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Human Rights Day 2007 sees the launch of a year-long campaign to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 2008. Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has written:
This campaign will engage the whole UN system in promoting the Declaration’s ideals and principles of justice and equality for all of us which changed the landscape of international relations and gave substance to the aspirations to freedom and dignity of humankind. But the celebrations are meant not only as tributes to an extraordinary human achievement. They will also be reminders that the goal of making the Declaration a living reality for everyone has yet to be realized.
Photo © Sherwin!!!
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has published this most significant message for the day:
On this Human Rights Day, we launch a year-long commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The entire UN family will take part in a campaign to promote the Declaration’s ideals and principles of justice and equality for everyone.
The campaign reminds us that in a world still reeling from the horrors of the Second World War, the Declaration was the first global statement of what we now take for granted — the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings.
The extraordinary vision and determination of the drafters produced a document that for the first time set out universal human rights for all people in an individual context. Now available in more than 360 languages, the Declaration is the most translated document in the world — a testament to its universal nature and reach. It has inspired the constitutions of many newly independent States and many new democracies. It has become a yardstick by which we measure respect for what we know, or should know, as right and wrong.
The Declaration remains as relevant today as it did on the day it was adopted. But the fundamental freedoms enshrined in it are still not a reality for everyone. Too often, Governments lack the political will to implement international norms they have willingly accepted.
This anniversary year is an occasion to build up that will. It is a chance to ensure that these rights are a living reality — that they are known, understood and enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. It is often those who most need their human rights protected, who also need to be informed that the Declaration exists — and that it exists for them.
May this year reinvigorate us in that mission. Let us make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights an integral part of everyone’s life.
The UK Baha’i community and Baha’is around the world are already planning activities to mark this significant anniversary. It’s a good time to for all of us to think what we can do in our neighbourhoods and our work places to raise people’s awareness of human rights and of the aspirations (all too often unfulfilled) of the Universal Declaration.
By the way, the Know Your Rights website is an excellent resource – well worth a visit.
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, human rights, UDHR, UN, Ban Ki-Moon
{ 3 comments }
Barney, thanks for your posts on this important day. So much idealism to live up to since the signing. Thank you also for the Know Your Rights website – excellent resource as you say.
Thanks for posting this.
Thanks, Tess and Marco, for your comments. It will be important in the coming year to do what we can in our own localities and our own countries to raise people’s awareness of the importance of the Universal Declaration and of human rights as providing a space for our protection and for human flourishing.
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