Abstract
Since its creation in 1945, the United Nations has been an important site for global inequality politics. This chapter explores the dynamics between inequality and international organization focusing on the early years of the United Nations and, in particular, two political processes that emerged in the aftermath of the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The first highlights the political contestation that took place during the 1950s on whether the prevention of discrimination should be part of the UN mandate. The second shows how the UDHR helped inspire a global analysis of standards of living in a series of Reports on the World Social Situation. During the 1950s, the concept of inequality was initially central to this analytical undertaking only to suddenly disappear by the end of the decade.
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Notes
- 1.
Amitav Acharya, “‘Idea-shift’: how ideas from the rest are reshaping global order,” Third World Quarterly 37, no. 7 (2016): 1157.
- 2.
Vincent Pouliot, International Pecking Orders. The Politics and Practice of Multilateral Diplomacy (Cambridge 2016), 4.
- 3.
Pouliot, International Pecking Orders, 259–264.
- 4.
United Nations, The Inequality Predicament: Report on the World Social Situation (New York, 2005).
- 5.
Max Sørensen, “The Quest for Equality,” International Conciliation (1955): 291. It is worth noting that the most prominent Danish counterpart to Max Sørensen on the question of international law and human rights had a very different and less idealistic take on “the equality principle” at the United Nations. In 1950, Professor of Law Alf Ross wrote on this principle that “It is obvious that here too we are only concerned with an ideologically motivated declaratory principle in flagrant conflict with the actual facts.” Alf Ross, Constitution of the United Nations. Analysis of Structure and Function (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1950), 135.
- 6.
Gwendolyn Margaret Carter, The Politics of Inequality. South Africa since 1948 (New York, 1958). See also Carol Anderson, Eyes off the Prize. The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955 (Cambridge, 2003).
- 7.
Siep Stuurman, “Beyond ‘Modern Equality’: Can We Write a World History of Cross-Cultural Equality?” Intellectual History Review 16, no. 1 (2010): 59.
- 8.
A divide between economic inequality and the so-called status equality is central to the overall argument of assessing the lack of efficacy of human rights to counter the expansion of economic inequality in Samuel Moyn, Not Enough. Human Rights in an Unequal World (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2018). These two forms of inequality are, however, much more closely entwined, and hence, status equality or non-discrimination should be regarded as an integral part of the global inequality debate.
- 9.
Carol Anderson, Eyes off the Prize, 106–112. See more recently David L. Sloss, “How International Human Rights Transformed the US Constitution,” Human Rights Quarterly 38, no. 2, (May 2016): 426–449.
- 10.
E/CN.4/Sub.2/40/Rev.1: The Main Types and Causes of Discrimination. Report by the UN Secretary-General. June 1949.
- 11.
E/CN.4/Sub.2/40/Rev.1, 4.
- 12.
E/CN.4/Sub.2/40/Rev.1, 5.
- 13.
E/CN.4/Sub.2/40/Rev.1, 43.
- 14.
E/AC.34/SR.6: Mr. Corley Smith (United Kingdom), Ad Hoc Committee on the Organization and Operation of the Council and its Commissions, 6th meeting, 12 April 1951, 8.
- 15.
CO 537/4580: Economic and Social Council: Commission on Human Rights: Replies to Secret Circular Despatch dated 28 March 1949, British National Archives, Kew Gardens.
- 16.
FO 371/78990: Folder, “Notes on items on the agenda for the second session of the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities”, Minutes by C. M. Lequesne, UK Foreign Office, 25 April 1949, British National Archives.
- 17.
ED 157/360: Cabinet, Steering Committee on International Organizations, Working Party on Human Rights, Draft Brief on the Report of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (Item 5) for the United Kingdom Representative on the Commission on Human Rights, 16 April 1952. British National Archives.
- 18.
Mr. Roy (Haiti) UN General Assembly, 6th Session, Joint Second and Third Committee, 66th meeting, 1 February 1952, 52.
- 19.
E/AC.24/SR.94: Mr. Reyes (Philippines), ECOSOC Co-ordination Committee, 94th meeting, 12 September 1951, 6.
- 20.
Mr. Halpern (USA), Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 7th Session, 146th Meeting, 6 January 1955, 7 and 11 (E.CN.4/Sub.2/SR.146).
- 21.
Mr. Ingles (Philippines), Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 7th Session, 146th Meeting, 6 January 1955, 9 (E.CN.4/Sub.2/SR.146). José D. Ingles placed his finger on what would become a long-standing debate on the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. See, for example, Martha Minow, In Brown’s Wake. Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010).
- 22.
AIDE-Memoire, US Embassy in Ankara (with State Department instructions of how to approach Turkish Foreign Ministry), 1 March 1955. National Archives, College Park, Central Decimal Files, 1955–1959, RG/250/41/27/1 – Box 1307, folder 340.17/1–355.
- 23.
E/CN.4/Sub.2/200/Rev.1: Study of Discrimination in Religious Rights and Practices. Report by Special Rapporteur Arcot Krishnaswami. United Nations 1960.
- 24.
E/CN.4/Sub/2/181/rev.1: Study on Discrimination in Education. Report by Special Rapporteur Charles Ammoun. United Nations 1957.
- 25.
