"Universal Declaration of Human Rights"

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document recommended for all UN member states, adopted at the third session of the UN General Assembly by resolution 217 A (III) (the International Covenant on Human Rights) of 10 December 1948.

The text of the Declaration is the first global definition of the rights that all people have, and consists of 30 articles and is part of the International Bill of Human Rights along with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the two Optional Protocols.

History

Background
During the Age of Enlightenment, ideas about natural law began to flourish. Based on these ideas, the Bill of Rights in the United Kingdom, the Bill of Rights in the United States and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in France were created and adopted.

World War II clearly demonstrated the need for a universal human rights treaty. In 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union Address, called for the promotion of four essential freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. This gave a new impetus to the development of human rights as a necessary condition for peace and the end of war.

When the public became aware of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, it became clear that the UN Charter did not accurately define human rights. A universal treaty that enumerated and described individual rights was necessary.

Drafting

The first meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights was held in the township from January 27 to February 10, 1947, where Eleanor Roosevelt was elected Chairman of the Commission. The Commission included representatives of such countries as Australia, Belgium, Great Britain, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Libya, Panama, the USSR, the USA, Uruguay, the Philippines, France, Chile, Yugoslavia. They had to prepare a document that was originally supposed to be called the International Bill of Rights. The Commission was attended by John Humphrey, a Canadian expert in international law, who was invited to the post by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1946.

Since the Commission was composed of 18 members and had widely differing views, it was very difficult to draft such an important document as the Declaration. As a result, it was agreed that three representatives would prepare the original text for consideration by the Commission at its second meeting. The subcommittee on drafting the Declaration included Eleanor Roosevelt herself, the representative of China Zhang Pengchun and the Lebanese diplomat and philosopher Charles Malik. The subcommittee commissioned Humphrey, an experienced lawyer with a good team of assistants in his department, to submit an initial draft of the text. It was also influenced by the fact that at first even such a small group of three people could not come to any general view of the document. In the end, Humphrey prepared a draft of the project