Theory vs. Reality: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Turns 75

On December 6, students from Key Stage 4 and 5 at the British School listened attentively to an assembly celebrating Human Rights Week. The week celebrated the lead up to the 75^th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that took place on December 10, 1948. During the assembly, students engaged in an activity to define ‘human rights’ and consider historical written precedents to modern human rights regimes before being presented with some key rights from the UDHR. In particular, the assembly highlighted everyone’s right to education and to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care.

The assembly then challenged students to consider theory versus reality. Students were tasked with creating captions for modern day images that depicted important unresolved world issues such as climate change leading to flooding, pollution and deforestation, as well as access to electricity in rural areas. Students reflected on the fact that while the theory and law of human rights has been firmly in place for decades, the reality often fails to measure up to the bold declarations of rights as they are applicable to everyone.

In line with the theme of 2023, Freedom, Equality, and Justice for All, BSC students were tasked with finding where they fit in to bridging the gap between theory and reality. Here they considered a saying often attributed to the ardent abolitionist William Wilberforce, “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.” Regardless of the pursuit of particular fields of study, from the humanities to medicine to engineering to technology, students were encouraged to consider their role in making declarations of human rights a reality for everyone in the world.