This episode considers the relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
today, in spite of the political compromises which surrounded its drafting, resulting in
ambiguous norms which rely on domestic legal systems for meaning as well as
effective implementation.
As the previous episodes have shown, impulses towards individual rights and
freedoms have always been conflicting and conflicted, and have never exhibited a
consistent, linear, upward development. Human dignity as expressed as rights to
freedom and equality has never been an immutable concept, and is not so now.
If so, how useful can the Declaration be today?
This episode focuses on three facts: the contribution of the Declaration to the
processes of human rights; its contribution to coping with today’s human rights
flashpoints; and its relevance in addressing new horizons in international law.
The episode contains further excerpts of the interview the presenter conducted with
John Humphrey, the Canadian scholar who constructed the initial draft of the
Declaration, as well as interviews with Ambassador Hans Corell (the former UN
Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs) and with the Hon Michael Kirby (former
Justice of the High Court of Australia).

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This episode describes the drafting process of the Universal Declaration within the United Nations. It was fundamentally different from its eighteenth-century antecedents in that the process involved every UN member, myriad Non-Governmental Organisations and dozens of highly committed individuals.

However, there was opposition to it (from the UN Secretary-General down) and debates became fractious in the climate of the Cold War. This episode contains parts of an interview with John Humphrey, the Canadian Head of the Human Rights Division within the UN Secretariat and reputedly the author of the initial draft of the Declaration.

The aim was to provide common grounds for agreement – a synthesis of world views – and the compromises involved produced a document containing a productive ambiguity. The document that resulted was revolutionary as it re-aligned the normative concept of international law which would no longer be the sole province of state sovereignty, but it was not the product of a revolution.
The final vote in the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, produced no votes against the Declaration, although there were 8 abstentions. There was not unanimity. But it heralded a vision of humans and humanity and forever changed the political debate at international level.

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While the 19th century had seen some advances in rights for people (the abolition of the slave trade; protection of people in times of war), they were advances for specific groups of people rather than for all human beings.

At the start of the 20th century there were several organisations from many parts of the world which were concerned about rights. These were the initiatives of concerned
individuals rather than governments.

After the devastation of World War I, a truly inter-governmental organisation was set up: the League of Nations. It achieved several advances for rights, such as for minorities and workers, but again the focus was on specific groups rather than for everyone universally. Also, the fact that the United States never became a member of the League was a distinct drawback in its effectiveness.

After the Second World War, advances in technology meant that people all over the world could see in newsreels the horrors perpetrated by totalitarianism. This helped change the international mood to one in favour of rights for everyone. But when the United Nations was established its Charter contained references to human rights but no definition of them.

The major powers with veto power in the Security Council were more concerned about world peace and stability than human rights. But the General Assembly had the power to discuss any matter under the UN Charter and recommend action.

The seeds had been sewn for the development of human rights – but again the principal instigators and drivers of this were committed individuals, rather than governments, who would help bring about a social and legal phenomenon. 

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After the reaction against natural rights at the end of the 18th century, was a gentler touch, rather than a kick start, needed to massage human rights into life?
This episode looks at the 19th century, which began as the Age of Romanticism, and which saw the abolition of the slave trade, but which was also an age of industrialisation, imperialism and racism. Movements towards a human rights sensibility were largely the result of committed reformers, rather than of governments.

Developments in international law towards human rights were regarded as exceptional, rather than fundamental. But it started to lay the groundwork for fundamental human rights norms.

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This episode considers the similarities and differences between the US and French revolutions and the resulting Declarations, and the reactions outside the United States and France to these.

While some applauded the new focus on rights, others were appalled at the bloodshed, particularly that occurring in France during the Terror. Thus, while some, like Thomas Paine, built on Locke’s ideas of natural rights, others, like Edmund Burke, were wary of them because of their connection to anarchy and so opposed reform.  Yet others, like Jeremy Bentham, who was in favour of reform and did propose reforms in many areas, nevertheless called natural rights “nonsense on stilts”. This was the so-called Age of Reason, but theories were not uniform and, moreover, vied with observed and bloody facts.

This was also an age when women’s opinions began not only to be published but also read widely. So the discussion of persons of interest in the development of rights includes several examples of prominent women to see how their lives, upbringing and personalities contributed to and affected their views, as well as affecting the opinions of others in the growing debate about rights.

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This podcast considers revolutions in religion, society and politics, and some of the people involved in them, and their effects on the notions of rights.

The Reformation helped to detach notions of rights and the authority of the (Catholic) church from earlier notions of natural law.  The Renaissance saw an increased focus on the individual.  But the effects of these were neither consistent nor universal.

A revolution in England, while it helped sweep away the notion of the divine rights of kings, replaced it with the supremacy of a parliament to which only landed men could vote.

The revolutions in the United States and France, and their accompanying declarations of rights, did start a process of articulating and specifying what the rights of individuals could be, but were hedged in by political compromises (slavery remained legal in the United States until 1865) as well as by existing social mores (which downplayed women’s rights by relegating those away from the public sphere into the private).

There was an ebb and flow of rights; not an inexorable upward progression to human rights as we would recognise them today.

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This is the first podcast in a series to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It considers whether human rights have an ancient pedigree in law, ethics, politics and religion. Do the Code of Hammurabi and the Cyrus Cylinder offer any clues to the origins? What was the nature of rights in ancient Greece?

How important was the growth of the political influence of Christianity? What was the impact of Magna Carta?
This podcast considers these issues in the light of the political, social and cultural contexts out of which they arose, and the influence of people directly involved.

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