On December 10th, as the international community observes Human Rights Day commemorating the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration, Cuba has articulated its distinctive perspective on human rights implementation amidst contemporary global challenges. The Caribbean nation positions itself as a defender of human dignity despite facing what it describes as a “genocidal blockade” from the United States.
Cuba’s constitutional framework, particularly Article 41 of its 2019 Constitution, formally recognizes the “enjoyment and exercise of human rights as inalienable, imprescriptible, indivisible, universal, and interdependent.” This legal foundation underpins what Cuban authorities characterize as extensive achievements in social development despite economic constraints imposed by decades of American sanctions.
The article highlights several global concerns that allegedly compromise human rights worldwide, including media-covered conflicts such as Israel’s actions against Palestinians, rising neo-fascist tendencies, climate change effects, and increasing inequality attributed to neoliberal globalization. Additionally, it references “imperial threats” against Venezuela under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
According to the perspective presented, UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan recently noted that US coercive measures “limit the State’s ability to develop public policies, undermine the rights to food and dignified life, hinder academic exchanges, and affect the supply of energy, drinking water and medicines.”
Despite these challenges, Cuba maintains its commitment to building “an independent, sovereign, socialist, democratic, prosperous, and sustainable nation” through citizen participation in government programming. The nation positions itself as willing to share decades of experience in human development areas including health, science, education, and culture.
The ideological foundation draws from both historical revolutionary leader Fidel Castro’s maxim describing the Cuban Revolution as “an aspiration for social justice within the fullest freedom and the most absolute respect for human rights” and independence hero José Martí’s vision of making “the worship by Cubans of the full dignity of man” the first law of the republic.