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At 70, universal rights declaration facing uncertain future
GENEVA, Dec 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – As the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights turns 70, there are signs that the goals outlined in the text are
facing unprecedented threats, from rising nationalism to a worldwide assault
on multilateral institutions.
This week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle
Bachelet, warned that the global system “that gave teeth to the vision of the
Universal Declaration is being chipped away by governments and politicians
increasingly focused on narrow, nationalist interests.”
But some experts have argued that as the global rights movement born after
World War II comes under attack, the UDHR may have an opportunity to reassert
its relevance.
The text adopted in Paris by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948,
aimed to redress the centuries-old notion that rights are granted to citizens
by states.
According to the UN rights office, this was in response to the argument of
Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg trials that the leaders of a sovereign state
acting in what they deemed the national interest “could not be held guilty of
the newly-conceived ‘crimes against humanity’.”
The UDHR was therefore meant to establish the rights that belong to every
person, regardless of whether they live in a democratic republic, a monarchy
or a military dictatorship.
The declaration “was written for a precise moment like now when the
attractions of nationalism and populism are sweeping through even democratic
nations, once more,” Francesca Klug, one of Britain’s leading human rights
scholars and the author of “A Magna Carta for All Humanity”, told AFP.
– US leadership ‘forsaken’ –
One of the main challenges that has always faced the concept of universal
human rights is enforcement.
A professor of human rights law at the London School of Economics, Conor
Gearty, told AFP that even if the UDHR was written to establish the values
that should transcend national sovereignty, it was always “states that truly
mattered,” because governments — not a global entity like the UN — had the
power of enforcement.
Gearty said the notion of universal human rights saw major progress through
the second half of the 20th century, including new multilateral treaties and
national legislation embedding the articles of the UDHR.
Broadly, he credits the United States with leading this effort, calling
human rights “the flagship of American global ascendency,” in a 2017 article
for the European Human Rights Law Review.
Gearty concedes that US foreign policy had always been characterised by
“double standards… (and) calculated hypocrisies,” but nevertheless
described Washington as the “patron” of the post-war human rights era.
However, Gearty argued, that the “America First” administration of US
President Donald Trump — who has attacked multilateralism and pulled the US
out of the UN Human Rights Council — mark the end Washington’s stewardship
of the global rights movement.
“The US has forsaken any role as defender of international human rights,
even on a hypocritical basis,” he said, describing Trump’s rise as the
culmination of a US withdrawal that began with the so-called “war or terror”
after September 11, 2001.
“The Americans have left the building,” Gearty said.
At the same time he maintained that “human rights need a powerful
international patron, or they will whither on the vine,” and identified the
European Union as “the only credible candidate” to take the mantle from
Washington.
– The future –
Bachelet, Chile’s former president who took over as UN rights chief in
September, downplayed the notion that for the Universal Declaration to remain
relevant it needed support from a superpower.
She said the text would endure because “its precepts are so fundamental
that they can be applied to every new dilemma,” including climate change and
artificial intelligence.
The 30 articles of the UDHR range from equality rights to guarantees of a
fair trial and the right to paid leave.
For its time, the text drafted by delegates from across the globe was
surprisingly progressive on gender, using male pronouns only twice.
It also offers freedom from discrimination on the basis of “race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social
origin, property, birth or other status.”
The phrase “other status” has been applauded for anticipating the rights of
LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) people, decades before
they were recognised anywhere.
The UDHR “has withstood the tests of the passing years,” Bachelet said.
“It is, I firmly believe, as relevant today as it was when it was adopted
70 years ago.”
BSS/AFP/MRI/0842 hrs