Human Rights Day is observed every year on Dec. 10. It commemorates the day that the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which was later supplemented by adoption of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Today, these global compacts form the backbone of international human rights norms, including the rights to freedom of expression, to self-determination, to peacefully assemble and to the freedom of association.