The UN does not decide what is _evil_ or not, and empathy is not some self-evident trait from which all objective morality comes from. You could possibly argue that empathy is evolutionary and aids society and in that way has some objective merit, but the GP is right, we have to accept that our moral systems are rooted in some assumptions.
These are covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Evil in this context is any violation of rights as defined by the UDHR
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
Why resort to a religion when you can have empathy for your fellow human, seems like a waste of time :)