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Introduction

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Asia and the Drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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Abstract

Laying the overall framework for analysis of Asia’s contribution of the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the introductory chapter outlines debates in scholarship concerning who drafted the Universal Declaration, the influence of Western philosophical and religious traditions, the role of the “Global South” in framing universal values and the Asian values debate. It locates the work in constructivist approach to the study of international relations, which emphasizes that there is a global dialogue over rights. Tracing the strong Asian contribution to the UDHR contributes to this dialogue and reinforces the universal values of the Declaration.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A.J. Ayer (1984), Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (New York, Vintage books), p. 18.

  2. 2.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/17/CHN/1, para.4.

  3. 3.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/27/IND/1, para. 1.

  4. 4.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/27/IDN, para. 1.

  5. 5.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/17/MYS/1, para. 9.

  6. 6.

    Human Rights Council, A/HEC/WG.6/28/PAK/1, para. 2.

  7. 7.

    Ibid, para. 19.

  8. 8.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/27/PHL/1, para. 3.

  9. 9.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/24/SGP/1, para. 4.

  10. 10.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/25/THA/1, para. 14.

  11. 11.

    Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/18/VNM/1, paras. 6–7.

  12. 12.

    David Rieff, “The End of Human Rights? Learning from the failure of the Responsibility to Protect and the International Criminal Court.” Foreign Policy. April 9 2018. http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/09/the-end-of-human-rights-genocide-united-nations-r2p-terrorism/

  13. 13.

    Stephen Hopgood. The Endtimes for Human Rights. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014).

  14. 14.

    D. Forsythe, “Hard times for human rights.” Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2017, pp. 242–253.

  15. 15.

    S. Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

  16. 16.

    E. Posner, The Twilight of Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

  17. 17.

    See Gideon Rachman, Easternization. War and Peace in the Asian Century. (London: The Bodley Head, 2016).

  18. 18.

    Geoff Dyer (2014), Contest of the Century, New York: Vintage Books.

  19. 19.

    Daniel Bell, The China Model (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2015).

  20. 20.

    Jiang Quing, A Confucian Constitutional Order. (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013).

  21. 21.

    Human Rights Council, 34th session (HCR34) in March 2017: a resolution on the “Question of the realization in all countries of economic social and cultural rights” (A/HRC/34/L.4/Rev.1) and a resolution on “The right to food” (A/HRC/34/L.21).

  22. 22.

    Andrea Worden, China Pushes ‘Human Rights With Chinese Characteristics’ at the UN, China Change, October 9, 2017.

    https://chinachange.org/2017/10/09/china-pushes-human-rights-with-chinese-characteristics-at-the-un/ 4/12

  23. 23.

    Worden (2017), p. 8.

  24. 24.

    Kacie Candela, China’s Notions of UN Reform: Filling the Growing Vacuum Left by the US,” Pass Blue, January 3, 2018, p. 11. Accessed at http://www.passblue.com/2018/01/03/chinas-notions-of-un-reform-filling-the-growing-vacuum-left-by-the-us/ 1/7.

  25. 25.

    Sonja Sceats and Shaun Breslin, China and the International Human Rights System. (London: Chatham House, 2012).

  26. 26.

    Rieff, op.cit., (2018).

  27. 27.

    See Diane K. Mauzy (1997), “The human rights and ‘Asian values’ debate in Southeast Asia: Trying to clarify the key issues,” The Pacific Review, Vol. 10 No. 2, p. 210 (pp. 210–236). Ole Bruun and Michael Jacobsen, Human Rights and Asian Values: Contesting National Identities and Cultural Representations in Asia (London: Routledge, 2003); Kingsbury, D. Leena Avonius, Eds., Human Rights in Asia: A Reassessment of the Asian Values Debate (Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

    See also Michael Freeman (2007), “Human Rights, Democracy and Asian Values,” Michael Freeman (2007) Human rights, democracy and ‘Asian values’, The Pacific Review, 9:3, 352–366. On cultural relativism generally see, Jack Donnelly (1984), Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 400–419.

  28. 28.

    See An-na’im, Abdullahi Ahmed (ed.). Human Rights in Cross-cultural Perspectives: A Quest for Consensus. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992..

  29. 29.

    Roger Blackburn, Cultural Relativism in the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council. Institut CAtala International, Working Paper No. 3, 2011. Available at https://www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/general-document/pdf/-blackburn_upr_cultural_relativism.09.2011.pdf

  30. 30.

    C. Cerna (1994), “Universality of Human Rights and Cultural Diversity: Implementation of Human Rights in Different Socio-Cultural Contexts,” Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 740–752.

  31. 31.

    NGO Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights, World Conference on Human Rights, 19 April 1993, UN Doc. A Conf.157/PC/83.

