Here I analyse the U.N.’s “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (hereafter, “the Declaration”).
Note that I discuss mainly what is present, largely leaving the issue of what should be present (but is not) to other texts, including one dealing with my own take on human rights.
The Declaration is poorly thought through, short-sighted, based on assumptions that are not universally true, or otherwise deficient in many areas—to the point that it can fairly be called a complete train wreck. Parts seem like Leftist, even far Leftist, agenda pushing, to some degree outright incompatible with human rights; and/or like a pushing of highly dubious “rights” for the one, even at the risk of violations of true rights of the other. There are great problems with ambiguity and other language related problems. A repeated, inexcusable, error is to add a strong U.N. angle to the Declaration, in a manner incompatible with a true rights document (cf. Article 26.2, for a particularly negative example; the extreme presumptuousness of the name, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, is a warning sign in its own right).
As a human-rights document, it does more harm than good and I encourage readers to ignore it in any area related to decision making around or implementation of human rights. It must certainly not be allowed a (continued) status as an authority on what is or is not a human right.
If you read past the executive summary, but fail to read to the end, note that at least the Leftist problem grows increasingly worse as the Declaration progresses, moving from harmless or harmless seeming to outrageous.
The text is taken from Wikisourcee per copy-and-paste. Corresponding reservations for the correctness of the source and the implied transformation, including loss of formatting, apply.
The document division is aligned with that used by the Declaration. I use “article” as implied by this division and, additionally, “item” to refer to enumerated portions of articles. A reference like “Article 23.3” is to be understood as giving a combination of article and item (here, 23 and 3).
Each item is quoted (in the sense
of e.g. the HTML quote tag); the analysis is given as unquoted text.
I repeatedly use “citizen”, even when this is not necessarily the optimal word. This in part for convenience; in part, because there are ambiguities about what the Declaration intends where.
I repeatedly reference a German “constitution”. The applicability of the term is somewhat dubious and I use it for convenience, without any further-going implications. (The German term, “Grundgesetz”, is often rendered as “basic law” in English, but this term might be unexpected to most readers. The background is historically complicated, but, to some degree, the Grundgesetz was intended as a temporary solution, was correspondingly weak, and eventually gained the status of a quasi-constitution without ever being improved.)
I do not object to use of “he” (“his”, “him”, whatnot) as a generic singular—on the contrary, I consider the abuse of “they” for such purposes to be ignorant, offensive, a cause of unnecessary ambiguity, and otherwise highly ill-advised.
However, the consistent or near-consistent use of “he” in the Declaration is it self potentially a source of ambiguity, as it could be taken to imply a “men only” view of rights. (But, I stress, such an interpretation is not compatible with my overall impression of the intentions.) Here, a use of “he or she” might have been worth the price of some awkwardness; failing that, a note on use and intent would have been beneficial.
There are even some formulations that would, without additional context, make “men only” the most likely interpretation or where it could conceivably have been the actual intent. Note, especially, Article 23.3 in light of the then still dominant division into male money-earners and female housewives.
I have not addressed this below, as it would (a) result in constant references, (b) likely involve an unfair interpretation. I leave it to the reader to make up his [generic singular, no sex restriction implied] own mind in special cases, like the aforementioned Article 23.3.
To the recurring topic of ambiguity, keep in mind that a declaration (a law, a contract, whatnot) that intends X and says Y can be just as bad as one that actually intends Y. Likewise, that endless problems can ensue when the one party assumes X to be the correct interpretation and another party assumes Y.
This, in particular, when an approach of “living constitution” (or, here, “living declaration”) is taken. The potential distortions, reductions in rights, and whatnot, are so great that the term “undead constitution” is more apposite.
The issues of what rights others might have, of how to handle conflicts between rights, of how a claimed right for the one might hurt someone else, and similar, largely goes unaddressed in the Declaration. While I will not make explicit mention of all instances where an address would have been needed or beneficial, I do encourage the reader to keep in mind both this deficiency of the Declaration and the need to always, in any discussion of rights, be aware of the possibility of such issues. Note, e.g., that if a right is imagined, as in Article 25.1, to a certain standard of living, and that standard is not provided by ourselves, it has to be provided by someone else. Who is this someone, then? The government? The government has no own money, it can only give to the one by taking from the other, be it through taxes, inflation, or some other mechanism. How can such robbing of Peter to pay Paul be considered a right?
Indeed, blindness to such issues is a major contributor to the rights violations that are so rampant in even allegedly “modern”, “civilized”, “enlightened”, whatnot societies, and is one of the explanations for why the political Left is so often so problematic and does society so much harm.
From another point of view, this points to how much more important it is to make the pie bigger, instead of just redistributing the pie, let alone redistributing it in a manner that causes the pie to shrink. A big enough pie will ensure that anyone who puts in the effort can have a materially good life, which no mere redistribution can. (And a good life in a non-material sense can potentially be had with, by modern Western standards, very little wealth and income.)
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
While not truly objectionable, this is not necessarily a good start.
Firstly, “dignity” arguments are vague and can easily be abused—even in a manner contrary to human rights. For instance, the German “die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar” (cf. the beginning of the German constitution; this document will be treated separately at a later time) is so vague that it can be taken to mean virtually anything, with a variation over both time and interpreter, and with a potential of abuse similar to the sometime U.S. legal fiction of “substantive due process”.
A better approach, both above and in Germany, would be to focus on actual rights. This to create clarity of the involved minimum rights, to avoid extensions beyond the reasonable, and to reduce the risk of governmental reinterpretation in favor of the government (or a partisan agenda, or similar) and to the disadvantage of the citizens. For instance, it can be argued that portions of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are implied by “Würde des Menschen”, but, if so, what parts? What guarantee do we have against the government deciding that this-or-that core right is not included? What guarantee do we have against a “no-one must be called anything mean” or “no-one must be offended” pseudo-right trumping a true right of freedom of speech in the eyes of some government? (Consider developments within the last few decades.)
The inclusion of dignity/Würde arguments likely does more harm than good. At best, they are too vague to be a solid basis for a development of rights. At worst, they might turn a serious matter of thought into something governed by quasi-religious convictions and rhetoric.
Secondly, here we go down the dangerous road of not seeing human rights as an end but as a mere means, respectively, implicitly making them contingent on other things. The natural conclusion is that if, e.g., “peace in the world” would be furthered by a rights violation, then that violation is acceptable.
Some limits on rights are, of course, a virtual necessity, e.g. in that a serial killer is not immediately put back on the street with a “naughty boy” after being found guilty in a court of law, e.g. in that someone suspected of a crime, even when innocent, might see temporary restrictions in his life; however, there is a great need to tread carefully here. I note that laws often contain very dubious restrictions in rights for similar reasons.
Thirdly, implicitly, freedom and justice are not seen as rights, as such, but as a consequence of rights. (While the connection between rights and peace in the world is dubious.) To some degree, I can see a case, as the terms are vague and open to interpretation. However, at least freedom should be seen as a right of its own or, if not, be replaced with an enumerated set of more specific “freedoms”; and, in both cases, defining them as a general and abstract right or “meta-right” seems better than to implicitly exclude them in this manner.
(However, note that this is the preamble, not the core discussion.)
A further potential criticism is the use of “equal and inalienable rights”, as this phrasing is misleading and ignores necessary restrictions (e.g. concerning the above serial killer, concerning the right to vote, concerning reasonable differences in rights arising from differences in residency/citizenship).
However, this seems to be a customary approach and a non-literal interpretation seems to be implied.
Another customary issue is the long lists of “whereas”-es. I do consider them an illogical and annoying idiocy, English legalese at its worst; however, they are customary.
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
This raises more questions than it gives answers, e.g.: What “conscience of mankind”? Who has made the proclamation and what weight should we truly attach to it? Is the “highest aspiration of the common people” a reasonable basis?
Freedom of speech and belief are worthy goals, but freedom from fear rests too much on the individual. The one might be fearless in front of a deadly cup of hemlock; the other terrified at the sight of a small and harmless spider. A better statement would be e.g. “freedom from unjust persecution and violence” or something to a similar effect. (I do not claim that this alternate formulation is necessarily sufficiently complete, but it serves to illustrate the principle.)
Freedom from “want” can be potentially outright harmful, e.g. in that satisfying the wants of the one might violate the rights (even the more basic rights) of someone else, as is so common in Leftist countries, and that too much given with too little hardship can be damaging to body and/or character of the receiver, as can be seen in many modern humans. A much worthier goal is that everyone should have the right to pursue this-and-that (as with “Pursuit of Happiness”). To some part, it also underlies a subjective/individual component, like “fear”; to some part, it can also be misunderstood.
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
While I agree in principle, the text seems to put the carriage in front of the horse: It would have been better to focus on the avoidance of tyranny and oppression explicitly, instead of on the explicit avoidance of rebellion and the merely implicit of tyranny and oppression. Indeed, as the quote stands, some considerable degree of tyranny and oppression might even be seen as acceptable. (This depends in part on how “rule of law” is interpreted. I have a separate text on “rule of law” and “Rechtsstaatlichkeit” in long-term planning, and will revisit the issue later. Similarly, again depending on interpretation, “rule of law” might not be enough, not be an automatic good, or be an inferior alternative to the-not-quite-synonymous “Rechtsstaatlichkeit”.) To boot, “rule of law” is a principle, it self incapable of protecting anything, and it would be better to point e.g. to a governmental duty to uphold human rights.
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
There is no immediate and obvious connection between “friendly relations between nations” and human rights, and the inclusion is spurious. An indirect connection goes in the other direction, that the friendly relations (ditto, the above “peace in the world”) can be helpful to ensure the rights, but the quote does nothing to further that or argue based on that.
Depending on exact interpretation, a prioritization of “friendly relations between nations” can even lead to or perpetuate human rights violations. Consider e.g. the problems caused by undue tolerance of Iran in recent times, the misguided policy of detente towards the Soviet Union in the pre-Reagan years, and, maybe, even the appeasement policy towards Hitler. (The last could have lead to friendly or friendlier relations between Germany and an appeasing country, e.g the U.K., but might have brought less friendly relations between Germany and some other countries, e.g. Poland.)
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Much of the quote is, directly or indirectly, covered by previous analysis.
However, the “social progress” and “better standards of life” parts are highly problematic, as they open the road for violations of the rights of others, are vague and interpretable to the benefit of those in power, and/or might build in a Leftist agenda. Generally, many of the actual articles seem to push a Leftist worldview of e.g. “to everyone according to need—and to hell with who deserves what” or “we must have a ‘welfare’ state”. This worldview, as is discussed in [a yet unwritten text; TODO], is inherently incompatible with human rights. (But I will not explicitly mention the Leftist aspect.)
