What is the Most Important Human Rights Document?
What human rights document do you consider most important?
My own beliefs about human rights are shaped about equally by a bunch of gut reactions and some very abstract ideas. When something seems particularly just or unjust, I’m usually reacting at the level of “That’s right!” or “That’s wrong!”
Like I said before, I read to find out what I think. So I’m asking today about documents, because that’s where I begin to bridge the gap between my own reactions and abstractions. I think first of the Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the philosophical debates that are context for these documents. I imagine some think first of the golden rule or religious scripture like the Koran, the Bible, the Torah. Maybe some think of the writings of Rousseau or Locke and philosophy concerning divine, legal, and natural rights.
Go back and look at that interview with Galbraith and Mulet. Notice that neither of them refers directly to any document, but a great deal is implied. Their disagreement is largely procedural and political, but the subtext is a very complex ground of different religious, ethnic, and legal distinctions. Building and supporting a workable human rights framework requires both agreement and disagreement. It’s often messy.
When you find yourself facing a difference between what you think is right and what a neighbor thinks, how do you bridge that gap? How about when that neighbor isn’t so near but is halfway round the world?
Do you react? Do you start to think about the abstractions behind their rights and yours? Does a particular document shape your thoughts and feelings in these sorts of moments? Which ones?
