Comparative analysis of three major declarations of human rights

Declarations of Human Rights

In 1776, the American Declaration of Independence, the document that started it all, became the first official written document to suggest that human beings had inalienable rights. The Founding Fathers stated, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" (Declaration of Independence, 1776). Of course, this document was a great start in the pursuit of human rights, but one must understand it in its historical context. The document literally meant that men were created equal; women were not considered to have those same rights, and would not even get the right to vote for almost 150 years after the document. Moreover, the document did not mean that all men were created equal; the United States would have legalized slavery for almost another century and legal racial discrimination for about 75 years after the end of slavery. However, the document provided a great foundation for the idea of inalienable human rights.

Thirteen years later, the French introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. That document built upon the foundation of the idea that human beings should be free and equal in rights by suggesting that security and property were also human rights (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789). Furthermore, the French declared that the aim of all political association is to preserve those rights and defines liberty as the freedom to do everything which injures no one else (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789). However, the French have also struggled to make these human rights a reality. For example, France is very restrictive about religious rights; it has outlawed some religions that it considers to be cults, and has outlawed the wearing of headscarves by Muslim women. Both of these restrictions have been implemented with the goal of promoting liberty, but it is difficult to see how restricting an individual's liberty can be seen as a means of promoting liberty. This is particularly relevant in light of the specific guarantee that "no one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law" (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789).

Given that these two individual countries continue to struggle to ensure that their citizens actually experience the freedoms guaranteed in their two founding documents, it should come as no surprise that the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights has not yet been universally successful. None of its lofty goals has been realized. More significantly, even those countries that promote and support the document do not necessarily adhere to the seemingly basic standards that are outlined in first part of the document, and there does not appear to be a single country in the world that actually meets all of the U.N.'s stated goals. Examining just a few of these goals helps illuminate how far this world must come in order to fully recognize human rights.

Articles 1, 3, and7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights discuss human freedom and specifically address the slave trade. Slavery has theoretically been outlawed around the world, with Mauritania being the last country to outlaw slavery, an act that did not occur until the 1980s. However, the practice of slavery in many areas is so widespread, and the laws against it not enforced, that it is ridiculous to suggest that slavery is actually illegal in those areas. There are more slaves today than at any time in history. Many of those slaves are women and children forced into the sex trade, and those practices are considered acceptable in many countries where prostitution is carried out in the open. In Haiti, it is legal to have children work as unpaid household slaves, under the guise that these wealthier families are providing opportunities for the children, when the reality is that the children are simply treated like labor. Others of those slaves are men, forced into manual labor. Furthermore, even countries that work hard to ensure no slavery exists within their borders are confounded by the slave problem. For example, the United States has underground sex markets, sweatshops with forced laborers (usually immigrants), and even seemingly-normal people in suburban areas who have slaves in their homes. The most basic human right, human freedom, is as far from being realized as it has ever been.