Drafting committee member Charles Malik commented that the declaration was really answering the question "what is a man?" More specifically, the UN Charter had vowed to protect human rights—but w...

The UDHR loves to repeat a couple of phrases. And that's basically what parallel structure is: the repetition of a format. "Everyone has the right" and "no one shall" recur again and again through...

You don't even have to look beyond the title for the most important motif in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document goes to great lengths to constantly remind you that it is suppos...

The declaration is largely about the rights of the individual. The protection of the individual can really be traced back to the four freedoms alluded to in the preamble (freedom from fear and want...

Pump the brakes on your individuality because the declaration also makes numerous references to community. Everyone is their own person with their own rights, but we do have to live with each other...