Human rights require stronger institutions

 To this day, the Universal Declaration remains the single most important reference point for discussion of ethical values across national, ideological, and cultural divides.

Yet the Declaration's enlightened vision of individual freedom, social protection, economic opportunity and duty to community is still unfulfilled. Tragically, genocide is happening again, this time in Sudan. A heightened security agenda since the attacks on the United States in September 2001 has included attempts to legitimise the use of "extraordinary rendition" (the movement between countries of prisoners and suspects without due process of law) and torture.