The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose seventieth year we are commemorating, begins with a clear statement in article 1 of both principle and fact: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. That is underscored by the International Convention on the Elimination of All …
Half a century ago, our forebears in this Assembly unanimously adopted two great
covenants and brought the force of law to the principles laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Those covenants distilled the bitter lessons learnt from warfare, genocide, colonial oppression and econom…
