Human Rights Day

Today is Human Rights Day - the anniversary of the day in 1948 when the UN’s General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which had been developed by a wide range of people and organisations - including the USA’s Eleanor Roosevelt, the Republic of China’s P. C. Chang, Lebanon’s Charles Malik, France’s René Cassin, Canada's John Peters Humphrey, India’s Hansa Mehta, and Australia’s William Roy Hodgson, as well as UNESCO, which conducted a global survey of values to inform this process, anthropologists who warned against ethnocentrism, and others.

Development of the UDHR was strongly influenced by the then-recent events of World War Two, as well as events such as the “show trials” in the USSR in the 1930s - but, on the other hand, the USSR did advocate successfully for inclusion of the rights to work and housing during the development of the UDHR. It is also worth noting that South American and Asian nations, for their part, advocated successfully for the inclusion of second generation (economic, social and cultural) rights. (At that time, of the 56 nations in the UN General Assembly, 14 were Asian, 4 were African, and 20 came from South and Central America.)

Although the UDHR, inspirational (“moral”, was the description in 1948) though it is, is a non-binding document, it led to a series of conventions which are legally binding - of most direct relevance:

• the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (Australia became a party to this [with three “reservations” - aspects specifically disagreed with] on 13^th August 1980; the convention came into force internationally on 23^rd March, 1976); and
• the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (Australia became a party to this on 10^th Dec 1975; the convention came into force internationally on 3^rd Jan. 1976);

but also:

• the Genocide Convention (incorporated into Australian law as the Genocide Convention Act of 1949);
• the Convention on Eliminating Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (Australia became a party to this on 28^th July 1883 [with three reservations]; the convention came into force internationally on 3^rd September, 1981);
• the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) (Australia became a party to this on 30^th Sep 1975 [with one reservation] ; the convention came into force internationally on 4^th Jan 1969);

and others.

The human rights work resulting from the UDHR - and other documents, people, and movements - continues.

As examples of that, several governments have now legislated against modern slavery (Australia’s Act is here, and the register here) in response to advocacy (e.g., here), just as advocacy led to action to stop conflict diamonds and then conflict minerals generally.

There is still, however, a need for work to see basic human rights that many take for granted realised, as shown by the work of organisations such as Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Albert Einstein Institution (which promotes Gene Sharp’s nonviolent methods of change), CANVAS (which trains activists in non-violent methods), and the Political Violence at a Glance blog. 

One example of that need is happening right now in Uganda - see here, here, here, here, here, and here (and for news, here, here, here, here, here, and here). The UN's Secretary-General has made a statement: now it is time for other organisations like The Elders, the African Union, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, the East African Court of Justice, the East African Community, the Economic Community of Central African States, and all with any influence in the R2P realm to step up - possibly using "quiet", behind the scenes diplomacy, but step up, please. 

PS - there is another excellent article here.