The k2p blog

“The Skeptical Case against the UN Declaration of Human Rights / 3” follows on from my previous essays:

The Skeptical Case Against Natural Law / 1

The Fallacy of Universalism / 2

Background

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in 1948. Since then the number of instances of man’s inhumanity to man has increased by more than a factor of 3 and at greater than the rate of population growth  (2.5 billion in 1948 to c. 8 billion today). The Declaration has neither reduced suffering nor improved human behaviour. In fact, it has not even addressed human behaviour let alone human conflict. Data from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) shows that violations of international humanitarian and human rights law have risen in absolute terms, outpacing global population growth. and regional instability. 

Introduction

The modern concept of universal human rights is often presented as an intrinsic truth, an unassailable moral foundation upon which justice, equality, and dignity rest. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is considered a cornerstone of this ideology, purportedly designed to protect individuals from oppression and injustice. However, upon closer examination, it is apparent that the notion of human rights is a political fiction rather than an objective reality. It is not derived from natural law, nor is it an empirically observable phenomenon. Besides, natural law itself is just a fiction. Instead, its primary function is for moral posturing. It also serves as a strategic tool that sustains particular social, political, and economic structures. The UDHR, while symbolically powerful, lacks true enforcement and primarily functions as a mechanism for political justification, moral posturing, and bureaucratic self-preservation.

Here I try to articulate the philosophical inadequacy of human rights justifications, the inherent contradictions in their supposed universality, and my conclusion that the true function of the UDHR is for moral and sanctimonious posturing rather than an effective means of improving human behavior. The bottom line is that the UDHR has not done any good (reduced suffering or improved behaviour) and has done harm by justifying the concept of privileges which do not have to be earned. It is not fit for purpose.

The Philosophical Justification for Human Rights: A Fictional Construct

Human rights are often presented as pre-existing entitlements inherent to all individuals, regardless of circumstances or behavior. This idea suggests that every human being is owed certain protections and freedoms simply by virtue of existence. However, a fundamental flaw in this reasoning is that all human experiences, including the recognition or denial of rights, are entirely dependent on the behavior of others. Rights that are “realised” or “enjoyed” are always due to the magnanimity of those who have the power to spoil the party not, in fact, spoiling the party. The concept of rights existing independently of behaviour, ensured either by human enforcement or granted by those with the power to deny the right, is an abstraction rather than an observable reality. Neither the universe nor nature has any interest in this invented concept. The universe does not owe anybody anything. Real human behaviour has no interest in and pays little heed to this fantasy either. Actions taken by humans are always in response to existing imperatives for the human who is acting and not – except incidentally – for the fulfilling of the human rights of others. No burglar or murderer (or IS fanatic or Hamas imbecile) ever refrained from nefarious activities to respect the supposed rights of others. Human behaviour – the actions we actually take – are governed by the imperatives physically prevailing in our minds and bodies at the moment of action. I suggest that an imagined, artificial concept of the “rights” of others is never a significant factor either for action or for preventing action.

Several philosophical justifications have been proposed to support the existence of human rights, but none withstand critical scrutiny. The Kantian perspective, which argues that humans are ends in themselves and deserve dignity, relies on an assumption rather than an empirical foundation. The empirical evidence is, in fact, that the assumption is false. There is no objective reason why human dignity should be treated as an absolute, nor does nature provide any evidence that such dignity is an inherent property of existence. Dignity is not an attribute that carries any value in the natural world. From the slums of the world, to its war torn regions and from children dying of famine in Sudan to the homeless drug addicts of Los Angeles, the idea of inherent human dignity collapses when exposed to the realities of human existence. The utilitarian justification, which claims that human rights create stable and prosperous societies, also fails to prove its intrinsic validity; rather, it only suggests that they may be useful under certain conditions. Moreover, contractual justifications, such as those proposed by John Rawls, assert that rights arise from a hypothetical social contract. But this merely describes a proposed social convention rather than any truth or moral compulsion.

