*As she had foreseen in 1948, the UDHR had “moral force” and was perceived as the international promissory note for human dignity, democracy, and freedom, in the tradition of the 1215 Magna Carta, long before the covenants were finally drafted. On 16 December 1966, after decades of delay, the UN General Assembly voted for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); they entered into force in 1976, but the United States ignored them until President Jimmy Carter signed them in 1977. George H. W. Bush secured Senate ratification of the Civil and Political Rights Covenant on 8 September 1992. The U. S. Congress has still not considered the Economic and Social Rights Covenant, although the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) exists finally to put it on the U.S. agenda. See nesri.org. Moreover, the United States ignores or violates several other UN covenants regarding human rights, notably the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), entered into force 8 September 1981 and still not signed by the United States; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, entered into force in 1969 and signed by the United States in 1994; and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, entered into force 26 June 1987 and ratified by the United States 20 November 1994—and violated. See esp. Browne-Marshall, Race, Law and American Society, pp. 232–48, 346–50.
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Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3 Page 90