Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Since its inception, the UN has required that member countries support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Yet a huge percentage of member countries are human rights abusers, some egregiously.  The reason is that sovereignty has always trumped human rights at the security council table.

Titled Risking it all for Rights, this article by John Lloyd is a timeline of the human rights versus sovereignty debate, humanitarian interventions, and the role that the US, as the only military hyper-power in the world today, has played.  The subheading reads “In backing the United States in Iraq, Britain’s Tony Blair has declared that human rights trump sovereignty. Who’s brave enough to follow him?”  Whoa!

Lloyd notes that Chretien is on the side of the sovereignists.  Personally, I’m on the side of the human rights advocates.  Perhaps that makes me more American than European in my outlook.  My point of view is rooted in the idealistic notion that the rights which I have, as a Canadian, ought to be available to anyone.  Countries that are signatories to the UN charter ought to be required to abide by the Human Rights Declaration.  As Kofi Annan, referring to the principle of Sovereignty, said “human rights and the evolving nature of humanitarian law will mean little if a principle guarded by states is always allowed to trump the protection of citizens within them.”

From the Globe and Mail’s comments page this morning — this piece is thought provoking… excellent, perhaps even important.