On 10th December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly, meeting provisionally in Paris, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in the years that followed would inspire the formation of numerous more specific international standards. The protection of human rights thus ceased to be the exclusive responsibility of individual states and became a collective value of the international community.

Is this still the case today? What legacy has the Universal Declaration left us? Do human rights continue to be a collective value to be safeguarded, despite the ongoing crises that the world is experiencing before our very eyes?

The protection of human rights continues to be a collective value of the international community. However, it is necessary to reflect on what states are actually doing to implement human rights. And on what we are doing, given that states are made up of human communities.

Giuseppe Pascale, professor of International Law, explains: 'The 1948 Universal Declaration left us with a very important legacy: the universality of human rights, which should be enjoyed always and everywhere, without discrimination or distinction of any kind. We should not squander this legacy by returning to the militaristic and power-driven politics that led to two world wars in the last century. The sense of humanity must be safeguarded. What kind of world would it be otherwise?'