Home Affairs and Justice

My hon. Friend sounds as though he might be a fan of Bentham, who described the idea of natural rights as ““nonsense upon stilts””. I nevertheless believe that the universal declaration has immensely important symbolic value, conceived as it was in the aftermath of war and genocide as a symbol of the determination of the United Nations to ensure that never again should such atrocities take place. The issue for us is to work out whether the current discourse on human rights is devaluing the concept of those great rights that were talked about at that time.