Source: United Nations (Video News)
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is among 74 new additions to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, the Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and Policies and Digital Transformation at UNESCO, Guilherme Canela de Souza, told reporters in New York today (17 Apr)
Briefing via video teleconference from Paris, Canela de Souza said, “it’s impossible to protect and promote the free flow of ideas and knowledge, if we haven’t preserved this knowledge, these ideas in the first place.”
He said the Memory of the World Register “is about the documental heritage, is about protecting our ideas, our knowledge, in order for us to be able to communicate them, to be accessible.”
The UNESCO official said, “if we want to know the chemical composition of our planet, we go to the periodical table. If we want to understand the human journey in this planet, the human journey related to knowledge, it’s a good start to look into the Memory of the World Register. There you are going to find what we have been doing related to music, to philosophy, to cinema, to international relations, to religion, to human rights, to history in general, to science, to languages, to literature.”
He said, “the new 74 collections that the Executive Board of UNESCO just approved today in its session, they were suggested by 72 countries from all over the world, plus four international organisations.”
The Geneva Conventions and their protocols, “a cornerstone of international humanitarian law,” Canela de Souza said, is also being inscribed.
A third document, he continued, “is the 1991 Windhoek Declaration on promoting an Independent and pluralistic African press,” which he added, “is a particularly important relevance for press freedom. It this actually the origin of the World Press Freedom Day.”
The Register consists of documentary collections including books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and sound or video recordings, which bear witness to the shared heritage of humanity.
These items often are extremely fragile and at risk of deterioration or exposure to disaster.
Collections are added by decision of UNESCO’s Executive Board, following the evaluation of nominations by an independent international advisory committee.