Human Rights 101: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In this lesson, students will learn how human rights differ from civil rights and gain introductory knowledge of how the international community united to define and defend human rights.
Hernán Santa Cruz, 1947.
Source: United Nations.
Hernán Santa Cruz was born into an upper-middle class family in Santiago, Chile in 1906. Following in the footsteps of his father, Santa Cruz became a lawyer and began practicing in 1922. Despite not feeling that he was qualified for the position, Santa Cruz was appointed the permanent representative of Chile to the United Nations by President Gabriel González Videla in 1946. As a member of the UDHR drafting committee, Santa Cruz brought a practical socioeconomic focus to a discussion that often tended towards the philosophical. Over the next four decades, Santa Cruz played a pivotal role in advocating for Latin America within the United Nations; among other roles, he proposed the creation of the Economic Commission for Latin American & the Caribbean and served as a Regional Director for Latin America on the Food and Agriculture Organization. Hernán Santa Cruz retied in 1984 and died in his hometown in 1999.
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