Human Rights

Abstract

The UDHR was passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. It was only a few years before, that the UN had been founded, according to its preamble, with the intention “to maintain international peace and security” and to “achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character.” The idea that persons have rights simply by virtue of being human has a long history. However, the idea that individuals have moral rights for the realization of which there is an institutionally acknowledged global responsibility and that, moreover, can serve to assess the success of political and economic institutions, is a 20th century conviction. Two world wars have taught us that we need organizations designed to help with global problem-solving, and that the protection of individuals cannot be left exclusively to the countries in which they live. Legal scholar Mary Ann Glendon aptly calls the UDHR “a declaration of interdependence… of people, nations, and rights” (2001, p 174).