From the tragedies of World War II, the Great Depression and the Holocaust grew the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which marked its 60th anniversary on December 10.

“Dignity and Justice for All of Us” is the theme of a year-long campaign that was launched in 2007 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to help people around the world learn about their human rights. “The Declaration was the first global statement of what we now take for granted – the inherent dignity and quality of all human beings,” Ki-moon stated on un.org.

Illustration by Jerry Robinson

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navathethem Pillay, who is of Indian descent, shared memories of growing up under apartheid in South Africa. “I was told things like ‘white secretaries can’t take instructions from a black person,’” she told the UN News Centre. This inspired Pillay to become a lawyer and later, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which worked for justice in the aftermath of the 1990s genocide. “I know that the consequences of allowing discrimination, inequality and intolerance to fester and spiral out of control can have genocidal consequences,” she said.

The UDHR was organized in 1948 by Eleanor Roosevelt, former U.S. First Lady and United Nations delegate, to guarantee the political and civil rights of all persons, including the right to shelter, food, adequate income, and freedom from such oppressive conditions as torture, slavery, poverty and homelessness.

The first few Articles of the UDHR state in part that, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights … Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status … Every one has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

Click here to read the story on www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2008-12-09-voa49.cfm

For the full text of the UDHR, visit www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.

– The Editors