December 10 is UN Human Rights Day

December 10 is UN Human Rights Day, commemorating the anniversary of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This landmark document enshrines the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being – regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, whole outreach list as you suggested political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Did you know that less than 5% of humans know that the UDHR exists? We encourage all to follow the call by the Human Rights Action Center to have all nations print the UDHR in their passports.

December 10 is also the day that the Nobel Peace Committee presents the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots nonviolent movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is receiving the Peace Prize for demonstrating, through witness testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be used again - and for their efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

The threat of nuclear weapons destroying humanity is extreme and growing!

Nonviolence International commemorates Human Rights Day by:

• Commending Nihon Hidankyo for being selected for the Nobel Peace Prize;
• Calling for global respect of human rights through full adherence to the core international human rights treaties. This includes the human right to peace and the obligations under human rights law to prevent nuclear war and achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world.
• Support citizen direct action against nuclear weapons as demonstrated by the more than 100 ploughshare actions in many countries. NVI’s Isaiah Project supports this campaign

Right to Life without the Threat of Nuclear Weapons

Nonviolence International supports Abolition 2000 in a letter commending Hidankyo ”for their tireless determination over decades to lead the world away from the nuclear abyss” and which highlights the affirmation by the UN Human Rights Committee in General Comment No. 36 (2018) that “The threat or use of …. nuclear weapons, which are indiscriminate in effect and are of a nature to cause destruction of human life on a catastrophic scale is incompatible with respect for the right to life and may amount to a crime under international law.”  

We welcome the statement Right to life without Threat of Nuclear Weapons, by Kazakhstan and 39 cosponsoring countries, which highlights UN Human Rights Committee General Comment 36, and calls on all States to “restrengthen thenuclear taboo, foster dialogue and confidence-building measures and achieve nuclear disarmament with urgency and determination in line with the collective commitments outlined in the very first United Nations General Assembly resolution as well as obligations under Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and other relevant treaties.”

Human Rights day reminds us that we have much work to do. For nuclear weapons abolition, please become monthly supporters of nonviolent direct action groups such as NukeWatch, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and NVI’s Isaiah Project.

Peace,

Paul Magno, Director of the Isaiah Project

P.S. The Stimson Center is presenting a webinar on human rights day entitled Arms Trade Treaty at 10 years. NVI has deeply supported the ATT and Control Arms.You need to know about this obscure humanitarian disarmament treaty.

Nonviolence International
https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/