The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, soon after the end of World War Two. Article One of the document states “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.”
This is a message we should all be thinking about this November, one-hundred years since World War One, as we remember the sacrifices soldiers from both Britain and across the World, have made to fight for these principles.
To me this statement is a given, this is how we should behave anyway, it shouldn’t need to be written down on paper to make sure everyone respects the freedoms, rights and dignity of others. Yet in the years since this document was approved by the member states of the United Nations, we have continued to struggle to follows its principles.
We have seen in Gaza in recent months, a flagrant disregard for these basic rights to pursue life. I condemn all terrorist tactics. By hiding among civilians Hamas has shown it is willing to sacrifice its own people for military advantage. It is appalling that vast amounts of money are been spent on tunnels designed to hurt people rather than using that money to build schools, mosques and clinics to help ordinary Palestinians.
Nevertheless it is difficult to deny that Israel’s military action was disproportionate and resulted in the collective suffering of the Palestinian people. Instances such as the shelling of UN runJabaliya refugee camp, even after precise location of the school was given to Israeli commanders 17 times, have rightly received condemnation for Israeli’s allies. Such untold suffering cannot be allowed to happen, and particularly not with UK support.
This recent crisis was hugely damaging to the lives of local people, on both sides, lives were lost, homes destroyed and essential services damaged beyond usefulness. It all comes down to a basic disregard of human rights and the dignity of others. The ‘spirit of brotherhood’ highlighted in Article One has been completely lost in the region. Until each side starts some serious work toward building this spirit in each other this conflict will continue. This means that people from both sides of this conflict will have to learn to trust each other once more. This includes making difficult decisions on both sides, including, vitally ending the illegal blockade of the region, something for which my Party, the Liberal Democrats have long called. However, it is by taking this decisions and recognising the human rights of each other, as identified and written down in 1948 following the most violent war in history, that we can overcome our differences and stops the pointless loss of life that is seen in such conflicts.
In the Lords I have had opportunities to reinforce the ideals put down on paper in 1948. The Liberal Democrat group of which I am part has long campaigned for human rights to be upheld in law and currently we are helping push through new measures to tackle the abhorrence of slavery, a practice that unfortunately still effects millions around the world today. Experts have estimated that over 20 million people are currently in slavery.
We must do what we can in the UK to make sure human rights are respected across the world. I am pleased that my colleagues in the Liberal Democrats have been vocal where these basic rights are ignored. We are using our position in government to make noise about human rights abuses in both the Gaza Strip and in those places, including our own country, where slavery still exists. I am pleased that I am being given the opportunity to take a positive stand for the rights we enshrined on paper nearly seventy years ago so that we can all work together to ensure that the terrible suffering seen in the two World Wars is never seen again.
