The Failure of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Authors

Jacob Dolinger

Abstract

The UN Human Rights Commission dedicated over two years to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was approved by the General Assembly in 1948.

The underlying reason for the Declaration was the genocide executed by Hitler’s Nazi Germany against the Jewish people throughout Europe during the Second World War. The fundamental mistake of the Commission was that the persecution by the Nazis was not directed against individual persons, but against an entire people, whereas the Declaration deals exclusively with the rights of the individual human being, no reference whatsoever made in the document to collectivities.

Moreover, the Declaration has no force of law as it is a mere declaration with no effect over the horrors suffered by many peoples since its adoption by the UN. Therefore it is not correct to incorporate it in the realm of International Law.

Considering that the majority of the UN state members do not comply with the principles of the Declaration, and that the international organization has practically never come to the help of communities under the most cruel persecutions, victims of terrible atrocities, real genocides, the author concludes - despite a series of United Nations proclamations and in disagreement with illustrious authors of international law - that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been a total failure.

Recommended Citation

Jacob Dolinger, The Failure of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 47 U. MIA Inter-Am. L. Rev. 164 (2016)
Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umialr/vol47/iss2/4