The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights(UDHR) was written on December 10 of 1948 as a result of the atrocities made throughout the 2^nd World War an after the creation of the United Nations.

                                              

“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” This is the Article 10 of the Declaration of the Human Rights, an article that basically says that everyone should have the right to a trial by a fair court. The purpose of this right is to ensure the proper course of the justice. As a minimum the right to fair trial includes the following fair trial rights in civil and criminal proceedings:

·         the right to be heard by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal ;

·         the right to a public hearing;

·         the right to be heard within a reasonable time;

·         the right to counsel;

·         the right to interpretation.

However, are these minimum requirements respected? Let´s see some examples of violations of the article 10 of the UDHR and examples of respect for this right.

Beside all the atrocities made by the son of the former Libyan dictator Muamar Kadhafi, Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, the United States of America demands that the Libyans grant him a fair trial because respecting the humans rights is a way of show that Libya is in the right path to have a future of peace and democracy.

Howsoever, in the United States, a single law firm, which represents maybe a hundred or so corporate clients, earned US$1,000,000,000 (one billion) while the U.S. Federal government was only willing to spend US$300,000,000 (300 million) on legal services for forty million poor U.S. citizens.  The combined U.S. governmental expenditures on civil legal services for the poor-US$600,000,000(600 million)-represent only 0.5% of the more than US$130,000,000,000 (130 billion) the people of the United States currently spend on lawyers. So, we can see that not everyone have the opportunities to have a fair trial.

The human rights are constantly being violated and not just in poor/undeveloped countries. It is our duty no to pact with these violations and to help to reduce them in every way we can.

References:

The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, Copyright © United Nations 2011, 10^th December 1948, last view at 19^th November 2011, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

History of the Document, Copyright © United Nations 2011, 10^th December 1948, last view  19^th November 2011, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/history.shtml

Right to a fair trial, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, last view 19^th November 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_a_fair_trial#

Justice Earl Johnson, Jr., 2000, Fordham International Law Journal, last view 19^th November 2011, http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ilj