Today, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights by consenus, paving the way for its adoption on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th next month. The Optional Protocol, once in force, will allow individual complaints on violations of economic, social & cultural rights much in the way of the already well established Optional Protocol on Civil & Political Rights.

In a way, the adoption is yet another step toward closing the door on the Cold War. After all, the division between civil & political rights and economic, social and cultural rights respectively is largely due to the political fractions that emerged after the end of National Socialism and the Second World War, when efforts to reach agreement on a human rights treaty failed and brought about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

“Imagine being near a bomb blast but being unable to see it. Or hearing gunfire but not knowing whether the gunman is shooting at you. That is the world of the blind in Baghdad,” reports the NYTimes.

Only Desmond Tutu, formerly chair of South Africa’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission, Archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel Peace Prize Lauret could link Mandela and Obama and weave in the International Criminal Court with such ease: article in The Age, Melbourne.

Merely four weeks before the world celebrates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “All persons are born equal in rights …” 

From the Washington Post, Tom Toles.

A street vendor in SOHO – South of Houston – in New York City had these ducks on sale, which sign “I love you” in American Sign Language: