Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a body of entitlements and customary norms that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1948. The declaration is concerned with the rights of individuals or particularly the rights that individuals are entitled to in their day to day living. Fiji became a member of the United Nations General Assembly in October 1970, straight after it gained its independence from Great Britain and has since adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights together with all the member countries. This essay shall place more focus on identifying the article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is relevant to the newspaper article on Vanuatu’s snap elections and how it is relevant to Fiji and why, list official documents that have these rights enshrined in them, explain whether citizens of Fiji are able to exercise this right or not and list the possible consequences that could arise if citizens are unable to excercise this right. This essay shall place focus on the relevant article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further elaborate on its relevance to Fiji.  

To begin with, after reading through the article on Vanuatu’s Snap Elections it was identified that the newspaper article was relevant to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression; this right also includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. This article expresses one of the most important aspects of democracy and that’s the ability of everyone to engage in a free exchange of information and ideas. It also covers the expressing of opinions and receiving information and ideas through any form of media. Article 19 is relevant to the newspaper article, as the rights to freedom of opinion by some of the people of Vanuatu were violated. People whose names were not on the electoral list were not given a chance to vote for the people who they wished to govern the country, young adults who just turned eighteen were not able to vote as their names were not published in the electoral list due to delay in the inclusion of their names in the list. However, the rights to receiving information were exercised; this was evident as the Pacific Media Centre published the results to inform not only the people of Vanuatu but the Pacific at large of the unofficial results of the snap elections.

Moreover, article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is enshrined in few of the official documents that govern Fiji. Firstly, in the 2013 constitution of Fiji, Chapter 2 section 17 states that Every person has the right to freedom of speech, expression, thought, opinion and publication, which includes freedom to seek, receive and impart information, knowledge and ideas; freedom of the press, including print, electronic and other media; freedom of imagination and creativity. Secondly, in Chapter 2 of the 2013 constitution, section 25 states that every person has the right of access to information held by any public office; and information held by another person and required for the exercise or protection of any legal right. These two sections of the constitution embodies article 19 and ensures that individuals are entitled to the rights of obtaining information and expressing opinions.