  32. 32.

    Blackburn (2011), p. 33.

  33. 33.

    Blackburn (2011), p. 34.

  34. 34.

    Amartya Sen, “Human Rights and Asian Values,” 16th Annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture on Ethics and Foreign Policy, 1997.

    May 25, 1997, https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/archive/morgenthau/254

  35. 35.

    Sceats and Breslin (2012), p. 41.

  36. 36.

    Quoted in Sceats and Breslin (2018), p. 42.

  37. 37.

    Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink (1998), “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4, (Autumn, 1998), pp. 887–917.

  38. 38.

    Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. London and NY: WW Norton and Co. 2007. First published in 2003; Zakaria, “The rise of illiberal democracy,” Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec, 1997, pp. 22–43.

  39. 39.

    Donnelly (2013), Universal Human Rights In Theory and Practice, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013. p. 53.

  40. 40.

    See, for example, Valentine Zuber, Le Culte des Droits de l’Homme. (Paris: Galimard, 2014). Zuber traces the passage from a religious based order to a new secular, humanist order at the time of the French Revolution.

  41. 41.

    Donnelly (2013), p. 58.

  42. 42.

    See M. Ulric Killion, “China’s Amended Constitution: Quest for Liberty and Independent Judicial Review, Washington. University Global Studies. Law Review. Vol. 43, No. 4, 2005., pp. 43–80, Available at http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_globalstudies/vol4/iss1/3

  43. 43.

    Donnelly (2013), p. 28.

  44. 44.

    AICHR (2009), Terms of Reference. Accessible at: http://www.asean.org/storage/images/archive/publications/TOR-of-AICHR.pdf

  45. 45.

    NGO Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights, World Conference on Human Rights, 19 April 1993, UN Doc. A/CONF.157/PC/83.

  46. 46.

    Bünte, M. and B. Dressel. ‘Politics and Constitutions in Southeast Asia.’ (London, New York: Routledge 2017). See especially first chapter of Part 3.

  47. 47.

    Philip J. Eldridge, The Politics of Human Rights in Southeast Asia, (Routledge, London and New York, 2002)

  48. 48.

    Hitoshi, Nasu, Ben Saul, Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region: Towards Institution Building, Routledge, 2011.

  49. 49.

    Ashild Samnoy, Human rights as international consensus: The Making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1945–1948, Chr. Michelsen Institute Bergen, Norway, 1993, p. 1.

  50. 50.

    Ibid, p. 61.

  51. 51.

    Ibid, pp. 72–73.

  52. 52.

    M. Glen Johnson and Janusz Symonides, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A History of its Creation and Implementation, 1948–1998, UNESCO Publications, 1998. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001144/114488E.pdf

  53. 53.

    Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia 1999/2010).

  54. 54.

    Mary Glendon (1999), “Foundations of Human Rights: The unfinished Business,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, Vol. 44, No. 1, 1999, p. 7.

  55. 55.

    Glendon (1999), p. 8.

  56. 56.

    Gudmundur Alfredsson and Asbjorn Eide (Ed.s), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A common Standard of Achievement (the Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1999).

  57. 57.

    Kathryn Sikkink, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017, p. 56.

  58. 58.

    See also Fariss, C. “Respect for human rights has improved over time: Modeling the changing standard of accountability.” American Political Science Review, Vol. 108, No. 2., May 2014, pp. 297–318.

  59. 59.

    William Schabas (2014), op.cit.

  60. 60.

    The lengthy titles of UN documents are mostly excluded. The specific UN codes are used in this work. A useful explanation is provided on Wikipedia, “UN Document Codes,” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Document_Codes.Middle codes, mean as follows:

    __/RES/ (A resolution of the body); __/PV.67/ (A full, first-person account of the proceedings of the 67th meeting (of the year, or since the start of the UN) known as a “proces verbal” or “Verbatim record”); __/SR.67/ (A third-person condensed version of the above meeting, known as the “Summary record”); ___/L.45/ (is a enjoys limited distribution, for example a draft resolution before a voted on the same); __/ES-10/ (A “meeting” of the Tenth “emergency special session”). Finally, the trailing codes mean: _/__/Add.3 – (Addendum to a document); __/__/Rev.1 (First revision of a document) and __/__/Corr.1 (Corrigendum to a document).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Webster University, Bangkok, Thailand

    Robin Ramcharan

  2. Asia Centre, Bangkok, Thailand

    Robin Ramcharan

  3. Emeritus President, UPR Info, Alyth, Perthshire, UK

    Bertrand Ramcharan

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  1. Robin Ramcharan
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Ramcharan, R., Ramcharan, B. (2019). Introduction. In: Asia and the Drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2104-7_1

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