19 November 2008

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Launching and Sustaining a Revolution

Paul Gordon Lauren

Paul Gordon Lauren, a globally recognized authority on the history of human rights, is Regents Professor at the University of Montana. He has published many articles and 11 books, several of which have been translated, including the award-winning The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Power and Prejudice. Lauren has created one of the Great Courses for The Teaching Company on the subject of “The Rights of Man,” and he has lectured widely around the world before such audiences as the Smithsonian Institution, the Nobel Peace Institute, and the United Nations.

When it was adopted 60 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was described by its detractors as “mere words,” as “only a declaration,” and as “simply a statement of principle devoid of any binding legal force.” They believed that it would have little or no impact. Within just a few months, however, its vision struck a chord and rapidly began to take on a life of its own. The Universal Delcaration began to assume growing political, moral, and even legal authority, and it propelled human rights from the margins of international relations to one of its central pillars. In the process, it launched and sustained a human rights revolution that the British Broadcasting Corporation would deem “our century’s greatest achievement.”

The Challenges of Creating the Declaration

When the members of the newly created United Nations Commission on Human Rights elected Eleanor Roosevelt, the former first lady of the United States, to chair the committee that would draft what would become known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they had no idea that their efforts would have such an enormous impact. Success seemed remote, and it appeared as though they would surely fail. The United Nations had assigned the Human Rights Commission the nearly impossible tasks of defining the meaning of the expression “human rights” and of somehow creating what was called an “international bill of rights” for the entire world. Each undertaking posed daunting philosophical and political challenges.

Those confronted with these tasks quickly came to realize, for example, that perhaps no public policy issue raised more difficult philosophical questions. Thoughtful men and women from different religious and philosophical traditions had wrestled over these very questions for centuries. What exactly are “human rights” and what is their source? Do they come from “God,” from “nature,” from “reason,” or from governments? To whom do they apply? Can they be universally claimed by all people, or are they restricted to a particular gender, race, class, state, culture, or stage of development? What is the connection between human rights and “peace,” “security,” and “justice”? What is the relationship between responsibilities and rights? Are some rights (such as civil and political rights) more important than others (such as economic and social rights), or are they all interdependent and indivisible and of equal value? Is it possible to establish normative worldwide standards of behavior while respecting different philosophical, religious, legal, and cultural values? These profound questions were followed by others.

Politics also greatly endangered the tasks at hand. Whatever euphoria existed from the Allied victory in the Second World War quickly evaporated. At exactly the time that the Human Rights Commission was drafting the UDHR language, the roster of international developments and crises was ominous:

•  The Soviet Union was imposing the Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe.

•  The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was expanding.

•  The strategic arms race — featuring new atomic weapons of mass destruction — was escalating.

•  The Berlin Blockade was emerging.

•  Violence was exploding in colonial empires among those who now insisted on their right to self-determination.

•  The forces of Mao Zedong were advancing in China.

•  Armed conflict in Palestine revolving around the creation of the new state of Israel was erupting.

•  Race riots were breaking out in several countries (including the United States).

•  India was publicly confronting South Africa over its policies of apartheid.

•  Private individuals suddenly were challenging their own governments over violations of human rights before the eyes of the world.

In addition, agreement seemed remote because the members of the new United Nations possessed many highly divergent political systems of government.

These political difficulties were worsened by internal contradictions within the United Nations Charter, adopted during the San Francisco Conference of 1945. The Preamble and Article 1, among other textual provisions, had eloquently established human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without discrimination among the basic principles in its quest for peace, security, and justice. But at exactly the same time, Article 2(7) had reinforced claims of national sovereignty by stating that nothing contained in the charter could authorize the new organization to interfere in matters “essentially within the domestic jurisdiction” of any member state. Thus, if the human rights provisions for all people were honored, national sovereignty would be diminished. If, on the other hand, national sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction were protected, human rights might be jeopardized. The challenge was that the very governments most guilty of violating their own people’s human rights were being asked to provide protection against themselves. This proved to be too radical a departure from traditional approaches. A number of national governments therefore instructed their commission representatives to avoid any binding measures or measures of implementation and to focus instead on a declaration alone.

These challenges produced what participants and observers alike described as “explosive” arguments, “extremely delicate” issues, “fireworks,” and intense “battles.” Given all these challenges and the high stakes involved, it is a wonder that anything was achieved at all. When the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration in December 1948, those who had labored so hard to draft it thus described the result as nothing short of “a miracle.”

The Vision of the Declaration

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights did something that had never been done before: It proclaimed a universal vision of fundamental values and normative principles, or what it called “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.” In language that merits considerable attention and reflection, the very first article declared: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” This single sentence boldly insisted that human rights are natural (not granted by man-made governments, but inalienable and inherent to people simply by being human), are equal (not just for one segment of society, but the same for all), and are universal (not restricted to a few places or a few actors, but everywhere in the world).

Article 2 asserts that in applying these rights, there is to be no distinction or discrimination of any kind: not by race, color, or sex; not on account of language, religion, or political or other opinion; not by national or social origin, property, birth, or status of the country or territory to which a person belongs. In order to emphasize this point throughout the text, and to answer definitively the question of exactly who should enjoy these human rights, almost every article in the Declaration begins with one single word: “Everyone.”

Having established these broad principles, the Universal Declaration next enumerated and delineated a wide variety of human rights. It proclaimed that everyone has certain civil rights: the right to life, liberty, and security of person; the right to be free from slavery or servitude; the right to be free from torture and other cruel forms of treatment or punishment; the right to enjoy equal protection under the law; the right to be free from arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile; the right to a fair trial; the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the right to freedom of movement within one’s own country; and the right to seek asylum from persecution, among others.

