Talk:Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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[edit] UDHR and the Death Penalty

Dispute: the actual text of the Universal Declaration contains no reference to abolition of the death penalty. Therefore, the United States is not opposed to a provision of the Declaration as such, but is opposed to a particular interpretation. Alba 23:57, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Moved here until citations are provided.--Eloquence* 19:47, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

Among the more controversial provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the disallowing of the death penalty. Many in the United States oppose this, as some states and the federal government permit the death penalty.
Still doesn't mean that the U.S. isn't violating around 10 of 'em articles though (e.g. Guantanamo -> Violating articles 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18). hehe.--85.49.224.50 01:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
The U.S. is violating less of them than most countries. For example, ALL islamic countries are violating most if not all of the articles. If they continue to do so, the UN should pass a resolution declaring islam to be an anti human rights religion.
The death penalty in the US is provided for by law, and therefore is not contrary to the Declaration.

[edit] Full text

I reverted an edit that included the full text of the declaration. Wikipedia is not the place for source documents; that's what we have Wikisource for.

There's already a link on this page to the Wikisource version, so I didn't bother copying it over there. --ESP 16:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)


The full text was put back, and I have removed it again. Sir Elderberry 14:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ten Commandments

I remember reading somewhere that the drafters of the UDHR had the Ten Commandments in mind whilst drafting, but forgot where I have read it! (the usual plight) Can someone confirm? -- Kaihsu 08:18, 2004 Jul 14 (UTC)

This seems most unlikely, since the principal author was a Canadian lawyer, law professor, and even a dean of law. :) But seriously... from http://www.gnb.ca/hrc-cdp/e/humphre2.htm#Humphrey
"In 1946, Humphrey was asked to set up the UN's Division for Human Rights, of which he became the Director. In this capacity, he prepared a 400 page background paper for the proposed Universal Declaration and wrote its first draft in 1947. After further drafts and revisions by various UN officials and committees, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN in 1948. Humphrey was Director of the Human Rights Division until 1966."
As well, even a casual comparison of the Ten Commandments and the UDHR will show many areas where they do not even touch -- much less overlap or agree. -- Madmagic 13:00, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Arguments For and Against

I would like to solicit arguments for and against posting the full text of UDHR in the article. --LegCircus 18:07, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Against

  • Sorry. It's already on Wikisource, and 100 other places. This article could do with some expansion, no doubt about that, but perhaps someone could write a commentary on the text of the declaration -- specific rights in each article, what they mean in practice, to what extent they are observed, etc -- rather than simply c&p-ing the text. –Hajor 18:41, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Against, for the reasons above. As well, posting the entire text is not Wikipedia policy, for anything but very short source materials. A summary/analysis of the source text within the article is fine, links to the full source text at the end of the article is also fine. Posting the full text within the article is not how Wikipedia works. Madmagic 01:50, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] For

You need to have the complete document here because in other sections of wikipedia you quote only part of article five for example and part of article 2 for example under human rights and then you have a reference to this page where there should be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You can't send people here expecting to find the complete article five when in fact it is not here. It needs to be here. Else send them somewhere else where it can be found and don't send them here. But my vote is it needs to be here or I can not take wikipedia seriously as an encyclopedia.

Guitarsandmore October 17, 2006. user.

Just scroll to the bottom of the page where you will find the following template (right):
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
--Grimhelm 17:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Architect(s)

The fr: version describes René Cassin as a principal co-drafter, and the article on him says as much. And related to this is the category of Canadian history: is there anything more to this other than that of Prof. Humphrey being Canadian? If anything, this is world history, IMO. A-giau 06:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Nobel Committee claims that:

[René Cassin] was a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from its creation in 1946; vice-chairman from 1946 to 1955, a period which included Eleanor Roosevelt's chairmanship (1946-1953); chairman from 1955 to 1957; and again vice-chairman in 1959. The workhorse of the Commission, he was the one most responsible for the draft of the Declaration of Human Rights [1]

A-giau 21:45, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Most translated???

