60TH ANNIVERSARY

Today markes the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.

ABC radio’s program Rear Vision provides commentary on context for the original signing and voices from the past, including Doc Evatt and Eleanor Roosevelt.

You never know, you might be able to listen here:

Elsewhere:

Deutsche Wella relates the story of Stephane Hessel who as well as been inmate of  Buchenwald was at the drafting of the Declarati0n.

Mary Robinson, as others have, argues in The Independent that climate change is a question of human rights.

Postscript:

As the radio program serves to remind us, Australia has not an unblemished record with respect to human rights, which is disappointing. I hear the case put against declarations of rights, but I am not convinced regardless of those making the case. Human rights are inherently universal and not exclusive. They do not just apply to people who are fortunate in where they live, or what country they were born. The critics sometimes, I observe, fail to appreciate the lack of rights that others exercise, where ever they might be, and whatever group they belong, becomes the responsibility of those who are recognized as full human beings.

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