Are International Human Rights useless because of the presence of National Constitutions?
Ludovico Lalli 2025-03-20
The content of most of the National Constitutions is plagiarized by International Human rights which thus do not create nothing of new.
Comments (42)
Not exactly. The UN has taken the best - i.e. most progressive, tolerant, inclusive clauses of various constitutions - principles on which people broadly agree - to make up a comprehensive set of rules intended to protect all people from all kinds of persecution and oppression.
The fact that it cannot be applied is a proof of our failure as a species.
A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have there been. Only the fetter for the thousand necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal. As yet humanity hath not a goal.
But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still lacking, is there not also still lacking—humanity itself?—
Thus spake Zarathustra.
The international system is one of anarchy. States are sovereign. International rules, if you can call them that, cannot be enforced. It’s odd that we’d defended anarchy on a global scale, while fear it on any other scale, but here we are.
In the end, it is based on a 'gentleman's agreement' between states, in that there is no monopoly on violence that facilitates the enforcement of international law.
Reciprocity, trust, credibility and the threat of armed conflict are important factors in why states choose to behave according to international law.
It's definitely not useless, but it also does not function in the same way national laws do, and it is much more dependent on mutual agreement than coercion.
That last bit is something that seems to have gotten lost on many people during the so-called 'unipolar moment', during which the United States was so powerful that in practical terms it could assume the role of 'world's policeman'. We see now that this was a historical anomaly.
Yes, please!
International Law has no enforcement mechanism. It gets enforced when countries agree to enforce it, and the same law can be ignored when countries don’t care to enforce it. But without the individual countries taking steps to impose the law, international law is more like a suggestion, or guideline among pirates.
So, yes.
If country A doesn’t like what country B is doing, A can get a whole bunch of other countries to agree with them and then together, go after B. That’s the world before International Law. That’s the law of nature.
Or country A can appeal to international law and make a case to the UN and the International Court. But then, the opinion of the UN as a body and the ruling of the International Court, no matter what they say, will mean nothing, unless a bunch of other countries agree to the ruling and go out and enforce the ruling. Which is the same picture of things as before international law.
So yeah, International Human Rights are more of a political talking point, and means to make arguments for and against other countries, and propaganda (for a good cause), than they are something with the force of law.
No country will give up their sovereignty to some outside body like the UN, or like an International constitution of laws and rights.
The only real jurisdiction of International law is outside of national jurisdiction, like the open seas.
In the middle of the ocean, no country can claim jurisdiction, and all have agreed to abide by international law. (Basically all have agreed we won’t fight each other for sovereignty over the oceans, just ten miles off the shoreline.). But there is no police either, none with any teeth to enforce that law. So if country A doesn’t like what country B is doing on the open seas, and the international court agrees country B has violated the international law, you still need some country or group to use their own enforcement power to actually stop country B.
And if country A doesn’t like what country B is doing to its own people, within its own jurisdiction, International Law has even less significance. To enforce international law on a country that disagrees with the ruling, you basically have to go to war with the country.
There are two Declarations with which I am familiar. One is the Alma Ata Declaration on Health in 1978; the other is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the United Nations in 1948.
True enough, and beneficially, the text and thrust of the declarations has been copied into numerous national documents around the world. Why is that a problem?
The problem isn't that nothing "new" is created; the problem is that the text and thrust of the declarations is honored in the breach more than in the observance.
Here are links to the two Declarations:
1948 Paris Declaration of Human Rights
The 1978 Alma Ata Declaration on Health
These declarations are comprehensive, ideal, and sound -- except that the circumstances in so many places make the chances of success in many places like a snowball's chance in hell.
Still, the declarations are worthwhile, if only they are put into effect.
In general agreement with 's observations, I personally think that the OP might (?) be emotively taking a long, roundabout, and maybe scapegoat way of saying that, because the declarations of international human rights are not uniformly enforceable globally, they then are worthless.
