What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is marking its 75th anniversary?

By GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press

Seventy-five years ago on Sunday, the U.N. General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at a meeting in Paris. It laid one of the foundation stones of of the international order that emerged following the horrors of World War II. The declaration has 30 articles setting out fundamental rights and freedoms and it was proclaimed as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.” In practice, it hasn’t always turned out that way over the subsequent decades. As the document turns 75, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said this week the world is at a “somber moment in history,” wracked by conflicts and crises. But he insisted that “human rights have not failed.”