The Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out universal values and a common standard of achievement for all people and nations.

With 2018 being the 70th anniversary for the declaration, United Nations Human Rights Regional representative, Dr. Chitralekha Messey says it has established dignity and worth of every person.

Dr. Messey also adds that there is still more work needed.

“Seventy years after and it continues to be relevant today as it was seventy-years ago and what’s astonishing for possibly the younger generation that seventy-years after we want this to be the reality for our lives, we are still struggling to say. We’ve done it. We still have a lot of work to”

Pacific Islands Development Forum Team Leader Programme Management, Mark Borg adds that it’s crucial to also look out for the rights of others.

“We don’t only defend human rights only when they affect us personally, we defend them when they affect others as well and that’s very important. Because by the time we let the human rights of other people slip then these rights will affect us eventually.”

Meanwhile, with the commemoration of the declaration marked for the 10th of December, major celebrations are in the pipeline for the Pacific on the 16th of this month.

The theme of the year-long celebration is “The sun rising on the next seven decades for human rights.”