To which one reply, the only one that currently makes any sense to me, will be this:
Quoting bert1
Or else a global democratic nation with a multitude of states, each state with its own ethnicity, culture, sub-laws, etc., such that each state votes for what the global nation’s laws should ubiquitously be. Here, then, there would be a global enforcement of the two declarations you link to, this as would be decided upon by the states' citizens.
Indeed, I'm not rigid on the details. Nations are so-interdependent now it makes little sense not to have some system of global democratic representation.
:grin: :up: Neither am I.
Mighty big contribution of you towards the end you desire.
Power relegated to voting and fiat money.
It goes by the name, "planet Earth".
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Yup. Power relegated to the people. Not just some at expense of others, but all.
I'm here guestimating you disagree. In which case what in your view ought power be relegated to?
I'm assuming that whatever your answer is, it will include power to you at the expense of others. But I'm open to being wrong.
Right. So is the truth that the planet ain't flat (and quite a few other affirmations out there). Your point being ...
Not one iota. Power is strictly in the enforcement of the law. Human laws are in effect nothing more than dictums, statements - which as statements can be used in any number of ways (such as lawyers and judges make use of these statements). But without any power of enforcing such human law, the law of itself becomes or else is powerless and so impotent.
That's only if the state in question is beholden to the international community. If it is, that's probably a result of a treaty of some sort, or they took a loan and they can't pay it back.
The solution is to build a giant nuclear arsenal and a bunch of missiles.
And on the contrary... I'm laughing at such a notion of power because you're capable of more, every human is.
What's what happens?
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
I certainly do, some of those problems that I can't solve on my own anyway. What kind of problems are you thinking of?
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Oh, I see. I think that's sarcasm! Sure, of course one vote is very little. As Churchill said, democracies are the worst system except for all the others. I do a little bit towards the bigger problems, but not much I admit. I'd like a different electoral system, first past the post is really bad.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by those two. What other kinds of power do you have in mind?
There's not enough room! All the bits are taken aren't they? States don't own most of it though, it's privately owned. I'm not sure why you blame the state more than you blame private interests. Also dictatorship-states are rather similar to private sort of 'barons' I suppose.
Have you managed to find a free bit of land somewhere and set up your own sphere of influence there?
Well, maybe, but that also applies to private individuals, no? The rich and wealthy set up their own principalities which exert power and control over others. And those guys don't ask permission once every four or five years.
There are many bits that have not been taken by private individuals, but the collection of bits -- taken or not -- are pretty much under the control of a state. And states jealously guard their bits.
Quoting bert1
Probably because @DifferentiatingEgg is "state-averse". He sees the state mainly as a burden upon the people, rather than a creation of the population. The state-averse do not see the predations of private individuals and corporations.
Actually, I don't generally think much of the state cause I do what I want regardless of the law because I'm generally not a malicious person. I can be cruel at times, like today, I knew it would eat at me for the rest of my life not relaying my father's last conversation with me to his step mother. She was crushed, and even though I felt a little at odds telling an old woman who I once cared about, as to how she played a huge role in destroying my fathers dreams and his family, it had to be done. I'll probably end up contacting her again here in a few days to let her know that I forgive her, but I'm going to let a B ruminate on just how ignorant and insulting her actions truly are to my father and my family in general. That aside...
I'm talking shit about the state simply because I understand what States do, as I worked for the state for quite some time. At first it was just a cool gig, that was less corporate bullshit, more of my speed in aggressiveness and activity. But you begin to see and realize things like you're really just a paid gangster. Im mostly building upon ideas to understand them better and get more experience discussing certain aspects.
Yes, the state enforces legal rights in land, which rights it has created itself. And as @BC said, states enforce their own rights in land, which they themselves created. Nevertheless, democratic states are a necessary evil because the alternatives are worse. If you remove the state you just get powerful individuals or powerful groups which seize what they want and then legitimise that power and control by saying they have a right to it. They write the right down and it's alright because verily it is written, perhaps by God in some cases. Might becomes right. Democratic states are a little better than this, and some are a lot better. And it seems to me that it is hostile private interests that are keeping democratic states from improving.
