Article 2 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

* Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Everyone, everywhere on earth, is entitled to the rights and freedoms others have, without exception because of who they are or where on this earth they are. How amazing!  Most often, it seems that those with greater means are thought to deserve more rights than others, more freedoms. But here this document, signed almost 61 years ago, shows that at one time the nations of the world agreed that human rights and freedoms do not depend on accidents of birth, place, or gender, nor on choices made regarding opinions, religions and so on.

If these values were to truly govern international law, I do not think humanity would tolerate making retroviral drugs freely available in the United States, but not in developing countries. I do not think humanity would tolerate the selling of arms and munitions to dictators to use against their own people or to start wars with others.

Women, men and children with HIV/AIDS in Africa, Southeast Asia and other places in the world deserve access to lifesaving medications.  Stopping the sale of weapons to organizations and countries that would use them against their own people or their neighbors would prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, either from direct assault or from the losses associated with warfare, such as no breadwinner, having to flee, not being able to plant crops and so on. Think for example of Afghanistan, where someone is selling weapons to the Taliban, to Al Quaeda, to war lords, etc. Think of the policies of the United States using drone planes to drop bombs, sometimes on the basis of bad information, that kill civilians. The implication is that such civilian lives are worth less than the lives of American soldiers.

And, now think of Greg Mortenson, who wrote the book, Three Cups of Tea, about working in Afghanistan to build schools that would teach Afghan girls. This is an example of someone living out the commitment to see that the rights and freedoms to which some are entitled are also there for those who have far too often been denied them.