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Passed by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948, the Declaration
of Human Rights follows in the tradition of the Declaration of
Independence (1776), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen (1789), Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795), Pope Leo XIII's
encyclical Rerum Novarum: On the Condition of Labour (1891), and more
recently Pope John XXIII's encyclical Pacem in Terris: On Establishing
Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity, and Liberty (1963). Like the U.S. and Texas Bills of Rights it
describes limits that all governments should heed in respect of their
citizens. Beyond the negative liberties characteristic of the
U.S. and Texas Bills of Rights, the Declaration of Human Rights declares
in positive and comprehensive terms the essential dignity, equality, and
rights of all human beings. It defines in detail the positive obligations of societies to their
citizens and families, for example to provide employment under safe and
favorable conditions, social as well as military security, a standard of
living adequate to meet individual and family needs, and free compulsory
elementary education and widely accessible higher education. The
Declaration concludes noting that each individual bears reciprocal
obligations to the community which alone makes possible "the free and
full development of his personality."
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