Declaration by High Representative Federica Mogherini on behalf of the European Union on Human Rights Day

Brussels, 10th of December 2014 - Today we celebrate Human Rights Day to mark the adoption, 66 years ago, by the United Nations
General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The theme for this year's International Human Rights Day - Human Rights 365 - reflects the
aspiration that each one of us, everywhere, at all times, is entitled to the full range of human rights.
The EU is committed to upholding these rights. Two years ago we adopted the Strategic
Framework on Human Rights and Democracy, together with its Action Plan, and we appointed an
EU Special Representative for Human Rights. Since then, with the support of EU Member States,
we have been advocating human rights in over 40 human rights dialogues with third countries and
we have been engaging with regional and multilateral organisations, including the UN.
EUSR Stavros Lambrinidis has closely and proactively interacted with key partners and supported
the role of civil society organisations throughout the world. EU delegations have been monitoring,
reporting, and acting on human rights issues, sometimes under very difficult circumstances.
We have achieved a lot but much remains to do. One such area of work is torture. The Convention
against Torture was adopted by the UN 30 years ago today and yet torture is still widely practised
around the world. This demands our urgent attention.
The renewal in 2015 of our Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy will be the opportunity to
renew our commitment and to address new challenges to the universality and indivisibility of
human rights.