Examples of Human Rights

in Historical Documents
Babylonian Code of
Hammurabi
British Magna Carta
French Declaration of
the Rights of Man
U.S. Bill of Rights
 Events Preceding UDHR

WWI: Trench warfare, poison gas, and new weapons intensify war and
increasingly affect civilian populations.
The League of Nations is created in response to an emerging
international sense of morality.
Following the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal
(1933) guarantees social and economic benefits for workers. His Four
Freedoms (1941) identify freedom of speech and religion, and freedom
from want and fear as essential for all people.
WWII: Nazis exterminate millions of people (incl. Jews, gypsies,
communists, people with disabilities, Jehovahs Witnesses, and
homosexuals). The Japanese military brutalizes residents of occupied
countries. The United States drops the first atomic bomb on Japan.
Nazi and Japanese war criminals are prosecuted in the first-ever war
trials: the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals.
The United Nations is established in 1945.
 CREATION OF UDHR

1946:CommissionofHumanRightsformed
1947:Draftingofdeclarationbegins
1948:Lengthyandoftendivisivedeliberations

UN General Assembly
12101948:

adopts UDHR
 The General Assembly Vote

48 in favor (incl. Brazil, China, Cuba,

Ethiopia, France, India, Iran, USA).
8 abstained (Belarus, Czechoslovakia,
Poland, Ukraine, USSR, Yugoslavia,
Saudi Arabia, South Africa)
2 absent (Honduras, Yemen)
UN Member States Abstentions and

Points of Contention
Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Opposed interference with
Poland, Ukraine, Union of sovereignty of nations
Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR), Yugoslavia

Saudi Arabia Some articles contradict Qran

(Koran): freedom to change
religion and certain gender and
marriage rights

South Africa Right to racial equality interfered

with apartheid
 Delegate to UN
General Assembly
1945-1952
Chairperson of
Eleanor Human Rights
Commission
Roosevelt
UDHR Articles: Examples

Article 5: Article 25:

Freedom from Torture Right to Health Care
 International Bill of Rights

Universal Declaration of
Human Rights

International International
Covenant of Covenant of
Civil and Economic, Social,
Political Rights and Cultural Rights
International Covenant on Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR)

e.g., Canada, China,

150 France, Germany, India,
Japan, Mexico, UK
100
e.g., Botswana,
Cuba, Mozambique, 50
Myanmar, Oman, 7 countries: Belize,
Pakistan, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Lao, Liberia,
0 Sao Tome and Principe,
Saudi Arabia
2005 South Africa, and USA
ratified
not signed
signed but not ratified
 UDHR Preamble

Every indivual . . . shall strive by teaching

and educate to promote respect for these
rights, and fredoms . . .

http://www.uhdr.org