Human rights’ Principle of Indivisibility and the Millennium Development Goals

The rights of every men are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened

-J.F. Kennedy

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the greatest challenges toward implementation of human rights today is the tendency to divide them. This division, for the most part, plays out as a blame game between rich and poor countries. The latter complains of the economic rights’ neglect on the part of rich countries while the former allegedly perceives political rights as the only broom able to clean the house of poor countries.

Clearly, this is not in the spirit of human rights principles-universal and inalienable; indivisible; interdependent and interrelated. And an attempt to move in this direction means we will eventually find ourselves in a mark time mode. Failing to embrace all of the principles toward implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) reflects a lack of commitment to the dignity of humanity. Moreover, Human rights’ principle of indivisibility is critical toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

True commitment to the dignity of humanity means that all parties-rich and poor countries alike-will have to work toward embracing the UDHR in its entirety as they endeavor to implement the MDGs. Posing a question of legality in this context is yet another demonstration of a lack of this commitment. The political will bestowed on all sovereign nations must be invoked now more than ever toward ending poverty in our time. We are all in favor of a world free from want and fear. We are all against hunger and disease. We are all against global terrorism. If we are all in agreement with this, then let’s embrace human rights in its wholesomeness.

It’s true that disagreement is not an uncommon thing in a family setting. And yes, we are now family by virtue of sharing a single humanity and living in one world, one global village--we are global citizens. This gives us the reason to discard our differences and instead consolidate our efforts to fight our common enemy: poverty. And since we have a global framework called the Millennium Development Goals, let’s use it to end poverty in our time. But this will not be forthcoming if we don’t crucify any prevailing cynicism in respect to winning the battle against poverty. Let poor countries not just pretend to reform, but indeed deliver required reform. And let rich countries not just pretend to help poor countries, but in the spirit of true generosity and commitment help them. We are all engaged in the battle against poverty together as family. As such, we must undertake our roles with utter commitment and determination to defend one another as brothers and sisters--we must all be winners in this noble fight against poverty in order to survive the global threats of our time.