'The gleaming wings of science.'.

Sensing the historic nature of the occasion, the General Assembly adopted the Human Rights Declaration without dissent. No nation wished to place itself in opposition to the tide of history, though many may have said, with St. Augustine, "God make us good, but not yet". Nonetheless, such is the moral force of this Declaration that it is in the process of changing the world. It begins by spelling out the fundamental trinity of rights: that to life, which is paramount; that to liberty, which gives life meaning; and that to security, which permits the enjoyment of life. The recognition of these rights is not new. They have been in the process of definition for centuries. What makes the Universal Declaration an epochal document is first of all its global impetus and secondly the breadth of its claims, a commitment to a new social contract, binding on all the Governments of the world.

Through its 30 articles, all nations commit themselves to observe equality before the law, submit to the rule of law, foster freedom of speech and assembly, validate their own authority through free elections with universal franchise, and (strikingly) recognize the right of all to adequate food, shelter, health care, education and employment. These articles, written by human beings at a particular juncture in history, will eventually prove to be incomplete, but will endure as a declaration of principle that is both civilized and visionary. Let us look back at least to the beginning of this century, which was to be the century of science. Science, it seemed, held the key to an age of ease and plenty, and for many that proved to be the case. But for still more, it did not. That is because technology does not guarantee equity nor even elementary decency.

Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression. It was precisely to prevent a repetition of these horrors that the Universal Declaration was born. "We must beware", Winston Churchill warned, "lest the Stone Age return upon the gleaming wings of science."

However, such warnings overlook a vital element of hope that lies at the heart of modern science. The respect for human rights, essential if we are to use technology wisely, is not something alien that must be grafted onto science. On the contrary, it is integral to science, as also to scholarship in general.

Political movements that have denied this, donning the mantle of science in order to legitimize their fanatical aims, have found that they quickly killed science. For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom. This is because the scientific orthodoxy of today arises from the heterodoxy of yesterday. Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward troth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.

The scientific and scholarly community is marked by the belief that the truth is to be found in all; none can claim it as their monopoly. It is no surprise, therefore, that from Linus Pauling to Andrei Sakharov, from Albert Einstein to Fang Lizhi, and from Bertrand Russell to Vaclav Havel, the most notable champions of human rights over the past half-century have included scientists and scholars. But for them, the Universal Declaration might have become an object of mockery, rather than a symbol of hope.

But this offers no ground for complacency. There should be far more scientists and scholars standing in opposition to tyranny. My community belongs to what today we call the non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The power and hence the responsibility of NGOs is apparent today. Scientists and scholars should constitute themselves as an international NGO of exceptional authority.

For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest. The moral authority that derives from this circumstance is a precious asset. It should be used to support the movement on which all our hopes for the future depend; the movement toward peace based on respect for the individual, whose manifesto is the Declaration.

The progress made toward the realization of its principles, while falling tragically short of the stated objectives, far exceeds what most optimists of its signatories would have thought possible. In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy. A new sense of shared international responsibility is unmistakable in the voices of the United Nations and its agencies, and in the civil society of thousands of supra-national NGOs.

In challenging my own NGO - the community of scientists - to a greater degree of awareness and activism, I am heeding a passage in the Declaration which I believe must figure more largely in the half-century to come. I refer to the phrase in Article 29 that, following a long litany of rights, refers to the individual's obligation to act in support of those rights. The time has come to underscore the fact that our and others' rights are contingent on our willingness to assert and defend them.