# 70th Anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 16, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/70th-anniversary-of-the-un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/806763 "2018-01-16T17:36:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/70th-anniversary-of-the-un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/806763/1 "2018-01-16T17:36:34Z")
As many of you may know, every 10 years or so, I post something on the anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s anniversary has come up again this year. In fact this December it will be the 70th anniversary. So it is really a banner year. Yet no one in this country seems to know or care. [Here](http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/) is the document in full, if you are interested. Yeah, born out of the horrors of World War II, it was originally meant to be a kind of bill of rights, that anyone could draw upon anywhere. It is however, just a common standard for all peoples everywhere. It still has some force of law though. And many modern charters of rights are often based on it too. I know it says in the document itself, that people should be made aware of it everywhere, to learn about rights and grow in respect for other people. But in this country, there is no mention of it anywhere. Certainly not in the media, in any event. It is kind of ironic, because I have to wonder how close this country measures up to its ideals. Please take the time to read it, in the link I have provided. And I just have to ask: Who else was even aware of it? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/70th-anniversary-of-the-un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/806763/2 "2018-01-17T18:25:53Z")
OK, no one wants to talk about the UDHR. So to get the discussion moving in a slightly different direction, do you know that the US was taken off the UN human rights commission? [Here](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2001/05/04/world/for-first-time-us-is-excluded-from-un-human-rights-panel.html?referer=https://www.google.com/) is one article on the matter. I just thought I’d share that. This is MPSIMS, not GD. So I am not necessarily saying that we should debate it. But it is still pretty crappy though. Nations like China, Pakistan and Sudan are on it, but we aren’t. What am I missing here? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/70th-anniversary-of-the-un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/806763/3 "2018-01-17T19:48:36Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > OK, no one wants to talk about the UDHR. > > So to get the discussion moving in a slightly different direction, do you know that the US was taken off the UN human rights commission? [Here](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2001/05/04/world/for-first-time-us-is-excluded-from-un-human-rights-panel.html?referer=https://www.google.com/) is one article on the matter. > > I just thought I’d share that. This is MPSIMS, not GD. So I am not necessarily saying that we should debate it. But it is still pretty crappy though. > > Nations like China, Pakistan and Sudan are on it, but we aren’t. What am I missing here? > > 🙂 What you’re missing is that the UN is an utterly useless, corrupt organization. You seem to greatly admire the UN’s declaration of human rights. Do you seriously not see the great yawning gulf of a discrepancy between much of that document and the practices of countries like China, Pakistan, and Sudan? And yet the UN thinks that it’s just fine and dandy for countries like that to lay claim to the moral authority of being on the human rights commission. That ought to be a huge clue–sort of like a club to the head–that the UN doesn’t take its declaration of rights as seriously as it claims to. And speaking of those rights–some of them are pretty good (mainly the ones that are plagiarized from the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence). Others, not so much. Take Article 22–that one sounds as if it were written by a psychologist with way too much time on his hands. Articles 23 & 25 are basically just a grownup version of a child’s temper tantrum – “Waah! Life is supposed to be fair!” And then there are the weasel words; for example, Article 26, section 1: “higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” What does “on the basis of merit” even mean? Whatever the government wants it to mean. Same thing with Article 12: “arbitrary interference”-- the government can cook up a reason for anything it wants to do. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/70th-anniversary-of-the-un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/806763/4 "2018-01-18T19:16:25Z")
Yeah, I suspect that you are probably right. In many ways the UDHR is just dead ink on paper. Quite sad, really, when you think about it. But I still believe in its high ideals. And it is the 70th anniversary. Did anyone else on the boards know that? What about our European dopers? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/70th-anniversary-of-the-un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/806763/5 "2018-01-19T17:21:17Z")
It is kinda hard to take the U.N document seriously when the U.N. Human Rights Council has [Côte d’Ivoire](https://www.hrw.org/afrique/cote-divoire), [Democratic Republic of the Congo](https://www.hrw.org/africa/democratic-republic-congo) and [Burundi](https://www.hrw.org/afrique/burundi) on it among others. Slee