Principle and power: The struggle to protect human rights

Professor Theo van Boven sent this piece to the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights as part of his reflections on the 75 years anniversary of the UDHR. Professor van Boven is the former Director of the UN Human Rights Secretariat between 1977 and 1982, about which the film “The Subversives” was made in 2019. He was a Dutch representative on the UN Commission on Human Rights, an expert member of the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, an expert Member on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the UN Special Rapporteur against Torture, Consultant at the World Council of Churches and Professor of Human Rights at Maastricht University from 1982 to 1999.[Formula: see text]