What do the first two articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights mean? Why are they important? Here's our interpretation of each answer.
What are the first two articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)? What do they mean? Why are they important?
The answers to these questions are critical in understanding the nature and scope of modern day human rights, what rights you hold as a person, and in recognizing when human rights violations occur. Keep on reading to learn about the first two articles.
What are the Articles?
Article 1. 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
Article 2. "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."
What Do the Articles Mean?
The First Article immediately recognizes all humans with what Addressing Freedom understands as intrinsic personhood. Inherent to their existence, each individual's birthright is freedom and equality .
Equality is inherent because each individual is born with the same exact rights as everyone else.
This equal treatment of respecting these fundamental truths, or rights of all humans is rational and familial in nature. It is impossible for any one human to be a "lesser person" than another.
Article two goes on to ensure that:
By nature of a human existing, they are entitled to all rights and freedoms declared as human rights and freedoms in the UDHR. No conceived identifier or distinction can be made about a person which would diminish or take away any of their inherent human rights.
What does that look like in practice?
You have a different skin color than someone else? Both of you are equal in personhood and have the same fundamental human birthrights that you are both obligated to respect.
You and your neighbor differ in religious views? Both of you are equal in personhood and have the same fundamental human birthrights that you are both obligated to respect.
You ascribe to a different political party than your peers? All of you are equal in personhood and have the same fundamental human birthrights that you are all obligated to respect.
Why Are These Articles Important?
Articles 1 & 2 are critical for framing the content of and real-life execution of The UDHR. These articles define what a human is, what all humans are entitled to having through their humanness ( recognition of their personhood- free, equal, and dignified), and condemns all the historical biases ( sexism, racism, social status, education, etc.) that have been used to dehumanize persons in the past, ensuring that such dehumanizing is recognized as illegitimate and wrong on a global level.
Because these absolutes are placed first at the beginning of the UDHR, the rest of the document is freed up to build on this established foundation of all humans have the same fundamental rights, no exceptions.
The following 28 articles in the UDHR define mankind's individual, social, civil, political, economic, and cultural rights.
Over the course of the upcoming weeks, Addressing Freedom will break down the content within The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We'll explain the what, why, and how of each article, as well as include real life examples of these human rights in action (both positive and negative).
You can check out also this TedEdx video briefly overviewing all the human rights we will be discussing.
You can read our previous post about the History of the UDHR here.