Another issue is by what right the Declaration makes claims about the peoples of the United Nations. Firstly, peoples cannot reaffirm anything. Secondly, the United Nations does not have peoples. Thirdly, while it does have member nations, whatever the governments of those nations might have reaffirmed is limited to those governments—even an extension to the nation/state/country/whatnot as a whole is spurious (if in doubt, the next government might disagree) and an extension to the people inexcusable. Fourthly, a great many of the member nations, now as then, have given at most lip service to human rights, as with the Soviet Union, North Korea, post-revolutionary Iran, etc.—and, yes, there is a strong overlap between such lip service and a failure to represent the respective people in a meaningful sense.
Several potential problems can be found in the “equal rights of men and women”, as it (a) programmatically excludes any society with an even slightly different model, (b) could open the doors to equality-of-outcome thinking, which is antithetical to true equality, (c) singles out a particular division in an irrational manner (possibly, to cater to the Feminist movement), (d) fails to establish a corresponding set of equal responsibilities and whatnots. To (d), note that Feminism is extremely keen on extending all male rights and privileges to women, but typically fails both to extend negatives (e.g. mandatory military service) to women and to extend female positives (e.g. widow pensions) to men.
This with reservations for an ambiguity: It is not entirely clear whether the text dictates that men and women should have the same rights as each other, or whether “men and women” might be intended as a circumscription for e.g. “humans”, with the intent that all humans should have the same rights. I see the former as likelier and write accordingly. If in doubt: should the opposite have been intended, a great many readers will misunderstand the formulation, which would make the Declaration correspondingly weak through the ambiguity.
When viewed as an abstract declaration of human rights, references to e.g. the United Nations are highly problematic. It might be argued that this is a declaration by, specifically, the United Nations and that such inclusions are understandable or even unavoidable; however, later language (e.g. the “for all people and nations” below) make this line of reasoning untenable.
While I will not address this issue in the continuation, it is very important that anyone who adapts this declaration for his own purposes, tries to use it as a basis for law, or similar, takes great care to excise or alter such references appropriately. (In light of the sum of all weaknesses, I reiterate, such adaption is a bad idea. However, if someone does adapt it, and many have or will, in some variation or another, such excision/alteration is vital. Certainly, no-one should ever just adopt it.)
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, therefore,
The General Assembly
Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
Self-important and self-obsessed blather of the worst sort. This alone shows such a lack of self-perspective that the (or, at least, the then) General Assembly disqualifies it self from being considered a serious entity, be it in general or with regard to human rights.
The claim of “progressive measures” is another ambiguity of note (I have not addressed all ambiguities): The intent is likely on measures that are progressively increased/accumulated/sharpened/whatnot; however, the intent of “progressive” in the political sense cannot be ruled out (at least, not based on the Declaration alone). The latter intent would be an inexcusable agenda pushing; and even in the case of the former, the misinterpretation as the latter remains. (To boot, terms like “progressive” tend to drift in meaning over time, and “progressive” has, which would introduce further ambiguity with the latter intent.)
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
The first sentence is laudable in terms of principle, except for some reservations made in the analysis of the preamble (which I will not repeat here).
(It does, obviously and like many other claims in the Declaration, not match the de jure or de facto situation in large parts of the world, now or then, but, taken as an abstract statement of principle, there is no reason to criticize this. Ditto when it is viewed as a claim about what the situation should be. I consider the approach perfectly legitimate and will not comment on similar complications elsewhere.)
The first half of the second sentence is much more problematic, beginning with the error of making claims of fact that do not belong in a document of this type. Moreover, these claims are often outright incorrect. A significant portion of humanity has, again and again, proven deficient in one or both of reason and conscience, while some individuals, while still being humans, might lack either in any reasonable sense. (To the last, consider some with severe brain damage and, more temporarily, many children.) In my own impressions so far, blind assumptions like “endowed with reason and conscience” have done an enormous amount of harm through the many naive political schemes and whatnots that have not taken actual human nature into account—arguably, the wish for a declaration of human rights, a Geneva Convention, a “Bill of Rights” of the U.S. style, whatnot, demonstrates the faultiness of the assumption, as they would otherwise not be needed. (The variation that “humans are born good”, with sub-variations, is particularly common.)
Ditto the second half: It is not the place of the UN to dictate “shoulds” to humanity at large and the Declaration is no place for “shoulds” not relating to human rights. Then we have issues like the vagueness of the phrase “spirit of brotherhood” and the, depending on intended meaning, potential wrongness of the urging. (I will not go into detail, as this would require a great amount of speculation. Just to give an entry, I point to several instances of less-than-friendly brothers in the Bible and the interpretation issues surrounding “neighbor” as used by Jesus.)
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
While superficially laudable, such lack of discrimination will not always be a positive or something realistic. The key to discrimination is, apart from actually understanding what the word means, to discriminate on relevant and suitable criteria—not to fail to discriminate. (To give a specific example is tricky, due to the many ambiguities of the text and issues like the difference between having an abstract right and having someone, and who?, enforce that right. Consider, however, to give some indication, if 25.1 was used to force a government to care for those who are neither citizens nor residents of the country at hand. Also note how the U.S. restrictions on who can become POTUS could be seen as violating this article—as could even some typical restrictions on who-may-vote, e.g. that a certain minimum age has been reached.)
Further, with such vagueness there is always a risk that different perspectives can lead to different conclusions—in a worst case leading to demands for equality of outcome. A good example of such problems of perspective is given by the recent conflicts about use of traditionally single-sex public bathrooms by transgenders, where the only solution might be to cut the Gordian knot by going only with unisex bathrooms.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
That the person and not the status of his country (or whatnot) is put first is laudable. However, chances are that the overall claim is (or its later interpretation will be) simplistic. For instance, it could be argued that the current limitations on representation for Washington D.C., which are there for a well thought-through and non-oppressive reason, would violate this paragraph.
(I note that “trust” does not fit from a grammatical point of view and is of unclear meaning; however, this is secondary. Also note a later discussion of “his country”, which applies partly to formulations like “to which a person belongs”.)
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.
An obvious contrast is the U.S. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. If we take “security” to imply e.g. “security from unwarranted governmental prosecution and criminal actions from other citizens”, it is laudable, but the absence of “[h]appiness” is very odd in light of the U.S. precedence. Is a regime, then, tolerable that gives us physical security but dooms us to unhappiness? Speaking for myself, I would prefer some tolerable degree of risk with a full ability to pursue my happiness.
Even so, a more limited formulation might have been beneficial, e.g. in that the right to life refers to interference from governments, criminals, and whatnots, but not to a right to be fed on the public dime, even for those capable of earning a living. Similarly, the “Pursuit” aspect of the U.S. version, even if limited to “Happiness”, shows an important principle: we should have the right to build something for ourselves, to create our own this-and-that, etc.—not the “right” to have it delivered on a silver platter.
Then we have the risk that a wish for security is abused to violate other rights (as with e.g. the post-9/11 U.S.) and that “security” is taken in a too far-going meaning (note e.g. how unwarranted fears of attacks have brought on women-only parking zones in Germany—explicitly intended to prevent the fear, not the very rare attacks).
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
(Unobjectionable.)
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Too vague, through the large subjectiveness of some terms (especially, “degrading”). Some further specification of the “by whom” might also have been beneficial in light of the common governmental attitude that various rules and restrictions apply to everyone except the government. (Similar remarks can apply elsewhere, e.g. article 4 above, without explicit mention.)
Or too look at the “by whom” from another perspective: There might be instances of treatment that are legitimate when performed by a private person but not by the government. Consider e.g. a house burglary, where an inhabitant of the house manages to lock the burglar in an unlit, cold, and moist cellar, and keeps him there until the police arrives—even for several hours, should the house be far from civilization. I see nothing objectionable in this, but would object strongly to the police later keeping him in similar conditions for a similar time.
Here we also see the need to consider circumstances, as the same action towards an invited house guest, for no other purpose than personal amusement would be unacceptable. (Similar issues apply for some other articles, but are not necessarily addressed separately there.) A particular circumstance is the degree of (in)voluntariness, as with e.g. masochistic sex acts, some forms of physical (especially, military) training, and some types of “reality television”, where the “victim” voluntarily submits to a treatment that would normally be unacceptable. The situation with “mutual combat” can be similar. (In all cases, with the reservation that the treatment must be within the reasonably foreseeable at the time of the explicit or implicit consent and/or that there must be a means to interrupt the treatment, e.g. by speaking a safe word or by ringing the bell during the Navy Seal “Hell Week”.)
As to vagueness, I note e.g. that some seem to view any and all type of sex work as “degrading”, while having no problems with someone cleaning toilets for a living, while I would see the latter as more degrading than many or most forms of sex work.
As an aside, it might have been a mistake to not include the standard formulation of “cruel and unusual punishment”. Taken at face value, it has similar problems, but it does have the advantage of a long history of interpretation.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
(Unobjectionable, except in as far as a less vague formulation would be preferable.)
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.
(Here and elsewhere, I do not address issues like “The law where?”; however, I note that this neglect in the Declaration is a common deficit. There is also uncertainty whether “the law” refers to “the codified laws”, “the long arm of the law”, and/or something else.)
Looking at the first sentence, the “without any discrimination” is both problematic and unrealistic—and open to interpretation, to boot. Here, I suspect that the authors simply do not understand the word “discrimination” and how far-going it is. For instance, the current formulation would forbid an enhanced protection for minors. For instance, there might be situations where a reduced protection is warranted, e.g. due to repeated bad-faith actions in relation to a particular situation. (It is hard to give an example due to some vagueness in intent, but to, at a minimum, illustrate the principle: someone who uses “fighting words” and engages in other provocation might legitimately see a reduced protection from an ensuing attack and/or have lesser right to legal help after the attack.) Certainly, some explicit stipulation about circumstances being sufficiently similar would have been very beneficial to the article.
Such anti-discrimination clauses can also be used to create injustices and unfairness. For instance, invoking a similar clause in EU law, German courts have forbidden health insurers from charging higher fees from women than men, despite women causing greater costs, implying that men have to subsidize women’s health insurance in a highly unfair manner. (To boot, this potentially has unfortunate effects on market forces, responsible use of health resources, and similar.)
As to interpretation, consider a typical regulation like “only those 18 and above are allowed to vote” (leaving aside the aforementioned book-vs.-law issue) and compare youths at 17 and 18, respectively: The law is the same for both, and it could be argued that they are treated equally. It could also be argued that they are treated unequally. Looking at the above health insurance issue, I would argue that the court rulings go against the spirit of the law and, thus, create the type of injustice that the law should have prevented, while the court(s) obviously saw it differently.
