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Larry Cox
It is possible for human rights proponents to give long, complicated and philosophical answers to the question of this debate. But the only answer that has ever made a difference in the lives of, and changed history for, millions of people is an answer that was given more than fifty years ago by a very unlikely group—the government representatives of the members of the United Nations. That answer took the form of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is a document that commanded no opposition, a document that President George W. Bush has called a landmark achievement in the history of human liberty, whose standard must guide our work. It is a document that spells out political, social, cultural and economic rights that each government must recognize as part of the “inherent dignity of all members of the human family”.
At the time the people who framed the Universal Declaration represented a fairly wide and diverse range of regions and traditions. They, very deliberately, did not root the rights in any particular culture, religion or philosophy; but treated them, as Thomas Jefferson put it, as simply self-evident. But the declaration was drafted in 1948 at a time when few current governments were represented in the United Nations—many were still colonies at that time.
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