Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. It is a declaration and not a binding treaty, and it says so in its own terms: the General Assembly proclaims it as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. Its legal force came later, through the covenants and conventions it seeded, several of which are held beside it in this bank.

Its preamble states the reasoning that the articles then implement. Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is named as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Disregard and contempt for human rights are named as what resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, written three years after the Second World War ended. The preamble also gives a strikingly practical justification for the rule of law: it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse as a last resort to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by law. The Declaration asks every individual and every organ of society to promote respect for these rights by teaching and education, and to secure their recognition by progressive national and international measures.

Articles 1 and 2 set the frame. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, endowed with reason and conscience, and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Everyone is entitled to all the rights set out without distinction of any kind, including race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, and no distinction may be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country a person belongs to, whether independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. That last clause was written with colonial territories directly in view.

Articles 3 to 21 carry the civil and political rights: life, liberty and security of person; freedom from slavery and the slave trade in all their forms; freedom from torture and from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; recognition everywhere as a person before the law; equality before the law and equal protection of it; an effective remedy before competent national tribunals; freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile; a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal; presumption of innocence and no punishment under retroactive law; protection against arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence and against attacks on honour and reputation; freedom of movement and residence, and the right to leave any country including one's own and to return to it; the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution; the right to a nationality and not to be arbitrarily deprived of it; the right to marry and found a family with free and full consent, with the family named as the natural and fundamental group unit of society; the right to own property and not be arbitrarily deprived of it; freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to change religion or belief; freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information regardless of frontiers; freedom of peaceful assembly and association, with no one compelled to belong to an association; and the right to take part in government, to equal access to public service, and to periodic and genuine elections by universal and equal suffrage and secret vote.

Articles 22 to 27 carry the economic, social and cultural rights, which is the half of the Declaration most often left out when it is summarised. They include social security; the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions and to protection against unemployment; equal pay for equal work without discrimination; remuneration ensuring an existence worthy of human dignity, supplemented if necessary by other social protection; the right to form and join trade unions; the right to rest and leisure including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay; the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood beyond one's control; special care and assistance for motherhood and childhood, with the same social protection for all children whether born in or out of wedlock; the right to education, free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages and compulsory at the elementary stage, directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights, with parents holding a prior right to choose the kind of education given to their children; and the right to participate freely in cultural life, to enjoy the arts and share in scientific advancement and its benefits, and to protection of the moral and material interests resulting from one's own scientific, literary or artistic production.

The last three articles close the structure. Article 28 entitles everyone to a social and international order in which these rights can be fully realised, which turns the Declaration into a claim about how the world is arranged and not only about how individuals are treated. Article 29 states that everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of personality is possible, and permits limitations on rights only where determined by law and solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights of others and meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. Article 30 forbids reading anything in the Declaration as implying for any State, group or person a right to engage in any activity aimed at the destruction of the rights it sets out.