The idea of a global community that would protect human rights goes back to the League of Nations, started after World War I. The United Nations is essentially a strengthened version of the original concept: an international body that would use the power of numbers to protect the weak from the strong. The declaration's uniqueness comes from its insistence that these human rights would be universal.
Was this too much of a utopian vision? That every nation on earth would agree to some basic guarantees for their citizens? A Family of Man, "We Are the World" fantasy?
Maybe.
But it wasn't an instance of one powerful nation foisting its ideas on another. Even though there was some protest that the whole rights thing as presented in the declaration was infused with an idealized Western version of human rights, most nations agreed on most stuff.
In other words, more Lennon than Lenin.
Questions About Visions of the World
- According to the UDHR, what kind of government would be most effective in promoting human rights?
- Is the declaration more like a law or a code?
- What are some reasons that the family is held up in the declaration as the most important unit in society?
- What responsibility does a nation have to protecting the human rights of citizens of another nation? Can you think of some current arguments about globalism versus nationalism?
Chew on This
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights envisions a global community that, given the current state of the world, is pretty darn unrealistic.
The declaration has a moral, humanitarian vision of the world, as opposed to a vision of the world in which might makes right.