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"International Human Rights Day reminds us of persisting human rights problems in our communities and in the world, and of the enormous efforts still required to make human rights a reality for all."
- Secretary General Kofi Annan

Human Rights Day is celebrated around the world annually on December 10. The date was chosen to honor the United Nation's General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on December 10,
1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global enunciation of universal human rights norms and standards. Human Rights Day was established in 1950, when the General Assembly invited all nations and interested organizations to celebrate the day as they
saw fit.

The day is a high point at UN headquarters in New York City and is typically marked by both high-level political conferences and meetings and by cultural events and exhibitions dealing with human rights issues. In addition, the UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights is traditionally awarded every five years on Human Rights Day.

Communities, educational institutions, faith groups and grassroots organizations in the United States and around the world use Human Rights Day as a tool to raise awareness around a multitude of human rights issues and to highlight ongoing violations of economic, social, cultural, environmental, sexual, political, and civil rights at the local, regional, national, or international level.

Recent themes for
Human Rights Day have included "Torture and Global Efforts to CombatTortu re" in 2005, and "Human Rights Education" in 2004. "Poverty as a Human Rights Issue" in 2006.

The
US Human Rights Network has produced this Online Activist Toolkit to assist individual activists and member organizations in commemorating Human Rights Day this year and into the future. The toolkit includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to be posted and disseminated widely, event announcements for Human Rights Day 2007, ideas for commemorating Human Rights Day, articles from member organizations on Poverty and Human Rights, helpful hints for working with the media around Human Rights Day, and templates for organizational media advisories and action alerts that can be tailored to your organization's events and actions around Human Rights Day. We hope that you will find the Toolkit useful.

Human Rights Day Toolkit - Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The people cannot hold governments accountable to their human rights obligations unless we know what our human rights are. Please familiarize yourself and your organizations with the UDHR and
disseminate the document as widely as possible! You can include the UDHR on your organizational website, in your mailings, to hand out at rallies and demos, in conference registration packets, and at your offices or schools! You can ask professors to disseminate the UDHR to their history, law, political science, gender or cultural studies classes.

We have included the Univesal Declaration of Human Rights here in English, Spanish and French. Translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are also available in 365 languages!