Meeting at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by a vote of 48 in favor, none against, and eight abstentions. Drafted under the chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt, the 30-article document articulated rights to life, liberty, education, and freedom from torture and slavery. Though not legally binding, it became the foundational text for international human rights law.
The horrors of the Second World War, particularly the Holocaust, convinced Allied leaders that the world needed a shared statement of fundamental rights that no government could legitimately violate. Eleanor Roosevelt, appointed by President Truman as a delegate to the UN, chaired the drafting committee, which included the Lebanese philosopher Charles Malik, the Chinese playwright Peng Chun Chang, and the French jurist René Cassin, who wrote much of the final text.
The drafters deliberately avoided grounding the document in any single religious or political tradition, seeking language that could command assent from communist, capitalist, secular, and religious states alike. Eight nations abstained, including the Soviet bloc, South Africa under apartheid, and Saudi Arabia, each objecting to different provisions.
Roosevelt called the Declaration's adoption 'a step forward in a great evolutionary process,' and she considered it the greatest achievement of her long public career. Though the document carries no enforcement mechanism, it has been invoked in the drafting of dozens of national constitutions and international treaties, and December 10 is now observed worldwide as Human Rights Day.