PARIS, Dec 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – On December 10, 1948 — three years after
the Allied victory over the Nazis — the United Nations adopted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in the hopes of creating a better world after the
horrors of the war.
It was the first time that countries agreed on fundamental rights and
freedoms to be protected on a universal scale, for all people. It was also
one of the first achievements of the UN, itself born from the ashes of World
War II.
Its adoption in Paris was hailed with a long standing ovation from
delegates determined that the world would never again see the likes of
Auschwitz and other atrocities.
Although without legal obligations, it stresses the supremacy of individual
rights over those of states; it puts economic, social and cultural freedoms
on the same level as civil and political rights.
Human rights were no longer exclusively an internal affair, as Hitler had
claimed to prevent foreign interference in his affairs. They were now a
universal issue.
On the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the milestone charter, here is
some background.
– Divided world seeks consensus –
The UN’s first General Assembly in 1946 created a Commission on Human
Rights — made up of 18 members from various political, cultural and
religious backgrounds — to work on an international bill of rights.
Its drafting committee first met in 1947 under the dynamic chairmanship of
Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Its other representatives were from eight countries, selected with regard
for their geographical distribution, with Canada’s John Peters Humphrey and
Rene Cassin from France playing key roles in the drafts.
In 1948 the committee submitted to the UN’s third General Assembly in
Paris, which started in September, a draft for feedback from member states,
with over 50 participating in the final document.
The version the assembly adopted on December 10 had the backing of 48 of
the UN’s then 58 countries. Of those who did not vote, Yemen and Honduras
were absent. Eight abstained: Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia,
South Africa, the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Yugoslavia.
“At a time when the world was divided into Eastern and Western blocks,
finding a common ground on what should make the essence of the document
proved to be a colossal task,” the UN says on its website.
Communists said there was an over-emphasis on individual and political
rights at the expense of social rights; Western democracies were wary of the
declaration becoming a restrictive legal tool that could be used against them
by their own their colonies.
– Inspiring but contested –
Despite the doubts and debates at the time of its creation, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights inspired all post-war treaties and is regarded as
the foundation of international human rights law.
The international conventions against the discrimination of women in 1979
and against torture in 1984, the rights of children in 1990, the creation of
the International Criminal Court in 1998 — all are its direct descendents.
It also inspired the “right to intervene” in another country on
humanitarian grounds, as championed by former French foreign minister Bernard
Kouchner, who co-founded Doctors Without Borders.
But the declaration has not been able to prevent violations of the rights
it espouses.
Nor has it escaped criticism, including that the concept of “universalism”
is little more than a Western diktat, and with ideological, cultural and
religious resistance from various countries, such as those that apply Islamic
Sharia law.
– Rethinking rights –
Seventy years after its adoption, there are some calls for the declaration
to be updated.
It should, for example, take into account new challenges such as climate
change, mass migration and modern technologies, France’s Human Rights League
president Malik Salemkour told AFP in November.
It should also more concretely address situations where its key goals are
far from being achieved, for example, in gender equality and the abolition of
the death sentence, he said.