In what has been described as “a revolution within a revolution,” the UDHR declared vitally and dramatically that everyone has certain political rights: the right to take part in the government of their country either directly or through freely elected representatives, and the right to live under a government whose authority is derived from the will of its people as determined by periodic and genuine elections of universal and equal suffrage. It further declared that everyone has certain economic and social rights: the right to marry and found a family, the right to own property alone as well as in association with others, the right to social security and an adequate standard of living, the right to work, the right to receive equal pay for equal work, the right to an education, and the right to participate in the cultural life of the community, among others. Finally, it also declared that everyone has duties to others and to the larger society as well.

The Universal Declaration was exactly that — a declaration of words, not an enforceable treaty. It was a negotiated document that emerged from a highly politicized process, not a perfect one. In some ways it raised more questions than it provided answers. Moreover, it is important to remember that at the time of its adoption, no state — not one — regardless of location, system of government, or level of economic or cultural development, could possibly meet or satisfy the UDHR’s standards of achievement.

Despite these problems and limitations, however, the Declaration nevertheless made two extremely important contributions. The first is that it held out an inspirational vision for those willing to struggle to secure rights for themselves and others. The Declaration’s universal principles were not written as a narrow set of legal provisions (or what one observer described as “a document for lawyers”), but rather in language that could be readily understood by ordinary people in all walks of life and in any city or village and thereby serve as an expression of aspiration and inspiration. Secondly, by overwhelmingly adopting the Universal Declaration, the official representatives of governments from around the world pledged themselves to promote and secure its principles and thereby give them legitimacy. They were understood as having contracted with their peoples to protect their human rights. Together these two contributions created the essential ingredient that launched and sustained an international human rights revolution: hope for the future.

The Impact of the Declaration

Over the course of the 60 years that followed, the Universal Declaration emerged as one of the most important and influential documents in history. It would inspire and influence innumerable local, national, regional, and international human rights developments.

The process began almost immediately. Several new national laws and constitutions, including those of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Haiti, Indonesia, Jordan, Libya, Puerto Rico, and Syria, incorporated either its specific language or principles into their texts. Judicial opinions and court cases, ranging from municipal courts to the International Court of Justice, referred to the Universal Declaration by name. Indigenous peoples seeking to assert the right of self-determination from colonial empires eagerly seized on its vision. The 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan specifically proclaimed that Japan would “strive to realize the objectives of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” A number of other postwar bilateral treaties explicitly made reference to the Universal Declaration, as did official complaints from one government to another about human rights violations. This process would escalate through time.

The UDHR also inspired a wide variety of other declarations that focused on more specific aspects of human rights. In the years that followed, the General Assembly of the United Nations, the United Nations Economic, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the International Labor Organization all have based their subsequent proclamations of rights on the vision and the legitimacy of the Universal Declaration and have cited it by name. Regionally, these have included statements and declarations issued by the Asian-African Conference, the Summit Conference of Independent African States creating the Organization of African Unity, the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organization, the European Union, and the Organization of American States. Internationally, they have included:

•  The Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959);

•  The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960);

•  The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1963);

•  The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1967);

•  The Declaration on the Protection of All Persons From Being Subjected to Torture (1975);

•  The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981);

•  The Declaration on the Right to Development (1986);

•  The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).

Inspired by the Universal Declaration, most of these declarations went on to set the stage for the emergence of critical standard-setting international treaties. These established both monitoring bodies and the regional conventions that in turn laid the foundation of a rich body of international human rights law, one designed to protect victims of specific kinds of human rights abuses. Among these, and all explicitly citing the UDHR, are:

•  The European Convention on Human Rights (1950);

•  The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1950);

•  The Convention on the Political Rights of Women (1952);

•  The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965);

•  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966);

•  The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966);

•  The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973);

•  The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979);

•  The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984);

•  The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989);

• The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990).

When the U.N. Commission on Human Rights determined to create provisions to receive individual petitions and to institute both advisory services in the field and what it called “special procedures” of working groups and rapporteurs to investigate particularly egregious violations of human rights outside of treaty obligations, it referred constantly to the Universal Declaration as the basis of its actions.

The Universal Declaration stimulated and inspired other human rights protections. One has been the further elaboration of international humanitarian law designed to protect the rights of both civilians and combatants during wars and armed conflicts, as evidenced by the additional protocols of 1977 and 2005 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Still another has been the extremely significant development of an international criminal law that seeks to hold government leaders personally responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Tribunal for Rwanda, and. especially, the landmark International Criminal Court all reflect this important trend.

In addition to all of these contributions, the Universal Declaration has become the foremost statement of human rights for what Eleanor Roosevelt called “the everyday people” of the world. Although it began as a document of governments, it now has become the most translated single document in history, and thereby a document of peoples. From small grassroots human rights movements at the local level, such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, to large nongovernmental organizations that operate on a global scale, the Universal Declaration has provided what has been called “a common language of mankind” when speaking of human rights. Thus, we find the explicit UDHR references of such recent human rights champions as Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Harry Wu of China, and Shirin Ebadi of Iran. Today the Universal Declaration is featured prominently on the Web sites of the United Nations, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Fédération Internationale des ligues des Droits de l’Homme, and those of the many, many others who work on behalf of human rights.

Continuing the Vision

Those who created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights hardly could have imagined the widespread impact that it would have on the world during the course of its first 60 years. They would be amazed that their vision, despite all of the odds against it at the beginning and all of the resistance that has been mounted against it since, accomplished so much. Never before in history have there been so many achievements in promoting, extending, enhancing, and actually protecting human rights.

Nevertheless, not all of the UDHR’s vision has yet been fully realized. Severe abuses of human rights still exist. It is precisely for that reason that the revolution launched and sustained by the Universal Declaration must continue.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.