In doing so again this year, each nation honors the commitments it has undertaken under the UN Charter , the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international human rights treaties and conventions it has signed and ratified. This is a process that concerns more than just the people gathered in this chamber and the governments that we report to.
Human rights are universal.
We are here to measure the progress that we nations have made in promoting and protecting human rights and report our findings to the people of the world. This is an obligation my country takes very seriously. We cannot look back on the early days of this institution without being impressed at how much the world has changed since then, and how the governments that have embraced human rights have brought improvements to their people's daily lives. The first great triumph of the UN era was the collapse of colonialism. Dozens of new nations from Africa to Asia and the Caribbean, offering new hope to many millions.