Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities
By David
Swanson
December 9, 2012
http://warisacrime.org/content/universal-declaration-human-responsibilities-0
PREAMBLE
Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not self-enforcing;
Whereas statement of the inherent dignity and of the equal and supposedly inalienable rights of all members of the human family achieves little without a struggle against greed, injustice, tyranny, and war;
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights could not have resulted in the barbarous acts that have outraged the conscience of humankind without the cowardice, laziness, apathy, and blind obedience of well-meaning but unengaged spectators;
Whereas proclaiming as the highest aspiration of the common people the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want doesn't actually produce such a world;
Whereas nonviolent rebellion against tyranny and oppression must be a first resort rather than a last, and must be our constant companion into the future if justice and peace are to be achieved and maintained;
Whereas governments do not reliably conduct themselves humanely toward other nations' governments or peoples unless compelled to do so by their own people and the people of the world;
Whereas a common understanding of human rights and freedoms is false if it omits the eternal vigilance, struggle, and sacrifice necessary to create and maintain them;
Now, Therefore we proclaim THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITIES as a common standard of practice for all people, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by energetic use of creative nonviolence to promote the actual observance of what have never been but indeed should be made universal, equal, and inalienable rights and freedoms;
Article
1.
Human beings are born into every variety and
degree of freedom and oppression, privilege and poverty,
peace and war. All have a responsibility to work for the
betterment of the condition of those around them and those
less well off.
Article 2.
Everyone is obligated
to work at building understanding and equality across lines
of race, color, sex, ethnicity, sexual-orientation,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or
social origin, property, and birth or other status. Everyone
is obligated to actively reject the privileging of or
discriminating against any such group, whether their own or
others', with no exceptions created by the presence of or
participation in war.
Article 3.
Everyone has
the responsibility to help organize and take part in
resistance to any violation of anyone's right to life,
liberty or security of person, whether that violation
impacts a single individual or a large number, but in
particular including resistance to war of any
kind.
Article 4.
Everyone has a responsibility
to work for the swift elimination of slavery and servitude
in all their forms.
Article 5.
Everyone has a
responsibility to expose any instance of torture or of
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or of
any conspiracy to facilitate such acts, and a responsibility
to work to end these practices and to prosecute those
responsible in a fair and open court of law.
Article
6.
Everyone has a responsibility to work and to
sacrifice something of their own comfort to ensure that
every other human being is afforded equal recognition as a
person before the law.
Article 7.
All are
obliged to actively oppose any discrimination in violation
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and against any
incitement to such discrimination.
Article
8.
Everyone has the responsibility to insist upon,
for themselves and all others, an effective remedy by the
competent local, national, or international tribunals for
acts violating the fundamental rights granted by the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article
9.
Everyone has a responsibility to treat the
arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile, of anyone else as
though it were that of themselves or a loved
one.
Article 10.
Everyone has a responsibility
to understand and require for every human being the right to
full equality and to a fair and public hearing by an
independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of
their rights and obligations and of any criminal charge
against them.
Article 11.
(1) Everyone is
obligated to ensure for anyone charged with a penal offense
the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty
according to law in a public trial at which they have had
all the guarantees necessary for their defense.
(2) Everyone is obligated to ensure that no one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed, and that no heavier penalty shall be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed.
Article 12.
All are responsible
for not taking part in and for working to eliminate and to
legally prohibit any arbitrary interference with anyone's
privacy, family, home or correspondence, or attacks upon
their honor and reputation.
Article 13.
(1)
Everyone has the responsibility to protect everyone's
freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each
state.
(2) Everyone has the responsibility to protect everyone's right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.
Article
14.
Everyone has the responsibility to protect for
all the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum
from persecution but not from prosecutions genuinely arising
from non-political crimes.
Article 15.
Everyone
has the responsibility to protect for all the right to a
nationality and the right to change that
nationality.
Article 16.
All are obliged to
protect the right of free and fully consenting adults to
marry.
Article 17.
All are obliged to defend the
right of all others to own property.
Article
18.
Everyone has the responsibility to protect
freedom of thought for all.
Article 19.
Every
human being has a duty to help communicate to others to the
greatest extent possible information about injustice and
war, and information about nonviolent efforts to achieve
justice and peace. This duty includes a responsibility to
work for the creation of meaningful freedom of the press in
which the communication of neither current events nor
history is dominated or controlled by any privileged group
within a society.
Article 20.
Everyone has the
responsibility to frequently exercise or attempt
nonviolently to exercise the right to peaceful assembly and
association in opposition to injustice or war, and in
support of the rights listed in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
Article 21.
Everyone has the
responsibility to work for the creation and maintenance of
democratic and/or representative government uncorrupted by
bribery of any form, by an unfree press, or by arbitrary
restrictions on participation as electoral candidates or
voters.
Article 22.
Everyone has a
responsibility to struggle nonviolently to alter the
political and economic world so as to increase the
opportunity for every human being to live, learn, and work
in dignity with security from fear and want.
Article
23.
Everyone has the responsibility to work with
others to ensure the protection of one and all to a free
choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of
work, to protection against unemployment, to the freedom to
join a trade union and to strike, to equal pay for equal
work, and to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for
themselves and their family an existence worthy of human
dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of
social protection.
Article 24.
Everyone has the
responsibility to work not only at their primary career but
also for the betterment of society and the establishment of
the rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Article 25.
Everyone has the
responsibility to work for a more just and less wasteful
distribution of resources to ensure that one's own and all
future generations can provide every single human being,
including every child, a standard of living adequate for
health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing and
medical care and necessary social services, and the right to
security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age, or other lack of
livelihood.
Article 26.
Everyone has the
responsibility to assist in the education of themselves and
others and to work toward the provision of free,
high-quality education, including education in civil
responsibilities and the history of social change through
people's movements, education directed to the full
development of the human personality and to the
strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms, education that promotes understanding, tolerance
and friendship among all nations, racial or religious
groups, and education that furthers the creation and
maintenance of peace.
Article 27.
Everyone has
the responsibility to defend and exercise the right to
freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to
enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and
its benefits, and the right to the protection of the moral
and material interests resulting from any scientific,
literary or artistic production of which they are the
author.
Article 28.
Everyone has the
responsibility to organize, agitate, sacrifice, and struggle
nonviolently and strategically for sustainable environmental
practices, demilitarization, the development of democratic
and representative structures of government, and the
realization of the rights found in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.
David Swanson's books include "War Is A Lie." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works as Campaign Coordinator for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.