Eleanor Roosevelt, Opening to Making Human Rights Come Alive, 1949

We worked as eighteen representatives of Government on the Human Rights Commission. We are very happy to know that UNESCO accepted the first fruits of our labor and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You know what it will mean if all the various Commissions of UNESCO really help to tell the people of the various countries about this document. It is an educational document because it is simply a declaration that sets standards and puts down things for which we want to strive. It has no legal binding value, but it is a preparation for the coming bill of rights. When the Covenant is written, then we will have to be prepared to ask our various nations to ratify that covenant and to accept the fact that the Covenant has legal binding value.

Now, of course, the first Covenant will probably be a very simple document. It will probably not contain all the things that are in the Declaration, because in the Declaration we could write some aspirations, but nevertheless we know quite well that we will go on. Perhaps the first Covenant will not cover all the things that we will want to have covered in the future. We will keep our minds open and we will be prepared to meet new needs and new circumstances as they arise, but we have to make a beginning, and the beginning can only be made if we really make the Declaration a living document, something that is not just words on paper but something which we really strive to bring to the lives of all people, all people everywhere in the world.