Article 27 - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (English version)

This piece is part of a collection of 30 xylographs, produced by the multimedia artist Otávio Roth (1952-1993), that graphically express the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The series took two years to reach completion, with each piece printed on handmade paper created by the artist himself. Driven by the desire to democratize access to the Charter, Otávio Roth synthesized its message in graphic pieces that facilitate the understanding and memorization of the Charter’s content.

Roth was the first living artist invited to exhibit at the United Nations. His prints have been on permanent display at UN headquarters in New York, Geneva and Vienna since 1981. In addition to the English series, the artist produced other series in Japanese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian and Danish, using techniques as diverse as crayon, watercolor and pulp painting.

About Article 27
The monumental Bamiyan Buddhas, statues 10 to 16 storeys high on sandstone cliffs, inspired reverence and respect in central Afghanistan for 15 centuries - until the Taliban blew them up in 2001. In 1993, during the Bosnian War, Stari Most, the gracefully-arched Ottoman bridge from which the city derived its name, was deliberately targeted by grenades, sending the monument that was protected for 427 years to the bottom of the Neretva River. When armed groups want to crush the morale of civilians or opposing forces, they often destroy the cultural symbols of the latter. Article 27 of the Declaration helped establish the basis for crimes like this to be recognized as war crimes. In an historic September 2016 trial, the International Criminal Court (ICC) declared Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, a member of the armed Ansar Dine group operating in Mali, guilty of attacking historic and religious buildings in Timbuktu. He was sentenced to nine years in prison. It was the first time that the destruction of cultural sites was prosecuted as a war crime at the ICC, paving the way for new convictions.