Madam, – The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is 60 years old today.
It would be wonderful to imagine Eleanor Roosevelt might be feeling a warm glow when she looks at how her legacy has been respected by the world.
Wonderful, but wrong.
Mrs Roosevelt was laying down a marker for the planet in the visionary document which declared: “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Trojan work by people like our own Mary Robinson have kept these noble ideals on the agenda. Much talk has been heard of the correct interpretation of this honourable code.
But after 60 years should we not have a little more to offer than debate?
The declaration set the standards; but where is the driving force to make them a reality?
Mrs Roosevelt to her lasting credit gave us a moral blueprint for a better world but who is prepared to take up the tools and build it? Knowing the right thing to do is a very long way from doing it.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been reduced to being a charter for a very exclusive club in which only elite and independently wealthy countries can belong.
This is because the international community has not been prepared to honour its responsibilities to the poor and the weak. If it were, Robert Mugabe would not be in power as his people perish. Burma, Darfur and too many other flashpoints to mention, would not be abandoned to their terrible plights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was not drafted to be put in a drawer to be brought out so that we could feel good about ourselves.
It was a call to action and a commitment to recognise the value of life.
All the living.
Human rights can only have meaning when we are prepared to deal with human wrongs.
The people of Africa who starve, the child soldiers, the Aids orphans know nothing of their rights and never will until the global community begins to act like one, and honours this declaration in deed as well as in word. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Sixty years ago the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified and agreed by all nations at the UN. Not only was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a moral response to the inhumanity of the second World War, but was the foundation stone whereby all democratic countries respected their citizens.
Within the declaration, the words “life”, “dignity”, “responsibility”, “justice”, and “conscience” are firmly embedded.
These five words, to the families of the disappeared in Ireland, must bring to the forefront their deep and unending pain and anguish as another year comes to a close without the prospect of finding the bodies of their beloved, whilst there are people who have information but have not yet come forward in order to bring closure and justice to both the victims and the families of the disappeared.
The families of the disappeared surely must deserve the basic human right of knowing where the bodies of their loved ones are in order to give them a Christian burial.
To those people who have yet to pass on information, ask yourselves the question, if it was your loved ones who remained unidentified and unburied, would you not feel that your human rights had been violated?
To those people who have any information end the suffering of the disappeared and do the honourable thing and respect the human rights of the families of the disappeared and forward information to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains, PO BOX 10827, Dublin 2. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The greatest challenge to healthcare delivery in African countries is the acute shortage of healthcare workers, in particular doctors and nurses.
In many cases healthcare systems have been brought to their knees as a result of HIV and associated TB infections.
In Malawi for example, there is one doctor and 56 nurses per 100,000 patients.
In this, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we in the developed world need to create healthcare partnerships with these struggling nations that will facilitate the delivery of healthcare and in turn reduce the unconscionable level of human suffering. – Yours, etc,