The Universal Declaration of Human rights

Yunxi Wang, Annekatrin Nagel

Overview of the Drafting Process

Overview of the Drafting Process

March 1947• John Humphrey

makes Draft outline

June 1947• Review by Drafting

Commission of CHR• Cassin gets

assignment to prepare Draft

2.-17.December 1947• Draft presented

to CHR• Working Group

produces Geneva Draft

Overview of the Drafting Process

May/ June 1948• Discussion about

several points in the CHR

• Most troublesome meeting

Sep-Dec 1948• Third Commission

of the General Assembly meeting

• Several amendments to various articles

December 10th 1948• UDHR adopted• 48 to 0 votes

(several abstentions!)

Overview of the Drafting Process

• Draft process proceeded rapidly:

• Advantage of the UDHR laying out moral principles and not binding law

Discussion focused mainly on word choice and minor changes.

• Mrs. Roosevelt's skillful bureaucratic operation

The First Drafts of the Declaration

The First Drafts of the Declaration:John Humphrey’s Draft Outline

• Framework of western liberalism incorporating a range of social and economic rights

• Rights with legal details implying level of enforcement > rather convention than declaration

• Individual protected against state• Right to petition• Critique: Vladimir Koretsky (Representative of the

Soviet Union)

The First Drafts of the Declaration:Cassin’s Draft

• Kept many of the articles of Humphrey’s Outline• still intended to support implementation although

not specific on the mechanisms

Next 12 month his draft was discussed and revised:- text shortened- character changed from articles (legal character) to

principles

UNESCO interlude

The UNESCO Interlude

• 1947 UNESCO project on the issue of Universal Human Rights was started (scholars and cultural theorists from all over the world wrote on the issue)

• Complicated Issues such as fundamental differences in the conception of rights and the relationship of individual and state, etc.

• The work was completely disregarded and remained unmentioned in the drafting process because of the bureaucratic issue that there was no prior information to the CHR

Some Participants

• E.H. Carr, Aldous Huxley• Jacques Maritain • Mohandas Gandhi, Humayun Kabir • Benedetto Croce • Richard McKeon, Quincy Wright • Chung-Shu Lo

Negotiating the controversial articles

Negotiating the controversial articles

• 1 right to rebellion some countries supported because they

attained independence through its exercise BUT ! Britain: feared that it would provide legitimacy

to armed insurrection in the colonies US: the respect for human rights obviated the

need for revolution

Negotiating the controversial articles

• 2 universal basis of human rights What is the original source of these inherent

values. Nature? God? > Issue Remained unsolved.

• 3 from men to human beings The idea “woman” seems excluded, so became

human beings. The item “brotherhood” as well

Negotiating the controversial articles

• 4 minority right are not recognized

Because of sensitive domestic matters

• 5 death penalty

Soviet Union PUSH US EU deny, blaming Soviet

Union’s hypocrisy

• 6 right to social security or justice or insurance

Debating the hierarchy in universal right

Debating the hierarchy in universal right

• Whether include economic, social, cultural rights

U.S and Britain: not include them but they did not win the debate

• Relationship between economic, social, cultural rights and western civil and political right

Abstentions to the universal declaration

Abstentions to the universal declaration

• South Africa’s quit: it’s apartheid regime a human rights pariah

• Saudi Arabia: secular Eurocentric basis 1 their religious foundations 2 western imperialism

Abstentions to the universal declaration

• Soviet bloc: western ideological bias the interdependence between the citizen and

the stateHuman right without state was “empty illusions”

• However, UDHR affirmed that individual

human rights are transcending national

boundaries.

Conclusion: searching for the universal in the declaration

Conclusion: searching for the universal in the declaration

• Cultural imperialism Vs. cultural relativism

• US predominant influence English dominant

• However, the most important obstacle is enforcement

Conclusion: searching for the universal in the declaration

• But, at last a positive tone?

• “ The Declaration will develop its own

implementation.”

Questions?

Thank you