On December 10, 1948, after thorough preparatory work and extensive discussion of individual articles by 48 UN Members States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was solemnly adopted and proclaimed. Currently, the date of adoption of this document, which has undoubtedly become the cornerstone of the modern global and regional systems of human rights protection, is celebrated annually across the world as the Human Rights Day. In particular, on December 10, 2018, humanity will celebrate the 70th anniversary of adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For Ukraine, this celebration is of particular importance: there are grounds to believe that long before the events of the Second World War which directly led to the adoption of this act, Ukrainian scientists – graduates of the Law Faculty of the Lviv University were directly involved in the formulation of the human rights ideology and system, which by 90% determined the contents and structure of the Universal Declaration. The names of these scientists are Hersch Lauterpacht and Rafal Lemkin. The article provides a general theoretical analysis of the impact made by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 on the establishment of the modern system of international, in particular European, human rights acts. The research is underlain by the hypothesis that, on the one part, the main ideas expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights generally form the ideological basis of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and on the other part, the provisions of this Charter provide for a qualitative elaboration of the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at the same time assuring a concretization of the essence of human rights and freedoms and creating a more effective background for legal guarantees thereof. Given a complex and multifaceted nature of these issues, the article is focused on the urgent need for further scientific investigations of this problematics, particularly, in terms of the impact of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the ideological orientation and human rights principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. One of the objectives of the study is to determine the share of the value orientations underlying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in particular, such as human dignity, interdependence, indivisibility of fundamental human rights, the purpose of each human rights category to establish appropriate conditions for an individual’s existence and development) which are reflected in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Therefore, the article applies the dialectical, legal comparative and specific historical approaches of research. In our opinion, the above methodological principles allow to trace the “genetic affinity” of the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and also to make the most realistic assessment and develop an appropriate program for the adaptation of Ukrainian legislation to the EU human rights standards.