Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Consensus Essay

Globalization and the formation have the United Nations (UN) has brought about a legal international framework for addressing human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the resulting conventions have created a body of international law that did not exist before. For example, whereas the Geneva Convention addressed the treatment of soldiers in wartime, no then existing body of law addressed the issue of stateless persons ie refugees. The creation by the UN of the International Criminal Court (ICC) provided an avenue for the prosecution of war criminals. Whereas the foregoing impacts have been beneficial to the cause of human rights, the globalization of the recent century has been detrimental to state sovereignty and individual rights. Although [x] asserts the preeminence of the individual …show more content…
Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that human rights are founded in human dignity, dignity being the inherent dignity that exists in every person regardless of [insert usual mantra here], what it really means is only the people are worthy of dignity. How else to explain the fact that many of countries signatory to the conventions still permit euthanasia, through the sophistry of physician-assisted suicide and “death with dignity”, and abortion ie the killing of a human person. Is there something about being in a womb that blocks dignity? And, something about being born that conveys dignity and worth? Is there something about being old or infirm that takes away dignity? Human dignity agreed upon by consensus is meaningless. Ergo, the UN, its Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all the conventions pertaining thereto are hypocritical. This is why globalization is bad for human rights. If unelected and in practice unimpeachable ambassadors to the UN can decide what is and is not a right and vote away a citizen’s rights then the word “right” merely means what