Article 5 - 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 5
The Declaration contains an absolute prohibition that is universally accepted as unequivocal: the prohibition of torture in Article 5 is further elaborated in the UN Convention Against Torture (1984), which makes clear the absolute character of the prohibition: “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as justification of torture”.