Bible: 2100 languages. The record cited is phrased incorrectly or is just plain wrong, clearly. Daniel Quinlan 11:25, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

The cite is here: http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/miscinfo/record.htm . The Guinness Record is here: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/gwr5/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=53256 . It's not clear why the declaration of human rights got the record over the Bible, except perhaps they consider a "document" to be something much, much shorter than a book. I don't know, though; requires more investigation. --ESP 16:19, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Bible: 2233 "languages and dialects" http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/gwr5/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=48276 So clearly Guinness considers books and documents as different classes of text. --Fred 2 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)
Bear in mind that a language is different from a dialect. Someone from New York would speak a different dialect than someone from London, but they both still speak the same language. So the quote of 2233 "languages and dialects" for the Bible does not in itself beat the alleged record held by the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights as for all we know that figure of 2233 contains 2200 dialects but only 33 languages. Now obviously that is not the case, but this source does not help us determine the true figures. Does anyone know of another source which just refers to how many languages the Bible has been translated in to, NOT languages and dialects. -Stenun, 25 July, sometime around half past three (BST)
  • But, both Guinness citation says "languages and dialects":
    • Bible: "2,233 languages and dialects"
    • UDHR: "321 languages and dialects from Abkhaz to Zulu." --JW1805 22:02, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I've just now reverted an edit which removed the Guiness reference. Could someone please rephrase the Guiness reference in such a way it explains or takes into account the well-known figures on translations of the Bible? Otherwise we'll keep running into this problem in future. Cheers, Madmagic 21:35, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the Guinness reference again: it's clearly misleading. A quick web search reveals numerous sources claiming a higher number of translations for other documents, including the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. There's no reason to privilege the GBWR, as it is, in any case, just one POV. If GBWR is using "document" to mean "short document", the number of translations of (e.g.) the Lord's Prayer is greater than those of UDHR, and, in practical terms, "document" does not, for most people, imply "short document". WMMartin 12:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

And I've reverted the article again. WMMartin, this is a contentious issue and deserves discussion -- see above, for some examples. Please allow others the time to agree or disagree with your changes here, rather than taking action on the article. Please also see Wikipedia:Revert and Wikipedia:Resolving disputes -- and let's talk before acting again, okay? Cheers, Madmagic 13:26, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

I've got no interest in getting involved in a "revert war" here, but looking at the above discussion it's pretty clear that the only person who finds this "contentious" is Madmagic. Of course I would _never_ wish to imply that Madmagic has a POV he wishes to advance here, but I will note that all I've tried to do is note the number of translations, which is a factual matter, rather than a matter of ( the GBWR's inconsistent ) opinion. Last time I looked, Wikipedia dealt in facts, expressed clearly and in common language, but perhaps things are changing... WMMartin 15:02, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

