This year is a time to remember and reiterate two key instruments which have shaped responses to human rights implementation since the end of World War II in 1945. It was the task of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), based on a Resolution of the UN General Assembly adopted in 1948, to identify and list a number of key rights of a global nature.
This was the beginning of normative cartography locating civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, such as freedom of expression and social security, in the concept of non-discrimination of universal import. These were the basic minimum benchmarks to which all countries should aspire. The part on "rights and freedoms" found in subsequent Thai constitutions is derived from the UDHR, and this year the latter will be 75 years old, still waiting for fulfilment at the national level.
