Is It High Time to Phase Out Int’l Laws, Conventions, Accords, Summits…? 

Human Wrongs Watch By Baher Kamal*

On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Declaration setting out, for the first time, the fundamental human rights that should to be universally protected.

Born from the atrocities of World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was the world’s first comprehensive statement of universal human rights.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” states the Declaration’s Article 1.

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UN Photo/Greg Kinch | An early draft of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Indeed, it enshrines “the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being – regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

This Universal Declaration has been proclaimed as one of the world’s most groundbreaking global pledges.

Thus, it has been heralded all over the world, and it is available in 577 languages, from Abkhaz to Zulu, making it the most translated document in the world.

It serves as a reminder of the importance of equality, justice, and dignity for all people worldwide.

For such a purpose, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) aims to inform and change perceptions on human rights while mobilising action.

Essential facts about human rights everyone should know:

See what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:

Human Rights Transcend Race, Beliefs, Gender…

Human Rights are universal and inalienable: Human rights are not granted by states – they belong to everyone, everywhere, simply by virtue of being human.

They transcend race, gender, nationality, or beliefs, ensuring inherent equality and dignity for all.

These rights include fundamental ones, like the right to life set out by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and those that enable a fulfilling existence, such as access to education and health.

The UDHR highlights that human rights are “equal, indivisible, and interdependent, which means that the fulfilment of one right often relies on others.

“Human rights are not just abstract ideas, through different declarations, covenants and bills, they have become actionable standards.”

Fine Words, But…

Despite all these words, the daily life of billions of human beings unveil an absolutely different reality. What kind of human rights if you know that:

• Around 800 million humans faced hunger in in just one year: 2023,

• A girl or a woman is killed every 10 minutes, while 70% of girls and women in conflict, war, climate catastrophes, and humanitarian crisis, experience gender-based violence, with rape being just an additional weapon.

• More than one billion children around the world are currently suffering from physical, sexual, and psychological violence, including child labour, child marriage, female genital mutilation, gender-based violence, war, trafficking, bullying, and cyberbullying,

• An estimated 50 million people are in modern slavery, including 28 million in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriage.

  That almost one in eight of all those in forced labour are children. More than half of these children are in commercial sexual exploitation.

• The annual global profit generated from forced labour is estimated at US$236 billion.

         The Profits and Poverty report aims to shed light on these illegal gains. It reveals that the profits are alarmingly high and have surged over the past decade, driven by an increase in forced labour and higher profits per victim.

• Most cases of forced labour (86 per cent) are found in the private sector, while almost four out of five of those in forced commercial sexual exploitation are women or girls.

Equality…?

As the foundation of international human rights law, the 30 articles of the UDHR outline key freedoms, from equality and liberty to protection from torture; and has inspired more than 80 international treaties.

What freedom and equality in a Planet where the world’s top 1% own more wealth than 95% of humanity…?

What human rights for the one billion humans who live without legal identity and, thus, are deprived from the most basic rights, including the at least 150 millions of births unregistered.?

Human Rights Are about People… What People ?

States have obligations and individuals have support: All States have ratified at least one of the nine core human rights treaties, as well as one of the nine optional protocols.

“Human rights are about people. They are about you and your life: your needs and wants and fears; your hopes for the present and the future,” has rightly and timely stated the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.

What kind of equality is this when you learn that up to 21,000 people are dying each day from conflict-fuelled hunger around the world?

Widely Ignored

The saddest truth is that the so-claimed and proclaimed statements about human rights have proved to be clamorously ignored.

For over half a century now, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been the worldwide umbrella for hundreds of international organisations –including the United Nations.

This way, in the aftermath of the Second European-launched World War, each one of the international and multilateral organisations has worked to strengthen the fulfilment of the UDHR.

For this, they relied on scientific research, adopted conventions and treaties, and held hundreds of summits, COPs, international meetings, warning of the continued, flagrant violations of the most basic human rights… for everybody.

Big Failures

All these efforts and extensive meetings have clearly proved to be just a waste of time and money.

For instance, the never-avoided killing of civilians has led the international community to ridiculously set a bunch of “war crimes”… as if wars themselves were not crimes.

Right now, there are wars in Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, South Sudan, DR Congo and tens of lethal armed conflicts.

Climate Carnage

Another cause of millions of deaths – the growing climate carnage, has been the subject of tens of COPs, alerts, ‘politically correct’ governmental statements and ‘promises’ that have never been met.

Just know that there are 1.35 billion humans living in Asia’s drylands, that’s more than half the global total. And there are 620 million people who inhabit Africa’s drylands, e.g. nearly half of the continent’s population. 

The total is two billion victims living in these two continents.

Meanwhile, in Latin America and the Caribbean drought, heat, wildfires, extreme  rainfall and a record-breaking hurricane had major impacts on health, food and energy security and economic development.

The Darkest Times?

“The events of 2024 have shown that even in the darkest times there are those who dare to resist oppression and demonstrate the courage to seek progress,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch, in releasing the organisation’s World Report 2025.

By the way: for the sake of a less hypocritical world: wouldn’t be wise to also remove words like human rights and equality… from the dictionaries of all languages?

*More articles by Baher Kamal: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/?s=baher+kamal

2025 Human Wrongs Watch