Commentary
“Human rights” are everywhere, and are everywhere described with astonishing vagueness as something “inherent” in all human beings, simply because we are human. It’s a circular assertion.
Largely in reaction to the tragedies and slaughters of World War II, The United Nations produced a celebrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 announcing 30 rights, many of the common liberal variety that attempt to protect individuals from arbitrary power. But then, beginning with article 22, economic, social, and cultural rights are included, which are claims to state action, rather than to freedom from state action. Then, declared in Article 29 we find the assertion that “everyone has duties to the community,” but with no mention of what those duties might be. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) makes no mention of “duties,” or “obligations” whatsoever, as if 35 million citizens each have a bundle of rights, but no one is obligated to fulfill them….