The second sentence is open to similar criticism, with the addition of giving the Declaration too much importance (and it is unclear whether the protection against discrimination is actually extended beyond what the first sentence and/or the other articles would imply). The portion of “any incitement to such discrimination” is potentially very problematic and highly open to interpretation: this is exactly the type of formulation that the Left likes to use as an excuse to limit freedom of speech and opinion, e.g. by classifying even a differing opinion about what the legal situation should be as “incitement”. I would by no means rule out that some extremist would brand even my discussion of the article as “incitement”. Moreover, the addition is illogical, because protecting someone against incitement of a rule breach is redundant given that protection against the rule breach, it self, is present. On the outside, a need to protect the rules against incitement might be argued, but this could too easily lead into a cementing of a snapshot of opinion into eternal truth and/or, again, limit freedom of speech and opinion. Indeed, except for incompetence, it is hard to see a motivation behind the addition that does not amount to a deliberate attempt at such a cementing.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
By and large, good; however, there are deficiencies in formulation, e.g. the failure to specify what constitution and a great vagueness of what a “fundamental right” would be. A better approach might be to simply speak of “the right to an effective remedy [...] against all violations of legal and/or constitutional rights”; or, maybe, a formulation amounting to a governmental obligation to enforce rights on behalf of the citizen.
(I find it very hard not to laugh at “competent”; however, this is a type of involuntary humor that arises from multiple meanings and/or drifts in connotations, as with “military intelligence”.)
A particular deficiency is the implied limit to what legal rights have been granted, which potentially leaves many fundamental rights out. This the more so, as there is a restriction and an ambiguity through “fundamental”. What, e.g., if the government decides that the right to free speech is not a fundamental legal right? A judicial activist judge?
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
While laudable, it might fall short on scope, exactness, and detail. (An interesting exercise is to compare this, and some below articles, with the U.S. Bill of Rights, particularly amendments 4–6.)
The use of “arbitrary” is particularly problematic, as a great many wrongful decisions are not arbitrary and as the word can be bent to fit much of what the government wishes, even should it be unreasonable. (That word, “unreasonable”, would likely be a better choice, but is not perfect either.) A somewhat likely interpretation is, indeed, that “arbitrary” is intended to differ between what follows from laws and the “rule of law” and what from e.g. ad-hoc decisions by civil servants, elected politicians, kings, whatnot. However, the additional protection from a ban of such “arbitrariness” is insufficient when the laws are changeable and/or the laws themselves can be unjust. It might, for instance, be that a random “arrest that Jewish shopkeeper who will not give me credit” is arbitrary, but that an “arrest all Jews in accordance with the new law” either is not arbitrary or can be presented as not arbitrary. (Indisputably, however, both cases are unreasonable.)
I note that there is only one mention of “rule of law” (and none of “Rechtsstaatlichkeit”) within the declaration proper. This mention (cf. below) is of dubious value. For the preamble, see above.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
What is understood by “hearing” and “tribunal” (and why do subsequent articles use different formulations)? Of what is the tribunal “independent”? If a “determination” has taken place, what are the actual consequences? Etc.
A particular issue is “public”: Yes, to have the right to a public hearing is good, but there might equally be a need for a right to a non-public hearing in many cases, e.g. because a public hearing might reveal information that the subject legitimately wants to keep out of public knowledge. At the same time, a mere “public” does not necessarily grant many of the rights of relevance, e.g. a sufficient insight into evidence and whatnot by someone standing accused and his counsel.
Another is “full equality”, which does not necessarily make sense in context and, in as far as it does, might imply e.g. an equally weak protection for everyone. (An “everyone is equal before the law” might better be abstracted to a separate article/principle. Likewise, e.g. an equivalent of the U.S. “equal protection clause”.)
1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
Much too vague and generally poorly formulated. Moreover, this arguably mixes two or more separate issues in an unfortunate manner, viz. the presumption of innocence and various “due process” protections. (These, of course, have my support.)
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
While sound in principle, a more extensive ban on “ex post facto” laws really should be present to prevent, e.g., a civil suit for an act that was legal at the time, and to ensure a more general “legal certainty”.
Moreover, the imposition of international law is disputable, as this can put someone acting in good faith within local laws under penalty and/or force those who wish to be law-abiding to extend the already unconscionable efforts to keep up with laws further. This the more so, as what constitutes “international law” is inherently ambiguous. (A potential motivation is the situation in Nazi-Germany, from which can be argued a need to go beyond local law; however, if so, a less blanket imposition than the above should have been found.)
A further potential deficiency lies in jurisdictions between countries. For instance, there have been cases where governments have extended laws to its citizens regardless of where an act takes place and regardless of the local legality—maybe, even, cases where the same has applied to non-citizens performing locally legal acts. At a minimum, some specification of what nation provides the national law would be beneficial. (This to be taken as e.g. “country of event” vs. “country of citizenship”—not as e.g. “the U.S.” vs. “the U.K.”.)
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Here we see a renewed failure on “arbitrary”, which invalidates much of the presumed protection. Moreover, the list of areas of interferences is too short and/or too ambiguous. For instance, there is no claim of bodily or medical self-determination, unless intended to be covered by “privacy”—and governments are quite likely to interpret the word to the disadvantage of the citizen. (While the makers of the Declaration did not have the global experiences of the COVID-countermeasure era to draw upon, issues around bodily and medical self-determination are by no means new. Note Josef Mengele, the Tuskegee syphilis study, and similar examples of utter disregard for such self-determination.)
However, when we come to “honour and reputation”, there is suddenly no limit given—maybe, because this is something more likely to be done by citizens onto citizens (in general) or onto politicians (in particular). This is the more absurd, as this is an area where limits in protection are more warranted, not less, and where there is a great risk of abuse of the justice system and/or of laws that are too strict (as in Germany). It must, for instance, not be that someone behaves dishonorably and that no one is allowed to call attention to the fact. Similarly, while not all truthful statements need necessarily be allowed, truthfulness (at least, with sufficient proof) will often be a sufficient justification for even very harsh attacks. A limitation like “unsubstantiated attacks” or “untruthful attacks” would have made great sense.
As to the “right to the protection of the law”, such interferences are usually and mostly performed by the law (government, whatnot). Moreover, by speaking of a “shall” for the core right and “right” for the enforcement seems like putting the carriage before the horse.
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
While this is a nice ideal, it is entirely impractical and can have gross negative consequences, as can be seen with the immigration situation and the welfare abuse of many modern Western countries. On the outside, a declaration concerning freedom of movement/residence for (a) citizens, (b) those explicitly welcomed into the country, would make sense. (In the defense of the authors, the sheer scope of modern migration, including at long distance, between radically different cultures, and outside times of war, might not have been realistically foreseeable.)
(I interpret “State” to imply a top-level entity like the U.S. or German federations, or the non-federate Sweden, as opposed to e.g. the state of Texas and the Bundesland of Bayern/Bavaria. If not, other questions arise. Note an inconsistency in terminology between “State” and “country”, with the below item and elsewhere, however.)
Looking at the following item, it might be that the (poorly formulated) intent here is on freedom of movement within a given “State”, while the following item deals with movements between countries.
If so, some points of current criticism might be resolved.
If not, the combination of the two might be redundant or contradictory.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Laudable. The implicit distinction between returning to one’s own country and going elsewhere is an important one, and the inclusion a positive surprise.
1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
No. The right to seek asylum should always be present, but whether it is granted (which is a prerequisite for “enjoy”) is another matter.
On the outside, a claim of right to asylum in some specified circumstances, and given sufficient proof of those circumstances, might have been acceptable. These circumstance (also cf. below) should likely include some degree of severity, e.g. a risk to life or health, risk of imprisonment, inability to perform certain work, or similar; and likely some restrictions on justification, e.g. in that a threatening punishment for murder is a much weaker motivation that the same punishment for political wrongthink.
A potential trap is the switch from “persecution” above to “prosecutions” in the following item. The exact implications of this, in the current context, are unclear, including whether the differentiation is intended or arose by accident or error; however, a key point could be that the former potentially includes threats that arise from, say, political opponents who are not currently in power or organized crime, while the latter would normally be limited to governmental actions (including by political opponents who are in power and abuse that power).
2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
If “right” refers to seeking asylum, the item is inexcusable; if it refers to the “enjoy”, this is and remains a matter for the country of application. (Note that “may not” implies a ban—not just a lack of guarantee.)
A blanket limitation against non-political crimes is much too far-going. Not only should it be the country at hand that decides what it considers acceptable reasons (excepting, maybe, some minimum bar, but there might be a great many non-political crimes that warrant a similar consideration to political crimes, e.g. because the corresponding laws violate human rights, have a disproportionate punishment, involve something which simply should not be criminal, have an “ex post facto” element, or similar. (To give realistic examples is hard, as “non-political” additionally suffers from great vagueness. For instance, is per-/prosecution based on ethnicity political or non-political? However, at the risk of being unrealistic, consider someone having sex legally and consensually with someone else today, the act being made retroactively illegal tomorrow, and a mandatory death penalty being imposed.)
Vice versa, it is not a given that a political crime would warrant asylum. For instance, if wrongthink is punished by a one-time fee of (the equivalent of) one USD, granting, or even applying for, asylum seems like severe overkill.
A limitation involving “the purposes and principles of the United Nations” is absolutely and utterly unacceptable. Such clauses alone are enough to invalidate the legitimacy of the Declaration.
1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(Here I assume “nationality” in the sense of “citizenship”. In the earlier sense of roughly “membership in an ethnic group”, the item would not make sense.)
While a positive, it leaves far too much unstated (and might, in the fulfillment of time, become pointless, because nationality has become pointless). Consider e.g. a child born in a strict “jus sanguinis” country, or in “international waters”, to parents who are citizens of a strict “jus soli” country. What nationality should the child now have? Or take someone who renounces his citizenship, becomes stateless, and changes his mind: should his old country be forced to readmit him?
And what of conscionability issues? For instance, it might be that someone refuses to be associated with a particular country (e.g. a defector from North Korea), that a particular country refuses services normally awarded (e.g. that said defector, even should he keep his citizenship, is practically prevented from accessing consular services, renewing his passport, etc.), or that other strong pragmatic reasons apply (e.g. the U.S. issues around taxation of citizens, problems of U.S. citizens to get bank accounts outside of the U.S., whatnot). If there are no takers, this someone might now be forced to either be stateless or suffer considerable negative effects through remaining a citizen.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
And again that perfidious “arbitrar[il]y”...
Looking at deprivation of nationality, it would be better to remove the option entirely for at least those holding just a single citizenship. (With more than one, other rules could apply, as long as at least one remains. Germany, for instance, regularly grants citizenship to children of non-EU immigrants born there, but reserves the right to revoke it once a certain age is reached if the child has another citizenship and does not renounce it by that age.)
As to “change his nationality”, with reservations for what might or might not be implied by that “arbitrarily”, we again have the issue of consent of the “new” country, possibly contingent on reasonable criteria like a demonstrated intent of permanent residence, sufficient language skills, and similar. It would be preposterous if, e.g., I could just declare that “from now on, I am a U.S. citizen—not a Swedish citizen”. Then again, the claimed right (if we were to grant that it should be a right, which I do not) could be made toothless by just adding bureaucracy. It would be better to leave the issue of new citizenships for “changers” solely in the hands of the “new” country—be the rules arbitrary or not. (This with some reservations, cf. above, for how e.g. conscionability issues are to be handled.)
