I've been remiss in making my installments concerning human rights, an important subject I raised last month when discussing how the OWS movement and similar idealists should exercise caution in wielding language that the political class has usurped. If the goal is to challenge the political class, a rush to embrace "human rights" as officially defined is self-defeating.
The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights
With much bombast and ceremony did the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 grant unanimous approval to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”), the first international “human rights” instrument ever. Eleanor Roosevelt had led the commission charged with the Declaration’s drafting, which was no accident: her devotion to the New Deal agenda of her late husband, President Franklin Roosevelt, would ensure that the document bore his ideological footprint.
Amidst all the hoopla, however, problems were already surfacing because the various U.N. members could not fully agree on what constitutes a human right, and thus the UDHR lacked the momentum to become a treaty and carried no binding legal effect. On the one hand, the UDHR proclaimed noble ideals such as freedom of expression (Article 19) and private property (Article 17), which are often labeled as “First Generation Rights.” On the other hand, certain controversial Articles sketched out “rights” that do not inhere in the individual but rather call upon governments to coerce certain behaviors or to redistribute wealth and toil from one segment of the population to the other – commonly known as slavery, but euphemistically labeled as “Second Generation Rights.” Some examples of these Second Generation Rights are as follows:
UDHR Article 23 announces, among other things, that “[e]veryone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”; “[e]veryone, without discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work”; and “[e]veryone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.” Apart from the Article’s vagueness – an open invitation to governmental abuse – the only way to secure these kinds of “rights” is to force employers to provide them, which destroys the employers’ own right to conduct their affairs as they see fit. So the employment relationship that was once a voluntary, contractual arrangement now yields to a coerced association. These are not rights. At best, they are optional political programs; at worst, they are sheer wrongs.
UDHR Article 24 again invades the workplace by decreeing that “[e]veryone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” If I own a business and offer a job with long working hours and unpaid vacations, I may be insensitive, but the potential employee is free to accept or reject that offer. Both of us are engaged in the pursuit of happiness, and neither of us may force his wishes onto the other. I cannot force him to work for me, and he cannot force me to employ him. That is how free men associate, a concept so basic and yet so alien to the framers of this Article.
UDHR Article 25(1) gets even more ambitious and holds that “[e]veryone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” Unfortunately, these material blessings emerge from the efforts of the people who strive to produce them. Given this undeniable fact of earthly existence, the only way that a government could possibly guarantee such blessings to anyone is to steal them from somebody else, thus divorcing the fruits of labor from the laborers. Reflecting on this for a moment reveals its truth: if I obtain material blessings by my own efforts or by voluntary interaction with others, I do not require the UDHR’s protection at all; if, however, I cannot obtain material blessings through toil, trade or charity, the UDHR steps in and obligates someone else to provide for me even if he may not wish to do so. If this counts as my “right,” then I effectively have enslaved the other person by asserting ownership over his labor. No one of sound mind or morals can seriously advocate this as a “right.”
Reaching into the schoolhouse, UDHR Article 26(1) proclaims: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. . . .” Yet nothing is free – somebody must pay to provide this compulsory education. Many societies historically have left it to a child’s parents to provide for their own child’s education, while other societies have decided to shift those costs onto the community as a whole. Article 26 goes far beyond any such policy debate by outlawing the first option and mandating the second, since “free” in modern-speak means that someone other than the customer pays. So in the Article’s twisted logic, a parent has no duty to pay for his own child’s education, but everyone else who is not the child’s parent does. How this imposition can possibly represent a “right” is unimaginable.
Article 26(2) digs deeper, past the schoolhouse and into the human mind: “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.” Here the undoing of any sane conception of rights becomes complete, as even opinions are to be strangled in the crib if deemed improper. Apparently we may not entertain any doubts or criticisms of “human rights” and “fundamental freedoms” as the U.N. defines them, but rather we must embrace them and support the U.N.’s manifold activities. And while Article 26(3) mentions in passing that “[p]arents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children,” this offers little solace because the drafters surely did not seek to nullify the Article’s main goals. Any parent who has ever dared to challenge the scope or content of the compulsory education of his children can attest that a parent’s “prior right” counts for little.
Article 29(3) lays bare the UDHR’s unworkable nature by indulging in one final and supreme contradiction: “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” So the UDHR admits that the entire panoply of rights – from free expression to “free” education – is a farce. If these truly were rights, we could exercise them however we saw fit, even to denounce the U.N. and its works.
In spite of this “Second Generation” lunacy, the U.S. Supreme Court has favorably referenced the UDHR on a number of occasions over the years, going so far as to state in 2004 that it carries “moral authority” despite lacking the legally binding force of a treaty. While that is unsettling enough, the promoters of the UDHR craftily split it in half and re-packaged it as two separate treaties so as to overcome piecemeal the objections that had relegated the UDHR to the “moral” universe.
