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2 results

  • 1 - How Fear and Hope Shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  • from Part I - History of Human Rights
  • Edited by Neal S. Rubin, Roseanne L. Flores, Hunter College, City University of New York
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and Human Rights
    Published online:
    02 October 2020
    Print publication:
    15 October 2020, pp 11-24

  • Summary

    Two sentiments governed the postwar world: fear and hope. These two feelings dominated the debates that gave birth to both the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The League of Nations had failed. Leaders had expressed the desire for a world grounded in human rights but could not agree on what that meant or whether individual rights trumped the sovereign rights of nations. The UN Charter reflected these concerns, recognizing human rights but leaving their scope undefined. No precedents existed to guide the work. A committee of eighteen nations, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, accepted the unprecedented assignment of defining basic rights for all people everywhere. After consulting with noted jurists, philosophers, and social justice organizations, the committee set out to draft a document that would recognize the horrors of war and engender a commitment to peace. They envisioned a world governed more by hope than by fear. It was hard work. The debate was punctuated by escalating Cold War politics. A legally binding document seemed out of reach. All efforts turned instead to securing a declaration of human rights, which ultimately paved the way for legally binding commitments and energized a budding human rights movement.

  • The UN Human Rights Council: A New ‘Society of the Committed’ or Just Old Wine in New Bottles?

  • NICO SCHRIJVER
  • Journal:
    Leiden Journal of International Law / Volume 20 / Issue 4 / December 2007
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    15 December 2007, pp. 809-823
    Print publication:
    December 2007

  • This article provides an assessment of the replacement of the UN Commission on Human Rights by the Human Rights Council, with a view to ascertaining whether the human rights architecture of the United Nations is now in better or worse shape. Institutionally, it is unique in that an international organ is dismantled and replaced by a new one for the sake of achieving greater effectiveness. What are the chances for success? For a proper assessment, the article first examines the status, functioning, and falling into disgrace of the UN Commission on Human Rights and, second, reviews the establishment of the new Human Rights Council as part of the UN reform process and identifies the new features of the Council compared with the previous Commission. Third, it discusses the work of the Council in its first year, in particular the extensive June 2007 decision on institution building of the UN Human Rights Council. The article concludes that the Council had a far from fresh and easy start, but that its establishment and functioning so far are not a radical departure from the acquis of the UN human rights regime. The first years of the Council are crucial for solid institution building and functioning credibly in an action-oriented way. The first members on the Council bear the heavy responsibility of seizing this historic opportunity.