The Human Rights Committee is seeking endorsements from groups and individuals for this revised resolution and welcomes your ideas and feedback.

Resolution urging the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to support and advocate for amending the Constitution of the State of California with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We wish to honor Eleanor Roosevelt, first U.S. delegate to the United Nations, for her achievement, while in service to the United States in the art of diplomacy. As Chair of the commission on Human Rights she worked with persistence and dedication with a committee of academics and philosophers from diverse cultures to craft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its unanimous acceptance, but for nine abstentions, by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948, was due to her belief in the shared humanity of all people. It is as relevant to the world today as it was at the start of the Cold War in 1948.

Whereas the California Constitution in Article 1, Sec. 25 provides the people of California with the right to fish, but nowhere does it provide for those rights delineated in Article 25 of the UDHR, including “the rights to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”

Whereas the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco is uniquely positioned to build on its stature as a champion of human rights by using its 1998 resolution, declaring San Francisco a Human Rights City, as a springboard for urging California to be the first state to adopt such a human rights amendment.

And whereas the organizations endorsing such an amendment agree that the State of California needs the authority to observe and take responsibility for the rights of all residents.

RESOLVED, that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors urge the California State Legislature to amend the California Constitution with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

(back to May 2007 Newsletter front page)