Critically evaluate the importance of the universal declaration of Essay

Critically evaluate the importance of the universal declaration of human rights in protecting human rights - Essay Example , academicians and human rights activists have continued to investigate and research into how the Universal Declarations of Human Rights have succeeded or being challenged in the protection of human rights at the universal level. Most often, there are differences in reportage in the successes and challenges of the UDHR but one crucial fact remains that there is potential in the existence of a common grounds under which issues of human rights can be viewed on a globalised perspective. This paper therefore delves into the discussion of the importance of the UDHR in protecting human rights by looking at certain central areas and aspects of universal human rights such as difficulty in defining human rights, ways of improving human rights at the global level and by use of continental conventions, improvements that have been recorded in the Middle East, Asia and African in terms of human rights, and finally the failure to observe universal standards. Difficult to Define what Human Rights a re According to the United Nations, the creation of the drafting and eventual adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was done with a notion that sought to identify a common universal code for defining human rights. This is why the phenomenon has a labelling of being universal.4 As a way of ensuring this, several steps were put in place, including the sampling of authors of the Declaration from different regions of the world, so as to be guaranteed that the text was going to â€Å"reflect these different cultural traditions and incorporate common values inherent in the world's principal legal systems and religious and philosophical traditions.†5 This way, it was expected that the Universal Declaration was going to be mutually consenting document and code that was going to help in the identification of key practices that constitute human rights protection and those that constitute abuses of human rights on a global scale. But not long after the declaration, sever al lapses were identified with the definition of what human rights are when taken from the context of cultural differences. In most literature6, human rights are said to be fundamental rights, rather than privileges that are accorded to every person by virtue of the fact that the person is a human being.7 Logically, this means that once a person is born, the fellow would not have to fulfil any processes or duties to qualify to enjoy human rights. Meanwhile, issues of cultural relativism promote the existence of cultural diversity in the world, which means that the fundamental provisions of different cultures must be allowed to be practiced.8 As part of cultural relativism, there is the issue of cultural integrity and diversity, which in itself is protected and enshrined by other United States provisions and declarations. For instance the respect of cultural integ