Human Rights Day is observed every year on the 10th of December. This day, the United Nations General Assembly had adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document which is available in more than 500 languages, it is the most translated document in the world, that proclaims the inalienable rights which everyone is entitled to as a human being, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, language, political opinions, national or social origin, property, birth or another status.

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. 

10th 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.

Human Rights and Sustainable Development Goals

Human rights are at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as in the absence of human dignity we cannot hope to drive sustainable development. Human Rights are driven by progress on all SDGs, and the SDGs are driven by advancements in human rights. Find out how UN agencies strive to put human rights at the center of their work. 

Education is a fundamental human right of every woman, man, and child. Yet this right is still not a reality for millions and is violated every single day. This is unacceptable!    

Human Rights must be at the center of the post-COVID-19 world

The COVID-19 crisis has been fuelled by deepening poverty, rising inequalities, structural and entrenched discrimination, and other gaps in human rights protection.

Only measures to close these gaps and advance human rights can ensure we fully recover and build back a world that is better, more resilient, just, and sustainable. 

• End discrimination of any kind: Structural discrimination and racism have fuelled the COVID-19 crisis. Equality and non-discrimination are core requirements for a post-COVID world.
• Address inequalities: To recover from the crisis, we must also address the inequality pandemic. For that, we need to promote and protect economic, social, and cultural rights. We need a new social contract for a new era.
• Encourage participation and solidarity: We are all in this together. From individuals to governments, from civil society and grass-roots communities to the private sector, everyone has a role in building a post-COVID world that is better for present and future generations. We need to ensure the voices of the most affected and vulnerable inform the recovery efforts.
• Promote sustainable development: We need sustainable development for people and the planet. Human rights, the 2030 Agenda, and the Paris Agreement are the cornerstone of a recovery that leaves no one behind.

On the occasion of Human Rights Day 2020, let us look at the Quotes by the great men in our history:

• To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity—Nelson Mandela
• Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself—Robert Green Ingersoll
• The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government—Thomas Jefferson
• Safeguarding the rights of others is the noblest and beautiful end of a human being—Khalil Gibran
• The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened—John F. Kennedy
• Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere—Theodore Roosevelt
• Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in—Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life—Jimmy Carter
• Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight—Bob Marley
• Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression, or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities—Pope Francis