See Article 55, which reads (my italics): “With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote:
-
(a)
higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development;
-
(b)
solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and
-
(c)
universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”
-
(a)
- 26.
The Lebanese proposal of 7 December 1948 is quoted in: E/CN.5/208: The Possibility of Drafting a General Report on the World Social and Cultural Situation, 22 March 1950, Memorandum by the Secretariat.
- 27.
E/CN.5/208, 3. My italics. It is worth noting the early use—in 1950 and again in the actual 1952 report—of the “basic needs” terminology. It was a concept that was turned into a major policy approach to international development in the 1970s closely linked to the humanitarian and socio-economic crisis that many Third World states faced in the aftermath of decolonization. It is therefore normally assigned to this later decade but clearly had earlier roots in international political discourse. On basic needs and human rights, see chapter 5 in Samuel Moyn, Not Enough. Human Rights in an Unequal World (Harvard University Press, 2018). See also Julia Dehm’s contribution, in Chap. 7, in this volume.
- 28.
The UN World Social Situation reports have continued being published to this day. They are produced by the UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs. They have in recent years made inequality a major theme of their study with the 2005 report “The Inequality Predicament”, and the 2013 report “Inequality Matters.” For more see: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/report-on-the-world-social-situation-rwss-social-policy-and-development-division/2005-4.html.
- 29.
For recent works on global economic inequality that has this as the core focus, see, for example, Francois Bourguignon, The Globalization of Inequality (Princeton University Press, 2015); Branko Milanovic, Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016).
- 30.
E/CN.5/267/Rev.1: Preliminary Report on the World Social Situation. UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs, New York, 1952.
- 31.
Ibid., 4.
- 32.
See, for example, E/2193/Rv.1: World Economic Report 1950–1951. UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs, New York, 1952. The first of these reports appeared in 1947.
- 33.
E/CN.5/267/Rev.1: Preliminary Report on the World Social Situation. UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs, New York, 1952, 70–71.
- 34.
E/CN.5/267/Rev.1, 130. On the evolution of GDP as a measurement, see Philipp Lepenies’ chapter “Products before People: How Inequality Was Sidelined by Gross National Product” in this volume.
- 35.
Mr. Kotschnig (USA), ECOSOC, 14th Session, 641st Meeting, 14 July 1952, 550.
- 36.
Mr. Azkoul (Lebanon), ECOSOC, 14th Session, 646th Meeting, 16 July 1952, 590.
- 37.
For a country-focused study featuring the question of overpopulation and domestic political responses to the problem of weak colonial planning capacity that also involves a focus on economic inequality, see Steven L. B. Jensen, “‘From this era of passionate self-discovery’: Norman Manley, Human Rights, and the End of Colonial Rule in Jamaica”, in Decolonization, Self-Determination and the Birth of Global Human Rights Politics, edited by Dirk Moses, Marco Duranti and Roland Burke (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
- 38.
E/CN.5/2324/Rev.1: Report on the World Social Situation. UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs, New York, 1957, vii.
- 39.
For a conceptual exploration of what this entails, see Philipp H. Lepenies, “An Inquiry into the Roots of the Modern Concept of Development”, Contributions to the History of Concepts 4 (2008): 202–225.
- 40.
E/CN.5/2324/Rev.1, 1.
- 41.
E/CN.5/2324/Rev.1, 2.
- 42.
E/CN.5/2324/Rev.1, 65.
- 43.
E/CN.3/179: Report on International Definition and Measurement of Standards and Levels of Living. Report of a Committee of Experts convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations jointly with the International Labour Office and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. United Nations, 1954, 3. For more on how this debate on minimum standards later played out related to economic and social rights, see Chap. 7, by Julia Dehm, in this volume.
- 44.
E/CN.3/179, 2.
- 45.
There are echoes here of what would receive much greater prominence in W.W. Rostow’s book from 1960 The Stages of Economic Growth. A contemporary critique of Rostow’s book from a prominent economics professor who was deeply involved in debates on development, for instance as advisor to the Jamaican government—the Caribbean being central to a refined but different discourse on development economics—is worth highlighting: “All this would not be serious if this sort of theorising did not encourage complacency in the wrong quarters. … [Professor Rostow] has in my opinion, rendered great disservice to the cause he so obviously and sincerely cherishes.” Thomas Balogh, “The Changing Fashions of Economics”, New Statesman LIX, no. 1520 (1960): 641.
- 46.
E/CN.3/179, 39.
- 47.
Mr. Meller-Conrad (Poland), ECOSOC, 24th Session, 987th meeting, 19 July 1957, 142.
- 48.
Mr. Jacoby (USA), ECOSOC, 24th Session, 985th meeting, 17 July 1957, 121.
- 49.
Mr. Jacoby (USA), ECOSOC, 24th Session, 985th meeting, 17 July, 121–122. See Chap. 4, by Philipp Lepenies, in this volume, specifically on Simon Kuznets and national income measurements.
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Jensen, S.L.B. (2019). Inequality and Post-War International Organization: Discrimination, the World Social Situation and the United Nations, 1948–1957. In: Christiansen, C.O., Jensen, S.L.B. (eds) Histories of Global Inequality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19163-4_6
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