Quite true, and that is because it is an empty concept, other than in its legal use, a mere mystification helpful in securing obedience or deference.
And it is abundantly clear that this is, has been all along, and must be a political contest, far too important to be left to the philosophers.
And so, of course, it never has been.
Trump’s Ominous Attempt to Redefine Human Rights
For the Trump administration to establish a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” to examine the meaning of human rights, as it did this month, is a little like Saudi Arabia forming a commission on multiparty democracy or North Korea a commission on how to end famine.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t so ominous.
Announcing the composition of the new body, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration “takes seriously the founders’ ideas of individual liberty and constitutional government.”
. . . .
The administration has excised reproductive rights from the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights.
It watered down a recent United Nations Security Council resolution on victims of rape in armed conflict.
It has withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee and Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are both without a United States member.
So what is Pompeo’s game when he asks, “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?” and continues, “How can there be human rights, rights we possess not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity?”
The author of the article, Roger Cohen, affirms his faith as a true modern liberal believer,
Modern human rights are grounded on the dignity inherent in every human being.
They are not God-given rights, or Trump-given rights, and they apply to people of all faiths and to those who have none.
That is not at all, and is flatly contrary to, what the Declaration of Independence, a key American founding document, says, though it is not at all contrary to every traditional, Enlightenment, or contemporary view of the question.
They include freedom of speech, the press, assembly and religion, and the “right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law,” as the Universal Declaration puts it.
They involve combating discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, disability, gender or sexual orientation.
The United States, through the State Department and other means, has been a consistent advocate for these rights.
The intention of Pompeo, an evangelical Christian whose beliefs infuse his policy, appears to be to turn back the clock.
In May, The Federal Register said the commission would provide “fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”
I am not suggesting that Pompeo wants to go back there, but the “natural” rights of 1776 are not the human rights the United States helped codify in 1948.
In 1995, Hillary Clinton declared, “Women’s rights are human rights” and, 16 years later, “Gay rights are human rights.”
. . . .
As head of the commission, he has appointed Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard professor known as a zealous opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage.
Other political opinions are represented, but the body is predominantly conservative and religious.
Cohen admits he really has no idea where this is going, but he is very alarmed and, given his politics, he probably should be.
It is doubtful this commission will endorse the idea the Founders or the founding documents contain or endorse half the rights currently urged by liberals, or even all the rights contained in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Nor is it likely to urge that we should endorse or support them, all the same, in any theoretical or practical way.
Here is more.
“International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission,” Mr. Pompeo said.
“As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.”
The announcement, along with a blunt commentary by Mr. Pompeo that was published in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, raised worries among human rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers that Mr. Pompeo is moving to curtail State Department advocacy for some rights, particularly ones related to women’s health and reproduction and gay and transgender issues.
Some House Democrats are pushing a measure that would block State Department funding from being used for the commission, which falls under the agency’s policy planning office.
“This commission risks undermining many international human rights norms that the United States helped establish, including L.G.B.T.Q.I. rights and other critical human rights protections around the world,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Pompeo is an evangelical Christian who is open about how his religious beliefs help shape actions and policies.
In March, Mr. Pompeo said the United States would withhold funding from foreign nongovernmental organizations that give money to foreign groups that perform abortions.
. . . .
Last month, officials in Washington told some American embassies not to fly gay pride flags after diplomats had asked to do so.
By contrast, in 2011, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, proclaimed in a speech that “gay rights are human rights.”
On Monday, Mr. Pompeo said: “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?
"How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored?”
Here is more.
“International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission,” Mr. Pompeo said.
“As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.”
The announcement, along with a blunt commentary by Mr. Pompeo that was published in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, raised worries among human rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers that Mr. Pompeo is moving to curtail State Department advocacy for some rights, particularly ones related to women’s health and reproduction and gay and transgender issues.
Some House Democrats are pushing a measure that would block State Department funding from being used for the commission, which falls under the agency’s policy planning office.
“This commission risks undermining many international human rights norms that the United States helped establish, including L.G.B.T.Q.I. rights and other critical human rights protections around the world,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Pompeo is an evangelical Christian who is open about how his religious beliefs help shape actions and policies.
In March, Mr. Pompeo said the United States would withhold funding from foreign nongovernmental organizations that give money to foreign groups that perform abortions.
. . . .
Last month, officials in Washington told some American embassies not to fly gay pride flags after diplomats had asked to do so.
By contrast, in 2011, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, proclaimed in a speech that “gay rights are human rights.”
On Monday, Mr. Pompeo said: “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?
"How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored?”
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