Fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a national campaign is seeking to redress the ways in which the United States has ignored economic and social rights, crucial parts of the 1948 declaration. But the United States has also chosen to overlook that the original document, signed following the Second World War by the newly created United Nations, proclaimed the interdependence and indivisibility of civil,-political and economic social rights. We want to go beyond a mere 50-year celebration of the Universal Declaration. While the United States supported the 1948 Declaration, it has since rejected a series of other declarations. At a 1996 international housing rights conference in Istanbul, the United States was the sole nation that rejected the right of housing as a fundamental right.
Every statistic represents a personal tragedy and a political calamity.
It shows starkly how far the United States has fallen short of its commitments under the Universal Declaration. D.C. The National Council of Churches 1997 General Assembly, meeting in November, voted unanimously to sponsor observances of the 50 th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and called on the U.S. government to reaffirm its commitment to universal human rights. The Assembly called on the Council's units and member communions to celebrate 1998 as Universal Human Rights Year. It urged the U.S. government to work toward ratification and implementation of several other human rights documents including those dealing with the rights of women and children.