UN: Human Rights are 60!

Today is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Britain played its part in drawing this up, as it did with the European Declaration on Human Rights which was drawn from it; and the British Human Rights Act is taken from that.

But I must say I sometimes wonder what we have got. The Declaration contains a number of worthy aims: Article 5 says ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’; here is Article 19: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression’

But it seems to me we have seen this time and again: making a worthy expression of what is good makes us feel better but doesn’t get us any further on. Since December 1948 we know that it is only the bad guys who torture; has torture stopped? Now we know that only evil countries prevent freedom of expression. Imagine! And this has lead to other unworldly wordiness, as with Tony Blair’s ‘handguns’ law, the result being that only the bad guys have guns; or the landmines declaration so beloved of the late Princess of Wales which results in the British Army not being allowed landmines but the people they are fighting having them anyway.

Some say that the value of the UDHR is to lay down a fundamental law so that even though they didn’t actually sign it, the likes of Radko Mladic are subject to it. But what is the use of that? Did we prosecute China for breach of Article 15 ‘Everyone has the right to a nationality’ or Article 21 ‘Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives’. And how many articles is Mugabe in breach of?

It simply hasn’t been convenient to enforce the UNDHR in many places so we simply haven’t, which means that every tin pot dictator knows it is worthless. I think that it would be better if instead of making cosy social democratic love talk we shut up, unless we were prepared to invade anyone in breach of our list of rights, and we’re not, and simply set an example in our own country for the rest of the world to follow.