The African states and the UDHR

It is particularly noticeable that the attachment to the UDHR proclaimed in African constitutions is largely absent from African pronouncements, conference declarations or UN resolutions. Indeed, whenever reference is made to the UDHR or to human or fundamental rights, it is invariably qualified or limited in context to self-determination, apartheid or racial prejudice, or simply referenced to the UN Charter. Such a qualified endorsement first emerges in the Final Communiqué of the 1955 Asian-African Conference which referenced human rights in three of its seven sections. In the section on ‘Human Rights and Self-Determination’, it declared

The other references affirmed ‘that the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation’; and that one of the principles upon which international relations should be founded was: ‘Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.’ The conference also endorsed a ‘Basic Paper on Racial Discrimination’, which was not part of the Final Communiqué but was ‘considered … as being part of its decisions’, in which racial segregation and discrimination were deplored as ‘a gross violation of human rights’, but no reference was made to the UDHR. At best, therefore, the references to the UDHR are a qualified nod. Moreover, in its main reference, support is only extended to ‘the fundamental principles of human rights’ which in any event are said to derive from the UN Charter not the UDHR.

Human rights were also mentioned in the opening conference address of several delegation leaders.