FROM THE HAND BOOK OF UNITED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.

 TITLE: “THE STORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS” 

we could see that this is the brief history of human rights.

The atrocities perpetrated by fascist Germany against minorities and independent-minded individuals before and during World War II triggered shock and horror across the world. When the war ended, the victorious nations met to adopt measures intended to prevent a repetition of these murderous acts and to forward peace. The result was the founding of the United Nations in 1945.

The Charter of the United Nations established six principal bodies, including the General Assembly, the Security Council, the International Court of Justice and, in relation to human rights, an Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

The UN Charter empowered ECOSOC to establish “Commissions in economic and social fields and for the promotion of human rights…..” One of these was the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Under the chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt, human rights champion and United States delegate to the UN, the Commission set out to draft the document that became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration, adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, is the most universal human rights document in operation. Eleanor Roosevelt, credited with its inspiration, called it the international Magna Carta for all mankind.

In its preamble and in Article 1, the Declaration unequivocally proclaims the inherent rights of all human beings: “Disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people…All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.    

The Member States of the United Nations pledged to work together to promote the thirty articles of human rights that, for the first time in history, had been assembled and codified into a single document. In consequence, many of these rights, in various forms, are today part of the constitutional laws of democratic nations.