Every law is just words unless there is a power that can enforce it.

But the UN DHR doesn’t seem to have been written as law. It was written as a declaration, in line with our own Declaration of Independence. It lists our ideals that need to be spelled into law. That lets it be airy and vague in a way laws cannot.

How does this relate to my comment?

It isn’t “every law.” It’s not written to be directly operationalised. You’re comparing a declaration of values to operational law; they’re words in different ways and contexts.

Is a "declaration of values" more than words if there is no power that is willing to enforce it?

> Is a "declaration of values" more than words if there is no power that is willing to enforce it?

Yes. Nobody directly enforces the policy papers or the Declaration of Independence. That doesn’t mean they don’t have corporeal value. In part, due to being translated into laws.

Almost everything about societies except cities is just pretty words. Countries and most borders are just an abstraction. We fight for them because someone convinces us with words to do so. We could do the same for the UN and it would be a much nobler cause in most cases.

Human territory is absolutely natural and exists in other apes also.

The feeling of defending territory is natural and is not words

Only what constitutes the territory to defend has been warped by words.

Territory is not something physical that just exists. It's an idea, no matter whether a human or any other animal feels the need to enforce it.

Sure but it isn’t words, which was the claim.

Human food preferences are also just an idea by this standard.

A hunter gatherer tribe failing to defend its territory could result in its death just the same as not acquiring and eating appropriate food.

That doesn't turn it into a physical reality like a stone or a stream of water that exists regardless of what animals think about it. Territories exist because they are defended. They are not obvious unless one deals with the means employed to defend it.

The need to defend might be a necessity for survival, but the desire to defend additional territory and resources has existed ever since humans have acquired the power to achieve more than the means of mere survival. Similar to food preferences, which become peculiar if there is plentitude, basic if tight, and sub-par in emergencies: during famines, sometimes people resort to eat grass to sate their feeling of hunger even though digesting it is an energetic net negative.

> Countries and most borders are just an abstraction.

Not true. Patriotism is very real. It's an affection for a group of people and for the ideals of those people. To some lesser extent it's also love for the geography of your land. But patriotism is rarer in the west than it once was. Also, if a country's territory is invaded by an enemy, at least some of its people will go to fight to protect their families from the oncoming enemies.