Human rights framework

The human rights framework — codified primarily in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent international covenants — is the closest the world has come to a cross-cultural agreement on the minimum conditions for a human life worth living. It is not, despite what critics argue, simply Western imperialism in neutral language: the UDHR was negotiated with participation from countries across political and cultural traditions and reflects genuine convergence on certain core claims. Its weakness is enforcement; its strength is that it provides a shared vocabulary in which people can make claims against power without having to first win the philosophical argument about what justifies those claims.