Rights and peace

December 10, 2023 marked the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly, meeting in Paris, l 'had adopted with 48 votes in favour, no against but eight abstentions (Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the USSR and five states of the Soviet bloc: governments notoriously on a collision course with the culture of human rights).

The legal system of the international community today appears particularly attentive to guaranteeing effective protection of human rights, an essential element for peace. However, the road still appears long and arduous. With the Universal Declaration, for the first time in an international regulatory instrument it was stated that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that States are required to recognize and respect them.

However, the Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly, which does not have the power of decision (binding legislative act), but only that of recommendation (non-binding act). Although solemn, of high political and moral value, it therefore remains an instrument without obligatory effectiveness. States have therefore adopted multilateral treaties on the subject: the Pacts of 16 December 1966 on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights. These treaties were followed by other important agreements, such as those on the prohibition of racial discrimination, the prohibition of discrimination against women, the rights of the child, the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. These are legal instruments that bind the States that have ratified them.

However, many States have taken this important step without fully accepting all the consequences that this implied, especially in terms of the relationship between the internationalization of the protection of rights and the limitation of the sphere of domestic jurisdiction, the “reserved domain” of national sovereignty that governments strenuously defend. In other words, the effective respect of human rights remains essentially entrusted to the bodies of the States. History shows that not only are States rather reluctant to work to guarantee this effective protection, but also that they are often themselves directly responsible or the instigators of the most serious violations of human rights.

Precisely on the International Human Rights Day, 10 December 2023, the ceremony for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Iranian Narges Mohammadi took place in Oslo. In prison in Evin, the horrendous prison of the regime's political prisoners, the courageous fighter for the affirmation of women's rights in her country sent a message, which was read by her seventeen-year-old children Kiana and Ali, refugees in Paris with the father. The veil that is violently imposed on women "is not a religious obligation nor a cultural model, but a means of control and subjugation of the whole society", writes this formidable woman. In the solemn ceremony, in the presence of the King of Norway Harald and the Queen, the intention was to symbolically leave the chair empty, on which the award was placed. That empty chair, the great dignity of Narges Mohammadi's husband and two children are a warning and a heartfelt request for help for all of us. Taghi Rahmani, Mohamnmadi's husband, recalled with sobriety and dignity that "in 24 years of marriage we have had five or six years of common life", with his wife the subject of persecution with thirteen arrests and five convictions. The two children have not seen their mother for eight years. The Woman, Life, Freedom movement (arising from the protests over the assassination of Mahsa Amini, who wore the veil in a way deemed not to comply with the rules imposed by the barbaric regime in Tehran), which Narges gave voice to, needs the support of society civil, all over the world. The cry of this courageous woman is powerful. «I am a Middle Eastern woman and I come from a region that, despite its rich civilization, is now trapped in war, the fires of terrorism and extremism. I am an Iranian woman, a proud and honorable contribution to civilization, which is currently under the oppression of a misogynistic and despotic government."

75 years after the Universal Declaration, States are called to concretely implement the noble principle on which the entire Declaration is based: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". As the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella reminded us, this year the anniversary falls in "a situation characterized by serious and systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law which offend the consciences of women and men on the planet". Governments, institutions, civil society are called to give voice to those asking for help, and call for respect for dignity and rights. Narges Mohammadi shouts at us that "I write this message from behind the high, cold walls of a prison."


Edoardo Greppi
NP January 2024