Ultimately, human rights are experienced as a result  – a consequence – of received behaviour. When enjoyed, they are experienced only because they were not violated by someone who could but didn’t. They are not objective or universal principles but merely received experience resulting from the behaviour of others, which itself is a consequence of happenstance. This reality contradicts the popular narrative that rights are universal, unearned entitlements independent of actual, individual behavior. If an individual’s experience of rights depends entirely on the recognition and actions of others, then what is commonly called a “right” is, in practice, a privilege granted by those who choose not to use their capability to ensure or their power to deny it. No child is born with any rights except those privileges afforded by its surrounding society. The blatant lie – and not just a fiction – is that children are born “equal in rights and dignity”. Compared to reality, this aspires at best to being utter rubbish. The “right” of a child to be nurtured is at the behavioural whim of the adult humans exercising power and control over the child. The “right” to property is a privilege granted by those with the power to permit, protect or deny such ownership. The “right” to not be killed is a privilege granted by those having the power to protect or the ability and the inclination to kill. The right to speak freely lasts only as long as those who can, choose not to suppress it. Incidentally, there is no country in the world which does not constrain free speech to be allowed speech. “Free speech” is distinguished by its non-existence anywhere in the world. The imaginary right of free speech has now led to the equally fanciful rights to not be offended or insulted. Good grief! No living thing has, in fact, any “right” to life. The right to live has no force when confronted by a drunken driver or an act of gross incompetence or negligence or natural catastrophes. This right to life has no practical value when life is threatened. The stark reality is that any individual enjoys the received experience of human “rights” only as long as someone else’s behaviour does not prevent it.

A lawyer friend once asked me whether it was my position that a child did not have the right not to be tortured? The answer is that the question is fatally flawed. Such a right – like every other human right – is just a fiction. The question is flawed because the realisation of any “right” (or entitlement or privilege) is itself fictional and lies in a fictional future. Not being tortured is a result of the behaviour and / or non-behaviour of others. This result is a received privilege granted to children by those in positions of power over them. Most children are protected by the adults around them provided, of course, they have a desire to protect them. The “rights” of the children are as nothing compared to the desires of the surrounding adults who have the ability to implement their desires. The reality that so many children are, in fact, mistreated and tortured is because their persecutors declined to grant them the privilege of not being tortured. Furthermore it is the actions of their persecutors which lead  – by omission or by commission – to them being tortured. In practice, having any such “right” is of no value, either for children who are not tortured or for those so unfortunate as to be subjected to vile and cruel behaviour.

Unearned rights are imaginary and they come without any cost or demand on qualifying behaviour. It is inevitable that they have zero practical value when that supposed right is under threat. A so-called right is enjoyed or violated only as a consequence of someone else’s behaviour (including lack of behaviour). The actions involved are driven by what is important for that someone else. The reality is that even every perpetrator of an atrocity has imperatives which drive his behaviour and his actions. The fictional human rights of others – declared or not – are never included among the imperatives governing his actions. They are, in fact, irrelevant to his actions. No robber or murderer or torturer ever refrained from his imperatives for the sake of someone else’s human rights. The fatal flaw in the invented concept of human rights is that real human behaviour is not considered. It is taken to be irrelevant and improvement of actual behaviour is not directly addressed at all. Real human behaviour contradicts the imaginary concept of universal, unearned rights.

The invention of  the UN Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

The 1948 UDHR does not explicitly state any measurable objectives such as the reduction of human suffering or the improvement of human behavior. Instead, it tries to be normative. It ends up as a religious text, a moral and aspirational document, setting out principles that define the ideal treatment of individuals by states and societies as seen by guilt-ridden European eyes. By any measure the behaviour of humans towards other humans has not changed very much since WWII (or as it would seem, since we became modern humans). Human conflict and violence and suffering, even adjusted for population, has not declined since WWII. It has, in fact, increased in total volume. The UN Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is not linked to any mechanism that enforces its values globally. It’s success is often claimed in principle, but rarely demonstrated in impact. If the world is no less cruel, and probably crueler, after 75 years of pious global rights declarations, what exactly have these declarations achieved?

