WG/Strategies/Ideas/Declaration Based on UN Declaration
File:Declaration of Human Rights & Statements of Support.doc
[See references at the bottom]
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 and sisterhood. 1
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. 4
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. 5
We support the investigation into the possibility of war crimes committed by current or past government officials.
All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. 7
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. 9
We support ending private prisons.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of their rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against them. 10
Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which they have had all the guarantees necessary for their defense. 11
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon their honor and reputation.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. 12
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media. 19
We support the adequate protection of whistleblowers.
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. 20
Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable wages ensuring for them self and their family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their interests. 23
We support ending sweatshops and any working conditions unacceptably difficult or dangerous. We support the ending of the exploitative practice of child labor. We support ending the military use of children as child soldiers.
We support the prompt and expeditious manufacturing and building of a sustainable energy infrastructure initiated by government funding and job creation.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. 24
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of them self and of their family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond their control. 25
Everyone has the right to education. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Education shall be free, in the elementary and fundamental stages, as well as technical and professional education along with higher education. All of these shall be equally accessible to everyone. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. 26
Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. 27
We support the democratic process as a means of decision making and for all government institutions to be accountable to the people.
We support the practice of using paper ballots throughout all elections.
Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of their personality is possible. 29
We firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
We support our troops; we support bringing our troops home. We support ending imperialism; we support, as the first step toward a greater reduction in defense spending, an expeditious return to the defense spending from 1998.
We support the method of peaceful non-resistance and civil disobedience practiced by Martin Luther King Jr. & Mohandas Gandhi
_
1. (Point of information: Numbers indicate the article from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
2. (Point of information: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reports from 1920-1980 the prison population grew by a total of 400,000 inmates at an annual rate of 6,700 inmates per year during these 60 years. From 1980-2006, the incarceration rate has risen to 80,000 inmates per year where in 2006 the total prison population in America was 2,500,000 million people. This rise in the incarceration rate coincides with the rise of the private prison industry. From the ten year period of 1987-1997 the nation’s largest private prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America, increased their revenues by 2700%. Data provided by the Department of Justice, Emerging Issues on Private Prisons report. Since 1991, the crime rate has decreased by 47% for violent crimes, 51% for homicides, 43% for property crime [crimes per 100,000 population] data provided by U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics & the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 39.4% of the total prison and jail population in 2009. According to the 2010 census of the U.S. Census Bureau blacks [including Hispanic blacks] comprised 12.6% of the US population. After the passage of Reagan's Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, incarceration for non-violent offenses dramatically increased. Marijuana constitutes almost half of all drug arrests, and between 1990–2002, out of the overall drug arrests, 82% of the increase was for marijuana. In 2004 approximately 12.7% of state prisoners and 12.4% of federal prisoners were serving time for a marijuana-related offense." Over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges during the past decade, while arrests for cocaine and heroine have declined sharply. The number of arrests in 2006 increased more than 5.5 percent from 2005. Of the 829,627 arrests, 89 percent were for possession, not sale or manufacture. Possession arrests exceeded arrests for all violent crimes combined, as they have for years." National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws
3. (Point of information: Barron’s Business Dictionary defines a sweatshop as, "A place of employment having unacceptable working conditions. Sweatshops are commonly characterized by low pay, poor working conditions, safety violations, and generally inhumane treatment of employees." Saipan is the largest Island of the United StatesCommonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. In 1999, Sweatshop Watch, Global Exchange, Asian Law Caucus, Unite, and the garment workers themselves filed three separate lawsuits in class-action suits on behalf of roughly 30,000 garment workers in Saipan. The defendants included 27 U.S. retailers and 23 Saipan garment factories. Information provided by the organization Behind the Label who reported this in a report titled, "U.S. Retailers Responsible for the Global Sweatshop Crisis")
4. (Point Information: According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labor worldwide.)
5. (Point Information: According to Human Rights Watchas of July 2007, "In over twenty countries around the world, children are direct participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel group and government forces in current armed conflicts.")
6. (Point of information: The Institute for Energy Research states, "Extrapolating from available data, the study estimates that renewables and efficiency will directly employ 17.4 million ")
7. (Point of information: The 2010 military expenditure database of the Stockholm Peace Research Institute has the United States accounting for 50% or half of the world’s military spending. The total amount of military spending of the 153 nations of the world in 2010 equaled $1.4 trillion dollars while United States spending in 2010 equaled $700 billion dollars.)
8. (Point of information: The 1998 level of defense spending is a 45% reduction in defense spending data provided by The Budget for Fiscal Year 2011, Historical Tables)