The Danger in Not Knowing

Regine Ashley Cruza, EH 306

The notion of divine right that rule in many countries; cultural practices subordinating

women, children, racial minorities, and workers; widespread slavery, human trafficking, and torture;

educational opportunities limited to the rich; poverty, starvation, epidemics, and impoverishing wars

– these are the social injustices that outraged the conscience of mankind and provoked reform

movements to demand for universal human rights within countries and eventually in the

international level.

The United Nations (UN) - General Assembly then adopted the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, the contents of which were carefully drafted by the representatives of many

countries through a broad process of consultation and despite being challenged by vested interests

of opponents who sought to retain privilege, hierarchy, hereditary rule, property, continuity and

caste.

The Declaration was a set of principles that possessed an integrity which has considerable

strength when read as a whole. Efforts were focused on elaborating on and giving further detail to

rights already proclaimed and to further protection for groups historically disfavored. With human

rights becoming universal, the Declaration repudiated the long-standing view that the relation

between a sovereign state and its own citizens is that nation’s own business.

Then we ask, where exactly should the primary responsibility for implementing human rights lie?

Mary Glendon (1998) opined that even if an international enforcement machinery exists, it

cannot be the first line of defense. Dinah Shelton (2007) also contended that human rights continue

to be hampered by the traditional concepts of state sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction, as well as

Page 1 of 2
the consent-based nature of international obligations which prevent enforcement against

nonconsenting states. Furthermore, the Declaration was accused of being ambiguous and relative

which facilitated a host of opportunistic interpretations and uses. Moreover, poorer nations could

hope to move only gradually towards making such rights a reality.

Truly, a common understanding of the Declaration’s rights is of the greatest importance for

the full realization of the pledge.

Richard Mckeon (1968) argued that human rights are not ambiguities from confusion or

contradiction but are productive ambiguities which embody the knowledge and experience people

have acquired in the long history of rights. The responsibility for protecting human rights belongs

not only to nation states, but also to persons and groups within them. The national jurisdiction will

always be the base and will remain primary, but it will no longer be exclusive.

However, the fact remains that not everyone understands “human rights”. The reason why

the legal scholars and academicians are vocal and protest human rights abuses is because they

know their rights. The State and the Academe have failed to translate the human rights for the

ordinary Filipinos, maintaining it only as a patrimony for the “intellectual elite”. In the Philippines, full

implementation requires a common understanding that is still far from being achieved.

Human rights begin in small places close to home. Unless these rights have meaning in the

grass-roots level, they have little meaning anywhere.

Page 2 of 2