United Nations

As of now the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 does not include a Right to Peace. We want to change that with your help.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Illustrated version)

Drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Effort to Adopt the Declaration on the Right to Peace

On 19 December 2016, the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 71/189, adopting the Declaration on the Right to Peace proposed by the Human Rights Council in Resolution 32/28, of 1 July 2016.

This concluded six years of preparatory work, which began at the Human Rights Council in 2010, when civil society organizations, led by the AEDIDH, proposed the Santiago Declaration on the Human Right to Peace of 10 December 2010 as a model.

The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee (eighteen independent experts) approved the Declaration on the Right to Peace on 16 April 2012 after two years of intense work in close collaboration with civil society. This Declaration included 85% of the provisions set out in the Santiago Declaration.

However, 474 civil society organizations have rejected the Declaration approved by the General Assembly, because it does not recognize either the human right to peace or its essential elements.

Neither does General Assembly Resolution 71/189 represent a consensus among states: it was approved with 131 votes for, 34 against and with 19 abstentions.

Moreover, the General Assembly is aware that there is scope for improving the Declaration and decided to discuss the right to peace again in 2018.

The AEDIDH and the Observatorio Internacional del Derecho Humano a la Paz are therefore calling on all civil society organizations to support the Santiago Declaration and to continue promoting the Declaration, which defends the interests of civil society, with the aim of persuading states to revise the approved Declaration on the Right to Peace in 2018.