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“Health” a “Self-Evident” Right |
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Speech of Colum Murphy at New York State University, Stony Brook, September 2007 : "This speech is about the essence of human rights, given in September 2007 by Colum
Murphy at the New York State University, along with French Minister of Foreign
Affairs Bernard Kouchner and the Director-General of the United Nations Office
at Geneva Sergei Ordzhonikidze."
Distinguished Hosts, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am deeply grateful to you for your invitation to speak here today. Please accept my heartfelt thanks.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident” Thomas Jefferson wrote eloquently in the American Declaration of Independence - not “we believe these rights to be valuable, or useful, or desirable, but “self-evident”.
Simplified history tells us that human rights were “discovered”,
quote/unquote, in the eighteenth century and that their further
codification greatly advanced after the horrors of the Second World
War. But of course, human rights existed for thousands of years.
Jefferson’s achievement was not simply one of writing English
eloquently but of stating a philosophical truth in such a way that,
after his assertion, things could never be the same again. As great
writers do, Jefferson - inspired by the Geneva philosopher
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui - articulated something that had always been
true.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted unanimously by the
United Nations in 1948, is one of the greatest documents ever produced
by humankind - perhaps the greatest.
But when it was adopted there was no awareness of dangerous climate
change caused by humans, nor is there any mention of a specific right
to health.
Next year, 2008, we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal
Declaration. Anniversaries are a time to look back, to look forward,
and to take stock. They are also a time of gift giving. The Geneva
School of Diplomacy and International Relations, of which I am
president, has a small gift to bring to the party - since all of us
can and must offer something, however modest.
We propose the following addition to the Universal Declaration, and I quote:
“We hold this truth to be self-evident, that health -
- of the individual
- of the family
- of the community
- of the nation, and
- of the planet
is an unalienable right, indispensable to the peace, security and dignity for all sought by the UN Charter.” Endquote.
How can we advance such a notion ? We must do so both from the top
down and from the bottom up. From the bottom up we seek, in the field,
champions of compassion. From the top, we must provide international
constitutional guidance. Surely our globe would cease to turn were it
not for those few champions who do labour in the vineyards of the
world’s poor and desperate. But they themselves cannot fully function
without the highest protection of an evolving international law.
Lawyers have their ways, of course, their demands for careful process.
But even in the absence of international law, or when domestic law has
been corrupted as did the Nazis when they legally promoted persecution,
even then, as Justice Jackson - vainly searching for precedent -
famously said at Nuremberg, “certain things are written on the heart of
man”. Aware today of our need to empower women we can only enhance
Jackson’s great statement by slightly re-phrasing it as “certain things
are written on the human heart”.
Let us therefore call upon the international community, not to detract
from, but to add to and enhance the great Universal Declaration of
Human Rights by adding our proposal that health is a self-evident
right - one that belongs to us all, one that protects future
generations.
It is surely self-evident that the only home we have - this single
blue-white planet spinning quietly in God’s domain - cannot, should
not, must not be destroyed.
“We hold this truth to be self-evident, that health -
- of the individual
- of the community
- of the nation, and
- of the planet
Is an unalienable right, indispensable to the peace, security and dignity for all (demanded) by the United Nations Charter.”
These days, if sad with silly farewells to summer, surprise us
again with the new opportunities of a new season. The crisp, clean air
of autumn is upon us, full of the colours and smell of apples and new
light and beauty. At 60, the Universal Declaration is no age at all ! A
living thing, it merely enters a new season. Like good wine, its very
ageing is a maturing benefit. And those of us who go on to nurture it
with experience - you and us - are at the very top of our game !
Next year, 2008, is also the 60th Anniversary of the World Health
Organization. Goodness ! As in our private lives when we think of
Christmas, we must enter a whole round of gift giving ! We must look,
therefore, as individuals do, to what we can afford !
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Quotes
I read this gripping book through at one sitting. lt is a devastating, but also humane and poignant indictment of the failure of the great powers and the international community over Bosnia. Brilliant! — Brendan Simms, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge University. Author of Unfinest Hour : Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia.
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