Celebrate Human Rights Day by learning about and recommitting to human rights
“Some measure of the impact which the Declaration has had on the expectations of individual men and women can be found in the many thousands of communications received by the United Nations every year from people everywhere alleging that their rights have been violated and invoking the Declaration in their appeals for help.” — John Humphrey
As The Guardian in London noted only four days after it was unanimously adopted (with eight abstentions) on December 10, 1948, “[i]t is easy enough to view the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a certain cynicism.” Unfortunately, little has changed in this respect over the intervening 69 years. Basic human rights continue to be abused around the world, and enforcement of the declaration remains elusive with many of the signatories persisting in perpetrating abuses and using “national sovereignty” to justify their crimes.
Moreover, the declaration itself is still missing important provisions that would abolish capital punishment — as proposed by Albert Camus in 1946 — and explicitly provide for “the right to refuse to kill” — as advocated by Camus, Amnesty International and others. As Camus said, “No cause justifies the murder of innocents.” However, today the innocent go unacknowledged and uncounted and the “better angles of our nature” must be rediscovered.
Still, the three year effort that led to this “International Bill of Rights” was a significant and enduring achievement worthy of celebration. But with ugly nationalisms and extremisms on the rise again worldwide, it would also be worthwhile to reflect on the human crisis that led to this historic declaration and recommit to achieving its elusive goals of freedom, justice, and peace for all.
As Eleanor Roosevelt, Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, said in September of 1948, “Human rights exist to the degree that they are respected by people in relations with each other and by governments in relations with their citizens.” The philosophical debate over the declaration was apparently led by Charles Malik (Lebanon) and Vice Chair Peng Chun Chang (China), who is said to have argued for the universal validity of Chinese philosophers such as Mencius.
Malik once said, possibly as a sign of respect for the woman he replaced as Chair of the UN Commission, that “[t]he fastest way to change society is to mobilize the women of the world.” While a representative of Panama had submitted an early draft of individual rights and freedoms in the first session of the UN, the first draft of what would become the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was prepared by John Humphrey, a Canadian secular humanist who lost both of his parents and an arm in childhood and was bullied while attending boarding school in the early 20th century. But “I do not particularly want people to remember me,” Humphrey later said. “I do, however, want people to remember what we accomplished with the creation of international law (a result of The Declaration).”
“As I told you, we on Committee № 3 finished all the articles for the Declaration of Human Rights on Tuesday, but it was by dint of working until ten minutes to one Thursday morning that the committee finished the preamble. The Argentine delegate succeeded in getting his resolution through the late session. He was most anxious that Argentina’s proposal for old-age care should be transmitted to the Economic and Social Council for study. This has been done, and I hope that group will refer it to the Social Commission, since this should bear some relation to existing plans for old-age care that have been tried out already in other countries. If it is to be a United Nations proposal it surely should have a universal character and embody the best of everybody’s experience throughout the world and be applicable in all countries even if in a somewhat modified form. The whole idea has been proposed by the wife of the president of Argentina, Madam Peron, who even made a plea over the radio to the U.N. in favor of her suggestion.” — Eleanor Roosevelt (The Pittsburg Press, Dec. 4, 1948)
As is the case today, the declaration was not celebrated by everyone in 1948. One Canadian authority close to the government described it as “the darndest aggregation of unpractical, unrealistic aspirations ever presented” (The Winnipeg Tribune, December 8). Humphrey’s own government abstained from voting on the draft declaration in the U.N. social committee but supported it in the end when it reached the full assembly for a vote.
On December 5th the Chicago Tribune said the declaration “resembles a blend of the New Deal, the soviet constitution, and the ‘cradle to grave’ social service program of Britain's Labor government” under a headline that read, “U.N. Human Rights Set Utopian Goal.” Yet the American, Britain, and Soviet governments “[a]ll three agreed, however, on a totalitarian concept of government responsibility for the support and contentment of all the people” the Tribune opined. But the committee continued working day and night on the declaration.
“With only five more days to go, the United Nations social committee met until 3:08 a.m. today to approve the much-disputed declaration of human rights after two years of debate. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, who helped write the declaration of human rights, remained throughout the long grueling night and early morning session of the social committee and emerged tired but smiling at the end. ‘I’m certainly glad we got through with that,’ she said. The far-reaching declaration of human rights containing a preamble and 29 articles, gives ‘everybody’ the right to freedom of speech, religion and opinion and defines the right to own property, the right to leisure and the right to social welfare.” — Battle Creek Enquirer (Michigan, December 7, 1948)
Both Christians and Muslims participated in the debate and claimed a share in credit for the declaration afterwards. Article 18, which embodies the principle of a right to change your religious beliefs, was thought by some to be a point of contention for Muslims until the delegate from Pakistan, Mahommed Zafrullah Khan, rose to support the article:
“He put on record what Christian mission organizations have welcomed as one of the most important and significant statements of its kind by a high-ranking Moslem leader. ‘Islam claims the right and freedom to persuade any man to change his religion,’ he said. ‘Surely and obviously, it must equally yield to other faiths the free right of conversion…In areas where politics and missionary efforts got mixed up together, missionary activities often had certain features to which legitimate objection could be taken. But even allowing that to be so, and even allowing that such efforts might continue, surely to cast upon the freedom of exchange of belief, or faith, is to choose a form of remedy which is very much worse that the ill that it is designed to cure.’” — The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), December 27, 1948
On December 10th this year I will be attending the third annual Human Rights Day celebration in Hickory, hosted by the Catawba Valley Interfaith Council (CVIC) — on whose board I am proud to serve as the representative of the Hickory Humanist Alliance. This year’s guest speaker is T. Anthony Spearman, President of the North Carolina NAACP. As it has done the past few years, CVIC will also ask the Hickory City Council to issue a proclamation again this year recognizing Human Rights Day and the need to defend human rights for everyone.
As a secular humanist, its easy enough of course to view such celebrations and proclamations with a certain cynicism or see them as “preaching to the choir.” However, I see them as an opportunity to learn more about the circumstances in (and after) which this universal declaration was created and the ongoing struggle to update, expand and enforce its provisions.
Even more importantly, it’s an opportunity to stay engaged locally in what Camus argued was the most important thing we can do in response to the human crisis — participate in peaceful dialogue with people we disagree with and treat everyone with the respect they deserve. As Camus declared near the end of the second world war, bravely writing for the French resistance:
Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.
So please join us in Hickory on December 10th to #StandUp4HumanRights!
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