The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights are asserted as universal rather than granted by any state.
- When
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Adopted in December 1948 with eight abstentions and no votes against, the Declaration was drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt and including Chinese, Lebanese, French and Indian members — its universality was argued for, not assumed. It is not binding law, and states violate it routinely. It is nonetheless the reference text against which those violations are named, and it has been translated into over 500 languages.