Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. Eight countries abstained: Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been drafted by the Commission on Human Rights, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt. In a speech before the General Assembly she described the declaration as the “international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.” The former secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, is not alone in his belief that “the principles enshrined in the Declaration are the yardstick by which we measure progress. They lie at the heart of all that the United Nations aspires to achieve in its global mission of peace and development.”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the founding document of the International Bill of Human Rights, which was completed by the addition of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1966. The declaration has been translated into more than 350 languages and was written so that ordinary people could understand it. It reflects the complex state of international relations at a particular historical moment—immediately after World War II and at the beginning of the cold war (the state of tension between the United States and its allies and the Soviet bloc). The document has formed the basis of many conventions and treaties and has influenced more than two dozen national constitutions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights continues to be upheld as a universal standard of morality and is widely recognized as international common law.