Nikolai Rybakov’s blog post, 10.12.2024

Photo: Eleanor Roosevelt with the English version of the Declaration of Human Rights

Today is International Human Rights Day: 76 years ago, on 10 December, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Declaration represented a response to the horrors and crimes committed during World War II. The global conflict killed 70 million people, and was marked by the deliberate extermination of entire nations, the widespread use of concentration camps, violence against prisoners and civilians, deportations, famine, the destruction of cities, and cold-blooded ruthlessness, hatred and unbearable pain. Observing all this suffering, humanity made an attempt to prevent it in the future. It was for this purpose that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. It was the first document of global scale that guaranteed every inhabitant of the planet, regardless of nationality, race, religion, gender, and age, the most fundamental rights and freedoms and called on all states to observe them.

The Declaration played a huge role in spreading the principles of humanism and respect for the individual: it became the basis for other international human rights acts (such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Helsinki Accords, and the UN Millennium Declaration), served as a source for the formation of a broad human rights movement around the world, and made the views and thinking of humanity more altruistic – today we consider the freedoms proclaimed by the Declaration as inalienable.

Now, in 2024, the Declaration is still relevant. The number of military conflicts in the world is increasing, political irresponsibility, cynicism and populism are flourishing, there is a crisis of international diplomacy, and hatred on national, religious, gender and ideological grounds has is growing. People are ready to use violence against a person simply because of his or her different political position. This is an explosive situation, fraught with new clashes, polarisation, disunity, and even civil wars.

We all need to stop and come to our senses.

There are so many disagreements today that it is unlikely that they will all be resolved. To overcome them, we must return to those inalienable principles that unite us all, those things on which consensus has long been established in all (or almost all) countries. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights can become such a foundation. To make the world more stable, we should once again remember and implement those basic values ​​that no one objects to. This is a long, patient, and painstaking path. However, the current disputes have no prospects at all, since they are endless. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the world Constitution that any nation can agree with.

Today, the Declaration has been translated into 577 languages ​​of the world, which makes it the most translated document. The main goal of world politics should again be people, their  well-being and the development of their abilities. This is the only way [for all of us] to move forward, eliminating the possibility of new world wars and guaranteeing a peaceful and happy life for the citizens of our countries.