The Charter of the United Nations ushered in a lasting global advance in the protection of human rights when in 1945 it pronounced a determination to ‘reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person’, and it made the solemn pledge to promote ‘universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’. The Universal Declaration adopted just over three years later was a remarkable achievement in identifying and articulating for the first time the core set of rights warranting recognition, in spite of struggles by certain powers to cling to cherished aspects of their domestic systems. Those same rights were elaborated into binding form in a more challenging process over the ensuing eighteen years in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the Covenant) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), both adopted on the same day in December 1966 and known as ‘the twin Covenants’.