The universal declaration on human rights was adopted by the UN due o the experience of WW2.

Question

What aspects of WW2 might have led the UN to want to make human rights a top priority?

 

Just need a few ideas.

 

Thanks so much

Answer 1

Most probably the military aggression committed by Germany, Japan and Italy (the "Axis powers") during and before World War II which itself resulted in considerable violations of human rights, e.g., harm to persons and property (cf. Article 17 of the Declaration: "(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his [sic] property"). Plus the dictatorial and authoritarian natures and actions of the Axis governments may have given special impetus to some of the tenets of the Declaration, e.g., Article 5, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," and Article 9, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile." And of course the fresh memory of the genocidal consequences of the Holocaust perpetrated primarily by the government of Germany, which involved violations of human rights on a scale never before experienced in human history, undoubtedly underlay both the issuance and much of the content of the Declaration, as signaled, for example, in this phrase of its Preamble: "Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind . . ."