Rene Cassin Quotes

In less than eighteen months, it prepared a first draft which it submitted to the General Assembly and which, at the end of one hundred sessions of elevated, often impassioned discussion, was adopted in the form of thirty articles on December 10, 1948.

What makes the Universal Declaration an epochal document is first of all its global impetus and secondly the breadth of its claims, a commitment to a new social contract, binding on all the Governments of the world.

Within a few weeks the organization for the maintenance of international peace and security, established by the San Francisco Charter, will be formally launched through the convocation of the first General Assembly of the United Nations.

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.

… the international Magna Carta of all mankind

The United Nations is an organization of sovereign states, but the rights that it upholds belong to individuals.

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjugation of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security. But these, too, as were the phrases of the Covenant, are only words; their value depends wholly on our will to observe and honor them and give them content and meaning. The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act — and if necessary, to suffer and die — for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied.

A United Nations that will not stand up for human rights is a United Nations that cannot stand up for itself.

We must never relent in our efforts to resolve conflicts through diplomacy and through all of the instruments bestowed by the Charter of the United Nations.

Freedom is a timeless value. The United Nations Charter calls for encouraging respect for fundamental freedoms. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights mentions freedom more than twenty times. All countries have committed to protecting individual freedoms on paper - but in practice, too many break their pledge.

The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.

Nations have lost their traditional exclusive jurisdiction over their treatment of their citizens.

There should be a single standard in the world for human rights.

We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. We hope its proclamation by the General Assembly will be an event comparable to the proclamation in 1789 the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the U.S., and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries...

Those who still believe the United Nations is a human rights organization with the best of intentions are kidding themselves.

I think the United Nations is a useful format to discuss matters, but I think it's a weak institution in being able to carry out matters and, in many respects even, it has been harmful on things like human rights.

In the aftermath of the second world war, nations came together to say 'never again.' They established the United Nations and agreed a simple set of universal standards of decency for mankind to cling to: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The drafting of a legally binding instrument concerning the human rights impacts of the activities of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and other business enterprises has been proposed. Such a treaty or convention should strengthen the United Nations “protect, respect and remedy” framework of the Guiding Principles, which were unanimously endorsed by the Human Rights Council in 2011.

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man.

We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind, that is the approval by the General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It is essential to understand that the U.N.'s strength lies in its values. The values enshrined in the Charter, the values the U.N. stands for, the values all religions respect.

The thing about talking about human rights is that when one bears in mind the sharp end of it, one does not want to worry too much about semantics.

I wouldn't give up on the U.N. yet.

When people say the U.N. is useless, I ask the question, which U.N. are we talking about? We have the U.N. that is a secretariat led by the secretary general, and we have a U.N. made up of member states who give us our mandate.

United Nations Day marks the birthday of our founding Charter - the landmark document that embodies the hopes, dreams and aspirations of 'we the peoples.'