Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a foundational document established by the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II, reflecting a global commitment to uphold and protect the rights of all individuals. Drafted by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which included representatives from various nations, the UDHR articulates fundamental rights that belong to every person, transcending citizenship and legal systems. It comprises thirty articles that highlight both political rights—such as life, liberty, and security—and social and economic rights, including education and equal pay, many of which were previously unrecognized in earlier rights frameworks.
The declaration was ratified on December 10, 1948, amidst a significant international push for human rights following the Nuremberg Trials. Eleanor Roosevelt, a prominent advocate for civil rights in the U.S., played a key role in its creation, emphasizing the importance of human rights in addressing racial discrimination. The UDHR has inspired a series of subsequent international agreements aimed at expanding and protecting human rights, establishing it as a cornerstone of international human rights law. Its impact continues to resonate today, making it a crucial reference point for discussions around human rights globally.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Event Ratification of the first comprehensive document of international human rights norms
Date December 10, 1948
Place New York, New York
This document was a global response to the sufferings and atrocities, such as the Holocaust, perpetrated by governments and regimes against individuals and peoples. The declaration established as fundamental the concept of human rights—that is, rights pertaining to persons as humans and not merely as citizens of a particular country—and shaped later international law and treaties on that basis.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was an immediate outcome of the creation of the United Nations. Although the UDHR was not ratified until the end of 1948, three years after the formation of the United Nations, work on this declaration began with the drafting of the Charter of the United Nations in 1945, particularly with the establishment of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 1946, and a mandate by the U.N. General Assembly to draft an international bill of rights. Social and political theorists had long spoken of the concept of natural rights to designate rights that individuals held simply as individuals, as opposed to the concept of legal rights that individuals held as citizens within some legal system. However, it was not until the middle of the twentieth century, following the Nuremberg and Tokyo war trials, that there was an international political push to foster and implement rights in a more global context. The language of natural rights quickly transformed into that of human rights—rights possessed by all humans regardless of their citizenship, with a corresponding assertion of the responsibility of international respect and enforcement of these rights.
The Commission on Human Rights comprised notable representatives from various nations, including the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, France, China, India, Lebanon, Iran, Panama, Uruguay, Chile, and the Philippines. Eleanor Roosevelt, then widow of former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, was unanimously elected to chair the commission, as she had already attained world renown for her earlier work on civil rights. With particular focus on social and political matters within the United States, Roosevelt saw this advocacy for human rights as relevant to overcoming racial discrimination in her own country.
The UDHR contained thirty articles, some considered controversial. Many of the articles emphasized political rights, such as the rights of life, liberty, security, freedom from torture, and equality before the law. The final ten articles, however, emphasized social and economic rights, such as rights to education, employment, equal pay, and participation in cultural and scientific advances. Such rights were not previously enunciated by earlier rights documents, including within the United States. On December 10, 1948, the U.N. General Assembly ratified the declaration by a vote of 48 in favor, 0 against, and 8 abstentions.
Impact
Following ratification of the UDHR, the U.N. General Assembly passed numerous other documents promoting and extending human rights, as did many other governmental and nongovernmental bodies. The UDHR itself came to be known as the first component of the International Bill of Human Rights, with later components being the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, both passed in 1966. Later human rights declarations included the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981), and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990).
Bibliography
Glendon, Mary Ann. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House, 2001.
Morsink, Johannes. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Streich, Michel. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage, 2009.