As a project partially underwritten by the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, I’ve undertaken to distribute information about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The preamble includes these words: “…Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people…” 

Reading the UDHR’s 30 Articles of Rights, I’m stunned to see how poorly we have realized the noble ideas they espouse, and I want to remind people of these ambitions which came out of the tragedies of WWII. In this spirit, I’ve begun distributing condensed versions of each right with my products in the hope that seeing one article will spur the recipient to explore further and read the entire Declaration.

Here is an abbreviated version of the rights:

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal…

Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all these rights … without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status…

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude…

Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment…

Article 6: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled … to equal protection … against any discrimination…

Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing … of any criminal charge…

Article 11: Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty…

Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence…

Article 13: Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence… Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.

Article 14: Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution…

Article 15: Everyone has the right to a nationality…

Article 16: Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family…

Article 17: Everyone has the right to own property…

Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion… in teaching, practice, worship and observance…

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression … and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas…

Article 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association…

Article 21: Everyone has the right to take part in the government … [and] of equal access to public service. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government…

Article 22: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization … of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for their dignity and the free development of their personality…

Article 23: Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment … to equal pay for equal work … [and] to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for themselves and their family an existence worthy of human dignity…  Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions…

Article 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure…

Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and of their family… Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance…

Article 26: Everyone has the right to education…

Article 27: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement…

Article 28: Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29: Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible…

Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.