debaters. However, this was not always the case.
Also the view of protecting hate speech - asserting that it was part of the US's constitutional nature and foundation - can be related.

Article 23
People does not get paid equally for identical labor. There are geographical and demo graphical reasons. For example, in Vietnam, people who work in convenient stores as a part time job will get paid less compared to those who work in the US.

Min Seo Peter Kim

17/4/2020 08:47:23 am

It is evident from reading the UDHR document that it was not intended to be a legal document by any means. The declaration is full of value judgements and language which can either be challenged or interpreted in various manners. Article 30 seems to somewhat reaffirm this fact as its existence implies the existence of loopholes within the declaration and the potential for states to interpret them in a way which justifies atrocities.

The document does not, at least for me, seem effective or necessary by any means. The limitations that follow it being a declaration rather than a codified set of legal statements means that application cannot be overseen by the UN. Furthermore, it is generally the case that states have their own constitutions meaning that they have their own maxims on the nature of human rights. So in essence, the UN has created an unenforceable, unnecessary set of standards that has little to no practical use. One area it can be thought as useful however, is in inter-state discipline. While there are no 'legal' grounds on which the UN is able to enforce these grounds, I can imagine that it might be used as justification for certain states choosing to intervene in the internal affairs of other states and can form the basis of a state's justifications for exerting its 'responsibility to protect'.

Minseo Daniel Kim

17/4/2020 08:57:53 am

My initial thoughts on reading the declaration were that the UNDHR covered many of the crucial aspects of human rights that states must uphold and it was a relief that the UNDHR was an established rule for the United Nations, a IGO receiving support from several states. Its significance and influence is therefore widespread and obvious yet this might be the very reason why states have found methods to interpret them in negative ways.
One concern was Article 5, where the language used could be interpreted in a wide spectrum, the words of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of punishment could differ from state to state and ultimately with state sovereignty still powerful in global politics, states are prevented from directly interfering with other states when faced inhuman acts based on their own state's standard. Rights between states like Article 14 are also open to interpretation and it must be notified that powerful states usually take benefit in a conflict between states.

Lucy

19/4/2020 07:44:10 pm

From reading the UDHR document, I had an unexpected reaction of disappointment. Albeit this declaration consists of all human rights that should be given to humans, the sheer irony of how this declaration is ineffective by any means caused some chagrins. First of all, it is clear that this declaration has values, clauses and judgement that is evidently necessary to society, yet every single one of these articles is challenged by participants of the United Nations. These acts have established the existence of loopholes within the declaration.

In my opinion, enforcing this declaration is wishful thinking. Of course, it is something that humans should strive to accomplish, yet in the current state, what I could say is that it is ineffective due to its limitations. Article 5 states that No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Yet, the United States, Iraq, China, and countless government pinheads have tortured their prisoners as a mean of getting information. Furthermore, article 7 states that All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. However, recent times have shown us the opposite, where people of different ethnicities, especially dark-skinned individuals are more likely to be arrested for no particular reasons, where police officers would find anything as an act of aggression. Every country violates almost all articles. What I mean to say is that if this declaration is effective, there wouldn’t be so many cases of racism, of sexism, of discriminatory acts against different races. Bared to the most fundamental concept, it is near impossible to force humans to follow a declaration without a legally binding agreement; hence even if this were legally binding, most people would act out of fear of violating the laws rather than out of the kindness of their heart. In essence, this declaration is an unenforceable and ineffective set of standards that serves no real purpose as no one follows it. I want to be more optimistic, but I have a pessimistic view which I believe to be more realistic. Humans are selfish, and sadly, stereotypes would always exist so whichever way possible, the world needs to come up with an idea to enforce human rights.

Heewon

19/4/2020 08:02:18 pm

"As a common standard for all, to keep this in mind, to teach and promote these rights, to secure their universal recognition." As far as I am concerned, this declaration does not intend to serve as a legal document in the first place, but aims to be an assembled list that reminds the people and the states to secure the rights and to endow significance to each of them. So at first sight I wondered the necessity of categorizing each of the rights separately in detail, but now I think it is effective in fulfilling its purpose and also necessary because an universal aggregation is always needed in effectively dealing a shared issue, and it holds significance by its existence. However, I think it could be more expanded from this version, referring to the more technically advanced age; it is in some way included in one of the articles by its wording, but I think it could put more emphasis on the expression of gender identity, protection of privacy on the internet, and the right to access the uncensored/unmonitored truth from the press(and the internet, which also leads to limiting oppressive/concentrated power).

