UDHR and Hoover Prompts:

1) I’m guessing that many of you have talked about human rights for awhile but haven’t before read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).  Having now read the UDHR, are there any rights in the UDHR that surprised you?  Conversely, were there any rights that you thought/assumed would be in the UDHR but then didn’t find there?  Along the same lines, were there any rights that were framed either more broadly or more narrowly than you would have anticipated?

2)  When Hoover argues that we should think about the drafting of the UDHR as an agonistic rather than a legislative or consensus process, what does he mean?  Why does it matter for his argument?

3)  On page 6, Hoover quotes Honig as claiming that “each new right inaugurates a new world.”  What does this mean and why does it matter for Hoover’s argument?

4)  On page 11, Hoover says that the history of human rights is often written in broad stokes and as a progressive narrative moving from natural rights to universal human rights. What does he mean by this, and why is he writing against it?

5)  What is the fundamental critique of the UDHR to which Hoover is responding?  Do you buy his argument?

Please understand these prompts not as prescriptive but only as intended to begin the conversation. You are strongly encouraged to deviate from simply answering these questions in your e-responses; instead, take the conversation (and it should be a conversation) wherever you would like it to go.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights