The quest world-wide for the effective realisation of fundamental human rights in all their manifestations - economic, social, political, cultural - is one which has come to characterise much of the twentieth century. This was a process which could only begin once the universality of the human condition and of the rights and needs fundamental to it, were clearly and unambiguously recognised. It needed, first, a renunciation of human bondage in all its forms, like slavery and indenture, and of course commitment to the decolonisation process.