70th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights

I missed an important anniversary yesterday.

No, it was not my girlfriend's birthday, nor our anniversary, or my son's birthday.

But it was an important anniversary nevertheless, and one that we should all remember.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was approved and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its third session on 10 December 1948 as Resolution 217 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France.

With the world having just witnessed the horrors of two world wars that left devastation and tens of millions of dead, to say nothing of the wounded (mentally and physically), it is fair to say that the two wars had left their scars. In fact, the trenches of the first World War almost look like scars dug into the Earth, and the visible destruction left by bombed out cities in World War II surely resembled the disfigurement of human actions, as well, there were no nations who dared to oppose this document, although eight nations abstained from voting, with two others not voting. But 48 nations did approve it, and that was enough.

Eleanor Roosevelt played a very important role in the passing of this historical document, which was influenced by other great documents, was the first real attempt to truly spread minimal standards of human rights around the world.

Obviously, it was quickly challenged and undermined, and since then, it has been routinely undermined and/or ignored.

Personally, I believe it is a great document, and the world would do well to remember the lessons of the not so distant past. It is more important to remember it today, with new tensions and a seeming wave of neo-fascism on the rise, than it has been probably since it was ratified, all the way back in 1948.