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
The first sentence is problematic on several counts, including the undefined (and potentially greatly varying in meaning) term “full age”, the too short lists of non-limitations, and yet another case of ignoring the other party. To expand on the list: I would agree that legitimate limitations can exist (notably, relating to severely reduced mental faculties and fraudulent bigamy), and that mentioning some natural non-limitations would be excessive (e.g. hair color), but clearly “race, nationality or religion” is too narrow. Consider e.g. caste (note past Indian restrictions) and sometime restrictions on marriages between royalty and commoners—both of which should have been more obvious to the authors than to modern readers. Another issue is whether a right to found a family without marrying is present.
A particular issue is that the article does not address complications from marriage as the result of a civil procedure vs. a holy sacrament, and the differences in views that can arise. Here we see how a privatization of marriage would be a much preferable road in general, as discussed in a text on privatization of marriage. (And note that privatization, in the shape suggested by me, would automatically address issues like “gay marriage” and polygamy.)
From a modern point of view, the article also suffers from an ambiguity regarding “gay marriage”; however, that marriage was a man–woman deal was likely taken for granted at the time.
Still, this illustrates three somewhat generic problems, especially for a document that seems so self-important and so set on having the one and only truth set in stone. (Cf. other comments on self-importance.)
Firstly, circumstances can change beyond what was foreseen, and great humility is needed when creating documents of this type. Certainly, as with the U.S. Constitution, some means of amendment is highly beneficial or outright necessary.
Secondly, it is dangerous (and highly presumptuous) to assume too much about homogeneity of culture, traditions, whatnot, even with what can be considered reasonably acceptable, enlightened, whatnot groups. Consider e.g. the currently internationally greatly varying attitudes on the sexes of the spouses or the past (?) cases of polygamous cultures (up-to-and-including Mormons).
(While no mention of e.g. polygamy is made in the item under discussion, chances are that a monogamy-only assumption was made, just as a man–woman-only assumption. However, above, my own specification of fraudulent bigamy is very deliberate.)
Thirdly, the application of rules can depend strongly on perspective, which makes a great many articles potentially problematic. For instance, my own father is a gay man who married as early as 1974—long before “gay marriage” was legal in any jurisdiction that I am aware of. This was perfectly legal and beyond any reproach by e.g. churches, because he married a woman (my mother). From one point of view, this could be seen as a perfectly reasonable and non-discriminatory fulfilment of a rule similar to the discussed item: gay men are allowed to marry on exactly the same terms as straight men, including that the bride must be a woman. From another point of view, the terms are different, in that my father would not have been allowed to marry a member of the sex that he was attracted to, while a straight man was allowed to do so.
The second sentence is, again, ambiguous: Do men and women have equal rights or do men resp. women of varying races (etc.) have equal rights? What exactly is implied by “equal rights”?
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
My first reaction is one of agreement; however, there might be exceptions. Consider e.g. a culture where being a bastard (in the proper sense) is a severe social obstacle. Here we might have a situation where the unmarried expecting parents of a child would be morally and ethically obliged to marry. (Whether they can legitimately be forced to do so by third parties is another question, but it points to the possibility of a legitimate such situation.) There might also be some situations involving a promise of marriage, where the giver of the promise can be seen as obligated to go through with the marriage, despite a change of heart.
(We certainly can have marriages entered with less than enthusiastic consent.)
From another point of view, the item might be too specific, and a more generic item dealing with consent, “free and full consent”, informed consent, or what might be appropriate in the circumstances at hand, with regard to more general business dealings, the entering into contracts and obligations, whatnot. (Of which marriage, for the current purposes, even absent privatization, could be seen as a special case.)
This is an item where knowing the exact motivations of the authors would be particularly interesting. Is the intent to prevent women from being handed from father to husband without a say, to impose Western marriage norms on the world, to push for self-determination, or yet something else?
A strong candidate might have been prevention of child marriages, but, interestingly, neither 2. nor 1. and 2. in combination prevents this. While 2. lacks a mention of age, as well as reasonable qualifications of “consent”, 1. only gives a right without putting a lower limit.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
This item has at least four problems:
It makes statements of purported fact and/or value in a manner that is misplaced in a document of this type. While I agree with the importance of the family, others do not, and the most central unit of any society must be the individual, or violations of rights are bound to occur when the individual and the “group unit” are in conflict. (Cf. e.g. a text on the importance of the individual and how rights violations virtually always are against individuals, not groups.) Moreover, different cultures might have very different takes on even group units, and dictating rules for them in the guise of human rights is hard to defend.
It is dubious whether a group unit can be entitled to protection and whether society (as opposed to the State) can have any duty to offer such protection (or, at all, be able to provide it; to boot, what truly is to be understood under “society” is, barring further definition, unclear).
The word “family” is, it self, vague and needs clarification. Some might see it as a husband–wife–children constellation. Others might look at a more extended family, including e.g. grand-parents. Someone else might throw a wider net yet.
Chances are that the authors intended the first, but this still leaves a risk of misinterpretation among readers and still leaves complications. For instance, how are divorces and never-married parents to be handled? What if the husband dies and the mother and child[ren] move in with her parents? How are re-marriages to be handled? Etc.
Chances are also that there is an implicit assumption of exactly a married constellation. This could very well be the pragmatical ideal, but it is, again, not up to the authors to impose their own norms onto others through the backdoor of human rights, unless those norms actually are closely tied to human rights.
Even the general nature of the protection is not indicated. (Let alone even the concrete outline that might be necessary to move the article from something pointless to something valuable.)
It might e.g. be that the institution of marriage is to be protected, as such, that those within a family have rights against government interference in family matters, or something entirely different.
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Except for that ever-recurring “arbitrar[il]y”, this article would have been exemplary.
(Two potential nitpicks are that 1. could be seen to be satisfied if some types and/or amounts of property are allowed, but other types and/or larger amounts are not; and that 2. fails to make a statement about recompense. The former is unlikely to be a court’s interpretation; the latter could, maybe, be seen as covered by the issue of arbitrariness.)
Caution: The split of the matter of Articles 18 and 19 seems highly artificial to me, and my respective analyses are sufficiently overlapping that they are best read together and understood in the context of each other. (The division might or might not be the result of the different elaborations of the core rights. Another potential explanation is a misconception of “thought” and “conscience”, in Article 18, as necessarily being religious in nature, but that would be odd even by the standards of the Declaration.)
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
The first clause (up to “;”) is exemplary when combined with the first clause of the following article.
The remainder has the right general idea, but is either poorly phrased or shortsighted.
Firstly, “freedom to change” misses the point of the type of change discussed, as religion, belief, opinion, whatnot, are all things that rest inside us in a manner that cannot be forbidden. What indirect benefits might be involved would be better covered by one of my own core ideas—the right to form one’s own opinion. For instance, an indirect issue of e.g. beliefs is that they can be indirectly imposed, especially on children and the weak-minded, through propaganda, indoctrination, disinformation, whatnot. This, however, is better countered by the right to form one’s own opinion than by the “freedom to change”.
It is, however, true that e.g. the profession of a certain opinion, belief, whatnot, can be punished. While this is more a matter of freedom of speech than thought, the border can be hard to draw and I have not necessarily been consistent in my own writings.
I also make a minor reservation, possibly limited to strictly religious opinions, for what supernatural restrictions might exist or be believed to exist. For instance, if the Catholic Church declares a particular opinion to be heretical and/or threatens consequences for wrongthink in the afterlife, this could conceivably have an effect similar to an actual ban of even opinions-held-but-never-expressed on some believers. Whether such cases are a legitimate subject for a document like the Declaration is another matter entirely—it might even be argued that the attempt to include them would violate the freedom of religion of the one group in order to preserve that of another.
Secondly, with reservations for the exact scope of the rest of the article, “freedom to change” might miss the important right to change e.g. formal religious affiliation (which is not the same thing as religion, notwithstanding that the two are sometimes confused in casual speech). Similarly, a Communist dictatorship cannot realistically ban opinions, but it can ban competing parties and forbid the citizens to belong to these parties.
Thirdly, an unlimited right to exercise religion/whatnot cannot be presumed and/or must be carefully weighed against the rights of others.
This is another case where realistic examples of “exercise must be curtailed” can be tricky, as typical areas of dispute see too many adherents on both sides. Consider e.g. circumcision of infants as practiced among Jews: I am strongly opposed to it as an interference with someone else’s rights (the baby’s) and of a someone else who has neither the option of giving “informed consent” nor to put up practical resistance. Many others share my opinion; many others would prioritize the circumcision, be it on grounds of “freedom of religion” or in the genuine belief that not performing the circumcision might deprive the baby of something. However, this still is enough to demonstrate the importance of the aforementioned weighing of rights.
Some recent Islamic excesses, e.g. a fatwa calling for the death of someone, might be examples. (While definitely intolerable, it can be debated whether they are a matter of practicing religion.)
A clear example is a sect that institutes human sacrifice and feels free to collect victims from outside the sect; however, I am not aware of any such sect in current existence.
Fourthly, overlapping with the right to form one’s own opinion and the “thirdly”, both articles miss one of my own core ideas, namely that the most important part of “freedom of X” (where X is e.g. religion) is “freedom from X”, in the sense that no-one should be indoctrinated into e.g. a religion against his will (or at a time when he is too young to have a relevant will), that no-one should be harmed by unwelcome religious acts, etc. Indeed, as the article currently stands, it might be that no-one could forbid me to visit the services of a particular religion—but there is no obstacle to forcing me to participate in the services of another religion.
I stress that this “freedom from X” is to be understand in a narrow sense. To e.g. conclude that praying in public or wearing a crucifix around one’s neck would be a violation, because it, in some sense, exposes others to religion, would grossly over-interpret my intent.
Caution: Best read in combination with Article 18. Cf. there.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
In addition to what applies from the above, I note that “frontiers” is extremely vague, that a free use of media is given, but that a free use of sources is not, and that “without interference” extends only to the holding and not to “seek, receive and impart”. Moreover, even the sum of the claims fail to reach the bar of “freedom to form one’s own opinion”. (I note that this would have been the perfect place for a mention.)
To revisit “free use of media” vs. “free use of sources”: A ban against e.g. reading books or newspapers (or, today, use the WWW, Twitter, or similar) would violate the article; however, a ban against e.g. reading specific authors/publishers would not. The latter is likely to be more important than the former, however.
To revisit “without interference”: As is, access to media could be curtailed by e.g. censorship, distortions of works (outside censorship; note e.g. the increasing vandalism against children’s books to push a PC agenda), and a lack of new editions or a refusal to publish.
For a refusal to publish, I speak of cases like a wish to prevent access for ideological reasons. Other reasons, e.g. a presumed lack of profitability or printing capacity, might equally prevent new editions and a first publishing, leaving the prospective reader in the same situation; however, here (a) the rights of the publishers are important, (b) there is no deliberate interference.
(But note that such arguments are less convincing with e.g. digital publishing platforms like Amazon, which were not available at the time of the Declaration.)
