The date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on December 10, 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first major achievements of the new United Nations. The formal establishment of Human Rights Day occurred at the 317th Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on December 4, 1950, when the General Assembly declared resolution 423(V), inviting all member states and any other interested organizations to celebrate the day as they saw fit.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights has two articles concerning labor rights:
Article 23
● Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
● Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
● Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
● Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24
● Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
The day is normally marked both by high-level political conferences and meetings and by cultural events and exhibitions dealing with human rights issues. Many governmental and nongovernmental organizations active in the human rights field also schedule special events to commemorate the day, as do many civil and social-cause organizations.
Image by Val Kerry CC BY 2.0
Wikipedia contributed to this article.
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