Universal Declaration for Animal Welfare
Editor’s Note: This declaration for ‘animal kind,’ first developed by the World Society for the Protection of Animals, has not been officially adopted by the United Nations. But after a number of iterations and evolutions over the years, this 2011 draft version is wending its way through the UN, where member states are reviewing it. If approved, […]
Declaration of Internet Freedom (2012)
Editor’s Note: This declaration, which includes five core principles, was initially the brainchild of the U.S.-based advocacy group Free Press and the New America Foundation’s Open Technologies Institute. In short order, thousands of organizations, startup entrepreneurs and tech luminaries joined the Declaration of Internet Freedom bandwagon. One key aim is to secure millions of endorsements of the declaration on the […]
UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Nov. 20, 1963)
Editor’s Note: The adoption of this declaration over a half century ago by the United Nations General Assembly led to enactment of the binding International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which took effect in 1969. All signatories to the agreement pledge both to do away with racial discrimination and build […]
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998)
Editor’s Note: This declaration was adopted in 1998 in Geneva, at the 86th session of the International Labor Conference, the declaration of the International Labor Organization — a United Nations agency that focuses on labor issues and that received in 1969 the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve social and economic just […]
An Initial Declaration Towards a Global Ethic (September 4, 1993)
Editor’s Note: The first draft of this declaration was composed by the Swiss Catholic priest and scholar Dr. Hans Kung — known for his rejection of the notion of papal infallibility — and then was further worked on by approximately 200 scholars affiliated with many of the world’s principal faith traditions. It aims to set forth a global ethic […]
Universal Declaration of Non-Violence (1990)
Editor’s note: The genesis of this declaration was a series of conversations between the Dalai Lama and Bro. Wayne Teasdale, a Catholic monk and noted author and social justice activist. Over time, as the late Bro. Teasdale describes it, they “examined the possibility of a statement formally separating religion from any relationship with organized violence, […]
The Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World (1920)
Editor’s note: On August 13, 1920, this declaration of black grievances, rights and principles was drafted and adopted at a convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, presided over by Marcus Garvey, a leading advocate of Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism. Garvey had a sizable following of disenfranchised black Americans — as demonstrated by the more than 20,000 […]
Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1928
Editor’s Note: A precursor to the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, this 1928 document was adapted by the members of the League of Nations. It is unprecedented in that it sets forth for the first time in a formal international accord that children have rights and that adults have responsibilities towards assuring […]
Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans: Whales and Dolphins (2010)
Editor’s Note: This declaration, which spells out what it maintains should be the legal rights under international law of whales and dolphins, is a product of the Helsinki Group, formed, as the website issuing the document says, “out of the ‘Cetacean Rights: Fostering Moral and Legal Change Conference,’ held in Helsinki, Finland in May 2010, […]
Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
Editor’s Note: This convention, a binding treaty endorsed by 176 nations (referred to in this document as “state parties”), was adopted by the UN General Assembly on the 30th anniversary of 1959 UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Convention on the Rights of the Child U.N. General Assembly (12 December 1989) with AnnexThe General […]