Similarly, consider the recent misbehavior of Twitter (at least, pre-Musk), with undue censorship, unjustified (and often factually incorrect) claims of disinformation, spurious fact-checks, etc.—such interference has a major negative effect on our ability to form our own opinions and gives those with the “wrong” (but often correct) opinions a massive disadvantage when it comes to expression of opinion.
Here it is noteworthy that some seem to view free speech not as “your right to say something” but as “my ‘right’ to distort your message”. Similarly, a common recent problem is the “yes, you may impart information, but what you write is actually dis-information and that is not allowed” attitude displayed by large parts of the Left and/or the “establishment”. I am far from certain that this “semantic attack” (as opposed to e.g. regular censorship) was an issue at the time of the Declaration, but it certainly is today. This is the more dangerous as the accusation of disinformation is almost invariably unsubstantiated and often applied to information that actually has solid scientific backing, and as there are often grave doubts about or, even, scientific evidence against the alleged “information” peddled by those who scream the loudest about “disinformation”.
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Assembly and association are sufficiently different in nature that they might have been better left to separate articles and/or items. That said:
The phrase “peaceful assembly” is too vague, especially with regard to whether “peaceful” is aimed solely at physical violence or includes e.g. noise-making. For instance, a standard practice of many Leftist (and some other) groups in Germany is to go out on the streets and chant, bang on drums, shout into megaphones, and otherwise cause damage to the rest of the world—and a ban of such misbehavior seems justified to me, even in the absence of e.g. property damage and physical attacks. For instance, someone might classify an assembly merely discussing potentially violent further measures as not peaceful and ban the assembly, without waiting for the results—and this, too, could conceivably be acceptable in at least some circumstances.
I have made a cursory attempt to find a legal definition of “peaceful assembly”, which might have shed some further light on the issue. This attempt was not successful. I did not pursue the issue further as (a) any such definition (standard use, whatnot) could vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, (b) the international nature of the Declaration limits the scope for variations in meaning, (c) a non-trivial deviation from the “everyday” implications of the phrase would be highly unfortunate.
(Similar remarks might apply elsewhere without mention.)
I implicitly deal almost entirely with assembly in public. Assembly in e.g. private rooms is a different matter, and a right to freely assemble in such conditions is uncontroversial to me and rarely worth further discussion. (The above assembly discussing violent measures is a potential exception.) I certainly oppose attempts to ban assembly in private rooms to vote on a new manifesto for reasons like “is Trotskyist instead of Stalinist”, even when I might have objected to the same group demonstrating in the city center while shouting into megaphones.
Of course, even in private rooms certain rules need to be followed, but this will likely always already be covered by laws and regulations applicable even without assembly, say, that the noise level does not interfere unduly with any neighbors living in the same building.
Generally, the Left often seems to work on the principle that whoever makes the most noise wins; that silencing opponents with censorship or drowning them in noise, so that they cannot be heard, is better than to overcome them with arguments; etc.
Another issue in the extended “peaceful” family, in light of e.g. my German experiences, relates to intents and expectations. For instance, a “Rightwing” march might well be denied permission by the government out of a fear of violence—once the march is attacked by Antifa or some other anti-democratic hate group. (Also note how some U.S. colleges have revoked invitations to outside speakers with the motivation that the safety of the speaker from Leftist activists could not be guaranteed—handing the activists an easy victory.) Such a denial is understandable from a “keep peace and quiet” point of view, but is also incompatible with a true freedom of assembly. Here a clear statement would have been beneficial.
Then we have issues like when, where, and how, again calling for some degree of specification (notwithstanding that great detail would be impossible in a general document). Note e.g. the COVID-era ban on assembly in Germany, which was extended to demonstrations against the ban, it self, and the questions pro and con that this raises. (My personal take: to ensure a functioning democracy, no ban or other measure must inhibit the right to protest against the ban, it self, to petition for changes to or a revocation of the ban, and similar.) A more common example is the issue of marches in the middle of a city—do these actually serve a legitimate purpose or should they be restricted to areas of relevance, e.g. in front of the parliamentary building for a protest against a new law? (Apart from a “feel good” effect for the, usually brainless, demonstrators, a march through the city is more likely to annoy and antagonize others than to serve a legitimate purpose of spreading or clarifying opinion.)
If in doubt, a statement focusing on equal opportunities to assemble, regardless of e.g. political belonging, should have taken precedence over the current formulation.
Association is far less controversial, unless the “peaceful” is intended to cover “association” too, in which case it is too restrictive. I do note a risk of ambiguity, again and however, and something more explicit might have been needed. As is, I presume that the right covers at least: (a) the right (conditional on the consent of the organization at hand) to belong to any club, party, meeting group, or other formal or informal organization. (b) The right to found new organizations. (c) The right to freely meet and/or communicate with any other individuals willing to do so. (This with minor reservations, e.g. for individuals currently in jail.)
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Laudable, with some reservations for later remarks on union regulations (cf. below). For the umpteenth time, there is an ambiguity issue: What exactly is an association? A potential further issue is whether an extension to unknowing membership, or similar, even absent compulsion should find mention, e.g. in that someone else files a membership application, pays all membership fees, whatnot, without telling the new “member”.
This is not as far-fetched as it might sound. Benign reasons can include an attempt to perform a favor for a child, which, while usually misguided, can have a justification, e.g. to get an early start in an endless wait for an apartment in a system where formal queues have replaced market mechanisms.
Nefarious reasons also exist, e.g. to artificially drive up membership numbers of a political organization in order to receive greater government handouts.
A further issue is what constitutes being compelled. For instance, in Sweden and for large parts of the 20th century, members of many unions were collectively and automatically made members of the Social-Democrat party, without having any own say in the matter—but they could always opt not to be union members. Does this scheme, then, fall into “compelled”? (Regardless, I view the scheme as grossly unethical and unconscionable, and well worthy of a ban for that reason; however, such concerns are off topic.)
1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
I base the below on the interpretation that “freely chosen representatives” imply those chosen to represent the citizen at hand, by the citizen at hand, in issues relating to the citizen at hand, in a manner similar to a lawyer in court.
An alternate interpretation that equates them with e.g. “elected officials” opens up a great can of worms relating to e.g. how representative these will be in practice and what restrictions on the possible forms of government might be implied. (In a first draft, I went some way down this road, before realizing my likely misinterpretation. This misinterpretation should be seen in light of the many weak formulations used throughout the Declaration.)
While superficially noble, the phrasing is too vague. The claim “take part”, in particular, could mean virtually anything, and guarantees nothing of substance.
Then we have the issue of “his country”: I, for instance, was born and raised in Sweden, still have a Swedish citizenship, and (at least for some purposes) think of myself as Swedish (note e.g. my long use of a domain and a website name based on “a Swede in Germany”); however, I moved to Germany at age 22, I have, by now, lived longer in Germany, and the vast majority of all taxes that I have been made to pay have gone to Germany. Should my country now be viewed as Sweden or Germany? If Germany, at what point did the change take place? If not Germany, what value is there in this “right”?
(The issue of “his country” recurs below, but will not be separately addressed. An earlier mention, in Article 13, seems less ambiguous, which explains why I only bring the issue up here.)
I do not hold a German citizenship, but I would, with reservations for the below, be entitled to one. There are three reasons for my decision not to apply for citizenship, namely that it would bring relatively few benefits beyond what my Swedish (and, thereby, EU) citizenship gives me; that there are costs, efforts (including a mostly pointless test), and bureaucracy involved; and that a condition for citizenship is a too vaguely specified support of the German constitution, which I on several counts consider problematic. (A separate analysis is in planning, but I cannot currently give an estimated date of publication.)
2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
And, again, vagueness issues, e.g. concerning what is considered services resp. public services. There is also a potential interpretation that public services should be provided, and potentially of a far-going scope. (Note the many “creative”, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations of the U.S. Constitution that have taken place, e.g. relating to the regulation of interstate trade or through the legal fiction of “substantive due process”—often for the purpose of pushing a political agenda or in a manner that circumvents the legislature. Similar issues can apply with other articles, even when not explicitly addressed.) A formulation like “In as far as public services are provided, they must be accessible on equal terms to all citizens [inhabitants? whatnots?].” would be better (but far from perfect).
In a bigger picture, an explicit right to opt-out might be a very good idea. This, especially, with an eye at mostly pointless and/or over-expensive programs and programs that have a strong component of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Human rights and democracy, or any other system of governance, are only tangentially related, and the contents of this item, therefore, outside the legitimate scope of the Declaration. I would go as far as to say that the main justification of democracy is as a means to increase the probability than human rights are respected, that democracy without human rights is worthless, and that any system that ensures human rights, even if not democratic, is likely to be worthwhile. However, discounting this complication:
Most noteworthy is that the will of the people is the basis of the authority of government—i.e. a democratic equivalent of “King, by the grace of God (so don’t you dare object to me!)”.
Such thoughts have a long history, but have proven increasingly naive. The original idea of a representative democracy might well have been that the representatives are elected and then left to their own devices (subject to official “checks and balances”); however, this simply does not work sufficiently well, as witnessed e.g. by the recent COVID-countermeasure era, the great mishandling of the economy and the markets almost everywhere since the beginning of the “modern” democratic era, or, say, the recent Merkel-era in Germany. Moreover, the justification is often quite thin, as, again, exemplified by the Merkel-era, where Frau Merkel repeatedly formed coalition governments with the nominal archenemies of the CDU (her party)—the Social-Democrat SPD. Even if such a coalition reached a majority in parliament, which was the purpose, no justification based on the will of the people can conceivably be argued by rational, non-metaphysical, arguments, as those who voted for CDU often did so exactly to keep the SPD out of power and certainly to see politics very far from what the SPD has on its agenda (and vice versa for SPD voters).
Even apart from Merkelian abuse of the system and the voters’ confidence, we have issues like many governments being elected by less than half the people, after considering e.g. eligible non-voters. (To which I note that many do not vote because there are no good alternatives, implying that the non-vote is better considered a “vote of no confidence” than the result of “one of many voters who simply were to lazy to vote and only have themselves to blame” or as something to be excused with (the potentially faulty, and certainly missing-the-point, claim) “if all non-voters had voted, the distribution of votes would not have changed anyway, so who cares”.
Elections might be “periodic” and still be borderline pointless, e.g. “once every fifty years”. On the other hand, non-periodic elections might make sense in some circumstances and, e.g., a system based on a maximum term rather than a fix term could be a superior alternative. Here the Declaration meddles where it should not.
Moreover, the aim at “periodic” implicitly rules out more directly democratic actions, e.g. a referendum on some particularly important point.
That elections are “genuine” seems good, but the term is too vague.
The requirement of “universal and equal suffrage” is dubious, involves further meddling, and bars improvements to the current systems like a check for an ability to think critically and to withstand emotional manipulation. With “universal” another potential vagueness is introduced, especially as the everyday meaning of the word would lead to an impossible interpretation.
