Analysis of the United Nations Universal Declaraion of Human Rights

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of the lack of effective global human rights observation in spite of the exalted status of the UN Declaration of Human Rights as a universal standard of achievement.  In actual state practice, global human rights implementation remains weak, to say the least.  It is my aim, on the one hand, to provide an explanation of the continued lack of human rights implementation and, on the other hand, to assess the nature and limitations of the normative dimension of human rights.  Human rights, as asserted by the UN Declaration, represent liberal and secular standards which are arguably parochial and thus open to the challenge that they are neither representative of, nor compatible with, non-Western cultural values.  Furthermore, the human rights articulated by the Universal Declaration give rise to a partisan mandate which is difficult to reconcile with the inherently pluralist function of a predominantly positive, voluntarist and horizontal international legal system grounded in Westphalian sovereignty.  Yet, a structurally revised set of fundamental human rights can nevertheless be coherently defended to constitute a standard of civilization in international law, a peremptory jus cogens.  The pursuit of an international law representative of human progress must acknowledge that the agency of every individual is a factor worthy of international legal protection in the interest of the international community as a whole.  Fundamental human rights norms transcend the entrenched sanctity of sovereignty and large scale violations of fundamental human rights must accordingly be remedied by virtue of humanitarian intervention.

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