World Conference on Human Rights

The World Conference on Human Rights was held by the United Nations in Vienna, Austria, on 14 to 25 June 1993. It was the first human rights conference held since the end of the Cold War. The main result of the conference was the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.

Although the United Nations had long been active in the field of human rights, the Vienna conference was only the second global conference to focus exclusively on human rights, with the first having been the International Conference on Human Rights held in Teheran, Iran, during April–May 1968 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Vienna conference came at a time when world conferences were popular, with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development having been held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992, and the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, soon following in September 1994. More conferences would follow after that, including the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, in March 1995 and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in September 1995. Such conferences were seen as a way to promote global participation, consultation, and policy formation, and were seen as a likely significant new way to influence the direction of international society.

The notion of having a world conference on human rights was first proposed in 1989. The end of the Cold War brought about the hope that the long stalemate and distortion of United Nations behaviors due to the bipolar superpower confrontation would cease.

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