In the Sermon on the Mount in
the New Testament, Jesus uses the metaphor of a mere sliver of wood in another
person’s eye being objected to by a person who has an entire plank in one’s own
eye to criticize the hypocrisy that can occur with self-righteousness.[1]
In international relations, it is much easier to see abuses of human rights in
another country than in one’s own. Mixing metaphors, it can be said that people
in glass houses should not throw stones because one may come back to bite. Generalizing
from particular abuses of human rights, the refusal of national governments to
give up some governmental sovereignty so an assembly “with teeth” could go in
and arrest abusers within a country in violation of protecting its residents’
human rights means that we are all guilty of insufficient political action. The
UN pales next to such an assembly, yet, at least as of 2026, it is the best we
have.
