Is the Universal Decleration of Human Rights legally enforceable in courts of sovereign nations?
International law is enforceable in individual nations’ courts. Indeed it must be enforced, that’s a principle of international law. And it is a complicated subject. International law is law that nations either explicitly enact and that are limited to the enactors, or that has become so widely accepted and recognized by so many nations that it become, de facto, the law for all nations. (my international law professor would like to write about ten more paragraphs to restate and clarify…let me add in view of the question that the UN is not a government, the UN General assembly passes resolutions, not laws and is not a legislature.) There are emerging standards of law dealing with how nations can treat people, such that torture is absolutely unacceptable everywhere — that’s international law that probably was not in the law 100 years ago for example. The UDHR is not a law, it is a statement of principles, but it has had a major effect on international law. Many of the principles in the
