The UN Declaration’s 30 Rights
That which people are capable of without learning is their genuine capability. That which they know without pondering is their genuine knowledge. Among babes in arms there are none that do not know to love their parents. When they grow older, there are none that do not know to revere their elder brothers. Treating one’s parents as parents is benevolence. Revering one’s elders is righteousness. There is nothing else to do but extend these to the world. Mencius
China and the West are different cultures at different developmental stages. They see human rights from different perspectives, in different forms, and with different priorities.
The West emphasizes personal liberation from worldly obligations, cherishes abstract rights like freedom of speech, values individual autonomy, looks forward to the soul’s transcendence of the world, and exalts individuals over communities. Says Allan Bloom, “Where rights precede duties, freedom definitely has primacy over community, family – even nature”.
Confucian societies prioritize the family over the individual, the state over the family, and the family over social class. Material well being is primary. They have always subordinated public speech to public responsibility. Their liberation lies in fulfilling communal responsibilities, so they prioritize morality over law, community over the individual, the spiritual over the material, national wellbeing over political involvement, order over freedom, this life over the next, harmony over conflict, and civilization over impoverishment.
Greatest human rights achievement?
Confucius called the foundational phase of a harmonious society xiaokang, which former PM Wen Jiabao described as ‘a society in which no one is poor and everyone receives an education, has paid employment, more than enough food and clothing, access to medical services, old-age support, a home and a comfortable life’. In Chinese eyes, their transition to a xiaokang society in 2021 was the greatest human rights achievement in history.
Work on the final, dàtóng, phase of a harmonious society, will begin in 2049 and take at least as long as the current xiaokang phase: a century.
Confucian rights
For all his focus on society and the collective, Confucius insisted that rights begin with the individual but, again, human rights begin with taking responsibility for our own actions: “From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person as the root of everything”.
Mencius assumed that love of family is a given, not a special achievement, and saw moral development as extending that compassionate love, ren, to everyone. Mao was more practical, “By political human rights we mean the rights of freedom and democracy”.
As PM Wen explained, “Science, democracy, rule of law, freedom and human rights are not concepts unique to capitalism. Rather, they are common values pursued by all mankind throughout history, the very fruits of human civilization. It is only that – at different historical stages and in different countries – they are achieved through different means and in different forms”.
While national priorities may differ, treaty obligations do not, and this allows us to compare China’s compliance with the Western, Christian rights enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As its title implies, the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights is one of the most democratic statements humanity has produced. Its thirty rights are to be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of wealth, race, color, or nationality.
Warning
In 2012 President Carter warned, “The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights. Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues”.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Preamble: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was voted into existence on December 10, 1948 so that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. In a worldwide survey, more Chinese than Americans said they felt free.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. China privileges minorities and treats their offenses more leniently than those of the majority Han.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. President Carter again: “Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended”.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. Forced labor abuses are more common in our prisons and on our farms than in China.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. President Carter: “Our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the Declaration’s 30 Articles, including the prohibition against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Writes the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights about Chelsea Manning, “The practice of coercive deprivation of liberty for civil contempt… involves the intentional infliction of progressively severe mental and emotional suffering for the purposes of coercion and intimidation at the order of judicial authorities”.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. We hold prisoners in Guantanamo specifically to avoid recognizing them as persons before the law. The Chinese trust their legal system far more than we trust ours.
All are equal before the law and are entitled, without any discrimination, to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. The US summarily executes one-thousand people and imprisons two million without trial each year and does not prosecute its elite.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. We imprison and execute more blacks than South Africa at the height of apartheid. In China, all defendants receive a public trial before a judge, even after pleading guilty. In the US, few do.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. The US kidnaps, renders, imprisons, and tortures hundreds of people at home and abroad each year.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. Carter: “Recent legislation has made legal the president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations. This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration. In addition to American citizens’ being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention”.
(1). Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed. America holds twenty-five percent of the world’s prison population, mostly incarcerated without trial, including forty in Guantánamo Bay who committed no penal offense and some who have been tortured a hundred times.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. Americans live under 360º, twenty-four-hour surveillance. Police traffic stops and home invasions regularly kill innocent citizens.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. A secret, no-fly list denies fifty-thousand citizens the right to travel on commercial airlines.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. The US Department of Justice has denied Edward Snowdon and Julian Assange the right to asylum from persecution.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. American families break up twice as frequently as Chinese families.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Without adducing evidence or proving a crime, American police take more money from citizens each year than robbers.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. China restricts the public practice of religion while in the US, says Carter, “Popular State laws permit detaining individuals because of their appearance, where they worship, or with whom they associate”.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. The 2023 Twitter files revealed that the US Government censors everything.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association. The US flunked its United Nations ‘peaceful assembly’ inspection while Chinese protesters hold thousands of noisy, nonviolent protests each year. The 2019 Hong Kong riots, which involved millions, saw neither police violence nor killings.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. Chinese prisoners retain the right to vote. Though Chinese and American voters participate in elections, scholars have repeatedly demonstrated that our elections are fraudulent. As a result, barely twenty percent of Americans approve of their government’s policies compared to ninety percent of Chinese.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality. There are more drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. China’s rate of union membership, 72% is four times America’s and Chinese wages have outpaced GDP growth for decades while American wages lagged it.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. Chinese employees have sixteen annual, paid, mandatory vacation days. Americans have none.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. The US HUD estimates there are half a million homeless people in the US. China has none. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection. The US has five times more hungry children than China.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Poor Chinese children consistently outscore average American youngsters academically.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. Owners of intellectual property have stronger rights in the US than in China.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. Since 1945, America has deprived thirty-five countries of social and international order by invading them.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Future Rights?
In 2012, China proposed that adequate food be recognized as a fundamental human right and that developing countries be permitted to incorporate their own priorities and values into their domestic rights legislation. The US voted against them, but the UN Human Rights Council adopted both proposals.
In 2014 President Xi urged the UN to consider collective rights: “People’s collective freedom to push forward and create a community of shared future for all mankind is vital to our future”.
At the September 2017 session China urged the UN to make national development a right by sponsoring UNHRC35, “The contribution of development to the enjoyment of all human rights,” and proposed a study of development’s contribution to the enjoyment of human rights by all. The US voted against it but the Council adopted it.