There are reasons to suspect that the secret vote (secret ballot, whatnot) brings more problems than it solves. It, especially, gives the vote counters and the reporters of the count much freer hands to distort the results of the vote than in a non-secret system, and, at a minimum, the assumption of a net-benefit must be viewed with caution and with consideration for how the advantages and disadvantages work in a particular situation. Notably, is the risk of and the damage from voter intimidation larger or smaller than the risk of and the damage from incorrect tallying by partisan election workers? (What constitutes “equivalent free voting procedures” is unclear, which makes a discussion pointless.)
During the 2024 POTUS election, I saw several claims of events like someone coming to vote, being told that he allegedly already had voted, and, upon pressing the point, being allowed to vote again—without the old vote being rescinded, because there was no way to, after the fact, connect that vote/ballot/whatnot with the voter at hand. This allows for two types of cheating. Firstly, more likely in these cases, that someone else had managed to vote in the name of the voter at hand. Secondly, that someone dedicated could vote once and return to vote again while feigning ignorance of the previous vote.
To boot, it makes clerical and other errors (let alone cheating) hard or impossible to correct.
As an aside, this is a further indication that strong voter-identification laws are necessary to reduce the risk of cheating, regardless of whether the vote is secret.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Here much hinges on “social security”. If it is interpreted in anything resembling e.g. the modern U.S. sense (money transfer to those in need, those pretending to be in need, those not even pretending to be in need but having a sufficiently good excuse to get money anyway, whatnot), it is inexcusable—a means of, so to speak, hard-coding a Leftist agenda. In a more literal interpretation, it might mean, say, a society sufficiently free from e.g. crime and violence as to ensure reasonable conditions, which would be laudable. Other interpretations might have different evaluations yet.
If someone is entitled to the realization of this-and-that, the how is secondary and a pushing of “national effort and international co-operation [etc.]” beside the point. For that matter, these are not necessarily the best, first, or only ways to achieve such a realization. On the contrary, the formulation looks like a cheap attempt to push a U.N.-for-the-sake-of-the-U.N. agenda (because, who else would ensure the international co-operation?) and/or e.g. a “governments must be in charge” agenda.
Moreover, the “in accordance” part is potentially problematic, as it can be taken to be a source of excuses for violations by certain countries and/or an obligation for “rich” countries to help “poor” countries, neither of which, outside narrow limits, is a good idea.
As to “economic, social and cultural rights”, it is not clear what these would be, nor even necessarily that they exist. What, e.g., is a “cultural right”? Hoop earrings for me but not for thee? The right to visit a museum or go to the theater? In a generous interpretation, it might mean something like a protection against the destruction of a minority culture, as e.g. attempted by the USSR, but, if so, greater explicitness would be necessary. (I note, as these rights are based on the “indispensable”, that they are likely to go beyond what is otherwise specified in the Declaration, which, again, is a potential source of problems with interpretation and interpolation. They also seem to be a repeated case of seeing the individual as limited to what society can provide, which is naive and not to be confused with the more apt observation that society often limits the individual in an artificial and unnecessary manner.)
Then we have the issue of “dignity” again, and the issue of whether and to what degree these “economic, social and cultural rights” are necessary to achieve dignity and personality development. (Also see above notes on “personality”.) Why not, if there is any substance to this, put the horse before the carriage, where it belongs, and insist on e.g. a “right to free development of his personality” and that the government/state/whatnot be obliged to provide a reasonable framework for this.
Finally, again, to stipulate a right to happiness (or similar), instead of the pursuit of happiness, is a flawed approach.
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
A statement e.g. that everyone has the right to work in self-employment or in the employment of such an employer who is willing to hire, would have been justifiable. (I.e. “right to work” -> “the government [or whoever] must not forbid anyone from working”.) Here we have something much farther going and far less worthy, namely what seems like a right to be employed. (I.e. “right to work” -> “the government must ensure that everyone has work”. Conceivably, the interpretation “in the case of unemployment, the government must keep the unemployed fed and lodged” is possible, but that might be even worse.)
I am broadly in favor of “free choice of employment” (in as far as a willing employer can be found), but, if “choice of employment” refers to the role/field/whatnot, some limitations might well be legitimate and are certainly common, e.g. with regard to the practice of medicine. With this interpretation of “employment”, it is also odd that the same freedom is not extended to the self-employed. (This might be an indication of an anti-stance relative self-employment, entrepreneurship, and similar, which is, sadly, not uncommon, especially on the Left; it might equally be another item not sufficiently thought through by the authors.)
(Other interpretations of “employment” are possible, notably as “occupation” or similar; however, these are harder to combine with “protection against unemployment” and the choice of another word, e.g. “occupation” it self, would then have been better.)
Similarly, I am broadly in favor of “just and favourable conditions”; however, this is a tricky area. Firstly, what is considered “just and favourable” depends too much on the speaker and can mean something very different in the mouth of, say, a union leader or a syndicalist than what many others would see as reasonable. Secondly, we cannot have a right to employment conditions set just with an eye at the employee’s situation–we also have to consider factors like the employer’s situation and what conditions someone unemployed might be willing to accept in return for that job, e.g. in terms of a less “favourable” remuneration. (Here we might see a reason for “protection against unemployment”: without unemployment, there is no competition for work, without competition for work, workers, unions, and/or the government are in a good situation to dictate conditions.)
All in all, this reads like pure Leftist agenda punishing—not a true right or set of rights.
Some degree of intervention against e.g. work hazardous to the health of the workers can be justified, but even here caution is needed. For instance, to require safety precautions for those working on an oil platform might be quite reasonable. Not so, to demand a ban on human workers on oil platforms because there is always some risk involved, e.g. through unforeseen storms. Within reasonable limits, then, it is better to let the individual workers make informed choices whether the increased risks are worth taking, e.g. in exchange for an increased payment, relative some other job.
(For that matter, there seems to be research showing that even regular office work, especially sitting office work, is bad for the health of the workers.)
A more important aspect might indeed be “informed choice/consent”, that no one should be mislead about the risks involved.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
Either Leftist agenda pushing or a sign that the authors do not understand the word “discrimination”. Yes, no one should receive more or less pay for a spurious reason, e.g. sex. No, equal work alone does not necessitate equal pay in any reasonable view. For instance, a young new employee with a high potential might well receive a higher salary, here and now, than someone old and already at the end of his potential, to ensure that the young new employee actually takes the job and can reach that potential “here”, as opposed to turning the job down and reaching his potential with the competition.
(This item might be a sign of a similarly limited and/or Leftist worldview as above, where everyone is not just in employment, but is remunerated strictly according to e.g. union-negotiated wages.)
The matter is complicated further by the great room for dispute over what “equal pay” and “equal work” imply. For instance, is it equal work when two persons both spend 40 hours in the office but have different outputs? When both have the same output measured on some quantity metric but differ in quality)? What if the one has a greater output but the other a better quality? (Note e.g. problems like Feminists deploring that man A and woman B have different salaries while having the same formal title—without bothering to find out who actually achieves what.)
Then there are issues like negotiating skills and similar.
3. 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.
And the Leftist parade continues. Here we have what amounts to a call for a “living wage”, with no regard for actual value brought. Even assuming a “work in employment only” situation (compatible with the above), this is a horror for the employers, will lead to unjustified costs for others, and/or make the over-favoured unemployable. (The overall formulation also casts doubts on whether other uses of “just” actually imply “just”, or rather e.g. “favours the employee”. This especially in light of the repeated pairing with “favourable”.)
There is likely an implicit assumption of a single-earner family. No provisions are made for e.g. a student earning a side-income. There is certainly yet another dangerous dignity argument.
On top of that, we effectively have a forced social-security system.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
There is no obvious reason why there should be a separate right to join trade unions in addition to the more general right of “freedom of association” (cf. Article 20). I note with great suspicion that a right to not be a member of a trade union, something which has proven a must through e.g. U.S. experiences, is missing; ditto, the right to not be forced to pay fees to a union despite not being a member. (Albeit, possibly inferable through Article 20.)
This, too, fits a Leftist agenda quite well.
From a more pragmatic point of view, trade unions do not necessarily truly protect the interests of the employees. Too often, they, like many other organizations, have grown to be their own ends, to serve as tools for their leaders, or similar—often in a manner that does more harm than good for the employed. Likewise, they often do serve the interest of the employed at the cost of the unemployed in a way that distorts markets and damages the economy.
From yet another, the resistance against unions is usually not based in the idea of unions, as such, but the many negative effects that arise from irresponsible unions, their disregard for third parties, unreasonable demands and propaganda, attacks on non-strikers during strikes, attempts to prevent non-strikers from getting to work, abuse of the workers’ money and other resources for political purposes, and similar. Also note that a protection against e.g. unions preventing access to work is not explicitly mentioned anywhere, nor can it necessarily be inferred from the existing articles (not even 23.1).
In at least the U.S., the additional issue of unions participating in and/or being affiliated with organized crime has often been relevant.
All in all, rights to protection from unions might be more worthwhile, including that union membership must not be mandatory for employment with a certain employer (let alone in a certain geographic area or field of work), that unions may not prevent non-strikers from working during a strike, and that unions may not collect money from non-members against their will.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
To the first half:
With just a claim of “rest and leisure”, this does not amount to much, as e.g. a short lunch break can amount to “rest and leisure”. However, if we assume a sufficiently significant amount as to be worthy of mention:
Neither rest nor leisure can be guaranteed, as there is more to life than work, as there is individual choice (and consequences), and as we might have many other obligations. On the outside, as with the second half, a specification relating to work would be needed.
To give an explicit example: Consider a single mother who works an 8-hour day, has a long commute, and then has to spend hours taking care of the children and the household. Chances are that she would have far less “rest and leisure” than what most of us would be comfortable with.
If taken to its extreme, we might then have to argue (and some Leftist extremists would argue) that she should now live on the money of other tax payers or work fewer hours without a reduction in pay—both of which are highly unfair to others.
An interesting contrast is a student who works and studies in parallel. Unlike the single mother, he has made a choice that he can revise at any time, even be it at a personal cost, which implies that any “right” to “rest and leisure” would not be invalidated by his schedule. (The type of the cost will depend on his circumstance and what he gives up, but options include a mark as a college drop-out and racking up additional debt.)
As to the second, “reasonable limitation” is so vague that the text becomes pointless. Depending on speaker, time, country, whatnot, it could mean 40 hours a week, it could mean 80. Vagueness might not be avoidable in a document of this type, but it would then have been better to leave the issue out, in favor of a more generic statement, and to create a recommendation for this-and-that in an entirely different and more specialized document.
(Below, I assume that “holidays” = “vacation”. If the scope is more limited, e.g. to “bank holidays”, the same big-picture reasoning still applies, but the details would need adaption.)
