Melanie Phillips on the origin of the doctrine of "human rights":
The Holocaust showed that nationhood was not enough.... since rights derive from being members of a nation, nobody took responsibility for [the Jews of Germany]. After the Second World War, ... a new world order was created in which human rights had a claim alongside national rights....That was ... the argument behind the doctrine of international human rights law. That doctrine was created largely by Jewish lawyers — like ... Hersch Lauterpacht — who were aghast that the annihilation of millions was considered solely the business of the state involved. These lawyers believed that international human rights law would place all of humanity under a legal shield. They thought the way to save Jews and others from future persecution was to trump national sovereignty by holding oppressors to account through international tribunals.
The fact is that universal rights culture does nothing to stop tyrants abroad, while at home it undermines democracy.... Tyrants can only be stopped if they are defeated. Vladimir Putin won't be deterred from his atrocities in Ukraine by any human rights tribunal. He has to be beaten. The idea that Hitler might have been stopped if universal human rights law had existed is risible (=laughable). He was stopped only because Britain and the Allies fought and paid the ultimate price in order to defend the west against Nazism.... Jewish people can only be protected by a State of Israel armed against its enemies. International human rights law will never protect Israel. Instead, that law is being used by Israel's enemies as the weapon with which they intend to destroy it....
Conservatism is the defence of essential values. The nation is crucial to defending those values.... Jews helped create universalism. They had the best of intentions, but they were wrong.
