Topic 1: An Introduction to Social Needs and Development Rights
This group of rights was the subject of a great deal of discussion during the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Some countries did not want them included. This article is based on the UN’s 70th Anniversary website in 2018.
UDHR Article 22 spells out the qualities of the modern welfare state that almost everyone accepts today. In 1900, only 17 countries had social protection systems. Social assistance can include cash transfers and is often referred to as a “social safety net” that helps people, especially the poor and vulnerable, cope with life’s shocks, find jobs and educate their children.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the number of countries with social protection systems had increased to 104 by 1946 and 187 by 2015. Around the world, about 45% of people had access to at least one social protection benefit in 2017, while 29% had access to comprehensive social security systems. These will be affordable if care is taken to implement simple measures that build on community strengths.
The division between economic, social and cultural rights, on the one hand, and the civil and political rights, on the other, has always been artificial. For example, without a basic education, can you effectively make use of the right to free speech? The right to work may well be undermined if you are not able to assemble in groups and have the space to voice your opinion about working conditions. And any form of discrimination can have a highly corrosive impact on a whole range of social, economic and cultural rights of the group of people discriminated against.
UDHR Article 22 asserts that economic, social and cultural rights are indispensable for human dignity and the development of the human personality. This phrase appears again in UDHR Article 26 and UDHR Article 29, underlining that the UDHR drafters wanted not just to guarantee a basic minimum but to help us all become better people.
That promise has not been fully realised. UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet has pointed out that “71 per cent of the world’s population lacks access to full social protection. In other words, in two-thirds of the globe, societies have not been able to guarantee their people the basic means to live without fear and without feeling discriminated against or ostracised.” She added that almost two-thirds of the world’s children, 1.3 billion children, are without coverage.
In 2009, the United Nations agreed to a “Social Protection Floor Initiative” that encouraged countries to build comprehensive social security systems. Since then, improvements have been seen not only in developing countries but also in many middle- and low-income countries.
Mongolia has introduced a family benefits scheme. Argentina is expanding a successful program to support pregnant women and new mothers who do not have health insurance. Thailand, Colombia, Rwanda, and China have all made progress in ensuring universal access to health care.
UDHR Article 25 refers to food, shelter and good health. These are all important for maintaining our dignity (UDHR Preamble Paragraphs 1 and 5) and our right to life (UDHR Article 3). Health is actually becoming worse in some developed countries, so how do we reverse this trend in developed countries and bring about improvements in less well-resourced countries?
Peaceful Planet’s third Objective is
To provide education that empowers, enhances and activates individuals and communities to implement their human rights.
In order to implement our human rights regarding health and well-being we need to know the basic science of health but even doctors are not taught some of the absolute basics of nutition and health. Ask a western trained doctor how much education about nutrition they received and they are likely to say less than a day in five years of medical training, and the science we are taught in school does not equip us to know and understand how to stay well and healthy. Why not? We suggest that the educational and medical curriculums are designed by vested interests which do not want us to be empowered to implement our human rights with regard to food and health. The same goes for energy and shelter. You will find much more on this under Arts and Sciences on the Peaceful Planet .
Educating people honestly on these practical basics is the best way to answer both questions. For a start, we need to look at preventative health based on nutrition and supplementation. To be healthy, one needs a strong immune system which prevents us from experiencing bad health. How do we achieve this? In the Barletta Declaration from 2016, Dr Mathias Rath lays out a plan for making preventative natural health a human right, using nutritional supplementation and nutrition. Natural health approaches are much less expensive than patented medications, are more effective, and less likely to have side effects. He also lays out a strategy for improving the health of every human on the planet, starting with small steps at first. His plan is to develop a replacement public health strategy.
The financial burden on less wealthy states will be hugely lessened when we adopt Dr Rath’s proposal. As he expresses in the Barletta Declaration, continuing along the pharmaceutical medication route will bankrupt healthcare systems in every country and, in fact, will not improve the health of populations because medical drugs are designed to cause more illness to provide continuing business for the corporations. Dr Rath describes this as their ‘business with disease’.
UDHR Article 26 is the right to education ‘for the full development of the personality’ and says that education should be free at the primary level, should give open access to higher education and should include education on human rights. It should also be empowering and enable individuals and communities to implement their human rights. UDHR Article 27 gives you the right to benefit from what you create and what others have created when it becomes part of the cultural heritage of humanity and the right to benefit from scientific discovery and invention. Banning simple, cheap and effective remedies for illness and measures that protect the immune system is a violation of UDHR Article 27 Part 1.