The idea of legislative protection of human rights against the arbitrariness of the ruling powers began to take shape in the twentieth century, especially with the establishment of the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization (ILO), and with the beginning of their struggle for minority rights, workers’ rights and other values. Individual countries had already recognized the importance of codifying these rights in written form, and the documents mentioned above were thus the early precursors of many of today’s human rights agreements. But it was the Second World War that really brought human rights to the international stage. After all the terrible atrocities committed in that war – including the Holocaust and massive war crimes – there was an urgent need for a new system of international legal standards and, above all, for a system of human rights measures as we know them today.
The Charter of the United Nations, signed on June 26, 1945, states that the main task of the UN is “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted by the UN Commission on Human Rights and adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948. Undoubtedly, the adoption of the UDHR was a great breakthrough, and today the Declaration remains the most important human rights instrument in the world. Even without being legally binding, the UDHR has inspired numerous commitments to human rights, whether at the national, regional or international level. Since then, the international community has developed and adopted a number of fundamental instruments designed to guarantee the declared principles. Further information on some of these international agreements can be found later in this chapter.