Which human rights should be universal?

It depends. The world community, represented by their governments, declared all the rights stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to be univeral. That comes down to about 30-32 rights, depending on how you break down the articles of the Declaration.Scholars are not so sure about that.For example, in this book, William Talbott thinks that there is a very limited number of rights that should be recogized as universal. Here is how he explains his analysis and conclusion.Building on the work of J.S. Mill, John Rawls, and Jürgen Habermas to develop a new equilibrium model for moral reasoning, in which moral reasoning is primarily bottom-up, from judgments about particular actual and hypothetical cases to norms or principles that best explain the particular judgments, William Talbott creates a new narrative on rights.Employing the equilibrium model, Talbott builds on the work of John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and Henry Shue to explain how, over the course of history, human beings have learned to adopt a distinctively moral standpoint from which it is possible to make reliable, though not infallible, universal judgments of right and wrong. He explains how this distinctively moral standpoint has led to the discovery of the moral importance of nine basic human rights. The book is constructed around pivotal examples. Talbott uses the example of Bartolomé de Las Casas and his opposition to the Spanish colonists’ treatment of the American natives in the 16th century to illustrate the possibility of attaining a universal moral standpoint. He uses the example of the development of women's rights as a microcosm of the development of basic human rights. He argues that assertions of basic human rights are almost always a response to oppressive norms justified by self-reinforcing paternalism. Talbott uses examples from Marxist dictatorships to show the importance of basic human rights in solving what he refers to as the reliable feedback problem and the appropriate responsiveness problem for governments. He uses Sen’s research on famines and psychological research on the ultimatum game and other related games to explain how individual fairness judgments from the moral standpoint make rights-respecting democracies self-improving self-regulating systems that become more just over time. Undoubtedly, the most controversial issue raised by the claim of universal human rights is the issue of moral relativism. How can the advocate of universal rights avoid being a moral imperialist? In this book, Talbott shows how to defend basic individual rights from a universal moral point of view that is not imperialistic. Talbott avoids moral imperialism, first, by insisting that all of us, himself included, have moral blindspots and that we usually depend on others to help us to identify those blindspots; second, by emphasizing the importance of avoiding moral paternalism. In the book, Talbott develops a new consequentialist account of the importance of the basic human rights, which he employs to augment the more familiar nonconsequentialist accounts.The list of rights in his book consists of only 9 rights.

The nine basic rights that William J. Talbott believes should be universal:

1. Right to physical security
2. Right to physical subsistence (understood as a right to an opportunity to earn subsistence for those who are able to do so)
3. Children’s rights to what is necessary for normal physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development, including the development of empathic understanding
4. Right to an education, including a moral education aimed at further development and use of empathic understanding
5. Right to freedom of the press
6. Right to freedom of thought and expression
7. Right to freedom of association
8. Right to a sphere of personal autonomy free from paternalistic interference
9. Political rights, including democratic rights and an independent judiciary to enforce the entire package of rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the most oft-cited documents in writing about human rights. As the history of the document shows, there has never been strong consensus about all the rights it contains. When it was adopted by the UN, only fifty-eight countries were members of this new, post-world-wars intergovernmental organization. Many countries were still under colonization by the same governments pushing for the Declaration’s adoption. Nonetheless, the impact and influence of this document is undeniable, notwithstanding the objections and reservations concerning many of the rights contained therein or rights left out. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was voted on by the then-58 members of the United Nations. Forty-eight voted in favor, none voted against, eight abstained, and two did not vote. The declaration consists of about 30 articles containing over 30 basic human rights claims, abbreviated below:

1. Right to be recognized as a human being, with dignity and rights
2. Right not to be discriminated against
3. Right to life
4. Right to not be enslaved
5. Right to not be tortured
6. Right to use law anywhere
7. Right to equality before the law
8. Right to judicial review
9. Right to not be arrested or exiled arbitrarily
10. Right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty
11. Right to privacy
12. Right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state
13. Right to leave and to return to own country
14. Right to seek and to enjoy in other countries’ asylum from persecution
15. Right to a nationality
16. Right to marry and to found a family
17. Right to own property alone and in association with others
18. Right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
19. Right to freedom of opinion and expression
20. Right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association
21. Right to take part in the government of own country
22. Right to economic, social and cultural rights indispensable to one’s dignity
23. Right to work
24. Right to rest and leisure
25. Right to a standard of living
26. Right to education
27. Right to participate in the cultural life of the community
28. Right to social and international order
29. Responsibility to respect the rights and freedoms of others
30. All of these rights must be respected and protected by law