A new notification shall be made through the same intermediary on the date on which it terminates that derogation. Article 26: Everyone has the right to education. Primary education should be free. We should all be able to continue our studies as far as we want. In school, we should be helped to develop our talents, and we should learn to understand and respect the human rights of all. We should also learn to get along with others, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or country of origin. Our parents have the right to choose the type of school we attend. Nothing in this Declaration shall be construed as implying the right of any State, group or person to engage in any activity or act intended to destroy any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein. What would happen if these duties conflicted with the right to freedom of expression, association, religion and political participation? The authors of the UDHR feared that some of the wording of the US Declaration (and even some of the language that appeared in early versions of the UDHR) would allow states to impose arbitrary restrictions on the rights of individuals. They were particularly concerned about the duties of the US declaration to “obey the law and other lawful orders of the authorities of his country” and “perform all civil and military service that his country needs for its defense and preservation.” See and hear people from all over the world read articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in more than 80 languages. Article 29 also states that rights are not unlimited. If they were, social balance and harmony would be impossible. It seeks to link the exercise of rights to the interests of the international community, for whose representation the United Nations was founded in 1945.
Article 2: The rights of the UDHR belong to everyone, regardless of who we are, where we come from or whatever we believe. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and must meet in a spirit of fraternity. Article 16: We should have the right to marry and have a family as soon as we are legally old enough. Our ethnicity, nationality and religion should not prevent us from doing so. Men and women have the same rights when they are married and also when they are separated. We should never be forced to marry. The government has a responsibility to protect us and our families. 2 Nevertheless, the idea that the restriction of rights may be justified by `morality, public order and general welfare` seems problematic to me. This is far too general. If “morality” is seen as the customs of a particular society, then the UDHR will fail in its central objective of creating a common understanding of human rights and the circumstances in which it is appropriate to restrict those rights.
(If, on the other hand, “morality” refers to the principles of a correct universal moral code, there is little hope of agreement on its content.) And the reference to “general welfare” as a ground for limitation seems to undermine the modern idea of rights as an asset of utilitarian considerations. The mere fact that the refusal of a right would slightly increase national income does not constitute a basis for such a refusal. We are aware that it is very difficult to clearly define the bases that are allowed to restrict a right beyond a conflict with other rights. The best way forward would be to develop a common understanding of the reasons that do not sufficiently justify such restrictions. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned that “more and more leaders no longer claim to care about human rights and are trying to repress civil society, often using national security as a pretext.” In doing so, they distort the idea of Article 29 that individual rights may be legally restricted by “the just requirements of morality, public order and general welfare in a democratic society”. 5It is true that the UDHR initiated our reflection on human rights, and the issue of derogations (as set out in Article 4 of the ICCPR) is the product of a later phase of this reflection that we can use now. But the UDHR itself remains something of crucial educational importance and an important foundation of global human rights ethics. It is therefore a pity that it did not introduce the world to the idea of exemptions – and even more so to the idea that there are certain rights to which no exception can be made, such as the right not to be tortured or enslaved. Such anti-derogation provisions justify the rights in question as being more or less absolute.
Everyone has the right to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or any other status. Furthermore, no distinction may be made on the basis of the political, judicial or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether independent, trustworthy, non-self-governing or subject to any other restriction of sovereignty. .