The United Nations Commission on Human Rights is the first, and remains the only, body operating within the framework of an international organization that is devoted exclusively to promoting universal respect for human rights throughout the world.

The Commission was envisaged as part of the United Nations (UN) when it was founded after World War II. The first words of the UN Charter state:

We the peoples of the United Nations are determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person. . . (Preamble, Sect. 1 and 2)

It was within this context, following the atrocities of a war that dramatically illustrated what would come to be known as crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity, that the UN Commission on...