‘International human rights law allows States to define the rights that they then decide how

they wish to protect. It is no wonder that the human rights of many individuals around the
globe are simply not effectively protected.’

Discuss.

This question requires us to talk about the universality of the human rights and how the states
interpret the rights defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as per their
own will. UDHR is the universal source of the human rights law and it is clearly evident from its
name that all the human rights are universal.

Article 1 of UDHR states “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
…”. Article 2 further elaborates that no discrimination should be done in regard to someone’s
race, religion, ethnicity, sex and colour, this is a non-exhaustive list and the crux is that every
human should be treated with equal dignity and respect. In essence no white is superior to a
black and vice versa. This means that human rights are universal and they should not vary from
state to state or religion to religion or race to race. In the Vienna conference it was said that the
human rights are “inter-dependent, inalienable and indivisible”. This means that all the rights
are interlinked and they can be treated separately free from each other. The concept of
inalienability means that the rights granted once are not capable of being taken back. All these
features of human rights were highlighted in the different conferences to uphold the true essence
of UDHR and this means that the signatory states are not allowed to steer away from the true
definition of human rights. In reality UDHR was drafted by the global north back in the mid
twentieth century after the World War II and it was drafted after witnessing the gross atrocities
around the world and the states were enforced to be a signatory and enforce this set of rights in
their national laws. But the question is why not the Global North involved the representatives of
other states, race and religion. This lack of representation gave them a room to avoid this law by
interpreting it any way they want to. This means that there is a huge difference in a utopian
document and on ground realities. +

Article 18 of UDHR states “Everyone has the right of freedom of thought, conscience and
religion; … To manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and
observance.” This is the law incorporated in UDHR and requires the whole world to enforce this
law in their respective states. It is highly likely that they would have added this into their national
legislation but in some states reality is totally different when it comes to the interpretation of this
law. India claims to be a secular state but all its claims get collapsed when we looks at its
national legislations against Sikhs and Muslims. The Mahrashtra Animal Preservation Act
2015 imposed the ban on the possession of beef. The Indian government also introduced
“Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance”, this law made it mandatory
that any human being who wants to change its religion must get permission from government
first. Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantreya Adhyadesh, 2020 (Freedom of Religion
Ordinance) put ban on the conversion of religion through marriages and if the government
found someone involved in this act then he will liable to 10 years of sentence and the
marriage will be declared null and void. All these legislations are too recent but UN, the
watchdog for UDHR, has done nothing against such interpretations.

Article 5 UDHR says “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment.” This is the law that prohibits the torture but in many
states there are institutions that believe in torture and use this as a way to extract information
from the detainees. UN also introduced convention against the torture and a committee against
the torture was also introduced. The committee did research on the violation of Article 5 of
UDHR and highlighted multiple situations where the states believed that there is no way
forward without torture. A per the UN Committee the US said that during armed conflicts
torture is the necessity of time and committee did publish this point in the report but did
nothing further which impliedly legitimize the existence of torture cells like Guantanamo Bay.

Article 19 UDHR says “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression”.
This allows everyone to speak anything they want to but we have seen its violation happening
in Pakistan another signatory of UDHR. In Pakistan during the last one year the law
enforcement agencies have illegally detained more than 3500 people to stop them from
expressing themselves. The example of this the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory
Authority has imposed ban on the T.V. channels from showing the speech of Imran Khan who
is the former prime minister of Pakistan and he is the leader of the most popular political party
of Pakistan. The state also forced the renowned journalist Arshad Sharif to leave the country
just because he was trying to express his thoughts on the recent political instability and his
thoughts were tilted against the army, the army which ruled Pakistan more than five times in
the form of dictatorship. During the last one year a political party has faced extreme fascism
but the International Court of Justice did nothing more than serving a notice to the
government of Pakistan and the foreign office has not even submitted a reply till date.

In conclusion it can be said that International Human Rights Law are universal on paper only
but in reality states interpret the law in the way they want to do it which ultimately
compromises the sole purpose of UDHR.