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60.

Reaffirming the Universality of Human Rights
through the Partnership between Governments
and Civil Society

STATEMENT BY VLADIMIR PETROVSKY
UNITED NATIONS UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AT GENEVA
AT THE COMMEMORATION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

10 December 1998

T his year the international community commemorates the 50th
Anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. This is a most significant event. We have reason to
look back with pride on the many accomplishments and to consider the lessons
leaned over these years in the promotion and protection of human rights.
However, as the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, stressed recently,
“Huma Rights Day is a day for us to recall not only the rights attained over the
past 50 years, but also the rights denied”.

For too many people around the world, the Declaration's tenets have yet to
take on real meaning. That includes all human rights, from civil and political to
social and economic. The right to development is universal and inalienable and
is inseparable front all other rights. Mass illiteracy and poverty are therefore
human rights issues no less than freedom of expression. One cannot pick and
choose among human rights, ignoring some whilst insisting on others. Only if
all rights are equally applied to all can they be universally implemented. They
should neither be applied, relatively, nor as a weapon with which to punish
others.
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