Manifesto 2000
When we interact with others in talk and in action, it is helpful to do so with simple guidelines that point us in the right direction. How we treat others, as well as how others treat us, determines how the community in which we live functions. When we treat others well and are treated well by others, communities are healthy. Of course disputes between individuals and groups always arise from time to time. So long are there are simple guidelines we can follow most disputes can be resolved amicably.
Most people cannot avoid browsing news channels on television or the Internet, listening to radio, or reading newspaper headlines. One of the disturbing universals that presents itself is the violation of human rights in far-off lands. People who oppose oppressors are jailed, people who are different from cultural norms are abused, and people who are seen as a threat to the existing situation are marginalized or removed from the playing field. Most ordinary people in our own culture would vocally object to such violations, and rightly so. We feel empowered when we can join groups who protest distant, large-scale violations of human rights.
It is nevertheless important to understand that human rights begin with our interactions with our neighbors, with the people with whom we brush shoulders each day. Human rights are all about how we interact with our siblings, our friends, our classmates, our co-workers, and with anyone who crosses our path at any point in our day. Most animals subscribe to societal rules that govern they way they behave towards each other. Humans too, those who are intelligent, live by a set of often unwritten rules that govern how we behave towards each other. These rules predate religion and even history itself. Today we encapsulate them in documents that are described by the words – human rights. On a personal level huamn rights are about issues such as the embarrassment of discrimination, the humiliation of put- downs, the pain of the bully's assault, the uncomfortable pressure of those we want to make friends with, and the unwanted attention of authority figures.
We should always base our dealings with others on the principle that each of us is worthy of respect and that each of us has a set of fundamental rights. On December 10, 1948 the United Nations published a document that set out individual rights for all people that should apply in all countries in the world. The document is called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It contains thirty statements of rights called articles. Some of them take time to analyze and understand. Because of this the United Nations went back to the UDHR in March 1999 and redrafted it in simple language that is much easier to understand. The new document is called Manifesto 2000. It can be viewed at: http://www3.unesco.org/manifesto2000/uk/uk_6points.htm .
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look at human rights in a more general context