If we had an infinite plane of green and pleasant land, maybe we could ditch a state. Everyone starts off at a point with a wheelbarrow, pick, shovel, axe, sword and hoe, like Minecraft. We all head off in different directions until we find a bit with enough space to make a go of it. Where two people want the same bit and start waving their swords, it's OK, because one can go and find somewhere else further out. No one ever needs to fight because there is an infinity of resources. There's still a problem though. Early settlers will soon be hemmed in on all sides, making their area finite. This might be fine until they have children and start running low on resources. So then it's time to fight. So lets modify this experiment in statelessness (or anarcho-capitalism I suppose) such that the plane itself is expanding, so that even the bounded parts of it are getting bigger. A bit like dark energy. So there we go - we can get rid of states if we have an infinitely expanding space of resources. Otherwise, I'm a Hobbesian.
As a panpsychist I'm just now wondering if dark energy might not be the will of matter to increase its sphere of influence. I'll write to the Nobel Prize people tomorrow and see what they think.
I'll address a few points later, I'm going back to sleep for the time being though, also cause I need to ruminate some more on the topic cause I normally don't consider this topic much.
:up:
When the United States was a brand new nation, it had possession of the land between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi River, but it didn't really occupy all that land. State occupation of this territory had to await settlers. The Northwest Territory Ordinance was passed in 1787 and established the legal basis for occupation by settlers, and the eventual creation of territories and then states. Wisconsin, the most "northwest" of the NW Territory, wasn't entered into the Union until 1848.
The open land was surveyed, packaged, and sold. The Homestead Act of 1862 aimed at settling the much larger expanse of open land west of the Mississippi. Settlers (citizens or immigrants intending to stay) could acquire 160 acres of free land by living on it for 5 years and improving it.
According to the historian Oscar Handlin, the land-system of medieval Europe was much different. The 'state' might be no more than the local lord (strong man). There was no open land: peasants had developed an unofficial but binding system of land-and-labor sharing which prevailed for centuries, and was usually (but not always) productive enough to maintain a steady population of crop producers.
In the 18th century, for not altogether well understood reasons, the population of Europe started to grow and the old system of land and labor sharing proved insufficient, resulting in surplus population beyond its means to support. Then what? Westward Ho across the ocean to the unsettled land of the New World (unsettled by Europeans, that is).
Handlin's books on immigration treat the wrenching dislocation of people moving from nations where land, labor, and social mobility were fixed to the socially fluid conditions in cities and on the frontier.
A pleasant, law-abiding person in a more-or-less democratic state can live without constantly worrying about the State and its malevolent agents. I also don't think about the State that much, either. I'm reasonably pleasant, and mostly law-abiding.
There are times when being pleasant and law-abiding are not enough. During periods of political upheaval, activities which are legal may become verboten, such as when Red Scares and various witch hunts have used the machinery of the state. Unionizing is legal, as are strikes. That doesn't prevent the State from employing police forces to help break a strike. Being a member of the Communist Party USA has never been illegal, but being a member could end one's career in Hollywood, government, or academia (during periods of anti-communist fervor).
The State might, but not always, object to disruptions of public order. For some odd reason, the state mostly put up with the disruptions of the Occupy Wall Street movement, probably because it was fairly good theater and no threat to business. ACT-UP got a much more negative response. It was also good theater, but the actors were diseased pariahs (to use one of their phrases) and was aimed at Big Pharma as well as at the State. j
Campus demonstrations against Israel's war on Palestinians (their phrase) have irritated agents and quasi-agents of the state. Campus demonstrations in 2025 are interfering with US policy no more than campus demonstrations interfered with US policy in 1970, but the State doesn't like it -- then or now. So, call in the police. State (and quasi-state) authorities don't like being contradicted, argued with, demonstrated against, or denounced.
It doesn't matter that the net effect of most demonstrations are pretty much zero.