If you're not interested in getting involved in a revert war, then let's talk reasonably and respectfully with each other here, and work cooperatively to figure out a solution to this problem with the article.
Looking immediately above, I see that someone originally wrote the Guiness citation into the article. It was then objected to by Daniel Quinlan. Daniel's objections were replied to by Fred and ESP. Further comments by JW1805 then responded to Fred and ESP. All since Mar 13, 2005. That's four Wikipedia contributors commenting on this issue in five months, about equally for/ against the citation. Before you and I began discussing it.
Given that, I don't understand why you are personalizing our discussion and claiming I'm the only Wikipedia contributor who finds this issue contentious. Your statement is not correct. Nor is it at all helpful for you to mention my objections might be based on POV. They aren't.
I've twice taken the time to courteously ask you on your Talk page to discuss the issue here before making changes in the article. I've also put a note here each time I reverted your changes. Kindly return my courtesy and let's talk reasonably and respectfully with each other -- okay? :)
On to the issues you raised above: I agree with you that Wikipedia is about facts, expressed clearly and in common language. AFAIK, it is a fact that the Guiness description of the UDHR as "the most translated document" is real. That description exists. It is stated at the guinnessworldrecords.com link just above; the cite was commented on by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, at another link also just above.
I also agree with you that the current wording of the article is confusing and difficult to understand. The Guiness citation seems obviously wrong, in comparison to the generally-known number of translations of the Bible (which are also cited by Guiness, see the third link just above.)
My main concern with completely removing the Guiness "most translated document" reference is that if this citation is left entirely out of the article, another Wikipedia contributor will then come along and add it to the article -- and then we're back into the same discussion, over and over again. As the Guiness Wikipedia article states, "The Guinness Book of Records is the world's most sold copyrighted book..." It is also considered a reliable reference authority by many people, including some Wikipedia contributors.
Ignoring the Guiness citation -- even if it is missleading or outright wrong -- will not make the Guiness citation go away. Nor will it end attempts to include it in the UDHR article, and the following attempts to remove it.
My goal is to solve the problem by briefly mentioning the citation and then briefly noting the objections to it, in an attempt to reach NPOV. Let's fix this problem issue now, and get on with other work.
Again, as I did yesterday, I suggest we reword the contentious section of the UDHR article. You're welcome to write a first draft and offer it for discussion here. Or, if you agree to hold off making any further changes to the article until this coming Monday Aug 15, I'll put up a first draft here myself for your comment before then.
It should be obvious to you I am trying to work cooperatively to fix a problem area in the UDHR article. I am trying for agreement and for NPOV. Kindly work cooperatively with me to achieve agreement and NPOV -- okay? :) Cheers, Madmagic 19:50, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
WMMartin wrote today on my talk page he has no interest in discussing this issue further. I'm going to step away from Wikipedia for at least the weekend.
If a third party would like to edit the disputed section of the article, it might help resolve this recurring issue. If not, I'll try to reword it later next week. I do hope we can reach some concensus which everyone will agree is NPOV. Cheers, Madmagic 21:56, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've just edited the much-discussed third paragraph of the UDHR article ("Most Translated") and tried to make it as NPOV as I can. Comments by anyone are invited and welcome. Cheers, Madmagic 00:32, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citations for Latin American Influences, etc. (?)

I've just noticed the edits of 21:35, August 5, 2005 by user 62.215.20.183 [[2]] and reverted to the prior July 25th version last edited by user Isfisk.

There were some worthwhile-sounding improvements to the article and perhaps some truth in what was changed, but I don't know the subject well enough to allow this major edit to pass.

User 62.215.20.183 (or anyone) please provide citations, sources and references to substantiate the major recent edits. Until they're provided, let's keep to the known and documented facts about the creation of the UDHR. :) Cheers, Madmagic 03:33, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Controversies

The declaration seems to consist of two parts - civil and social. While the civil part receives the most exposure, and carries little controversy, the social part contains many ideals associated with left side of political spectrum of most Western democracies, and these are not universally accepted (right to unemployment protection, social security, guaranteed standard of living). Additionally, while compulsory elementary education may be a good thing, it hardly qualifies as a right. Article 21 (1) and (3) writes democratic form of government into the human rights. Considering that modern democracies have violated other rights in the past, which human rights are superior - that of non-discrimination, security of person, freedom from persecution, etc., or that of the will of the people? Considering democracy's shortcomings, does it deserve glorification as a universal right? pslusarz 02:28, August 8, 2005 (CST)

I don't really care that much about democracy, but mentioning empty religious terms like conscience or brotherhood on a declaration that is supposed to constitute a fundament of modern societies is laughable. 82.139.47.117 14:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The declaration does not form part of international law, but it is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments, and it is customary to follow it. There are many, many nations who do not follow the statutes of the UDHR. Theocracies (that deny women or members of minority religious faiths specific rights) are just one example. I think this should be changed, but I'm not sure of the best way to rework it. QuinnHK 05:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

At first, I was going to dispute your points, but I realized you are dead on. I rephrased that sentence; feel free to revise further if it seems inadequate. --SuperNova |T|C| 07:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism Section

The criticism section needs to be rewritten. It is a series of sentence fragments and only begins to assess the criticism of this document. --Ggbroad 15:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I just added a bunch of facts about the relationship of Islam to the UDHR, correcting and updating the stereotype of the cracker who quoted the older David Littman study. Teetotaler

