Human Rights Day/ Week

Yesterday was Human Rights Day and this week is Human Rights Week.  On Friday, President Biden issued a Presidential Proclamation (full text) recognizing the dates. December 10 is the anniversary of the U.N.'s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Presidential Proclamation reads in part:

Around the world — from China to Burma, Afghanistan to Iran, Ethiopia to Ukraine, and beyond — courageous people are standing up to abuses of power, staying strong amid threats to their lives, and speaking out against violations of their fundamental freedoms. 

The United States stands fully with these brave women and men fighting for their basic human rights in the face of oppression and injustice — and we always will.  That is why we moved to rejoin the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2021 and reassert our moral leadership on the global stage.  It is why my Administration is amplifying the voices of religious, racial, and ethnic minorities; women and girls; LGBTQI+ communities; persons with disabilities; and pro-democracy activists and defenders, who are too often targeted by violence or denied equal protection under the law.

Today Is International Human Rights Day

Today, December 10, is United Nations Human Rights Day, marking the 73rd anniversary of the General Assembly's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year's theme is "Reducing inequalities, advancing human rights". Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Yesterday, President Biden issued a Proclamation (full text) declaring today Human Rights Day and the beginning of Human Rights Week.

State Department Releases Country Reports On Human Rights

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department released its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. According to the Department:

The annual Country Reports ... cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements.

However for the most part the country reports cross refer to the Department's International Religious Freedom Reports for discussion of religious freedom issues. The 2020 Report on religious freedom has not yet been released.

Pompeo Announces New Commission on Inalienable Rights

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced today that he has created a Commission on Inalienable Rights which, he says, will engage in "one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 Universal Declaration." He intends that the Commission engage in "an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy."

His statement sets out the reasons for creation of the new Commission:

Today the language of human rights has become the common vernacular for discussions of human freedom and dignity all around the world, and these are truly great achievements.

But we should never lose sight of the warnings of Vaclav Havel, a hero of the late-20th-century human rights movement, that words like “rights” can be used for good or evil; “they can be rays of light in a realm of darkness … [but] they can also be lethal arrows.” ...

It’s a sad commentary on our times that more than 70 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, gross violations continue throughout the world, sometimes even in the name of human rights. International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission. As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.

Pompeo outlined the issues he wants the new Commission to tackle:

I hope that the commission will revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right? How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored? How can there be human rights, rights we possess not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity belong to us? Is it, in fact, true, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that as human beings, we – all of us, every member of our human family – are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights?

The Commission will be chaired by Harvard Law School Professor Mary Ann Glendon.  Its other members include: Russell Berman, Peter Berkowitz, Paolo Carozza, Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Jacqueline Rivers, Meir Soloveichik, Katrina Lantos Swett, Christopher Tollefsen, and David Tse-Chien Pan.

Politico reports on the mixed reaction to Pompeo's announcement.

Today Is 70th Anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Today is the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 of the Declaration guarantees religious freedom:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Presidential Proclamation Of Human Rights Day and Week

Last Friday, President Obama issued a Presidential Proclamation declaring December 10 as Human Rights Day and the week beginning December 10 as Human Rights Week. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The Presidential Proclamation reads in part:

Far too many people around the world are still denied their human rights and fundamental freedoms, and we must work to end the discrimination that is too often felt by LGBT individuals, people with disabilities, immigrants, women and girls of all ages, and members of religious, ethnic, and other minorities. And we must strengthen our ongoing efforts to rid the world of violence, oppression, and hatred.

Today Is International Human Rights Day

Today is International Human Rights Day-- a date set by the United Nations General Assembly in Res. 423(V) to celebrate the adoption on Dec. 10, 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The U.N. announced that this year's theme is "Human Rights 365." In a press release, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says it is marking the occasion by highlighting prisoners of conscience around the world, particularly those imprisoned because of their faith or belief.

UPDATE: The White House on Dec. 9 issued a Presidential Proclamation (full text) declaring Dec. 10 to be Human Rights Day and the week beginning Dec. 10 to be Human Rights Week.