The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: an archival commentary*

Abstract

On 10 December 1948 the Third General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: a universal declaration, not a United Nations declaration. The Preamble of the Declaration begins by proclaiming that “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. As archivists know, the nexus between human rights and archives is strong and complex, because records are essential both to protecting these rights and to obtaining recourse when these rights are violated. This essay illuminates some of the relationships of records to rights, looking at each of the 30 Articles in turn.