On December tenth 1948 in the Palis de Chaillot in Paris, the United Nation's General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document is made up of thirty articles which deal with a series of basic human rights and duties. It follows the premise that
" the declaration is a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the people of member states themselves and among the people of territories under their jurisdiction."[3]
However this is not always the case, infraction to the human rights code are all too often practiced, today as much as 50 years ago. War crimes in the former Yugoslavia, terrorist acts in the Gaza strip, Political prisoners in China, the disappercidos of Chile and Argentina, female genital mutilation in orthodox Muslim communities are all too common. However the message this document stands for is one for the universality of man and woman kind alike. It tells of such basic rights as freedom and life that are owed to every human being regardless of the language she speaks. They are inalienable in the fact that human rights have no boundary and are sovereign to no king or state. Shue seems to disagree with this, since in describing the comparative advantage theory of government he mentions that "each nation's own government (or other social institutions) are best able to care for the welfare of the people of that nation..."[6] This latest theory provides some backing for 'cultural soveirgnty', however it does so by demeaning the universality of human rights, and is therefore unacceptable with what I'm choosing as a moral standpoint.
As I me...