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I thought this line near the end was interesting: > These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United
by tines 3y ago
I thought this line near the end was interesting:
> These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
As if the purposes and principles of the United Nations will always be aligned with transcendent human rights. It almost brings high aim of the whole document down a little.
- vacuity 3y agoEven if I try to read it charitably, I can't make much sense out of what that means. It doesn't sound like "we of the United Nations will never betray these ideals". A bit of nothing at best.
- LegionMammal978 3y agoI'd read it as saying "you're only permitted these rights and freedoms when you use them for good, not for evil". For instance, you can't appeal to freedom of expression (Article 19) for attacking others' reputation (Article 12). Basically the same idea as Article 30.
- vacuity 3y agoBut then what is "good" and what is "evil"? Is that from the perspective of the UN? And I find the excerpt in question a weird way to express that rights shouldn't be used against others. I agree with the principle, but I wouldn't write it anything like how it is in the excerpt.
- LegionMammal978 3y agoWell, obviously they couldn't use "good" vs. "evil" directly, so I read it as trying to express the same thing with "concordant with the purposes and principles of the UN" vs. "contrary to the purposes and principles of the UN", such that the scope of permitted acts is intentionally very broad.
- skissane 3y agoA lot of people read this document as some kind of secular analogue to a religious text, and forget that it was the product of a diplomatic negotiation, and like many such documents, intentionally includes vague, ambiguous, and even contradictory clauses, so that each government voting for it can tell themselves that it means what they want it to mean
- pyuser583 3y agoIt was a compromise between American and Soviet negotiators. They didn’t agree on much, especially human rights.