Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The 1948 UN document, drafted in the shadow of the Second World War, listing the thirty rights every human is said to have — the modern, secular successor to all earlier rights charters.
Origin
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948 (now Human Rights Day), with 48 votes in favor, none against, and 8 abstentions (the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, apartheid South Africa). The drafting committee was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt; the chief drafter was the Canadian lawyer John Peters Humphrey, with major contributions from the French jurist René Cassin and the Lebanese philosopher Charles Malik. Thirty articles cover political rights (speech, assembly, asylum, fair trial), economic and social rights (work, education, an adequate standard of living), and the foundational claim that 'all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.' Technically non-binding, but its principles have been written into the constitutions of most states formed since 1948 and into binding treaties like the European Convention on Human Rights (1950).
Modern usage
The reference text behind nearly every modern 'human rights' claim — invoked by journalists, NGOs, courts, and dissidents from Beijing to Tehran to Caracas. 'UDHR,' 'Article 19' (freedom of expression), and 'crimes against humanity' (a related post-Nuremberg concept) are standard vocabulary in international affairs. Critics across the political spectrum charge that it encodes a specifically Western, individualist view of rights; defenders point out that the drafting committee was carefully international.
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