ABSTRACT
Contemporary discourse about human rights makes pragmatic use of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, as the Declaration presents a set of guidelines that are based on assumptions about the nature of human beings: their thoughts, ideas, freedom of expression and freedom of association.1 Article 1 of the Declaration states, for example, that ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ The document engages the idea of the human being as having rights, regardless of ethnicity or gender. Such rights include life, protection from harm, and access to the latest in scientific technology.2
