High Commissioner Robinson. JIM HARRISON

Nineteen ninety-eight is a year when we mark the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You will notice that I do not use the word "celebrate." I think we don't celebrate; we mark in a somber and reflective way the fiftieth anniversary. It is a year when we reaffirm our commitment to work for change and to demonstrate that the principles of the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration are not too theoretical, nor too abstract. The success of our efforts can only be measured by the improved well being of individuals around the world.

The Universal Declaration was the first international agreement aimed at the improvement of all human rights for all people. It was a document shaped and generated to a large extent by the vision of a truly inspiring woman from the United States. A woman who had committed her life to worthy goals and who, although extremely shy, made herself a powerful voice on behalf of a wide range of social causes, not least the cause of improving the treatment of women. The woman was, of course, Eleanor Roosevelt, who, as the US representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights and later as its chairperson, was largely responsible for the Universal Declaration.

Mrs. Roosevelt was neither a scholar nor an expert on international law. She saw herself as an ambassador for the common man and woman, and her enthusiasm, combined with her humanitarian convictions, resulted in a Declaration that has endured as a universally accepted standard of achievement for all people and all nations.

But if rights didn't have meaning locally, in the factory, farm, or office, Mrs. Roosevelt thought they would have little meaning elsewhere and she warned that: "Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain at progress in the larger world."

Extreme poverty, illiteracy, homelessness, and the vulnerability of children to exploitation are all areas requiring much greater effort. Economic and social rights are in every sense interdependent with civil and political rights. I recognize you cannot truly advance them unless you're also prepared to advance strongly economic and social rights. And that's a big challenge for this great country, a very big challenge right now.

The motto of the fiftieth anniversary, "All human rights for all," expresses what we must commit ourselves to achieving in the years ahead. It is evident that in many parts of the world, there is little cause for celebration--far from it. At the end of January, I visited a shelter in Phnom Penh for women who had been victims of trafficking for the sex trade. I sat in a small room and listened to a 15-year-old girl who was forced in the door of a sex brothel where she was beaten until she complied for 16 or 17 hours a day with what was required of her. She managed to escape after three months and she was trying to rebuild her sense of herself. As I looked into her eyes I was aware that she wasn't alone in her misery; that millions of children and women, worldwide, endure a similar fate. It's modern slavery. The rights for far too many remain little more than words on paper. We are all the custodians of human rights and we must all find our own way to do what is required.