Celebrating the UDHR at 75: IOF’s joint statement to UN ambassadors on society’s irreplaceable foundation

Last updated on February 2nd, 2024 at 03:23 am

IOF has submitted the following statement, joined by organizations around the world, to all UN ambassadors in New York for the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 2023.

Protect, Strengthen, and Treasure:

How to Celebrate the Universal Declaration at 75

Seventy-five years ago as the United Nations was about to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt told the General Assembly,   

We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind… This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.^[1]

And so it has become. Translated into over 500 languages and said to be the most universal document in the world,^[2] the Declaration stands as “a moral and educational manifesto”^[3] and “the single most important reference point for cross-national discussions of how to order our future together on our increasingly conflict-ridden and interdependent planet.”^[4] Never mind that it is non-binding, for it has served as “a powerful inspiration for an array of rights conventions and declarations in the postwar period,”^[5] has been “adopted in or has influenced most national constitutions since 1948,” and “served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as regional, national, and sub-national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.”^[6] It has even been called “a moral guiding star”^[7] for humanity.

But in recent years, something has gone amiss. “Time and forgetfulness are taking their toll,” wrote Professor Mary Ann Glendon in 2001, as “the Declarationhas come to be treated more like a monument to be venerated from a distance than a living document to be reappropriated by each generation. Rarely, in fact, has a text been so widely praised yet so little read or understood,”^[8] while its meaning is often distorted. 

The Declaration’s ability to weather the turbulence ahead has been compromised by the practice of reading its integrated articles as a string of essentially separate guarantees. Nations and interest groups continue to use selected provisions as weapons or shields, wrenching them out of context and ignoring the rest…. Forgetfulness, neglect, and opportunism have thus obscured the Declaration’s message that rights have conditions—that everyone’s rights are importantly dependent on respect for the rights of others, on the rule of law, and on a healthy civil society.^[9]

And what is the foundation of a healthy civil society? The Declaration leaves no doubt. In its entire enumeration of rights, only one “specifically devolves to a group rather than an individual,”^[10] only one is described as “natural,” and only one accrues to society’s fundamental group unit. Article 16(3) declares, 

The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

The language is clear, the meaning unmistakable. In “precise and elegant terms,” noted Professor Richard Wilkins, the Declaration describes the family as “the natural and fundamental group unit of society” because it is “derived from the natural union of a man and a woman.”^[11] And the fact that the family “is entitled to protection by society and the State” presupposes, as expressed in the Charter on the Rights of the Family, that it “exists prior to the State or any other community, and possesses inherent rights which are inalienable.”[12] In short, Article 16(3) is intended, according to UN Special Rapporteur Manfred Nowak, to “shield the family as the cornerstone of the entire social order.”^[13]

“Cornerstone” is also one of the words used to describe the family in the hundred-plus national constitutions that have provisions echoing Article 16(3) as these jealously sovereign nations remarkably declare that the fundamental unit of society is not the state but the family. Some track the language of “natural and fundamental group unit,” while others call the family the “natural and fundamental cell,” or “fundamental nucleus,” or “natural and moral basis,” or “primary and fundamental genesis of the spiritual and moral values,” or “basic foundation” or “natural foundation,” or “natural and moral foundation.”

Whatever the nuance of language, the message is always the same: the family is irreplaceable, indispensable, foundational, even as described by historian Will Durant, “The family is the ultimate foundation of every civilization known to history.”^[14]

No wonder Michael Novak, US Ambassador to the Commission on Human Rights, could declare, “Political and social planning in a wise social order begins with the axiom What strengthens the family strengthens society…. The roles of a father and a mother, and of children with respect to them, is the absolutely critical center of social force.”[15]

No wonder the Doha Declaration could state, “The family is not only the fundamental group unit of society, but is also the fundamental agent for sustainable social, economic and cultural development,” and “Strong, stable families contribute to the maintenance of a culture of peace and promote dialogue among civilizations and diverse ethnic groups.”[16]

No wonder Alex Haley could insist, “The family is our refuge and our springboard; nourished on it, we can advance to new horizons. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”[17]

No wonder US representative Wade Horn could tell the General Assembly at the 10^th anniversary of the International Year of the Family, “The state’s foremost obligation… is to respect, defend, and protect the family as an institution.”[18]

And no wonder Member States could bind themselves by covenant to provide the greatest level of protection possible to the family: “The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society.”[19]

But in one of the most bizarre and self-destructive trends of modern times, this “natural and fundamental group unit of society,” this indispensable foundation of civilization itself, is being attacked and undermined by those seeking to suppress its inalienable rights by subordinating them to new claims relating to gender, marriage, and sexuality. Nations and interest groups are indeed using selected provisions as weapons or shields, wrenching them out of context and ignoring the rest—especially the Declaration’s anchor provision declaring that a healthy society rests squarely on the foundation of the family.

