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	The Eternal UN Declaration of Human Rights by Jeremy Waldron New York University School of Law   What responsibility do we have for the world we inhabit? What do we owe one another, and what can we claim from others who share the planet with us? As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, the importance of such global-minded ethical considerations is becoming ever clearer. Indeed, it is imperative for us to begin thinking as global citizens, citizens of the world, even if our first allegiance is to a particular country.   That shift in mindset is exactly what the so-called Global Citizen Commission is attempting to achieve. Led by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the GCC includes Graça Machel, Anthony Appiah, Amartya Sen, Wang Chenguang, Kate O’Regan, Robert Rubin, Asma Jahangir, Jonathan Sacks, Mohamed ElBaradei, and me. Together, we have been working to articulate and publicize the ethical basis of global citizenship, not by issuing some new manifesto, but by revisiting and renewing existing charters and declarations that can underpin a new, ethically responsible world order. Among those documents is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   Affirmed and published in 1948, the UDHR was intended to serve “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.” Following the barbarism and savagery of the 1930s and 1940s, the UDHR reaffirmed “the dignity and worth of the human person” and “the equal rights of men and women.”   The Declaration’s provisions are comprehensive, ranging from prohibitions on arbitrary arrest, affirmations of free expression, and freedom of thought and worship, to rights of asylum, the right to a nationality, the right to democracy, and social rights like education and just and favorable labor conditions. International lawyers know it as the foundation on which subsequent human-rights covenants – including those on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights, as well as a host of conventions prohibiting torture, slavery, and gender discrimination – have been built.   While the UDHR is not a binding source of international law, it conveys the spirit of the world’s expectations regarding human rights. The international-level commitment to upholding human rights that exists today would be unthinkable without the UDHR.   Yet, after six decades, there are questions about the UDHR’s continued relevance as a cornerstone of global ethics. To answer them, the GCC carried out a four-year study assessing the UDHR, not just as a foundation for global human rights, but as an early and momentous expression of our responsibilities to one another. Last week, we handed a report on our findings to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.   Inevitably, a declaration drafted in 1948 will differ in wording and emphasis from one created in 2016. For example, had the UDHR been drafted today, it would probably say more about migration, sexuality, health care, disability, environmental rights, humanitarian intervention, and the maintenance of basic rights under emergency conditions. Every era has its priorities.   But what stands out most from our study of the UDHR was the continuing relevance of its main provisions. The economic and social rights – to social security, education, decent working conditions, and a reasonable standard of living – are stated carefully and responsibly, with close attention to the significance of these rights for human dignity. Basic freedoms and legal rights – like freedom of speech and worship, as well as due process and the proper treatment of prisoners and detainees – are set out in terms that people in free and open societies continue to find compelling.   With billions of people – shaped by different cultures, backgrounds, and traditions – jostling for space in a crowded world – global ethics can seem like a hopeless pursuit. Yet, amid all the diversity and conflict, the UDHR stands uncompromisingly for certain key values that support the freedom and wellbeing of each and every member of the human race, rich or poor, young or old, powerful or vulnerable.   Of course, our global responsibilities extend beyond human rights. We also have humanitarian responsibilities in circumstances of disaster and poverty. We are responsible for protecting the planet and its climate, particularly as it relates to our obligations to future generations. We must ensure the maintenance of peace and security through the UN system. And we must strengthen the frameworks of trade and communication that enable people to relate to one another scientifically, economically, and culturally as citizens of a shared world.   But the importance of human rights cannot be overestimated. As the UDHR states, “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order” in which their rights and freedoms can be fully realized.   A key question, which we considered in our report, is who precisely bears these responsibilities. Naturally, primary responsibility for upholding human rights falls on governments, which are legally bound to do so. But governments are also often the greatest threat to their citizens’ human rights. That is why interventions by supra-national institutions, not to mention the involvement of NGOs and civil society, are also critical.   As the UDHR declares, “every individual and every organ of society 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.” That is the fundamental message of the UDHR concerning the responsibilities of global citizenship. It must never be forgotten.   * Published by Project Syndicate.   http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/declaration-of-human-rights-global-citizenship-by-jeremy-waldron-2016-04
