The United Nations and Human Rights

©Norman Rockwell

The Thirty Articles

		Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Children in Cape Town, South Africa. UN Photo# 151907C
		Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social orgin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation, addresses the United Nations General Assembly on the launch of the International Year of the World's Indigenous People in 1992. UN Photo# 182250C
		Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. A boy flying a kite in Vietnam. UN Photo# 143357C
		Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. A boy in India carries bricks to earn a living. UN Photo# 137529C
		Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali stands before a shed containing the remains of scores of dead killed during a massacre at Nyarubuye Church in south-eastern Rwanda in 1994. UN Photo # 187137C
		Article 6: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. Children in Tokyo's Kome School which is the oldest educational institution for the disabled children in the city. UN Photo# 143937C
		Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of the Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. Local police train new recruits on the outskirts of Cap-Haitien, in Haiti. Canadian Civil Police (right), part of the UN Support Mission in Haiti, observe the training. UN Photo# 187350C
		Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. The International Court of Justice at the Peace Palace, The Hague. UN Photo# 184692C
		Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Haitian prisoners being held before trial in a jail cell at a police station in Port-au-Prince. UN Photo# 187325C
		Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
		Article 11: 1. Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. In Port-au-Prince, International Civilian Mission observers talking with Haitian prisoners about their cases. UN Photo# 187347C
		2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed.
		Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. A Muslim family stands before their partially destroyed home in Stari Vitez, Bosnia and Herzegovina. UN Photo# 186718C
		Article 13: 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. An elderly Croatian woman looks out over the barbed wire fence of her home which is located on the confrontation line. UN Photo# 193531C
		2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
		Article 14: 1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. A young Vietnamese refugee resting at Pulan Bidong refugee camp in Malaysia in 1979. UN Photo# 141366 (b/w only)
		2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
		Article 15: 1. Everyone has the right to a nationality. Lebanese refugees in a camp in Beirut in 1978. UN Photo# 139502C
		2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
		Article 16: 1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. A wedding in La Paz, Bolivia. UN Photo# 124138C
		2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
		3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. A family in Upper Volta. UN Photo# 136495C
		Article 17: 1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. Umbulwana, Natal in South Africa, 1982. Called "a black spot" because it was in a "white" area. Eventually demolished and the inhabitants forced to move to identically numbered houses in "resettlement" villages in their designated "homelands". UN Photo # 151703C
		2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
		Article 18: 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. A man praying in a mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan. UN Photo# 156490C
		Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Children visiting the "Killing Fields" memorial, located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Large numbers of teachers, academics, artisans and professional workers were killed when the country was under the rule of the Democratic Kampuchea regime between 1975 and 1979. UN Photo# 159733C
		Article 20: 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. Cape Verdeans gather in Praia, Santiago Island in 1975 for the visit of Aristides Pereira, first President of independent Cape Verde. UN Photo# 130410C
		2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
		Article 21: 1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. Eritreans celebrate the conclusion of the UN-supervised referendum held in April 1993. The majority voted for independence from Ethiopia. UN Photo# 159915
		2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
		3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. Newly-elected President Nelson Mandela of South Africa addresses the crowd from a balcony of the Townhall in 1994. UN Photo# 186835C
		Article 22: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co- operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality. Members of the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers Group. UN Photo# 182308C
		Article 23: 1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. A stone carver practices his art in India. UN Photo# 151463C
		2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
		3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
		4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
		Article 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. A soccer game in Buenos Aires, Argentina. UN Photo# 133440C
		Article 25: 1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. A baby in a camp in Ruhengeri, Rwanda. UN Photo# 186791C
		2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection. A young mother holds her child in Cochabamba, Bolivia. UN Photo# 155246C
		Article 26: 1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Girls learn to sew in a Fayum, Egypt classroom. UN Photo# 149112C
		2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Friends in Accro, Israel. UN Photo# 149179C
		3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Mastering the art of writing in Karachi, Pakistan. UN Photo# 152390C
		Article 27: 1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. Children participate in a dance routine in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. UN Photo# 152747C
		2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. Marine scientist at work. UN Photo# 155145C
		Article 28: Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. AIDS victim requesting money from passerbys in Warsaw, Poland shopping district. UN Photo# 159702C
		Article 29: 1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. Two seventeen-year-old Heiltsuk girls beat their deerhide drums before a cedar totem which is protecting an ancient midden on Calvert Island. UN Photo# 186598C
		2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. A United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) observation post in Sector West of Croatia in 1994. UN Photo# 193541C
		3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. A poster showing the preamble to the United Nations charter. UN Photo# 161694C
		Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.