This trend is doubly alarming because this is happening at the very time when disintegration of the family is already wreaking havoc on society. The situation once described by Mexico’s Ana Teresa Aranda has become widespread throughout the globe.

It is no secret that the vulnerability suffered by our peoples—insecurity, crime, abuse, abandonment of the elderly, orphaned children and violence—causes enormous imbalances and obliges us to spend millions on institutional policies that in the end can do no more than manage those ills. If we go on like this, a time will come when all our tax resources will not suffice to counter the effects of vulnerability. If we wish to address the causes, we must look at the family.[20]

Michael Novak’s warning from nearly fifty years ago reads like it was written for our day: “Throughout history, nations have been able to survive a multiplicity of disasters—invasions, famines, earthquakes, epidemics, depressions—but they have never been able to survive the disintegration of the family.”^[21]

In celebration of the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we recommend the words of Pope Francis: “Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity… passes through the family. So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always.”^[22]

We call on all Member States to:

• Fulfil their treaty obligation to provide “the widest possible protection and assistance… to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society”;

• Resist the deceptively labeled agendas that march under the banner of rights but in fact undermine the family as the natural and fundamental group unit of society;

• Foster a culture that honors and enables faithful, fulfilling, and resilient marriages;

• Recognize and support the uniquely valuable contributions of both mothers and fathers to the lives of their children;

• Encourage the values and vision necessary for the rising generation to look forward to and prepare for successful marriage and parenting; and

• Protect, strengthen, and treasure the family as the irreplaceable foundation of civilization and our only hope for prosperity, peace, and progress.

International Organization for the Family
United Families International
Center for Family and Human Rights
CitizenGO, Spain
American Family Advocates, New York
Family Policy Institute, South Africa
Universal Peace Federation
REAL Women of Canada
Latin American Alliance for the Family
HazteOir, Spain
FamilyPolicy.RU Advocacy Group, Russia
Institute for Family Policy, Spain
Native American Fatherhood & Families Association

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[1] Statement to the United Nations General Assembly on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 9, 1948, online at https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/statement-united-nations-general-assembly-universal-declaration-human-rights-1948. 

[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/universal-declaration-human-rights/about-universal-declaration-human-rights-translation-project

[3] Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, René Cassin and Human Rights: From the Great War to the Universal Declaration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 239.

[4] Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: Random House, 2001), xvi-xvii.

[5] Hans Ingvar Roth, P. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 134.

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights.  

[7] Roth, 135.

[8] Glendon, xvii.

[9] Glendon, 239.

[10] Glenn Mitoma, “Charles H. Malik and Human Rights: Notes on a Biography,” Biography 33:1 (Winter 2010), 226.

[11] Richard G. Wilkins, “Preface of the NGO Working Group,” in A. Scott Loveless and Thomas B. Holman, eds., The Family in the New Millennium: World Voices Supporting the Natural Clan, Volume 1: The Place of Family in Human Society (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2007), xvi.

[12] http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_19831022_family-rights_en.html.

[13] Manfred Nowak, UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. CCPR Commentary (Kehl am Rhein, Germany: N.P. Engel, 1993), 404.

[14] Will Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929), 395-396.

[15] Michael Novak, “The Family Out of Favor,” Harper’s, April 1976, pp. 42-43.

[16] https://difi.org.qa/doha-declaration.

[17] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alex_Haley.

[18] December 6, 2004. A subsequent US administration removed the verbatim report of Wade Horn’s address, leaving online only an abridged and paraphrased report on the UN website: https://press.un.org/en/2004/ga10311.doc.htm.

[19] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 10.1, https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights.

[20] Aranda served as Director of DIF (“National System for Integral Family Development”), reporting directly to the nation’s president, from 2000 until 2006, when she was appointed Secretary of Social Development.

[21] Novak, 42-43.

[22] https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/01/16/every-threat-to-the-family-is-a-threat-to-society-itself-francis-address-to-families-in-the-philippines-full-text.