José Saramago’s speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony on 10 December 1998, the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, had consequences: the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the José Saramago Foundation took up the writer’s proposal to create a symmetry of the Declaration of Rights from civil society. Thus was born the Declaration of Human Duties, a civic document that claims the importance of citizens in building the better society advocated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Jurists, activists and politicians from various countries, meeting in Mexico City, gave life to a document of civic responsibility that was subsequently delivered in 2018 to the UN Commission on Human Rights and its Secretary General, António Guterres. This is yet another contribution because, as José Saramago wrote, «We are the memory we have and the responsibility we assume. Without memory we don’t exist, without responsibility perhaps we don’t deserve to exist.»
Declaration of Human Duties 