[edit] Speculation on difference between Bible and UDHR

I've removed (twice!) the unfounded speculation that the reason the UDHR is listed as the "most translated document" is that the Bible is a religious work. Until someone can show what the different criteria are, such that the Bible isn't considered for the record, can we please leave our guesses out of the article? My guess is that a "document", according to Guinness, is a work much smaller than a book like the Bible. But until we have confirmation from Guinness, let's not add our guesses. --ESP 14:51, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Evan. My mistakes for reverting your prior edit, and for making the guess -- twice. :) As previously mentioned on your Talk page in my note of Sept 19, there's already been a fair amount of disagreement over the 'Most Translated' issue, see above on this page.
Personally, I prefer the way you've phrased it now, and I hope others will also be satisfied with the current wording. Cheers, Madmagic 04:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CHeck the date

Check the date of when the Bill of rights was written

Fixed. You know, if you see something that isn't right, you can always Be Bold and rectify said situation. Danthemankhan(talk) 05:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References in Entertainment

I changed the title of the song that U2 play while showing the UDHR on their 2005/06 tour. It is "Miss Sarajevo", not "Running to Stand Still".

At two concerts I attended, "Running to Stand Still" was played. Furthermore, at all 3 U.S. shows I attended, the U.S. crowds gave a warm reception to the UDHR, particularly the Boston crowd, and to the mention of torture. I would really like to see that "hatchet shot" at the U.S. dropped, unless a citation can be supported. 72.200.165.150 05:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who signed?

A list of signatories/ratifiers, or alternatively since most presumably both signed and ratified, a list of non-signatories/ratifiers would be a good addendum. DanielDemaret 07:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

if someone who didn't sign break the rights he will still be guilty of something he didn't agree? ..."universal" yeah right i hope tha ets read that if they decide to attack us.

[edit] Vatican not a signatory?

Under the Trivia section, it states:

"Though the Vatican's policies are in almost complete accord with the UDHR, it is not signatory, due to Vatican City's non-recognition of religious freedom amongst its citizens."

This is absolutely wrong. The UDHR has no signatories at all. Even the article itself states that there were no signatories under the heading 'Structure and Legal Implications'.

I believe that it is the UN Charter to which the Vatican is not a signatory and hence not a member either, but merely a permanent observer.

I have gone ahead and removed this statement, per here and the following subhead, as the statement is unsourced AND contradicts a statement elsewhere in this article (one with a source). --SuperNova |T|C| 07:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vatican Trivia statement

Though the Vatican's policies are in almost complete accord with the UDHR, it is not signatory, due to Vatican City's non-recognition of religious freedom amongst its citizens

is unsourced, and sounds highly dubious to me. For a start, the NPOV consensus appears to be that the Holy See is sovereign, not "the Vatican", and I'm not sure when they last had genuine elections (universal and equal suffrage, before someone mentions the pope).

Remove as unsourced?

RandomP 23:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have removed this statement; see previous subheading. --SuperNova |T|C| 07:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bricker Amendment

For some time I have been working on revisions to the Bricker Amendment article. I finally posted it and have a PR at Wikipedia:Peer review/Bricker Amendment. I'd welcome comments. I know all those references may seem extravagant, but I'm hoping to get it as an FA and those voters want lots of footnotes. PedanticallySpeaking 16:26, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality of UDHR and US Bill of Rights

Neutrality dispute no kidding. The current talk of the United States makes it sound like slavery, WWII internment camps and the genocide of native americans are still going on. News Flash Slavery is gone and so is the Native American genocide, the only one that is has relevence today is WWII internment of the respective races because the Partiot act could allow that (in certain instances), but so far i dont believe that any american has been taken prisoner because of the patriot act, without some real evidence (the US bill of rights only covers US citizens, anyone caught in Iraq or Afganistan who are being tortured is another issue). And What do u mean the UDHR and the US Bill of Rights cant be compared? Most of those rights are covered by the first amendment completely. The only rights the US bill of rights does not provide explicity are the right to an education, which is covered by public education anyway. i have no idea what imminent domain is though so i cant argue about it Blue 19:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it is in the article. The whole unsourced section pre-supposes that one has some interest and knowledge of the US bill of rights. I have neither.--Zleitzen 11:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed on freedom of expression and opinion removed.

It plainly says this one in article 19.

http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm

"Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. "

[edit] Is the right to own property contained in the declaration?

If yes, this should be mentioned in the article. If not, likewise. Tullie 18:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

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