A critical view of human rights

in German published 2018-05

The first written document dealing with human rights originated very early on in history. In 539 BC Cyrus conquered Babylon. He freed the slaves, declared that all people have the right to choose their own religion and created racial equality. These and other decrees were inscribed on a baked-clay cylinder in Akkadian cuneiform.

In 1215 the Magna Carta was written in England and in 1628 the Petition of Rights. These documents aimed to protect the individual from the arbitrary power of the rulers.

In 1787 came the US Constitution, in 1789 the French Declaration of Human and Civil Rights and in 1791 the US Bill of Rights.

In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations. These 30 articles of human rights are certainly an important step towards a better and more humane world.

        However, are the human rights as stated in the documents above valid for all time and universally? Or can they be viewed critically?

Are they carved in stone and as sacrosanct as the tablets of law that Moses received on Mount Sinai?

I believe that human rights can be changed and adapted. The same applies to international law and the Geneva Refugee Convention.

        We shake our heads when we hear that many US citizens believe that owning and carrying weapons is a human right.

But there are also rights that are missing in the 30 articles. There is no article that guarantees bodily integrity. There is no article from which one can deduce that the circumcision of girls is prohibited. If the circumcision of girls were to be officially outlawed, then the question of whether the circumcision of boys can be tolerated would have to be dealt with and physical integrity would have to be declared as a universally applicable human right.

The drafters of human rights are kowtowing to religions and ideologies. As a realist, however, one must come to the conclusion that the religious representatives are still too strong and that they would obtain the support of leftist ideologues in a dispute.

        Is there a right to family planning?

In the proclamation of Teheran, in 1968 a passage was incorporated by the International Conference on Human Rights stating that each couple should be granted the fundamental right to freely decide on the number of children they have.

One would assume that all reasonable people support this human right. But once again, ideologically minded people (Catholics and left-wing greens) have problems with this human right that, if enforced, would benefit everyone in the world.

Every year, about 8.8 million people, mainly children, die of hunger, which is equivalent to one death every 3 seconds. But the do-gooders want to take their time and count on the fact that with more schooling, the number of children will decrease.

Lack of access to family planning is estimated to result in 63 million unwanted pregnancies annually and 40 million abortions, which can often be a life-threatening risk for affected women in developing countries, as they are not carried out by medical professionals.

         Are human rights universally valid? Can we criticize violations of human rights in other cultures? Are we strangling the peculiarity of foreign cultures and is it a case of Western cultural imperialism, asks Otfried Höffe. The colonial expansion of Europe has deeply offended much of the world politically, economically and, above all, culturally.

We have a strongly individualistic image of man. In other cultures, the collective is more important than the individual. In such societies, the group as a whole is in the foreground, and is more important than the self-realization of the group members. In such societies, human rights are logically less important and it is more difficult to introduce democracies. Collectivist societies are mostly dictatorships and for dictators, human rights are an obstacle to their exercise of power.

Many countries are not yet ripe for democracy. Human rights can only be enforced in democracies. If we impose the human rights idea on such countries, we destabilize these countries. It is starry-eyed to want to assert all human rights in dictatorships.

Do not all societies have a right to non-interference? Has the West's interference in Iraq, Libya and Syria paid off for the people living there?

Otfried Höffe finds that in intercultural discourse, an ethical universal must be found that can be justified by argumentation.

Religious freedom is a human right. Are all religions protected by human rights?

Is Scientology a religion? This question is not answered in the same way in all countries. If so, is Scientology a religion worthy of protection?

Is Islam a religion worthy of protection and promotion? Certainly, most Muslims practice a religion that is respected by most people. However, there are more than a hundred passages in the Qur'an that can be interpreted as requiring, in some circumstances, violence against Jews, Christians, or those of other faiths. The Islamists rely on these passages.

Is the content of the Koran compatible with the purposes and principles of the United Nations? Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopts the above italicized wording as a condition for the actions of asylum seekers.

Articles 18 and 19 guarantee the right to freedom of expression without declaring that certain principles must be respected. Can left-wing and right-wing extremist groups that propagate ideologies that endanger peace or call for violence also invoke Articles 18 and 19?