Remarks celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in New York City: December 9, 1997

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 22, 1997

Thank you very much, Gay, for your introduction and for your superlative work. Thank you, Ambassador Richardson, for your distinguished representation of our country and for the campaign speech you gave for Gay - [laughter] - proving that diplomacy and politics can never be fully separated and shouldn't be. Thank you, Mr. Morgenthau, for all you have done for the people of New York and for the contributions that you and your family have made, which are memorialized in this wonderful place. And I thank you and David Altshuler for the tour I had before we started tonight.

I'd like to thank the others who are here in our administration who have worked on areas of human rights: OAS Ambassador Victor Marrero; ECOSOC Ambassador Betty King; Ambassador Nancy Rubin, our representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. And I'd like to say a special word of thanks to John Shattuck, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, who has really worked hard for a very long time under enormously adverse circumstances - sometimes when his President couldn't do everything he wanted him to do. Thank you, and God bless you.

I thank Congresswoman Nita Lowey for being here and for her alert leadership on so many issues. And we thank the President of the General Assembly and all the members of the diplomatic corps who are here as we launch the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

As human rights advocates, defenders, and educators, more than anyone else, the people in this room and those whom you represent give life to the words of the Universal Declaration. You shine the light of freedom on oppression, speak on behalf of the voiceless, spark the conscience of the world. Again I want to thank Gay for her tireless commitment to justice and equality. But I thank all of you for the work you do every day to make human rights a human reality.

The idea of a global declaration of rights emerged from the trauma of global war in which human rights were the first casualty. Here at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, we remember the evil of the Holocaust. But thanks to the marvelous conception of this unique place, we can also celebrate the strength of the human spirit, the will to endure and to preserve human dignity.

Under the wise, compassionate leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, half a century ago 18 delegates from China to Lebanon, Chile to Ukraine forged the first international agreement on the rights of humankind. On December 10th, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration without a single dissenting vote. I am very proud that the First Lady, who has traveled the world to advance human rights, especially for women and young girls, will take part in tomorrow's United Nations commemoration.

Over the past half-century, the declaration's 30 articles have formed a constellation of principles to which all people can aspire. They have entered the consciousness of people all around the world. They're now invoked routinely in constitutions and courts. They set a yardstick of humanity's best practices against which we must all now measure ourselves.

But as Eleanor Roosevelt said, words on paper bring no guarantees, and I quote, "unless the people know them, unless the people understand them, unless the people demand that they be lived." Promoting respect for human rights is a fulfilling, but never fulfilled, obligation. Fifty years since the charter was forged, communism has been discredited, but threats to freedom and human rights still persist. Human rights are still at risk from Burma to Nigeria, from Belarus to China. Although more than half the world's people now live under governments of their own choosing, democracy's roots are still fragile in some countries. Others are besieged by forces ranging from drug cartels to organized crime. And even in democracies, human rights, which so often mean minority rights, are not guaranteed.

And while we celebrate the end of communism and the fact that it's enabled so many people to affirm their special differences, religious, ethnic, and cultural, we have also seen from Bosnia to Rwanda that old hatreds can become the newest human rights abuses. And let us remember in this museum that having a people who are well-educated and prosperous, even having a government that is popularly elected are not in themselves sufficient to guarantee human rights.

But let us also remember that being educated by Western standards and prosperous are not necessary conditions for human rights or for people who want them. Men and women from Cambodia to Romania, Argentina, South Africa, and Russia have shown that, regardless of the economic condition of a nation, freedom is not - contrary to what the critics of the declaration say - an American or a Western or a wealthy nation right; it is a human right and a universal aspiration.

Advancing human rights must always be a central pillar of America's foreign policy. Looking back over the last 5 years, we see notable achievements; we also see missed opportunities. And looking ahead, we see an enormous amount of work still to be done.