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In 1950, on the second anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, students at the U.N. International Nursery School in New York viewed a poster of the historic document.
Seventy years ago, on December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Drafted in response to the extreme violence of World War II, the United Nations vowed that the international community would never “allow atrocities like those of that conflict to happen again.”
The drafting committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, included eighteen members from different political, cultural, and religious backgrounds. One member of the committee, Hernán Santa Cruz of Chile, later described his experience: “There was an atmosphere of genuine solidarity and brotherhood among men and women from all latitudes, the like of which I have not seen again in any international setting.”
“It was the first time, when talking about human rights, that we are talking not about ‘citizens’ but about ‘human beings’ —a critical difference,” Emilio Álvarez Icaza Longoria tells The Progressive. Álvarez Icaza, currently a member of the Mexican Senate, served for four years as the executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He calls the Declaration “a response to brutality in a process which centers human dignity.”
The document is simple but with big goals: “To guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere.”
The document is simple, containing a preamble and thirty articles; the shortest of which is only eleven words, the longest less than 120. Its goal was, according to the United Nations, “to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere.”
The preamble begins: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.”
The Declaration is not a treaty and does not create legal obligations for the signatory countries. Rather, it is a goal and an inspiration to create better local laws.
As the Australian Human Rights Commission explains on its website, “it is an expression of the fundamental values which are shared by all members of the international community. And it has had a profound influence on the development of international human rights law.” After being invoked by various countries for more than sixty years, “it has become binding as a part of customary international law.”
Many of the principles in the Declaration have been used by a variety of civil society organizations to pressure governments to adopt better legislation. One example is the work of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, which has effectively used Article 19 of the Declaration to push for the opening of community media space in a variety of countries. Today, Article 19 is also being used as a framework to counter “hate speech” in the media and elsewhere.
Unfortunately, from its beginnings, the Declaration has not always lived up to its goals. Writing in The Progressive in September 1949, Walter White recounted, “during a seminar [in Turkey] the most earnestly asked question was, ‘What are you Americans doing to implement the International Human Rights Charter?’ The questioner was too polite to mention lynching and filibusters [against civil rights legislation] in the U.S., but none of the Americans on the ‘Round the World Town Meeting of the Air was unaware of what he meant.”
Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano wrote in his May 2002 column for The Progressive titled “Hey Eleanor, You Forgot a Few,” that “the Declaration lacks far more than it contains.” He goes on to list the rights that remain unaddressed and unfilled in the document. “The Declaration proclaims and reality betrays,” he says. “Article 30 assures that no one can suppress any of these. But the universal system of power says, ‘I can, just watch me.”
As Emilio Álvarez Icaza explains, “when it became a document of public policy, the majority of world leaders became afraid—‘how are we going to do that? How are we going to pay for that?’ So it becomes a political struggle—a lot of countries use specific regulations trying to block the rights. This has happened with housing, with water, with education, with health. If you don’t have the money, you don’t have the right.”
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Eleanor Roosevelt, a member of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights drafting committee, with a Spanish language version of the declaration.
Perhaps one of the most striking examples of this is the current treatment of migrants and refugees around the world, and at our very own southern border. In 2002, Galeano noted, “The doors of the rich countries are slammed in the faces of millions of fugitives moving from South to North and East to West, fleeing ruined crops, poisoned rivers, razed forests, collapsed prices, shrunken wages.”
As Álvarez Icaza notes, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights [alone] is not enough to be a reality, but it is a kind of floor.” And, most importantly he says, “it is not automatic, it is not easy, it does not mean we stop fighting. There are a lot of fights to come based on it and we should know that those rights in the Declaration are not written in stone. It is a social process there could be something that attacks these advancements, so we have to protect and defend them.”
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann concurs. In her new book, In Defense of Universal Human Rights (November 2018, Polity Press), she says, “There is no inevitable progress in human rights, nor any guarantee they will remain once they are established within a society. Even the most entrenched protections can be undermined in a miniscule moment of historical time by economic crisis, war, or political demagoguery.”
“I am surprised at the passivity with which people in the U.S. today are watching the roots of their democracy under attack.”
Emilio Álvarez Icaza recently toured the United States looking at the human rights situation here before taking his seat as an Independent in the new Mexican Senate. He left with significant concerns: “I am surprised at the passivity with which people in the U.S. today are watching the roots of their democracy under attack,” he says.
This year, activists across the United States have called for a “Day of Action Against Fascism and Racism,” citing the actions of the Trump Administration against immigrants and recent violent acts of anti-Semitism such as the mass shooting in Pittsburgh. Dave Zirin, sports columnist for The Progressive, states in a press release announcing the day of action, “December 10, International Human Rights Day, started after World War II as a way to say ‘Never Again,’ following the Holocaust. Tragically, in the age of Trump, we need to raise that call again.”