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World War II’s numerous moral dilemmas and high death toll have marked it as the most destructive war in history, boasting over 75 million casualties and causing a shift in global power dynamics ever since. The UDHR was produced during a kairotic moment when the world needed order in an unprecedented period of increasing violence. Taking place between 1939 and 1945, World War II began in the West with the German Nazi invasion of Poland, and in the East with the Japanese invasions in China. In the aftermath of the gruesome six-year war, the world needed concrete definitions for human rights so that identified violations could be properly punished and corrected. The UDHR was decreed by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, in Paris, France. The 58-member Assembly included France, Germany, Poland, the Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, the United States, the USSR, and many more. Completed by the Assembly in May of 1948 and adopted as Resolution 217 in December of that same year, the UDHR has since become the world’s most translated document (Danchin). Aware that rhetoric about human rights could worsen the problems the UDHR sought to solve, it was the hope of the committee that the list of rights would encourage nonviolent discussions and provide tools for diplomacy. The Japanese had invaded and defiled the Chinese capital, Germany violently carried out plots of eugenics by way of the Holocaust, and the United States had dropped two nuclear bombs on civilian Japan. Victims were not being abused because they lacked humanity, but rather because the measure of humanity created by another group’s definition did not rank highly enough, leaving them vulnerable. The UDHR was significant in that it was created for “human beings” instead of “citizens,” a distinction that promised peace and security for all. A “citizen” is a person who is recognized by the state or government, while a “human being” is anyone alive. Muslim countries, for example, distinguish between “legal” and “natural” persons—one dealing with legality, and the other simply dealing with personhood (separate from a slave with no personhood) (Kuran 785). Unfortunately, not everyone was able to agree to the terms as amicably as was hoped. Although the document had no votes against its adoption, only 48 of the 58 members voted in favor while eight abstained and two failed to act (Danchin). Those who abstained included South Africa, Poland, Yugoslavia, the USSR, Saudi Arabia, the Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussia, and Czechoslovakia, although all were included in the drafting procedures. Yemen and Honduras did not vote.
Countless versions of documents like the UDHR have been drafted, dating as far back as the c. 1754 BCE Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, and each has agreed that human rights are inherent to the individual and critical to each human life (“Human Rights Nature, Concept, Origin and Development”). Experiments in the establishment of human rights have been guided by ancient texts like the Analects of Confucius, the Bible, the Hindu Vedas, the Quran, the Iroquois Constitution, and more, all dating well before the 18th century (Hansen). However, the Magna Carta remains the human rights milestone in Western history, serving as a precursor for more contemporary documents such as the English Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights (Shiman). Ideally, these guiding ancient documents would come together as an amalgamation of rights that could be globally agreed upon to help mediate tensions between the views of human rights in culturally differing societies. However, perceptions on how to equalize human rights change based on myriad perspectives and are altered depending on the responsibilities called upon by tradition, religion, and other highly influential aspects of social philosophies. This suggests a nearly infinite number of complications that can factor into the consolidation of one universal set of laws and rights.
[1] Countries who voted in favor: (48/58) Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Chile, Republic of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Siam, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela.