12/18 Commemorative Month
In December, we observe Universal Human Rights Month in honor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an international document adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948.
The Universal Declaration states basic rights and fundamental freedoms to which all human beings are entitled, including freedom from discrimination, the right to equality, and the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, originally made by Stuart Schulberg for the US Department of War in 1948 and remastered by his daughter Sandra Schulberg in recent years, shows the trial that established the “Nuremberg Principles,” providing the foundation for all subsequent trials for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
In The Reckoning, by Paco de Onis and Pamela Yates, prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo faces down warlords, genocidal dictators and world superpowers in his struggle to bring perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice. The Sandman, by Lauren Knapp, is a documentary short about Dr. Carlo Musso, a physician who has overseen Georgia’s lethal injection team since 2003, and his own moral equivocation providing “end of life care” to prisoners while personally opposing capital punishment. See these and other films about Human Rights.