60 years on, UN rights declaration faces new challenges

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The declaration was adopted in Paris on December 10, 1948, breaking new ground by encoding basic principles that would serve as the template for future rights conventions.
The 30-point document, based on France’s 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the 1776 US Declaration of Independence, was adopted by 58 countries at a meeting of the UN General Assembly.
The Soviet Union, its East bloc allies, and South Africa abstained after a tortuous debate in which communist countries held up “real” economic and social rights against the “bourgeois” cultural and social principles defended by the West.
With the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust fresh in their minds, the countries adopted the non-binding declaration at the Palais de Chaillot.


“This was the first manifesto adopted by organised humanity”, said René Cassin, a French legal expert who took part in drafting the ground-breaking document.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration proclaims: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.
On Wednesday, representatives from the United Nations, the European Commission and non-governmental organizations gathered at the Palais de Chaillot to take stock.
The declaration did not prevent a new genocide from occurring, in Rwanda in 1994, and basic human rights continue to be violated on a daily basis around the globe.
Human rights remains an ideology challenged by states which see it as a ploy by the West to impose its ideas on the rest of the world, said French former Justice Minister Robert Badinter.
“There are opposing trends from nationalists who say they are masters in their own house in China, Venezuela, Cuba or Burma, and from Islamists who say human rights stem from religious concepts”.
The rise of Russia and China as economic powers that strongly reject Western criticism of their rights record has reshaped the debate as has Washington’s “war on terror” launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“Who cares about Chechnya these days?” asks Reed Brody, of the US-based Human Rights Watch.
Russia fought two brutal wars in the Caucasus republic of Chechnya that human rights groups say have left more than 100,000 civilians dead. In poor countries, campaigners say development is a top priority and that the biggest threat to basic rights is economic and environmental degradation.
“For billions of people, food and shelter are basic human rights”, said Brody. “Since the September 11 attacks, human rights often take a back seat to security concerns”.
Despite the shortcomings, rights champions tip their hats to the UN declaration as a landmark document that changed international diplomacy.
Amnesty International secretary general Irene Khan said the declaration “put human rights on the international agenda.
“Today no government denies that human rights are a valid concern of the international community. They may fail to respect human rights but they can’t deny the validity of these rights”, said Khan.
The world would look to President-elect Barack Obama to restore the United States’ human rights reputation after it was tarnished by the war on terrorism, Khan said.
In an interview to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration, Irene Khan said that in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Western countries resorted to the tactics they once condemned.
“What the 9/11 attacks did was expose the hypocrisy of Western democracies that until then had been champions of human rights abroad”, Khan said. “Suddenly they were caught with problems in their own territory. And then facing that problem, they chose to take the easy path out of it, eroding human rights rather than standing up for them. “I think that sent a very bad message across the world to others”.
While the “war on terror” was conceived by the US Administration of President George W. Bush, “those who followed it were not just powerless innocents”, Khan said, singling out European governments which cooperated in the renditions of terrorist suspects.
The ‘renditions’ -- transferring terrorist suspects to third countries for interrogation, often passing through European airports or airspace -- became one of the most contentious elements of the war on terrorism.
Photographs of naked and hooded Iraqi prisoners being subjected to humiliation and made to simulate homosexual sex in the notorious US-run Abu Ghraib prison also became potent symbols of abuses by American forces.
But Khan is optimistic that the inauguration of the first black US president in January will see human rights move back to the top of Washington’s agenda. “I hope very much that the US really takes a strong stand on human rights in the future”, Khan said.
The Universal Declaration milestone was marked just days after the attacks in Mumbai (Bombay) and amid fears in the West over the spread of religious extremism, but Khan said the impact of the document remains profound.
“Today no government denies that human rights are a valid concern of the international community”, she said.
She admitted however that the outlook was gloomy as the global economic slowdown posed new challenges for human rights -- and she said governments had a duty to protect their citizens.