What Human Rights Day is

Marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948 u2014 the first document to set out rights held to belong to everyone, everywhere.

The Declaration is not itself a treaty and creates no direct legal obligation, though much of it has since passed into binding international law through later covenants.

Why this date does not move

The countdown at the top of this page is live, and the date beneath it is the next occurrence. This is a fixed date: it falls on the same day of the month every year, so only the weekday changes.

The date follows a fixed calendar rule, so it can be computed years ahead. Where a country observes this as a public holiday, the official government calendar remains the authority for whether the day off is moved when it falls on a weekend.

What is coming up next

Once this date passes, the countdown moves on according to the recurrence rule described above. Calculated lunar dates remain estimates until the relevant calendar or local authority confirms them. See the full list of upcoming events, or use the countdown timer for a duration of your own.