In the Goldstone Report, Israeli perpetrators of possible crimes against humanity were made subject to prosecution and punishment, although the geopolitical leverage of the United States within the UN prevents implementation. At the same time, several African leaders are being prosecuted for their crimes against humanity and participation in genocide: a double standard of sorts, given the impunity accorded to the West and Israel.

There is no effort to acknowledge some equivalent accountability by associating "terrorism" with all violence that is deliberately aimed at civilians, either directly or as foreseeable effects of violent acts, whether the actor is a non-state individual or group or the state.

The atmosphere of fear and security manipulated by the government has converted American citizens into terrorist suspects who are all subject to arbitrary and unreviewable detention and surveillance.

As such the meaning of hegemony is subject to varying interpretations depending on how the historical role of the United States is interpreted.

The UDHR has become an iconic document over the course of more than six decades, the starting point for discussions of whether or not the rights as set forth are truly universal or slanted to reflect the hegemony of Western values, especially those associated with liberal individualism.

To achieve effectiveness and legitimacy it is time to scrap the right of veto given to permanent members of the UN, or at least severely restrict its use. It is also time to either abandon the idea of permanent membership or broaden it to reflect the rise of non-Western states to the status of global leaders (e.g. Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa), and to downgrade European representation by either giving the European Union a single seat or rotating a European state among Germany, France, UK, and Italy.

So far, the official definitions of terrorism have the role of demonizing the enemies of the United States and Israel, and of sanitizing recourse to indiscriminate force by both governments that causes widespread death of innocent civilians. This double standard is built around the current way in which the vocabulary of terrorism is being used in this country.