HUMAN RIGHTS HERE AND NOW
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© UN Photo/Emmanuel Hungrecker

 

I'm here in this magnificent building of the UN library in the Palais des Nations in Geneva and I'm looking at the first French translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

- Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

 

 

“This is the old, yellowed copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which I first got when I was 15 and it never left me and it has inspired me throughout my whole life.”

Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
 
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“This is the document that helped us advance human rights in the world and we have come a long way if you look back at 75 years ago when this text was drafted and translated.

- Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

 

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Learn more about Human RightsWatch more videos about Human RightsLearn more about drafting the Universal Declaration of Human RightsLook at drafts of the Universal Declaration in different languages
“I’m reading the comments that the South African government in 1948 made on the draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (…) and it’s horrible to see the types of comments that are made about the fact that cruel or inhuman punishment (…) from the perspective of the Apartheid South African government would be something that they would accept under certain circumstances.”
 
Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
 

 

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“If one looks at the situation in Afghanistan at the moment where you have the de facto authorities essentially creating gender apartheid, it’s clear that we can never give up our fight for human rights and we always need to make the case again and again and again because that’s what it is all about.”
 
Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
 

 

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