The Death Penalty and Human Rights by Nancy Murray Americans are frequently told that ours is the freest country in the world and that our Bill of Rights is the envy of the world.
Few people seem aware of just how limited our whole notion of rights is.
Adopted by unanimous vote of the nations of the United Nations in 1948, this document is a call for rights and freedoms for people everywhere, and the most famous statement of human rights around the world. For example, there are articles guaranteeing the freedoms of expression, assembly, movement and due process. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. The campaign against the death penalty is especially timely in Massachusetts, where the state legislature may soon vote again on whether to bring back capital punishment.