Conjuring Up New Human Rights: A Proposal For Quality Control

Abstract

Writing in 1968, the year of the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Richard Bilder concluded that “in practice, a claim is an international human right if the United Nations General Assembly says it is.” Fifteen years later, as the 35th anniversary is celebrated, the authoritative role that Bilder correctly attributed to the General Assembly is in serious danger of being undermined.