The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights
With much bombast and ceremony did the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 grant unanimous approval to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”), the first international “human rights” instrument ever. Eleanor Roosevelt had led the commission charged with the Declaration’s drafting, which was no accident: her devotion to the New Deal agenda of her late husband, President Franklin Roosevelt, would ensure that the document bore his ideological footprint.
Amidst all the hoopla, however, problems were already surfacing because the various U.N. members could not fully agree on what constitutes a human right, and thus the UDHR lacked the momentum to become a treaty and carried no binding legal effect. On the one hand, the UDHR proclaimed noble ideals such as freedom of expression (Article 19) and private property (Article 17), which are often labeled as “First Generation Rights.” On the other hand, certain controversial Articles sketched out “rights” that do not inhere in the individual but rather call upon governments to coerce certain behaviors or to redistribute wealth and toil from one segment of the population to the other – commonly known as slavery, but euphemistically labeled as “Second Generation Rights.” Some examples of these Second Generation Rights are as follows:
UDHR Article 23 announces, among other things, that “[e]veryone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”; “[e]veryone, without discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work”; and “[e]veryone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.” Apart from the Article’s vagueness – an open invitation to governmental abuse – the only way to secure these kinds of “rights” is to force employers to provide them, which destroys the employers’ own right to conduct their affairs as they see fit. So the employment relationship that was once a voluntary, contractual arrangement now yields to a coerced association. These are not rights. At best, they are optional political programs; at worst, they are sheer wrongs.
UDHR Article 24 again invades the workplace by decreeing that “[e]veryone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” If I own a business and offer a job with long working hours and unpaid vacations, I may be insensitive, but the potential employee is free to accept or reject that offer. Both of us are engaged in the pursuit of happiness, and neither of us may force his wishes onto the other. I cannot force him to work for me, and he cannot force me to employ him. That is how free men associate, a concept so basic and yet so alien to the framers of this Article.
UDHR Article 25(1) gets even more ambitious and holds that “[e]veryone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” Unfortunately, these material blessings emerge from the efforts of the people who strive to produce them. Given this undeniable fact of earthly existence, the only way that a government could possibly guarantee such blessings to anyone is to steal them from somebody else, thus divorcing the fruits of labor from the laborers. Reflecting on this for a moment reveals its truth: if I obtain material blessings by my own efforts or by voluntary interaction with others, I do not require the UDHR’s protection at all; if, however, I cannot obtain material blessings through toil, trade or charity, the UDHR steps in and obligates someone else to provide for me even if he may not wish to do so. If this counts as my “right,” then I effectively have enslaved the other person by asserting ownership over his labor. No one of sound mind or morals can seriously advocate this as a “right.”
Reaching into the schoolhouse, UDHR Article 26(1) proclaims: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. . . .” Yet nothing is free – somebody must pay to provide this compulsory education. Many societies historically have left it to a child’s parents to provide for their own child’s education, while other societies have decided to shift those costs onto the community as a whole. Article 26 goes far beyond any such policy debate by outlawing the first option and mandating the second, since “free” in modern-speak means that someone other than the customer pays. So in the Article’s twisted logic, a parent has no duty to pay for his own child’s education, but everyone else who is not the child’s parent does. How this imposition can possibly represent a “right” is unimaginable.
Article 26(2) digs deeper, past the schoolhouse and into the human mind: “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.” Here the undoing of any sane conception of rights becomes complete, as even opinions are to be strangled in the crib if deemed improper. Apparently we may not entertain any doubts or criticisms of “human rights” and “fundamental freedoms” as the U.N. defines them, but rather we must embrace them and support the U.N.’s manifold activities. And while Article 26(3) mentions in passing that “[p]arents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children,” this offers little solace because the drafters surely did not seek to nullify the Article’s main goals. Any parent who has ever dared to challenge the scope or content of the compulsory education of his children can attest that a parent’s “prior right” counts for little.
Article 29(3) lays bare the UDHR’s unworkable nature by indulging in one final and supreme contradiction: “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” So the UDHR admits that the entire panoply of rights – from free expression to “free” education – is a farce. If these truly were rights, we could exercise them however we saw fit, even to denounce the U.N. and its works.
In spite of this “Second Generation” lunacy, the U.S. Supreme Court has favorably referenced the UDHR on a number of occasions over the years, going so far as to state in 2004 that it carries “moral authority” despite lacking the legally binding force of a treaty. While that is unsettling enough, the promoters of the UDHR craftily split it in half and re-packaged it as two separate treaties so as to overcome piecemeal the objections that had relegated the UDHR to the “moral” universe.
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