In contrast, the UDHR, and the treaties and jurisprudence which have evolved since, provide detailed and universal principles identifying the rights which are due to all human beings, the contents of these rights and the limitations that may be placed on these rights. The draft declaration refers to protection of the environment and the need for sustainable development in very general terms in articles 7 and 8, yet states have already agreed both the conceptual approach and detailed programs of action at the UN Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995. It is the outcomes of these meetings, and in particular, the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, that have helped to turn the rights and responsibilities set out in the UDHR into concrete programs of action. The confusion in the draft declaration undermines the universality and indivisibility of all human rights - by which we mean that all human rights should be enjoyed by all people, at all times, and no one set of rights can be enjoyed at the expense of other rights. Human Rights are not found in dusty legal libraries, but in the hearts and minds of human beings.
Human rights are African rights.
They belong to no government, they are limited to no continent, for they fundamental to humankind itself. See footnote 3 The UDHR recognises freedom from fear and freedom from want as the two sides of the same coin. In 1998, we need to see the universality and indivisibility of all human rights develop into universal action to make all human rights a reality for all humankind. Human rights are rooted in common concepts of human dignity and justice. This is the route governments should be taking to encourage responsibility for human rights 50 years after the adoption of the UDHR and five years after the UN World Conference on Human Rights. .