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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Universality of Human Rights

UDHR 60th Anniversary
The human rights and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are endowed at birth to all human beings. During Human Rights Week [December 8-14], the people of the United States will join in celebrating the Universal Declaration with men and women of every culture and creed, every race and religion, in countries large and small, developed and developing.

Over the sixty years since the Declaration's adoption on December 10, 1948, there have been remarkable gains on every continent for the rights that it enumerates.  Yet, six decades on, hundreds of millions of people still are denied fundamental freedoms by their governments.  Today, across the globe, men and women are working to secure the basic rights to live in dignity, to follow their consciences and speak their minds without fear, to choose those who would govern them and hold their leaders accountable, and to obtain equal justice under the law. In many countries, brave individuals who peacefully press for the rights of their fellow countrymen and women are targets of persecution and imprisonment by state authorities.

The Universal Declaration is much more than a catalogue of rights - it is a call to action. The Universal Declaration calls upon "every individual and every organ of society ... to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance..."

If the great promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to be fulfilled, the international community - and especially the world's democracies -- cannot accept that any people in the world are condemned to live without dignity or under tyranny.

As long as men and women around the globe remain deprived of their basic rights, we, who enjoy the blessings of liberty, must continue to give our sustained support to the universal cause of freedom, and to all who courageously champion it.