The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), discussed in Unit 10.5, was approved by the UN General Assembly in December 1948. It set out a comprehensive list of rights including:

• The right to life, liberty, and security of person

• Freedom from slavery and torture

• Equality before the law

• Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion

• Freedom of expression

• Freedom of assembly and association

• Right to participate in government and free elections

• Right to work, education, and an adequate standard of living

The UDHR was not legally binding on its own but established norms that subsequent treaties have made binding. The Eleanor Roosevelt-led UN commission that drafted the document remains one of the great achievements of multilateral diplomacy.

Why both documents matter: The Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved within a day of each other in December 1948, established the legal and moral framework for international human rights. They were direct responses to the Holocaust and the broader atrocities of WWII. They tell the world's nations: states cannot do these things to their own

people or to others. The framework is incomplete and often poorly enforced, but it has shaped seventy-five years of international politics.