ABSTRACT
Following the end of World War II, in acknowledgment of the widespread horrors and abuses of peoples around the globe, the International Court of Justice was established in 1946. Recognizing and labeling some actions as "crimes against humanity", in December 1948 the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Since the initial adoption of the UDHR, many people have raised concerns about and objections to it, relating sometimes to specific parts and other times to broad assumptions of commitments attached to it. Another, broader type of concern raised has involved the appropriateness of the universal language of the UDHR. Many people insist that the focus of human rights must not be unbalanced in such a way as to emphasize individuals at the expense of groups. One of the states that abstained from approving the UDHR in 1948 was Saudi Arabia.
