Features of Human Rights

Jack Gross



The concept of  human rights being universal is a fairly recent idea only being codified on an International level (which is the level that matters the most if human rights are being talked about as a universal idea) in 1948 by the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document stating the basic human rights that ALL people should be given regardless of well, anything. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was wonderful in that it took the concept of “what human rights should everyone have” and formalized it in a written text (one that was distributed worldwide and translated into over 500 languages) this process is known as Codification and it is pretty much the first step towards solving any problem, clearly defining the problem and defining the intended goal. However, that is where codification’s usefulness ends as it doesn’t matter how clearly something is stated if no one has to listen to it. The unfortunate thing about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that it is not a binding document and there are not consequences for violating it on an international level. The historical case that I will be talking about that violates these human rights is the events preceding the foundation of this document which led to its creation. The events that I am talking about is WWII, or more specifically Nazi occupation of foreign land (as well as domestic land but to a lesser extent) The specific article that I think most applies to Nazi occupation would be Article 2 which to summarize states that all people should be given all of the rights stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights regardless of race, sex, religion, nationality, or any other status. And people should be viewed independently of their nation. I see this as a clear reference to the actions of the Nazis in persecuting Jews and seeing Jews as less than people and treating them in incredibly horrible ways because of their religion. I believe that this article was made to address the actions of the Nazis and tell people about how that is not how people should be treated to try and get rid of the discrimination that followed.



https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ 

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