UN General Assembly
1988

That Declaration says plainly what those who seek peace can forget only at the greatest peril that peace rests on one foundation; observance of the "inalienable rights of all members of the human family". In a century where human rights have been denied by totalitarian governments on a scale never before seen in history, with so many millions deliberately starved or eliminated as a matter of State policy - a history, it has been said, of blood, stupidity and barbed wire - few can wonder why peace has proved so elusive. Well, let us understand. If we would have peace, we must acknowledge the elementary rights of our fellow human beings, in our own land and in other lands. If we would have peace, the trampling of the human spirit must cease. Human rights is not for some, some of the time. Human rights, as the Universal Declaration adopted by this Assembly in 1948 proclaims, is "for all peoples and all nations". And for all time.