Nearly everybody knows that a heart represents love and a dove symbolizes peace. But what is the universal symbol for human rights?

International online voting is now open to choose what will represent the issue of human rights at the United Nations and provide a visible representation for the concept. 

The top 10 designs have been chosen by a panel of world renowned politicians, design artists, Nobel laureates and human rights activists.

Over 15,000 logos from 190 countries were submitted under the simple theme “A Logo for Human Rights.”

Since the initiative was started by the German Foreign Office on May 3, people from all over the world participated in the largest logo selection of its kind.

“The issue is an important one because the protection and abidance of human rights is a key concern not only for Germany’s foreign policy but many other democratic states and the signatories of the human rights charter worldwide,” said Johannes Regenbrecht, deputy head of mission at the Germany Embassy.

Voting is open until Sept. 17 at www.humanrightslogo.net.

The winning logo will be presented on Sept. 23 in New York alongside the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The presentation will be broadcast worldwide via the Internet. The competition’s winner will be awarded 5,000 euro ($7,200), the runner-up 3,000 euro and for third place 1,000 euro.

“Our (German) foreign minister had the idea of how we can make the issue of protecting human rights more popular, more visible and more tangible, because it’s quite an abstract idea,” noted Regenbrecht.

“Sometime human rights are discussed in the balance of political and economic interests, we think that human rights protection is an absolute value and has to be followed upon whether or not there are specific political or economic interests at stake,” he added.

The initial jury of renowned and high-ranking personalities included UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay and five Nobel Peace Prize winners ― Aung San Suu Kyi, Shirin Ebadi, Muhammad Yunus, Mikhail Gorbachev and Jimmy Carter ― as well as the foreign ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mauritius, Senegal, Singapore, and Uruguay.

By Yoav Cerralbo (yoav@heraldcorp.com)