What is the importance of Human Rights?

When the UN General Assembly adopted UDHR in 1948, it only intended the Declaration to be ‘a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations’. However, 60 years after the Declaration, one finds that it still stands as the single most important normative act ever adopted by the United Nations, for a number of reasons.

Therefore, the importance of Human Rights can be briefed as:

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) provided the normative basis for all future activities of the United, Nations in the field of Human Rights.
• The diverse provisions of UDHR inspired the eventual drafting and adoption of numerous treaties and further declarations on specific aspects of human rights. 
• In fact, almost all the United Nations’ human rights instruments that have emerged so far are in some way or the other based on UDHR.
• The Declaration also inspired efforts at the regional level for evolving human rights institutions. 

Further Reading:

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Fundamental Rights – Articles 12-35
• United Nations