By: Janey B
In a world traumatized by the depredation and misery of World War 2, the United Nations was created in 1945, with the goal to prevent future international conflicts. Former First Lady of the United States (1933 – 1945), Eleanor Roosevelt was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to the US delegation in 1945.
Roosevelt had been a powerful force in her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s political career. She was a member of many reform groups including the National Consumers League, The League of Women’s Voters and was a leader in the Women’s Trade Union League. After FDR was elected president in 1932, Eleanor used her influence to promote the political and civil interests of women and African-Americans; and after the war advocated for refugees and other displaced people.
When the United Nations was initially conceived, it was not intended that human rights should form part of it’s charter. However, many had suffered brutal infringements on their basic rights, and many people felt it was important to protect the rights of all people, especially the vulnerable. In February 1946, the UN Economic and Social council appointed a committee to establish a human rights commission. Eleanor received news of her appointment from UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie.
April 29, 1946, at New York’s Hunter College, Henri Laugier, the assistant secretary-general for social affairs, called the first session of the nuclear commission to order. Laugier hoped the delegates would remember that “the free peoples” and “all of the people liberated from slavery, put in you their confidence and their hope, so that everywhere the authority of these rights, respect of which is the essential condition of the dignity of the person, be respected.” Their work “would start [the UN] on the road which the Charter set for it.” He concluded:
You will have before you the difficult but essential problem to define the violation of human rights within a nation, which would constitute a menace to the security and peace of the world and the existence of which is sufficient to put in movement the mechanism of the United Nations for peace and security. You will have to suggest the establishment of machinery of observation which will find and denounce the violations of the rights of man all over the world. Let us remember that if this machinery had existed a few years ago . . . the human community would have been able to stop those who started the war at the moment when they were still weak and the world catastrophe would have been avoided
Roosevelt was voted chair of the U.N. Human Rights Commission at it’s inaugural meeting. The first task was to formulate an international bill of rights that could conceivably be adopted by all member nations; a challenging commission considering the conflicting ideologies and cultures amongst member nations. However, as Roosevelt herself said, “a woman is like a teabag; you never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water”. She diplomatically steered the committee through months of negotiations, objections and amendments; pacifying concerns of the USSR delegate and even the US state department.
The Commission finally completed it’s work on the declaration in June 1948. It was sent by the Economic and Social Council to the Third Committee of the General Assembly. The Third Committee was chaired by Charles Malik, and over more than two months (between 28 September and 9 December) debated every article of the draft Declaration in over eighty-five working sessions. Ultimately, at 3am on the morning of 7 December 1948, the committee voted 29 to 0 with (7 abstentions) to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and send it to the General Assembly.
When ER urged the General Assembly to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she noted the importance of keeping “clearly in mind the basic character of the document. It is not a treaty; it is not an international agreement. It is not and does not purport to be a statement of law or legal obligation. It is a declaration of basic principles of human rights and freedoms, to be stamped with the approval of the General Assembly by formal vote of its members, and to serve as a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations.”
(Emphasis added)
Almost two years of dedicated hard work and delicate negotiation finally paid off when, at midnight on December 10, the United Nations general assembly voted to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). For the first time in human history, world leaders had agreed in principle, to a fundamental standard of rights for everybody and most importantly, whether they are rich or poor.
The optimistic promise of the UDHR has since been codified into legally binding conventions e.g. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment (CAT).
Australia has signed and ratified these conventions and so all Australian citizens are protected by the articles contained therein, including those protecting absolute or non-derogable rights.
The Australian Attorney-General’s Department confirms Australians have an absolute right to “freedom from medical or scientific experimentation without consent”, as well as the others stated. It is clear that any mandate of the experimental “Covid19 Vax” jabs (or arguably, any medical intervention) is illegal under international law, and our own domestic law, and anybody (including a business or organisation) is breaking the law if they attempt to enforce these illegal mandates.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has surreptitiously acknowledged this as discussed previously, but Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the “opposition” are pathologically pretending the rule of law does not apply to the new “Reich” in the sunshine state. Though that is to be expected of politicians and the elite class who have been undermining these international laws for decades (likely those same forces so opposed to the UDHR in the beginning). Since the controversial events of 11 September 2001, western governments have increasingly enacted legislation that curtails the rights of citizens, in the name of security.
What isn’t so clear is how the “pro choice/freedom” campaigners and their associated lawyers have overlooked these fundamental protections in law, or why they continue to do so. It is precisely for times such as these the founding members of the United Nations conceived the UDHR. It is precisely for times such as these the most essential rights were codified into legally binding convenants, signed and ratified by our ‘representatives’ in saner times.
Dan Andrew’s has finally managed to pass his anti-human rights “Pandemic Bill”. In the UK, Dominic Raab recently signaled his intention to overhaul the Human Rights Act. This should demonstrate amply how broken our system has become. Politician’s now act in flagrant disregard of the rule of law, aided and abetted by corporate owned media who are now largely propaganda outlets.
But activists are also responsible. The steadfast refusal of “influencers” and their cohorts in the legal and political professions (either through incompetence, political ideology, or deceptive intent) have not made the obvious abuses of our most fundamental human rights the focus of the campaign.
The ‘global’ Millions March Against Mandatory Vaccination (MMAMV) has been botched from the beginning, in our view.
- All Covid19 restrictions imposed by government infringe upon absolute human rights. Why focus on “vaccination”, rather than rights? This PR campaign invites the “anti-vaxxer” label, and either wittingly or not, obfuscates the real issue: the elites are once again trying to undermine universal human rights.
- These are not “vaccines” in the traditional sense and are only provisionally approved by the TGA because of the purported “state of emergency”. The are still undergoing human trials, not due to be completed until 2023. Why don’t organizers focus on this, rather than aid and abet the “big lie” that these are “vaccines”?
‘Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.’
Scott Morrison’s Religious Discrimination Bill is yet another attack on human rights, and has been criticized by the Australian Human Rights Law Centre; though as far as we can ascertain, they have been silent on the many abuses of all our basic human rights in the form of “Covid19 restrictions”. Rights cannot be corrupted to suit one identity group over another, that is the antithesis of “universal” human rights. Have they forgotten that LGBTQ “rights”, as with women’s rights and US civil rights are predicated in and guaranteed by absolute human rights?
Have we collectively forgotten that those absolute rights were not bestowed by national governments, but by the United Nations so that rogue authoritarian governments may never again commit atrocities against their citizens with impunity? Perhaps human rights aren’t important to the very rich, or the very ignorant? The very wealthy can buy their way out of any situation, and the very ignorant clearly don’t understand the importance of human rights, or why we collectively face an existential crisis.
We either make a concerted and unified effort to defend our human rights from elites, treacherous politicians and their assorted colluders or we lose them. Forever. There will be no return from the global hell that will result if we allow this most sacred trust to be ground under the heels of the latest bunch of hubristic authoritarians.
