While reading through this week’s seemingly reiterative rights declarations I was constantly bringing forth all the exceptions and violations that I’ve encountered or heard about across the globe. In the same way that ‘democracy’ is just an idea for a social reality these texts are representative of our ideas for attainable utopias. I’m not ignoring their worth or necessity, but the actualization of their content depends entirely on those holding power within a society and as always a lot of it can be open to contention and will change with interpretation.

Although the UN’s Declaration has made the world a better place for many, it remains largely unenforceable and given the number of blatant violations within North America and across the globe it seems completely quixotic.