Jerry

19/4/2020 11:14:38 pm

What are your first thoughts on reading the declaration? Do you think it is an important document? A necessary document? An effective document?

After having a thorough read of the UDHR, one should be aware that the document is of great significance and necessity for a 'liberal world order' to be established. The liberal world order that I refer to is the establishment of international peace and cooperation, built upon the pillars of 'liberal' values, including universalism, R2P, democracies and so on, which encourage influences of civic societies and non-state actors to grow, within the global community.

This is evident in the phrase "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations", hinting that the very document would be used for the purpose of assessing nations by a single criterion.

On the other hand, the document, of course, is limited in a sense that it is in no way legally binding or 'oppressive', as the intention of its creation is not to spread liberal democracies and values of human rights via wielding hard power, but to act as a model for nations to follow and encourage them to establish legal systems of similar values for the people under their jurisdiction - demonstration of soft power.

SUIN

20/4/2020 01:10:33 pm

I believe that the primary purpose of the state is and must be about providing protection and security for the people within the state, no matter what their race, religion, or belief is. However, discrimination and ethnic cleansing still occur in the different parts of the world, and the fact that the UN is not taking enough actions supports the realist view, where states are the only and primary actor. This is quite disappointing, considering that our rights cannot be sufficiently protected as it is not a legally binding document.

Gabriel

21/4/2020 09:34:20 pm

Every single one of the UDHR's articles, each one containing a different human right to be upheld, is necessary in order to achieving advanced living standards. However, each article also reminds me of how far the global community is from reaching such goals; serious human rights violations which have been with us for centuries, such as slavery and torture, still remain an unsolved mission for member states, let alone the right to leisure (article 24). The fact that it remains a 'declaration' without any legally binding power, severely limits the effectiveness of the document, as it merely becomes a list of 'hopeful thoughts' written in a paper without any way to enforce it.
Then again, one must realise that the United Nations itself is built upon the foundations of trust and cooperation - no direct form of punishment/enforcement exists for any of the resolutions of the organisation. Even the Security Council resort to indirect forms of punishment, including condemnation and sanctions, for most of the time.
The crux of the matter is that the nature of dealing with international issues which involve multiple state actors - all of whom have different interests - require a relatively steady, lenient approach, in order to promote state sovereignty and cooperation simultaneously. Hence, the significance or value of the UDHR should not be undermined for its ineffectiveness, as it acts as a touchstone for actions by all countries; its unrivaled moral and political authority makes it one of the most important documents of the 20th century.

Kae

23/4/2020 12:16:14 pm

Initially I thought that UDHR is one of the most important document due to its profound impact on the development of human rights treaties such as the International Convention on the elimination of racial discrimination (1965). However, after a second reading, I have thought of several issues.

Firstly, the ‘universality’ of human rights is still questioned due to the nature of UDHR itself. Firstly, the problem lies with the nature of UDHR itself and the ineffectiveness of the treaty. Since it is the UDHR was formed as a ‘declaration’ rather than a law or a treaty, the UN cannot directly create legal obligations for the states nor possess legal power to punish the transgressors. Due to this, many cases of violation of human rights remain unsolved ranging from illiteracy of adults, slavery to the imprisonment of people who are banned to freely express their thoughts.

Another problem of the UDHR is that the conventions are western biased and conflict with other states due to the ideological differences. In countries Muslim-majority countries like Pakistan and Iran, the UDHR is seen as a threat to their culture as some of the key conventions challenge their ideals. For instance article 18, “freedom to change his religion or belief” is strictly prohibited by the Islamic religion whilst “everyone has the right to own property” might be seen as a threat to Communist country as it could encourage the citizens to express their dissent towards the authority. Due to the dissenting views about the ideas on human rights and political direction, it seems as if it is hard for UDHR to have a high degree of influence at the moment.

Lastly, the UDHR does not address fundamental ethical concerns such as the abolition of capital punishment, the use of anesthesia or abortion of babies. If UDHR truly respects the universal human rights then it may perhaps have to adjust some of the articles that might conflict with cultural values and make clarifications on some of the articles by incorporating the current views on human rights.

WHAT ABOUT THE UDHR?

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