The language of human rights, as we know it today, was born in 1948, with the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the wake of the Holocaust, there was a widespread acknowledgement that the nations of the world must act together to prevent a recurrence of the horrors witnessed during the second world war.
So, a movement emerged. It described elements of human dignity common to all people, with the aim of protecting people’s needs and dignity (their “rights”) from violation by any person, nation or corporation.
In the following years, laws and treaties were developed out of the aspirations of the Universal Declaration which sought to prevent torture, protect children, remove discrimination against women, assist people fleeing persecution, help those with disabilities, and to protect civil, political, economic, cultural and social rights (among many, many others).
Human rights are to be recognised as ‘universal’. That means that every human person should be seen to have the same rights, regardless of their religion, their financial status, their education, the colour of their skin, their gender, the country of their birth or any other ‘inherent’ variable. This means that no person should ever have their rights altered, witheld or breached on the basis that they are ‘different’, ‘undesirable’ or that they belong to some minority. This is important!
There are difficult issues surrounding human rights, and not everyone is convinced that we have them, or if we do, that they should be recognised and given legal force. However, the people behind IsaiahOne are convinced that human rights need to be given some status in our law, in order to prevent them being breached — accidentally or deliberately — by operation of government policy. The results from the National Consultation on Human Rights (the ‘Brennan report’) provided grassroots evidence on the state of human rights protection in Australia. The report noted that:
- the public wants to better understand human rights – especially how they apply in Australia
- the majority of people support the introduction of legislation such as a “Human Rights Act” (the recommendation to adopt a Human Rights Act was rejected by the Rudd Government)
- most people believe most of us have our human rights adequately protected, nevertheless there is significant public concern that either our own, or others’ human rights not being honoured
The bible is replete with teachings on justice and the worth of all people. For Christians, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is the number one ’statement’ of our dignity and value. Jesus gained an entrenched reputation for associating with the vulnerable and unpopular of society, underlining his recognition of every individual’s inherent value. He taught that love of neighbour is inseparable from love of God and to deny the first was an abrogation of the latter. The aspiration to recognise each person’s worth and better protect the vulnerable underlay the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It was a ‘declaration’ of internationally agreed norms which could then be applied by each nation state into their own system of law and culture. It would never be an easy task to attempt to define key international norms much less to seek to have those norms applied into the world’s diverse cultures and societies. Christians ideas helped shape the UDHR. Without Christian involvement in human rights, the process of applying human rights into many of the world’s societies will be slower, harder and poorer.