	Back from the brink but nuclear threat remains by Jonathan Holmes International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, agencies   August 12, 2015   It is well worth remembering that thousands of nuclear weapons still exist.   I watched the moving ceremonies as the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remembered the destruction of their cities 70 years ago by the only two atomic bombs that have ever – so far – been dropped in anger.   In the late 1980s I lived for two years in Boston, Massachusetts, where I helped to produce a 13-part documentary series called The Nuclear Age. When we began research, a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States was still a real possibility.   By the time the programs aired in 1989, the Berlin Wall had come down, the Soviet Union was in the process of collapse, and the threat had dramatically diminished.   But what an appalling threat it was, and how miraculous it is, in retrospect, that we avoided it.   Here are some incidents that stick in my mind from the research I did at that time.   Number one: By the mid-1950s, the concept of "mutually assured destruction" was well understood. To deter the Soviets from sending waves of nuclear-armed bombers over the North Pole to the United States, Strategic Air Command (SAC) needed to ensure that it could arm, fuel and scramble its bomber fleet in just a few hours: the amount of warning it would receive from the Distant Early Warning stations in the far north of Canada, before the Soviet bombers arrived over SAC''s bases in the United States.   In 1956, the US president Dwight Eisenhower asked a group of scientists to check on SAC''s operational readiness. What they discovered appalled them. In the event of a surprise attack, less than a quarter of America''s bomber force could be scrambled before they were destroyed. Mutual destruction was anything but assured.   The scientists reported their findings first to SAC''s commander, US Air Force General Curtis LeMay. According to one member of the team, LeMay told them not to worry. He had surveillance aircraft circling the borders of the Soviet Union 24 hours a day. They could, he assured the scientists, detect the early preparations for an all-out Soviet attack.   "And if I think those Russkie bastards are going to attack the United States, I''m gonna to take them out before they get off the ground."   "But general," protested one of the scientists, "that''s a first strike. That''s not a part of the president''s strategy."   "Well," responded Le May, "it may not be the president''s strategy, but it''s my strategy, and that''s what I''m gonna do."   Number two: Early in 1961, president John F. Kennedy''s newly appointed secretary of defence, Robert McNamara, went down to Omaha, Nebraska, for a briefing on SAC''s Strategic Integrated Operational Plan, the SIOP – the master plan for nuclear retaliation.   To his horror, he discovered there was only one plan: an all-out attack, using the entire available bomber and missile force, on cities and military bases throughout the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact nations of eastern Europe, and communist China. Some hundreds of nuclear bombs, many of them H-bombs 1000 times more powerful than the atomic weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would have been dropped across half the world within hours.   "But supposing," asked McNamara, "that the president decides not to attack Hungary, or Poland, or China?"   "We''re unable to offer him that option", was the SAC planners'' response.   Number three: By the late 1960s, America''s nuclear arsenal included 40 or so nuclear submarines, each able to launch 16 nuclear-armed missiles. So the US Navy had representatives on the SIOP planning team.   I asked one navy planner how the US military could justify the need for 2000 nuclear warheads. (A decade later, that number would rise to 13,000 or so. The USSR had even more.)   He explained that, first, the primary targets were military – headquarters, communications centres, missile launch sites and so on. Cities were a secondary target.   Second, there was "redundancy". You had to expect that bombers would be shot down, missiles malfunction, or warheads fall in the wrong place.   And third, the planners could calculate the degree of destruction that a given number of warheads could be expected to wreak on the target. "With one strike, you could reduce a city to rubble," the navy planner told us. "With three, you could reduce it to dust. They didn''t want rubble. They wanted dust."   Number four: By the late 1970s, each side had perfected the MIRV – the multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicle. Each land or sea-based missile carried six, or in the Soviet case 10 or more warheads, which could each be guided to a separate target.   This development massively favoured the first strike. If one of your missiles was destroyed in its silo, you lost six or 10 nuclear weapons. If you launched first, one of your missiles could take out 60 or more of their weapons. No wonder president Ronald Reagan opted to try to develop his Star Wars missile defence system – not that it could ever have protected the US from a full-scale Soviet first strike.   Through most of the Cold War, I lived in Britain – which in an all-out nuclear exchange would simply have been wiped off the map. Australia, where I live now might well have escaped the actual bombs, but would have been left on the beach, as nuclear fallout poisoned most of the northern hemisphere.   For some 35 years, the two superpowers had the capability to destroy humanity. Some 15,000 nuclear warheads still exist. Some time, that nightmare could return. Lest we forget.   * Jonathan Holmes is a journalist and TV producer with more 40 years experience. He is a former presenter of Media Watch in Australia, and a journalist for The Age Newspaper.   http://www.icrc.org/en/hiroshima-nagasaki http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2015/ http://www.sipri.org/research/disarmament/nuclear/npt-review-2015 http://www.icanw.org/ Visit the related web page
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