Today is Human Rights Day!

10th December 2020

Human Rights Day commemorates the day the General Assembly of the UN adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The UDHR is one of UN’s major achievements as well as the first enunciation of human rights across the world.

Adopted on 10th December 1948, the Declaration stipulates universal values and a shared standard of achievement for everyone in every country.

While the Declaration is not a binding document, it inspired over 60 human rights instruments that today make a common standard of human rights.

It is the most translated document around the globe available in over 500 languages.

2020 Theme: Recover Better – Stand Up for Human Rights

This year’s Human Rights Day theme relates to the COVID-19 pandemic and focuses on the need to build back better by ensuring Human Rights are central to recovery efforts.

We will reach our common global goals only if we are able to create equal opportunities for all, address the failures exposed and exploited by COVID-19, and apply human rights standards to tackle entrenched, systematic, and intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination.

10 December is an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of human rights in re-building the world we want, the need for global solidarity as well as our interconnectedness and shared humanity.

Under UN Human Rights’ generic call to action “Stand Up for Human Rights”, we aim to engage the general public, our partners and the UN family to bolster transformative action and showcase practical and inspirational examples that can contribute to recovering better and fostering more resilient and just societies.-UN