Universal human rights

Robert Walker

Chapter 4 in Is China Right?, 2026, pp 41-54 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: A product of its time (1948), the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights embraced a cosmopolitan vision equating civil, political, economic and social rights, extending beyond those rights envisaged in the US Constitution. States would assume responsibility for promoting collective and individual rights and positive and negative freedoms. US reluctance to engage prevented legal enforcement of human rights until 1966 but enabled advocates from the global South to secure support for a Charter of Economic Rights and Duties in 1974 and a Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986. Reengagement by the US from the Carter administration resulted in an individualistic turn aided by Western NGOs focused on state abuses of human rights. Latterly, human rights have been coupled with liberal democracy and used as an instrument of US foreign policy. Limited attention has been paid to development and economic rights, leaving hundreds of millions without adequate provisions to ensure basic health and wellbeing.

Keywords: Human Rights; Civil Rights; Political Rights; Economic Rights; Social Rights; Enforcement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035329229
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