There is no real reason why holidays should come with pay, as the overall remuneration will not change. Paid holidays do not imply more money, they just imply a different distribution of money. Nor do they imply less work for the same money, they imply less work for less money. Given a yearly salary of x, a paid holiday of one month implies 12 payments of x/12; an unpaid holiday implies 11 payments of x/11. (Where, for the sake of easy illustration, I assume that the one month is taken in one go and to coincide with a calendar month.) Indeed, the holiday is not actually paid at all—we just see a redistribution of payment.
The one significant difference from “paid” holidays, possibly excepting easier accounting, is that those otherwise tempted to forego the holiday in favor of more money have no reason to do so. This might be beneficial in as far it favours rest and relaxation; less so in that it removes choice, notably through reducing the ability of trading more work for more pay. The same effect, however, can be achieved through other means. For instance, German businesses usually have a rule that unused vacation days from year X expire a few months into year X + 1.
For many jobs, especially in the office, the benefit of vacation (regardless of payment) is also reduced through an increased work burden before and/or after the vacation, to “get things out of the way” resp. to “catch up”.
(The relaxation effect of traveling for vacations is also highly dubious, at least these days, but, contrary to apparent popular opinion, there is no actual law that mandates travel. Staying at home, resting, relaxing, catching up on my reading, etc., is the option that I have usually preferred.)
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Here any pretense at anything but Leftism, a “welfare” state, whatnot, is relinquished. This item alone disqualifies the Declaration from serious consideration. A sensible item would simply give anyone the right to earn enough to give himself an adequate standard of living (etc.), or to otherwise achieve this. Not only is this type of outright Socialism a gross unfairness and harmful to the economy, but it can be outright ruinous to a too weak economy, as was certainly the case for many nations at the time of the Declaration, and is certainly the case for some nations today. Note that, in as far, as protection against e.g. unemployment makes sense (and it often does), a much better road is to have voluntary insurance schemes that have nothing to do with such pseudo-rights as implied by this item. Ditto e.g. pension schemes and health insurance.
A particular issue is that such schemes ultimately depend on robbing Peter to pay Paul, which, naturally, interferes with the rights of Peter and can severely hinder him in, say, his “Pursuit of Happiness”—a much more central right than e.g. “social services” can be construed to be, even when stretching the definition of “right” to the breaking point.
Now, some level of support can be justified for events and circumstances truly out of the control of the individual, e.g. an injury that temporarily or permanently prohibits work or forces a move to another field and/or position. Such cases form only a small minority of the actual recipients of various types of support in a typical modern “welfare” state and of those that would result from the above.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
To the first sentence:
Neither of the “hoods” are persons and neither can be entitled to anything. If we assume that the intent is on mothers with children of certain ages (and what ages?), resp. those children, however, the question arises of who is obligated to provide. Certainly not random citizens (notwithstanding that many or most will voluntarily help when it is called for). That the husband/father has an obligation to help the wife/mother, and the parents the children, might well be, but this is hardly relevant for a document of this type. The government, then? To some degree, it does make sense that the government supports children who would otherwise be lacking in e.g. food (say, because the parents are dead, lazy, or otherwise unable or unwilling to provide); however, the family should be the first stop and government involvement saved for special cases. (And here, too, we have to be realistic about the ability of many countries to actually support such systems.)
Support of mothers is beside the point, except as a side-effect of supporting the children. (And the idea might reflect an older society.)
Then we have the issue of what that vague “special care and assistance” actually implies.
To the second:
At least in the Western world, this certainly reflects an older society, as “out of wedlock” has not been much of an issue in terms of e.g. legal status, societal acceptance, whatnot, for several decades; and, to me, the sentence is mostly interesting for how it points to changing norms. (The situation elsewhere might be different, however.)
Whether “out of wedlock”, and the increased risk of not having a “traditional family”, is a good situation for the child at hand is another matter entirely. However, it is interesting that e.g. a right to know one’s parents is not included.
A particular problem, if, maybe, one less obvious at the time that the Declaration was written than it is today, is the immense negative incentives created by too generous systems. There are, e.g., cases of U.S. women (and, in particular, very young Black women), who have children for the purpose of collecting various types of support in lieu of working for a living.
To expand on support of mothers:
If, ill-advisedly, a “right” to support is given to mothers beyond what follows from supporting the children, why specifically mothers and not parents? This might well, as noted, be explained by changing societal norms, but it was short-sighted even at the time that the Declaration was written. If nothing else, the rate of women dying during childbirth has historically been high, and such deaths often left a father-as-a-single-parent. Why would, e.g., a father-as-a-single-parent be less favored than a mother-with-a-supportive-husband?
And what about (non-parent) legal guardians and the like?
1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
First, very good, the above deals with education, where others might have gone with school. (Germany and Sweden, for instance and with only few exceptions, have barbaric systems of compulsory schooling instead of education, which rules out e.g. home schooling and self-education.) However, as I write the below, I often have the suspicion that the actual intent of the authors is on schools and schooling—if not, some claims are odd. (Cf. the below analysis.)
Looking more in detail, there are problems of content and perspective, beginning with the question of “how much education” and “what quality of education”. While a document of this type is not the place to specify details, a core observation is that the Declaration would allow a very wide range—possibly, to the point of being pointless.
The claim that everyone has the right to education could, and likely will be taken by some, to imply e.g. a right to be educated by others. Even discounting countries where this might not be realistic, a better perspective would be to emphasize the right to educate oneself without hindrances (such as the banning of books or bans on the right to learn how to read) and a right to access to “formal education” on sufficiently equal terms (e.g. in that formal education available to the one sex must be so to the other, to the one race to all others, etc.; however, allowing for discrimination based on e.g. scholastic ability).
In more detail, there can be tricky issues to resolve. For instance, some claim that single-sex education has net benefits (and it certainly has a different set of advantages and disadvantages from “co-education”). Should an individual institution be banned from single-sex education, even when similar “educational opportunities” are available elsewhere?
Free education, at a minimum has a perspective problem—beginning with the simple fact that there are other costs than monetary ones, including the years of hard study needed to master a field and the waste of time that compulsory school imposes on many students. (And note that time spent studying is usually time not spent earning an income.) Even looking at monetary costs, we have issues like books: if I want to educate myself in a new field, should I still have to pay for relevant books (or whatever might apply) or should I have the right to download them for free? The latter might be good for me, but could remove incentives to write and publish new books. From yet another point of view, it can be argued that education is free or almost free (note e.g. costs of books for the “almost”) by default—the price tag on a U.S. college education, e.g., is not for the education but for the diploma. Anyone with a brain can learn the same things on his own (and those who cannot are not college material and should not be in college to begin with).
Here I assume that “free” refers to costs. A “free” as in e.g. “accessible to all” is conceivable but would be redundant and make little sense in the overall context.
Even if we restrict ourselves to “the elementary and fundamental stages” and ignore the ambiguity and interpretability of “fundamental”, a right to free education should not be extended beyond the availability of such. However, as the current formulation stands, a natural interpretation is that providing e.g. schooling for payment would be forbidden, even to those willing to pay and even if other sources offer free education.
Of course, a negative side-effect of mandating free schooling (but not necessarily education) is that schooling will then almost necessarily come from public sources, with associated dangers of abuse for purposes like indoctrination into the opinions that the government prefers.
Then we have the illusion of “free”: Even if there is no fee for e.g. going to a certain school, there will always be a cost involved. Someone has to pay, even be it the tax payers in general. The effect is that even those nominally (be it from the point of view of parents or children) enjoying “free” education will usually end up paying through their taxes—and often considerable amounts. (In as far as the current parents in the now or the children “paying backwards” do not cover the entire bill, someone else will have to.) Further, there is the complication that e.g. free government-run education or schooling could be a blocker for those who chose to e.g. home school—they would pay for school over their taxes and might, to the detriment of their children, forego home schooling as they “have already paid” for school. (A similar distorting mechanism is present against for-charge schools—someone who pays them and pays for regular school over taxes pays twice.)
Compulsory elementary education is better than compulsory schooling, certainly. However, whether it is a good idea is open to discussion and the encoding, the one-time decision, here is dubious. For instance, there are countries where putting the children in school could remove critical earning power from a poor family. (Generally, Leftists tend to be blind to the practical details and the reality of others.) For instance, contrary to propaganda, the “return on investment” in the education, let alone schooling, of children tends to be quite poor. I, e.g., probably learned more on my own than I did in school even as a child and have learned far more as an adult than I did in any given school year. Indeed, I do not hesitate to claim that I learn more per year as an adult than I did through years 4–6 of school, let alone years 1–3—maybe, even the totality of years 1–6. Similarly, even the sum of my school learning and private learning during any of these childhood years was well, well short of an adult year.
The compulsory Swedish school system is divided into three 3-year phases, “lågstadiet” (1–3), “mellanstadiet” (4–6), and “högstadiet” (7–9), and my history of thinking has been in terms of e.g. “I learned less in mellanstadiet than I do per adult year”. The year-based formulations are a translation of these thoughts into a language that requires no prior exposure to the Swedish system. For natural reasons, the tempo increased year for year, and I cannot guarantee, based on my memories, that the same claims would hold for years 7–9/högstadiet (but I would not be shocked if they did).
I stress that “adult” refers to “adult” in general—not to specifically my years at college/uni. I have always put far more effort into “continuing education” than most others; however, even for others and outside of basic skills like reading and writing, a shift of education from childhood to adulthood might make sense.
I further stress that I was by no means a lazy or poor student. Even as is, I had a greater “raw” benefit from school than most of the other children—but, obviously, a “net” disadvantage, after factoring in the opportunity cost of having less free time to spend on actually getting an education, instead of going to school.
Another complication is the idea that children who work or play, instead of going to school and instead of studying on their own, do not receive an education. Depending on the society, circumstances, and whatnot at hand, this might be true—but it might also be false. Worse, when the idea is false, the education gained is often considerably more relevant to the future life and work of the individual at hand than schooling is. (The more so in older societies, where sons were more likely to follow in the footsteps of their fathers or where a childhood apprenticeship might determine the adult career.)
As I have slowly come to realize, the image of, say, a farmer as an uneducated lout, which was implicitly forced upon younger versions of me by various “educators”, politicians, and similar, can be horribly wrong. The knowledge that a good farmer has might be very different from that of, say, a mathematician, a physician, or a philologist, but it can still be quite extensive—and certainly more valuable for purposes of farming. To boot, this knowledge is supplemented by practical skills, which school rarely manages to bring over—and even when school does bring practical skills, they are not necessarily relevant skills.
Indeed, even for me and beyond the basic “three Rs”, what I learned in school has mostly been irrelevant to my adult life: What has been relevant, I have mostly picked up outside school, be it through own reading, own thinking, own experiences, own practical work, own whatnot.
To analyse “Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” is too tricky, as the intent is unusually hard to understand. For instance, is the technical and professional education seen as opposed to higher education? (This might be the case with e.g. some types of vocational technical education on the secondary or adult-but-not-tertiary level, which once was far more common than today, but certainly not for e.g. a university-level engineering education.) Then we have questions like “Made available by whom?” and whether equal accessibility precludes payment.
