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Irish Times, 10th December 2008
Madam,
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is 60 years old today.
It would be wonderful to imagine Eleanor Roosevelt might be feeling a warm glow when she looks at how her legacy has been respected by the world.
Wonderful, but wrong.
Mrs Roosevelt was laying down a marker for the planet in the visionary document which declared: "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."
Trojan work by people like our own Mary Robinson have kept these noble ideals on the agenda. Much talk has been heard of the correct interpretation of this honourable code.
But after 60 years should we not have a little more to offer than debate?
The declaration set the standards; but where is the driving force to make them a reality?
Mrs Roosevelt to her lasting credit gave us a moral blueprint for a better world but who is prepared to take up the tools and build it? Knowing the right thing to do is a very long way from doing it.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been reduced to being a charter for a very exclusive club in which only elite and independently wealthy countries can belong.
This is because the international community has not been prepared to honour its responsibilities to the poor and the weak. If it were, Robert Mugabe would not be in power as his people perish. Burma, Darfur and too many other flashpoints to mention, would not be abandoned to their terrible plights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was not drafted to be put in a drawer to be brought out so that we could feel good about ourselves.
It was a call to action and a commitment to recognise the value of life.
All the living.
Human rights can only have meaning when we are prepared to deal with human wrongs.
The people of Africa who starve, the child soldiers, the Aids orphans know nothing of their rights and never will until the global community begins to act like one, and honours this declaration in deed as well as in word.
Yours, etc,
JOHN O'SHEA,
CEO,
GOAL,
Dun Laoghaire. |
