The 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights just took place December 10th. At 75, the declaration can celebrate extraordinary success in advancing human rights in international law, the foreign policies of states, and a formidable network of non-governmental organizations.
Will human rights enjoy this position 75 years from today? Signs of illness – fatal? – exist. The best guarantee of longevity is a recognition of their status as natural law. The best carriers of this recognition are religious traditions. It may be that 75 years from now human rights “will be the cause not of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, but instead of the Catholic Church, Nahdlatul Ulama (the world’s largest Muslim organization), Engaged Buddhism, and the World Jewish Congress,” I argue in a symposium published on Friday, December 8th, in Law and Liberty. The other essays argue in a similar spirit, one on the Christian contributions to the UDHR, one on right and duties in the UDHR, and one on U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s “Incendiary Centrist” report on human rights. Add Andrea Picciotti-Bayer’s piece on Harvard Professor Mary Ann Glendon’s contribution to the UDHR’s legacy in the National Catholic Register here.