The UDHR, drafted in the aftermath of World War II, is widely regarded as a historic achievement in the pursuit of justice and equality. However, its origins and functions suggest that it was created primarily to serve political and strategic interests rather than to protect individuals from oppression. One of its primary functions was to rehabilitate the moral standing of Western nations after the atrocities of the 20th century. The Holocaust was – let us not forget – inflicted by Europeans mainly on Europeans. These are the same Europeans whose descendants claimed, and still claim, superior morals and values and civilization to the rest of the world today. The atrocities committed were not just considered allowable but they were also taken, at that time, to be desirable by the standards and values held by some of those same Europeans. To “eradicate the dregs of humanity” was considered the right thing to do in many countries. Coercive eugenics was considered moral by many in Europe. Genocide of such second-rate beings was considered scientifically sound in Europe. The Danes with their Greenlanders, the Swedes and Norwegians with their Sami are cases in point. The Swedish Institute of Race Biology was set up in the 20s and was both the inspiration and the collaborator for the German development of Racial Hygiene theories. This was not some fanatic view. It was part of the mainstream thinking in Europe at the time.

European colonisation was taken as proof of the superiority of the “European race”. The British, for whatever excuses they may make now, were the ones who, knowingly and by omission, allowed 3 – 4 million Indians to die in the Bengal Famine and demonstrated their conviction that native lives had a lower value. The atrocities by France and Belgium and Britain in their colonies in Asia and Africa were no great advertisement for their fine, sanctimonious words at the UN. The concept of “Untermensch” was not held only by the Germans then, and is far from extinct even today. Modern Europeans today commonly still believe the Roma are an inferior race, no matter what their laws may say. The virtue signaling of atonement for past sins, rather than any great surge of humanitarianism, was a key driver of the UN Declaration. Dark skinned peoples are still “Untermensch” in Eastern Europe. The continued bondage of Africans in the Middle East is still slavery in all but name. (But let us not be naive. Race is real and “racism” is alive in every country in todays Asia).

The Holocaust wasn’t some alien invasion. It was Europeans slaughtering certain other Europeans, a homegrown nightmare fueled by ideology, economic collapse, and centuries of tribal hatreds. The UDHR emerged from its ashes, drafted by an unholy coalition of victors and survivors, but its creation wasn’t pure altruism. Western nations, squirming to excuse their own complicity, which had manifested through the 20s and 30s as the wide support for national socialism, appeasement, colonial brutality, of eugenics and of looking aside, needed a moral reset. Hitler had had supporters in every European country (and across the Americas). The UDHR was a way to whitewash themselves and polish their image. A way to say, “We’re the good guys now,” while distancing themselves from the evils of the Soviets and communism. It was less about protecting individuals and more about stabilizing a world order where the West could whitewash reality and claim ethical superiority. Its lofty, sanctimonious words didn’t stop the Cold War’s proxy slaughters or decolonisation’s bloodbaths.

The Holocaust, colonial exploitation, and “war crimes” committed by European powers (victors and vanquished alike) was a massive threat to their assumed moral superiority. By establishing, and being seen to espouse, a “universal” doctrine of rights, Western leaders sought to reshape their global image and provide an ideological – but entirely fictional – justification for their continued dominance. It was sanctimonious, self-righteous and patronising. It was the European elitist’s idea of a catechism for the less enlightened world to follow blindly. After 75+ years of the UDHR, could a Holocaust happen again in Europe? Of course it could. Of course it can. Looking at Kosovo, of course it did! Wherever conflict is now taking place, whether in Gaza or Ukraine or in the Yemen or the Sudan, observing the human rights of the enemy are of no great consequence in the strategic planning of either side.

The UDHR is a pious declaration rather than a legally binding treaty, which means that nations can violate its principles without facing direct consequences. It has been repeatedly violated since the day it was written by its own authors and signatories; in Algeria (by France), in Africa and Asia by the UK, in Vietnam (by the U.S.), in Latin America and in Iraq, Syria, China, Russia and Myanmar. Countries that routinely engage in torture, mass surveillance, political repression, and genocide frequently sign human rights agreements while simultaneously disregarding their content. Ultimately behaviour is by individuals. That a loose promise by a government of a country could bind all of its people, who it does not necessarily represent, is pie in the sky. Claiming universality of values, which patently does not exist, devalues the Declaration as being delusional. The lack of enforcement renders the declaration largely symbolic, exposing the contradiction between its universal claims and its practical impotence.

