In another thread, someone mentioned the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948 as a model for human rights. Let’s assume it had actual legal weight - how would it affect the US if it was enacted as law?
Let’s not venture in giant squid territory - no inventing preposterous scenarios based on ridiculous misreadings of passages taken out of context.
These articles make no reference to “except via due process” so would they prohibit capital punishment or imprisonment in general?
This one seems way too broad in its scope. How would you reconcile freedom of speech with a prohibition against attacks upon a person’s honor or reputation?
The language here is ambiguous, but I could see people arguing about whether or not this guarantees the right of gay marriage.
One could also surmise this to be inclusive of polygamy.
Would the family unit’s value supercede any protection by the state due to child abuse?
Does that just apply to government run schools or do private schools have to do away with tuition (I’m guessing it’s the former, but it could be misconstrued).
These kinds of documents – UN Charter, UDHR, US Constitution’s Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens, are NOT meant to contain an exhaustive, to-the-last-what-if solution to every possible situation. They are indeed meant to set forth certain specific “nothing beyond this point” boundaries, and then provide a guide for the regular everyday legislation and judicial construct that will handle the nitty-gritty of what lies on the “fair” side of that line.
More so in the case of the UDHR where the subscribers are independent sovereign states, and the drafters must have been painfully aware than many signatories would at best put on a pretense of honoring the letter while trampling on the spirit (and many are still at it).
Also, we have to remember historic context – in 1946, there was a sentiment to the effect that you needed to react to certain “wrongs” that were done to peoples and nations in the prior decade-and-a-half, by establishing abundant rights in the opposite direction. Thus, for instance, a right to housing, education health care, work, etc., would not necessarily be a mere “welfare” entitlement, but indeed a counter to cases such as Nazi Germany declaring that all those things could be taken away from Jews and other peoples.
Considered implicit, since in another article there are provisions about trials and criminal procedures, they may have felt the connection was obvious. Besides, the “except through due process” clause may have seemed impolitic: you recognize my right to freedom, and with the very next breath you’re already considering how to take it from me.
However, while we’re at it, a majority of developed Western nations indeed have abolished the Death Penalty. OTOH, a majority of the inhabitants of the world do not live very “secure” lives at all.
Easy: Libel Suits. You are free to impugn my my honour or reputation, but if you do so maliciously or falsely, the law protects me, by making you pay. I live in a jurisdiction where the State constitution has that article almost verbatim and this is exactly how it is construed.
Except IIRC that labor organization is a protected right also. Conflict? Not necessarily. The key weaselings here are, (a) nobody forces you to HAVE to apply for a job at a union shop; and (b) “compulsion” means deliberately by a conscious agent. If you’re starving and truly the only available job is in a union shop, that’s just tough luck.
And if the law in your country does indeed provide for a legal structure of polygamous civil marriage with real, full equality of rights, and your society is structured compatibly with that, then knock yourself out.
Similarly “full age” is left as a policy decision to be based on the social realities of the particular sovereign state.
This one seems specially targeted not only to equality between the sexes, but also to “racial purity” laws and marriages-by-order-of-the-Party.
No. There’s even a UN Dec. of Rights of the Child to that effect (That people say goes too far and weakens the family. These dudes can’t win).
Then again, for comparison, the US Constitution (with greater force-of-law) does not say jack-squat about NEITHER child protection NOR family preservation, yet in America both civil authorities and nongovernmental pressure groups use both as rallying points to take all sorts of intrusive action 'cause it’s a compelling state interest.
This one would seem to be in opposition to the concept of totalitarian systems where the child belongs to the State/Party/Volk and can be taken away to be raised by it; or where the State/Party/Volk decides that Helga should bear children to Johann because they are both of fine Aryan stock; or where families can be broken up and sent each person in a different direction; etc.
For 56 years it has been construed to mean that a free primary education must be MADE AVAILABLE. The law and socio-economic circumstances of your sovereign state will determine HOW you manage to achieve that. Whether you let private schools charge more, or less, or even exist, that is left as a policy decision to the individual sovereign states.
It’s a Vision Statement, a declaration of principles. It’s not an actual Work Plan.
Oh, and to the original question? I think very little would change in the USA, legally, if it were interpreted the UDHR has legal weight; barring of course a left-turn by the entire American judiciary so sharp that David Souter would be flattened to his chair by the G-forces. In the absence of any sort of application of external enforceeability, it could all be construed in a manner to fit American mores and legal traditions. For instance, the marriage clause only mentions race, nationality or religion as unacceptable exclusions from marriage, it says nothing about number, so monogamy could remain the US policy. The rights to health care, housing, work, etc. could likewise be construed at US policy level as meaning that such must be available, not that they be given to the individual as he wants. And so on.
Even though elections are an important component in expressing the will of the people, voting is not the only way that the will of the people can be expressed. Protesting, initiatives, and other active means of civil demonstration are not mentioned in Article 21 and while they could be implied in Article 19, I find it distrubing that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems to limit the definition of the will of the people to participating in elections.
Crucial to the concept of due process, and to whether one right implies another being subjugated:
These sections provide something of an answer to how freedom of speech can be limited by libel laws, or how imprisonment (through due process) is acceptable when its purpose is to protect the rights of the rest of the population to live in peace and freedom.
Article 21 isn’t a definition of ‘the will of the people’. It’s a definition of democracy as only possible through a fair demonstration of that will. It doesn’t limit the will to that one situation.
I do agree with Kozmik that the right to petition and the right to peacefully demonstrate, while not quite as important as the right to vote, are also very important rights in a democracy.
Incidentally, UDHR obligations are in a sense legally enforcable in most of Europe, as the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 draws substantially from it. Its rights however are more qualified; Art. 10 for example guarrantees freedom of expression, subject to restrictions “necessary in a democratic society” or “in the interests of national security.” It’s no First Amendment
I’d consider the drug war as it exists in pretty much any country an “arbitrary interference with my privacy, family, home, and correspondence” and thereby this particular article would have a serious impact upon the United States.
Get back to us when you are a Supreme Court Justice, Attorney General or High Lord of the Judiciary somewhere and can do something about that mess. Please! Meanwhile, the clause would have not abolish the Drug War, as long as the drug laws that do exist, are enforced equitably and fairly (which can just as well mean with equal severity across the board – altogether different issue).
I don’t see how your rights of family, home, or correspondence are involved with drug use, so I assume you’re speaking of the right to privacy. I would assume any court would say that your right to privacy does not protect criminal activities so reasonable actions to deter such activities would not qualify as arbitrary interference.
A bit of a hijack, but is there any western country besides the US where you can be compelled to join an union when recruited by a company or where you can’t create another “competing” union in said company if you feel like it?
Both would be completely illegal under french law, and, AFAIK, it’s the same in other European countries…
Just to clarify a “closed shop” does not prohibit you from forming a competing union. A closed shop requires that the employees must belong to a union but they get to choose which one (as a group not as individuals). If another union wishes to challenge for the membership it can do so. There’s a vote and whichever union wins becomes the mandatory union for the employees of the business.
Meanwhile, the clause would have not abolish the Drug War, as long as the drug laws that do exist, are enforced equitably and fairly (which can just as well mean with equal severity across the board – altogether different issue).