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    Boundlessly Idealistic, Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Is Still Resisted

    Seventy years ago, the global community nearly unanimously approved a list of fundamental human rights. But many of those rights remain unachieved today.
    by Tom Gjelten Dec 10, 2018 4 minutes
    Eleanor Roosevelt holds up a copy of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in December 1948.

    Given the rivalries and violence that divide the global community today, it is hard to imagine that on December 10, 1948, the nations of the world approved, almost unanimously, a detailed list of fundamental rights that every human on the planet should enjoy.

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the most sweeping such statement ever endorsed on a worldwide basis, opened by asserting, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." It proceeded with 30 articles summarizing the things to which everyone would be entitled in a world of genuine peace and justice.

    In the immediate aftermath of two horrifying world wars, not a single member state of the newly created United Nations dared oppose the Declaration, though

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