Several months ago, Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, came to speak at Cornell about the progress of universal human rights. This was before the existence of the Cornell Insider, so I wrote about it here. My main point was that even though politics and special interests do get in the way of achieving human rights goals around the world, the ultimate conflict is a much more cerebral contest between the principles of universality and cultural relativism. In light of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights last December, Ilya Somin, a GMU Law Professor, assesses the declaration on VC.
