2. The Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Right was written in 1948, just a few years later after World War II and the horrors that happened, which shocked public opinion. Due to this, it seemed necessary to make sure that human rights were respected everywhere. In the preamble, The General Assembly (the ones who wrote this declaration) says that every person in the world has dignity, so they must be protected. It´s the government´s obligation to protect the people, and it must be done immediately, as it is of the greatest importance.

We think that the most important article of the whole declaration is, quite obviously, the first one: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.  If we think about it, the rest of the articles are mostly consequences of the first one. 

Being free and equal is the first step to make the world a better place. Dignity is something every human being has. Therefore, we must behave well with the others, no matter what happens. And this article says the others have the same rights as you, you are not superior or inferior: everybody is equal. This looks very nice written in a piece of paper, but we must realize that being equal means worry about the others, help them in case of necessity, do something if we realize someone is being treated badly, etc.


We could think of Africa when we talk about this. We imagine little black kids working twelve hours per day, or civil wars with thousands of deaths. That´s completely right, but we don´t go that far. Right now, we can find numerous examples of this right being broken. Just look at our own country and you will see people in a situation with broken dignity. But I think there is an example which is very explanatory.


In the United States, one of the most advanced and richest countries of the world, there is no free and public health service. That means if you don´t have enough money and you have cancer, you won´t be treated. Does this sound like equality? In my opinion, this should be one of the highest priorities of a country, because the only reason of this system is enterprises earning money, at the expense of ill people. And it isn´t impossible to have a proper system that works, even Spain has it ( although sometimes it doesn´t work that well).

What do YOU think? Is this legitimate? Should this change inmediately? Does this break the Human Rights or not?

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