Declaration for all
- The UDHR is a milestone in human civilization
On December 10, the human rights community around the world celebrated the 63th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In Nepal too, since the last three years, human rights groups have started the tradition of observing the Human Rights Day collectively under the banner of “Human Rights National Magna Meet”. The objective of the celebration is to educate and conscientise the people on their human rights and encourage them to uphold these rights in their own communities.
Since the adoption of the UDHR the world has witnessed an irreversible expansion of human rights. The acts of human rights violations are punishable by international law and can also invite the strong international and UN censoring, sanctions or even military intervention by the international community.
Of late, the idea of human rights has also emerged as the most powerful and useful tool to transform, reform, restructure and humanise the society in a way that had never been experienced before. Thus, human rights discourse is also trying to fill up the vacuum caused by the obsolescence of the traditional and conventional social values and beliefs systems. As such, all over the world, human rights has been recognised as the voice of voiceless, the hope of hopeless and the power of powerless, marginalised, discriminated and excluded people. The effects of the ever increasing popularisation of the idea of human rights has resulted in an unprecedented awareness and assertiveness among the hitherto silent people — thereby sending shockwaves among the rulers supported by the exploitative elite class.
Story behind the drafting of UDHR
Obviously, this uniquely celebrated document is not the product of a single day’s decision or deliberation by a particular group of people. The ideas contained this Declaration has evolved over many centuries and millennia passing through the innumerable vicissitudes of history. This historic document draws upon the deep and widespread cultural, religious and philosophical roots from all over the world.
The rationale for this Declaration can be attributed to the failure of the United Nations Charter, which was adopted by the international community on 26 June 1945, to define human rights and fundamental freedoms in a clear and unambiguous word in spite of its lofty commitments. The Charter’s failure to provide any machinery to be used to ensure the observance of these rights owes to the opposition from major powers like the US, Soviet Union, France and the UK.
Being aware of these important deficiencies in the Charter, the newly-established United Nations decided to hand over the responsibility of drafting a single comprehensive human rights document acceptable to all parties to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The drafting committee was chaired by a distinguished scholar-activist Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the then American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The American President had already made the world famous policy statement of the “Four Freedoms” in 1941 containing the freedom of expression, freedom of faith, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Other than Mrs Roosevelt, the committee consisted of distinguished scholars, lawyers and diplomats like Rene Cassin (France), PC Chang (China), Omar Loufti (Egypt), Charles Malik (Lebanon), Hernan Santacruz (Chile), Hasusa Mehta (India), Carlos P. Romulo (Philippines), Bogomolov (Soviet Union) and Rebuiker (Yugoslavia).
The Declaration was drafted between January 1947 and December 1948. Following the intense deliberations, the draft declaration was adopted on 10 December, 1948 by the General Assembly with 48 states in favour, none against and 8 abstentions (Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Ukraine, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia).
Characteristics of the declaration
In addition to the Preamble, which explains the philosophy, motives and purposes that guided the drafters of the Declaration, the UDHR contains 30 different articles. The Preamble cites the concept of ‘inherent human dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members’ as the philosophical sources of the declaration. It also makes the includes the right to peaceful dissent by the people against oppressive and tyrannical rule, and forcefully asserts the universality of human rights by referring it as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.
Of the 30 celebrated articles, Articles 3-21 contain a comprehensive list of the fundamental civil and political rights. These rights are also commonly referred as the ‘first generation rights’. Likewise, Articles 22-27 briefly mention — compared to an exhaustive treatment of civil and political rights — of the Economic, Social and Cultural rights, which are also known as the ‘second generation rights’ in human rights parlance. One of the important features of the Declaration is that it does not treat civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights separately. This was to change later. During the cold war, human rights were unfortunately bifurcated into two international treaties like the International covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International covenant on Economic, Social and Political Rights. Such dichotomisation of human rights resulted in a weak implementation of both treaties.
Impact of the declaration
The adoption of the Declaration represents a watershed moment in the annals of contemporary international relations. It is the first document of its kind to catalogue and define human rights for the first time in the history of the world. Many of the scholars also agree that the Declaration represents a major step forward in the advancement of human civilisation. The popularity of the document can be gauzed form the fact that it remains the most translated document in the modern history with translations, so far, into more than 360 different languages.
Likewise, no other document has succeeded in influencing the human civilisation as profoundly. Several countries like South Africa, Spain, Romania and Nepal (both in the Interim Constitution and in the draft of proposed constitution), besides many others, have incorporated parts of the Declaration in their constitutions. The Declaration has also made a tremendous impact on almost all human rights instruments adopted by the UN and other organisations. In spite of the fact that it is not legally binding, the Declaration has assumed the character of a universally accepted normative system to judge the conduct of the government towards its people.
Since this Declaration represents our continuing quest for an ideal, human rights- friendly, peaceful and humane society, its pervasive and powerful message can be utilised to remind and sensitise the rulers and peoples of their human rights obligations. This, perhaps, could be the best message of the international human rights day.
Shrestha is a professor of political science and the coordinator of Human Rights National Magna Meet
Posted on: 2011-12-11 09:14
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