It is easy to favor rights when ours are being violated. It is much harder to agree on what rights everyone, everywhere should have and which, therefore, we and our governments are obligated to respect and protect. There is also considerable controversy over whether rights are universal or culturally based and, even more, over whether prescriptive rights should be accorded the same support as the more familiar proscriptive rights.

The following list of rights are paraphrased from most of those contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). It arguably rejects culturally defined rights and favors universal rights in its preamble, which asserts the existence of "inalienable rights of all members of the human family." Many of them are very close to the proscriptive rights that most Americans and others are familiar with. For example, the language in the Universal Declaration and in clause 3 below is very much like the prohibition in the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring "cruel and unusual punishments." Other rights listed here are prescriptive. These obligate governments to assist people to achieve something, not to just protect people from being denied something. Clauses 23, 24, and 25 fall into that category; others may if you believe that they carry with them a positive obligation for societies and their governments to fulfill them.

What Do You Think?

In your class or with your friends, constitute yourselves as the World Constitutional Convention, debate the various clauses of the UNDHR, and decide whether to ratify or reject each one of them. You might also decide to open them up for amendment. For example, would you add "sexual orientation" to clause 11? You could even add a new clause, such as one that said, "The pronouns everyone and no one in this enumeration of rights include men and women without distinction." Also, note clause 27 and ponder whether it provides too much of an escape clause that potentially allows governments to violate rights. How say you to the propositions that:

1. Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

2. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

3. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

4. Everyone is equal before the law and entitled to equal protection of the law.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

5. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

6. Everyone charged with a crime shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial and shall be guaranteed the necessities for an adequate defense.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

7. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence in their country.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

8. Everyone has the right to leave their country or any other and to return to their country whenever they wish.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

9. Everyone has the right to seek asylum in other countries to escape persecution.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

10. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their citizenship or the right to change it.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

11. Adults have the right to marry and have a family, without restrictions based on ethnicity, race, or religion. Both adults are entitled to equal rights both during marriage and at its dissolution.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

12. Everyone has the right to own property alone. No one shall be deprived of his property.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

13. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and to express their beliefs in public and in private through teaching, practice, worship, and observance.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

14. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

15. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

16. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

17. Everyone has the right to take part in their country's government, either directly or through freely chosen representatives.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

18. Everyone has the right to equal access to public services in his country.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

19. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall 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.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

20. Everyone has the right to work, to choose their work, to reasonable work conditions, and to protection against unemployment.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

21. Everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

22. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

23. Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and other necessary social services regardless of age, health, or any other circumstance beyond their control.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

24. Mothers and children are entitled to special assistance and to equal help, regardless of marital or any other circumstance.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

25. Everyone has the right to education. It shall be compulsory and free, at least at the elementary level. Enrollment in more advanced levels shall be based on merit.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

26. Parents have a right to choose the kind of education given to their children.

Ratify ___ Reject ___

27. Everyone must uphold these rights, except as determined by law to be necessary to meet the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Ratify ___ Reject ___