At best, the sentence is poorly formulated; at worst, it is some form of agenda pushing. (I make no statement on which applies or what intermediate position might be taken.)
My general ideas should be clear from the earlier analysis, however.
Higher education on a for-charge basis is something that has often annoyed me, e.g. in that I read up on potentially interesting further degrees and see e.g. a particular master’s course described as “cheap” at a price tag of 10 grand—should I do almost all the work and pay 10 grand for the privilege?!? Ditto, for others, the insane price tags on e.g. a U.S. college education where, again, the students actually pay for the diploma, not the education proper.
This, however, is a matter of excesses and a reasonable pricing would not be amiss. Indeed, it is better that those who study pay than that the tax payers do, both from a fairness perspective and from a good-of-the-country perspective. A reasonable amount, however, is far smaller than what is actually often charged. (To give an even slightly specific number would require research and the number might vary from field to field, degree to degree, etc.)
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It-shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
The odd “It-shall” is as copy-and-pasted. I have not investigated the provenance of this likely error, as it, even if not present in the original, is unlikely to alter the natural interpretation of the item.
In other words, the purpose of education is to favor the ostensible agenda of the U.N. and/or the Declaration—not actual educational purposes.
Looking in more detail:
Education should and must ultimately go where the student turns his attention—not where some obscure entity directs it.
In as far as a goal is pursued in terms of school and other formal education, the main purpose categorical must be to bring the students to think for themselves, to be able to learn on their own, and to have the willingness and ability to form their own opinions—certainly not to swallow wholesale the opinions of the U.N. or some other entity.
An obscurity like “human personality” has no place in a discussion like this without detailed clarification, and, in as far as a reasonable attempt at interpretation is made in the absence of clarification, it does not truly seem to be relevant to a discussion of (formal) education. (An overlap with the hard-to-translate German “Bildung” could be argued; however, “Bildung” must come from within and through the work of the individual to an even higher degree than regular education. It certainly has little to do with formal education.)
A “strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” is superficially laudable, but fails on the more important issue of forming one’s own opinions, if in doubt with regard to what is considered “human rights and fundamental freedoms” (a point, where I see the authors’ own opinions as often highly naive, counterproductive, or otherwise worthy of rejection—as the reader might have noticed). A worthier goal would be to instill a general sense of ethics and a respect for others, while leaving the exact nature of that ethics up to the student. For an example of an idea that (a) might be worthy of inclusion, (b) covers some overlapping ground with the actual statements (including the below), consider the need to hear and to strive to understand both sides of a conflict before passing judgment.
Understanding, tolerance, whatnot between “nations, racial or religious groups” are beside the point—these have nothing to do with education and could be seen as irrelevant even in a bigger picture, relative more worthy ideals like respect for the individual. (From which most or all other benefits would follow.) Friendship between groups is in so far nonsensical as groups cannot be friends. (Individuals can and, in a more metaphorical sense, countries and other entities.) Tolerance is not a given for any of the listed—even given understanding, there are things that simply should not be tolerated, e.g. murderous dictatorships like the USSR.
The invocation of anything relating to the U.N., finally, is inexcusable, one of those things that, even taken alone, invalidates and delegitimizes the Declaration.
Overlapping with much of the above, and regardless of the Declaration, we have the common issue of school being abused for indoctrination into various wanted-by-the-government ideals, or increasingly, in today’s world, Leftist or far Leftist agendas.
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Again, a massive ambiguity problem. Notably, what is the scope of “prior”? An irrevocable one-time choice? Something more recurring, revisable, and/or interactive? (At any rate, suitable guarantees of influence are missing.) Notably, “kind” could imply e.g. fields of study, educational approach, whether a more vocational or more academic goal is targeted, whatnot.
The “shall be given to their children” is significant and highly problematic. Education is not something given, it is something resulting from own work and, especially, own thinking. Worse, the formulation could be seen as an implicit assumption of school over education. In particular, the overall formulation does not seem to make allowances for home schooling and self-education.
Parental influence on education is a two-edged sword, as it can lead to deficiencies in education as well as improvements. Indeed, in younger years, I might have favored the government as the lesser evil. With time, however, I have come to the opposite conclusion.
This is well exemplified by my 2011 and 2022 takes on someone else’s blog post.
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
This item is pointless, impossible to implement without exception, and might well cause rights violations and/or other injustices (maybe even in conflict with the following item).
Take “cultural life of the community” and imagine a rural village where this cultural life consists of a weekly barn dance: Should the village/community not have the right to ban someone who consistently gets drunk, molests the women, and starts unprovoked fights with the men? (Or, vice versa, molests the men and starts fights with the women.)
This is one of several examples of a failure to consider the behavior, special circumstances, and whatnot of the individual. A better formulation might have made a statement along the lines of “opportunity to participate on equal terms”. (Which, above, could imply that the “someone” is banned, but with the restriction that the same rules apply to everyone else and that anyone else showing a similar behavior will also be banned.)
Similarly, “to share in scientific advancement and its benefits” might require payment or some other condition, and, on the outside, a stipulation of e.g. “access on equal terms” might apply. Indeed, as the claim currently stands, it could be construed as a duty to make any and all scientific advancement public and publicly available. This would imply, for instance, that someone who first discovered the possibility of “splitting the atom” would be obliged to make the information public to enable nuclear power, even when he feared nuclear weapons and would have preferred to delay their invention by not going public. (Generally, there a great many scientific advances with the potential for both positive and negative use—and a great many where a positive use is not without risk.)
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
While laudable in principle and likely as explicit as is possible in a document of this type, there is very great room for discussion and diverging opinions around the details, and at least some room for conflicting interests. Consider, as an example of conflict, whether and to what degree someone who performs work-for-hire should have a remaining moral or material interest and/or a resulting partial control of the result, even after having been paid in full, and contrary to the interests of the hiring party. Given that an item on this topic is included, at all, some other statement might have been preferable, e.g. concerning “reasonable copyright (or other) protection”.
Moreover, the limitation to “scientific, literary or artistic production” is potentially too narrow. For instance, work on a software product would normally not be covered by any of the three angles, implying that such work would normally not be guaranteed protection by this item. (Ditto e.g. many engineering tasks that, unlike software development, existed on a considerable scale at the time of the Resolution.)
As an aside, I have seen arguments against copyright protection in any form. While these have so far failed to convince me, there is greater legitimacy to that opinion than to e.g. a “ban all property” opinion, and a case against the inclusion of this item could be made.
From another point of view, given that the item is included, much would speak for the inclusion of a counterpart giving limited rights to others, including the “fair use”, “right to quote”, and “right to parody” categories.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
This claim is, at best, redundant in light of the individual rights asserted.
There is little reasons to see any particular “international order” as a necessity (within reasonable limits) for the realization. How anyone can be “entitled” to a social or international order is a mystery.
(There might also be some room to, for the umpteenth time, raise vagueness concerns, now surrounding what “social and international order” actually implies.)
1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
Utterly inexcusable!
Firstly, this sentence is nonsensical. The most likely referent of “in which” is “the community”, but why would the community be an “alone”? For that matter, what is meant by community? The local community? The city or country of residence? The global community? Something else entirely?
The alternative would be the “duties”, which makes as little sense.
Secondly, the implication (in both cases) seems to be that the individual would be bound to and enabled by the community in a manner contrary to individualism and observable progress of humans. Indeed, those who truly develop themselves tend to be those who stand apart from the community (in whatever sense) and often are outright hindered by it.
Thirdly, there is an additional ambiguity in what is intended by “personality”. Are we talking personal growth? Some equivalent of the German “Bildung”? Whatnot? (And why is there no mention of e.g. the ability to build a good life, Pursue Happiness, or similar, when “personality” finds explicit mention?)
Fourthly, this is yet another instance of content that has no place in a declaration of rights. Having a duty is not a matter of rights—and certainly not duties that do not make sense. (Due to the vagueness of formulation, a deeper analysis is not possible, but it reeks of “from everyone according to ability” and “Eigentum verpflichtet”.)
By and large, this seems like a grotesque attempt to smuggle in an anti-individualist and/or far-Leftist agenda.
2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
Up to and including “rights and freedoms of others” this seems approximately laudable, as a version of the “bubble of rights” that is at the core of classical liberalism and libertarianism. (This with reservations for what is considered “rights and freedoms”, as such, and what the “exercise” thereof. Here there might or might not be a loophole for government intervention, e.g. of the common “you have the right to free speech, but only if no one is offended, insulted, or otherwise dislikes what you have to say” type.)
A complication, however, is the restriction to what is determined by law, which could imply e.g. that acts rightfully considered intolerable, but which are not explicitly banned by law, must be tolerated. (To which must be noted that laws often contain holes for reasons like some behavior simply being too unlikely to have caught the attention of the lawmakers, or, even, when it is virtually taken for granted that it will not appear in real-life.)
The remainder is highly problematic and in contrast with the beginning:
Firstly, all of “just requirements”, “morality”, “public order”, and “general welfare” are vague and give the government enormous leeway of interpretation.
Secondly, arguments around “public order” have a long history of being abused for disproportionate and/or unreasonable rights violations.
Thirdly, the use of “democratic society” is highly misguided, as it dictates something not relevant to the Declaration, something that did not then and does not now apply to all member states, and something which has proven highly problematic and might well benefit from replacement.
Fourthly, a ditto for “general welfare”, with the added suspicion that this can be abused to push specifically a “welfare” state.
To the “Thirdly”, a potentially controversial and misunderstandable, and certainly distortable by hostile debaters, claim:
Firstly, while I join Churchill in considering democracy a lesser evil than other tried forms, chances are that improvement is possible. With such improvements, it might or might not be that the word “democracy” would be applied. For instance, I am strongly in favor of replacing or modifying the common current criterion of “is eighteen or older” for the right to vote with some type of ability test, notably, to check the ability to think critically and see through rhetoric and emotional manipulation—something sorely lacking in many voters well above eighteen.
Secondly, overlapping, there is a complication around what is implied by “democracy”. For instance, the ancient Greek democracies do not match the current pattern. For instance, some U.S. debaters are adamant that the U.S. system of government is a “republic” and not a “democracy”, while others might see is as a republic-as-a-special-case-of-democracy. I would certainly see the U.S. republic system as superior to e.g. the Swedish democratic one, should such a distinction be made; I am certainly open to other variations on the “democracy theme” than the Swedish.
(Additionally, if slightly off-topic, I see strong rights as more important than democracy, and would certainly prioritize a non-democratic society with strong respect for e.g. freedom of speech and due process over a democracy that tramples them.)
3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Inexcusable, out of place in a declaration of this type, and opening the doors for endless abuse and restrictions.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Highly problematic and extremely self-centered. The idea seems to be that the Declaration is written in stone as an inviolable guideline for all posterity and all parties (excepting extensions). This despite it being a snapshot of opinion of a comparably small group and despite considerable problems, as discussed above. Note the parallels with the very poor German constitution and the central “crime” of “Verfassungsfeindlichkeit”.
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