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 There is finally a symbol for human rights. On 23 September
2011, alongside the United Nations General Assembly in New York,
the “Logo for Human Rights” initiative unveiled the winner of an
international online competition. In May, the initiative issued
an international call for logo submissions and invited people to
judge them online. The response was impressive: from over 15,000
entries, a prominent jury together with the internet community
selected the winning logo. The new human rights logo is now
available to everyone at no cost as an open source product at
www.humanrightslogo.net.
 The winning design is by Predrag Stakic of Serbia. The
32-year-old freelance graphic designer had the idea for his
design when reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“In the preamble it says that human rights are the foundation
for creating a free, just, and peaceful world in the future. I
put that in the design using two universal symbols – a hand and
a bird – to make something new.” The winner of the competition
does not think that a single logo can change the world. “Not
this one either. But a logo is a symbol around which people can
rally, and people can change the world.”
The initiative expects the new logo to be widely accepted,
because it was developed by the people for the people and was
also chosen by them. It is to give a face to peaceful human
rights efforts worldwide.
 The international competition a “Logo for Human Rights” was
started on 3 May 2011. In the course of only three months,
15,396 logo designs were submitted from participants from over
190 countries. From these, a jury of prominent human rights
activists and designers chose the ten best. After that, all
people from all over the world had three weeks to vote online on
the top ten logos and choose a winner.
 The initiators were positively surprised at the high level of
participation: millions of people followed the competition since
the opening ceremony in May. Federal Foreign Minister Guido
Westerwelle had the following to say: “The great success of the
competition shows that human rights are an important topic in
all countries of the world. Many people have obviously felt that
a universal symbol for human rights was missing. This gap has
now finally been filled.” He also said that people from all over
the world had come together for discussions and had been able to
exchange ideas on human rights and design.
 An international jury of renowned and high-ranking personalities
supported the initiative, including UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Navanethem Pillay (South Africa) and five Nobel
Peace Prize winners – Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar), Shirin Ebadi
(Iran), Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh), Mikhail Gorbachev (Russia)
and Jimmy Carter (USA) – as well as Angelina Acheng Atyam
(children’s rights activist, Uganda), Waris Dirie (supermodel
and women’s rights activist, Somalia), Roland Emmerich
(Hollywood director and producer, Germany), Carolyn Gomes (human
rights activist, Jamaica), Juanes (pop star and peace activist,
Colombia), Somaly Mam (human rights activist, Cambodia),
Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu (human rights activist, Sri Lanka),
Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia founder, USA), and internationally
renowned design experts such as Ahmad Humeid (Jordan), Javier
Mariscal (Spain), Erik Spiekermann (Germany) and others,
including the Foreign Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mauritius, Senegal,
Singapore, and Uruguay who had taken the initiative in creating
a platform for the logo competition.
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