The human-rights declaration makes sovereign states, not persons, the arbiters of individual fate.

Evidence

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins by asserting “the inherent dignity” and “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family,” and then turns immediately to the state. In doing so it implicitly accepts the fact that the universal character of the rights-bearing person is made the responsibility of sovereign states, each of which has exclusive jurisdiction over a limited group within the human family. This limited population is—as Foucault noted—at once the object of the state’s care and a means of securing its own power. In other words, although the individual does not have the right to decide his own fate, authorities of the state of which he is a citizen have the constitutional right to decide it for him. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 664 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Rights are exercised through group membership like citizenship, not universal humanity — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 2059; Mutual protection among states, not principle, governs UN human rights votes; Human rights are only protected in practice by one’s own sovereign state. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 709 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Universal human rights are administered through sovereign states that decide individuals’ fates #expands (0.95) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 664