The Failure of the UDHR

Despite its elevated status in international discourse, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is entirely made up and has no sound philosophical foundations. It is not observed anywhere in the natural world and lacks empirical validation as a force for reducing human suffering or curbing atrocity. Much of the legislation introduced in countries under the “Human Rights” label could have been better introduced in more appropriate local forms. I question the normative power claimed for the UDHR. I can find no way to measure, and no evidence of, the reduction of suffering or the improvement of human behaviour or the reduction of man’s inhumanity to man since the 1948 declaration. The data suggest that rights discourse has had no measurable preventative effect at all. Instead, violations remain persistent, and have only increased in severity and scale. We find that events of humans doing harm to other humans have more than kept pace with the population growth. According to the UN’s own Human Rights Violations Index and data from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), global violations have increased in absolute terms since 1948. So the bottom line is that the incidence of suffering events have increased by about a factor 3 since 1948. In 2024, the UN verified 41,370 grave violations against children in conflict zones (a 25% increase year-on-year), including 22,495 children killed, wounded, recruited, or denied aid (docs.un.org, theguardian.com). Though it only goes back some 30 years, there has never been a year where this metric has declined. The number of individual complaints lodged with the UN Human Rights Committee has reached an all‑time high, and censorship, repression, and legal harassment are more systematic than ever (universal-rights.org, ohchr.org).

Simultaneously, the human rights industry has grown unchecked. Estimates suggest over 48,000 full-time “professionals” are directly engaged globally in rights-related work, expanding at an annual rate of 5%. Including the ICC and international courts the annual budget is around $4 – 5 billion USD per year. This industry relies on crises, where its own survival depends on the perceiving of problems (real or imagined), and the illusion of progress rather than real change. If human rights issues were truly being resolved, many of these institutions would no longer be needed. They should be working towards their own irrelevance. If human rights were improving the industry ought to be shrinking – not growing at 5% per year. Success is measured not by any measure of reduction of suffering or of improving behaviour, but by how much is spent on themselves and in ensuring an increased budget for the next year. With no performance-based metric by which this sector can evaluate its own effectiveness, it measures only what it spends and the number of declarations, treaties, and reports it produces. Its expansion resembles bureaucratic self-interest more than social remedy.

Philosophically, the foundation of “universal rights” has long been contested. Jeremy Bentham dismissed natural rights as “nonsense upon stilts,” rejecting their grounding outside positive law. I take the view that law is made by society, each for, and suited to, itself. It must be grounded locally. Bottom up, not top down. Universal law as I have written about earlier is a mirage. Alasdair MacIntyre also observed that invoking rights “is like invoking witches or unicorns”, a secular invocation of metaphysical constructs without demonstrable existence (After Virtue, 1981). Historically, human rights interventions have always failed, and sometimes spectacularly, under the weight of political selectivity and cultural prejudices. Whether Rwanda or Darfur or Syria or Myanmar or Yemen, moral posturing, rather than any conflict resolution is the primary objective.

What value, then, does the UDHR have?

• It does not constrain, since non-state actors and authoritarian regimes and even individuals  routinely ignore it without consequence.
• It does not protect, and the areas where violations are worst (Sudan, Syria, Gaza, Yemen) are just those areas where the UDHR is devoid of respect and effectiveness.
• It does not deter and there is no rational mechanism by which the UDHR can have any impact on the resorting to violence, the outbreak of war or the committing of mass atrocities (intentionally or not).
• It is not universal, is seen to be skewed in its values and often rejected or ignored whenever inconvenient by cultural and political parties

The function of this industry is not, it would seem, to eliminate human rights violations, nor to reduce suffering or improve human behaviour, but to create a controlled narrative that manages public perception. By providing the illusion of accountability and reform, the human rights industry serves primarily as a panacea.

To reduce suffering or to change behaviour?

There is a glaring gap between the lofty tone of the UDHR and the reality of human behavior. The declaration does not describe how rights will be enforced. It assumes that widespread recognition of rights will somehow influence behavior. It is a hope, not a mechanism. It contains no theory of human psychology or motivation. So while the spirit of the UDHR implies a desire to reduce suffering and encourage more humane behavior, it lacks both strategy and realism in achieving that.

