The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Dream and Reality

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Dream and Reality / Cuban Law
Association, Argelio M. Guerra
Argelio M. Guerra, Cuban Law Association
By Lic. Argelio M. Guerra

The year was 1945 and with its progressed, the end of a bloody global
War, to the satisfaction of the international community. The effects of
the global conflagration left the eyes of humanity perplexed and
revealed the urgent need for a mechanism to control and guarantee
peaceful coexistence and international security. Thus, gathered in the
city of San Francisco in June 1945, representatives of the allied powers
and other states agreed to the charter of a new international
organization: The United Nations Charter.

One of the first tasks tackled by the new organization was precisely the
wording of a declaration that would explicitly reference the human
rights expressed in the Charter, so that only three years after the
adoption of the Charter of United Nations, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights was born, adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948.

In its thirty articles, the Declaration addresses the basic human rights
and fundamental freedoms of all people, everywhere, without
discrimination. The Universal Declaration was proclaimed the "dream" of
a common standard of realization for all peoples and all nations, but
the fact is that the discrepancies of States in the process of drafting
the Declaration and the reluctance of them to be legally committed,
provoked a turning point that led to the Universal Declaration being
born and adopted in the form of a mere resolution of the General
Assembly of the United Nations devoid of a legally binding character on
its member States, postponed for a future development of a human rights
treaty, legally binding on those States that came to ratify it.

Nevertheless, this reality is not an impairment to the authority and
force of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as general guidance
on the content of the rights and fundamental freedoms that are
frequently referenced in national constitutions, judicial decisions and
also in international instruments, in addition to which, over time, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights has become one of the basic
parameters under which the international community can deny legitimacy
to certain states, frequent violators of these rights.

August 12 2012

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