Close your eyes, count to three, a child has just died. One of the 35,000 children that will die today from malnutrition or preventable disease. Men, women, and children, are tortured in two out of three of the world's countries. Human rights defenders, those courageous people who risk their lives protecting and promoting the human rights of others, have ended up being killed, "disappeared", jailed and harassed for their work.
Fifty years on, we say to our Government - the Universal Declaration is not just a paper promise. We want to see a coherent foreign policy, where human rights are given due weight. Surely Ireland should have its own policy on different countries and issues and not just echo the bully boys of the EU and the UN?
The primary protection of human rights lies with the governments of the world but the Universal Declaration applies to all of us. Therefore, Amnesty International, Irish Section, will collect a million signatures to present to Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General.
Our million and all the other millions collected worldwide will be a powerful message to the governments of the world that the people of the world say human rights do matter; the Universal Declaration does matter and that trying to excuse their behaviour by denigrating human rights or challenging the whole ethos of the universality and indivisibility of human rights is beneath contempt.
Economic, civil, cultural, political and social rights are all interdependent. You can't grade them. The issue is not whether torture is more important than starvation. Human rights are universal and indivisible.
Mary Lawlor is the director of Amnesty International's Irish Section