the universal declaration of human rights yunxi wang, annekatrin nagel
TRANSCRIPT
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The Universal Declaration of Human rights
Yunxi Wang, Annekatrin Nagel
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Overview of the Drafting Process
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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
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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!)
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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
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The First Drafts of the Declaration
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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)
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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
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UNESCO interlude
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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
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Some Participants
• E.H. Carr, Aldous Huxley• Jacques Maritain • Mohandas Gandhi, Humayun Kabir • Benedetto Croce • Richard McKeon, Quincy Wright • Chung-Shu Lo
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Negotiating the controversial articles
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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
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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
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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
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Debating the hierarchy in universal right
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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
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Abstentions to the universal declaration
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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
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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.
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Conclusion: searching for the universal in the declaration
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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
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Conclusion: searching for the universal in the declaration
• But, at last a positive tone?
• “ The Declaration will develop its own
implementation.”
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Questions?
Thank you