World Marks International Human Rights Day

International Human Rights Day, which celebrates the anniversary of the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly, was marked on December 10. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement in honor of the observance that human rights should be “front and center of response and recovery” to the coronavirus crisis.  “We need universal, rights-based frameworks like health coverage for all, to beat this pandemic and protect us for the future,” he said in the statement issued on Thursday. He added that the pandemic “is undermining human rights, by providing a pretext for heavy-handed security responses and repressive measures that curtail civic space and media freedom.”  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted in a statement that then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt convened the United Nations conference that created the declaration. “History demonstrates that governance that respects human rights and upholds the dignity of all human beings makes the world a safer and more prosperous place. But history also teaches that human rights must always be vigilantly protected,” Pompeo said. He added that the United States “urges all nations to safeguard the human rights we all cherish.”