Human rights in East Asia
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was implemented on 10 December 1948 by the United Nations. Therefore, we have officially witnessed 68 years of the United Nations approaching human rights issues on a global scale. The declaration was created after the end of World War II and was the first worldwide acknowledgement of the rights each individual human being is entitled to. When the UDHR was first created the United Nations was only made up of 51 member states, but after the surge of decolonisation’s, beginning in the late 1940s, the UN is now made up of 193 nations. Since 1948, many Eastern Asian countries who were formally colonised have since achieved independence and have joined the UN, therefore acknowledging the UDHR and other major human rights treaties. There is currently no human rights body governing the Eastern Asian region, however the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) issued the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration in 2012.
Michel Forst
During this period, he was involved in many human rights projects, including the organisation of the first summit on human rights defenders in Paris in 1998. This event was held as the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with more than 350 human rights defenders attending the summit. The presence of Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, drew significant attention on the event. Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, then French President and Prime Minister respectively, intervened during the closing session, reaffirming France's commitment to the protection of human rights defenders. On 9 December 1998, in New York, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, now commonly known as the Declaration on human rights defenders. That same year, human rights defenders were to receive the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.