People are led to believe that the world is moving toward justice and equality, even as human suffering, war, and exploitation continue unabated. Human behaviour changes only when humans perceive that to change is of greater benefit than not changing. The reality is that even when actions cause collateral harm, no one refrains from his (or her) chosen actions for the purpose of respecting the imaginary rights of those who may be harmed. They may refrain for fear of punishment or retaliation or because they chose to do something else, but never for the sake of respecting imaginary rights. It is the idea of being entitled to unearned privileges which is fundamentally unsound – even sick. It is, in fact, where entitlement culture and its ills begin. If human behaviour is to be addressed it can only be done locally not with futile, pious, universal declarations. Human values are local not global. The value of human life varies from local society to local society. The drivers of human action are local, not some pious, universal fiction. Changing behaviour can only begin locally – in accordance with local values and mores.

The envelope of possible human behaviour is set by our genes and probably has not changed in 50,000 years. The quantity of bad behaviour at any given time is just the rate of bad behaviour multiplied by population. The rate of bad behaviour for dense, industrialised urban environments is no doubt different to that for hunter-gatherers. But it has been fairly constant for at least the last 5,000 years since the earliest legal codes were framed to control behaviour in societies. Even the codes of Ur-Nammu (2,100 BCE) or Hammurabi (1,750 BCE) reflect societies dealing with murder, theft, cruelty, sexual misconduct, and violence. They dealt with precisely the same behaviour that modern codes try to address. Codes of law (and law enforcement arrangements) have been used for at least 5,000 years to manage existing societies, but they have not changed the fundamentals of human behaviour at all. The crime and punishment needs for the functioning of a society rarely have any impact on fundamental human behaviour. We should note that a Code of Law and legal systems are governance tools, not human reprogramming mechanisms. They do not remove the ability or the impulse to do harm. They merely deter some with punishment, redirect some through social conditioning, and repress others with institutional force. Codes of Law constrain some unwanted behaviour and help societies to function but they do not change human behaviour. They do not even try to. Human nature itself does not evolve on civilizational timeframes.

More perniciously, the UDHR has helped cultivate a culture of entitlement divorced from merit, responsibility, or behaviour. By declaring rights as universal and unearned, it has promoted the dangerous fiction that dignity, security, and privilege are birthrights requiring no reciprocal obligation. “Being born equal in rights and dignity” is so blatant a falsehood that it puts the sincerity of the document authors in doubt. This moral dilution has eroded the foundations of duty, effort, and earned respect that once underpinned functioning societies. The bases of civic behaviour (duty, responsibility, … ) have been badly undermined.

Rather than preventing oppression, the human rights framework often provides the form, the illusion, of improvement without having any substance. This psychological function of human rights discourse benefits those in power by fostering passivity and compliance. The UDHR is used to provide a perception of actions as a means of sedating societies not for reducing suffering or improving behaviour.

Conclusion

The fiction of universal human rights is maintained not because it reflects reality but because it serves political, bureaucratic, and ideological functions. The UDHR was crafted as a tool for Western moral rehabilitation after World War II, but its lack of enforcement has rendered it a symbolic rather than a document for actions. Human rights are invoked selectively, as a political tool rather than for achieving actual improvement. Furthermore, the human rights industry sustains itself by perpetuating crises rather than resolving them, and the narrative of inevitable progress pacifies individuals rather than inspiring real change.

Since the UDHR was framed, human behaviour has not changed one iota in consequence. Human suffering has increased largely in line with population increase, but where the rate of doing harm to others has been either unaffected or made slightly worse by the declarations. Certainly the declarations have not reduced the rate of humans doing harm to humans. The bottom line is that the UDHR does not reduce suffering and it does not even address human behaviour. The UDHR, in real conditions of war, insurgency, or factional conflict is little more than a legal fiction and a moral “comfort blanket”. It survives in courtrooms, classrooms, and NGOs, but disappears from battlefields, street protests, from all large crowds and assemblies and any refugee camps.

The question, then, is not whether human rights exist in any real sense (they do not), but rather, who benefits from the perpetuation of the human rights illusion? Certainly suffering is not reduced and human behaviour is unaddressed. The primary beneficiary of the human rights industry, it seems to me, is the human rights industry.

In the long run human behaviour will change only along with local societies as they develop and will reflect the imperatives of those local societies. The global picture only emerges as a consequence as a summation of local changes. Behaviour and behavioural change cannot be imposed top down. It can only happen from the bottom up because it lies ultimately with individuals.