Every year on December 10, the countries of the world commemorate the day in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year, on December 10, let us go all out to speak with one voice: Stop Israel's Genocide of Palestinians! Stop Israel! Let us together once again demand that Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank be ended immediately, that the crimes of the settlers be ended immediately, that the crimes of the Israeli government and Defense Forces and imprisonment of Palestinians be ended immediately and that Israel be held responsible for its barbaric crimes against the Palestinian people. Let us together demand that all necessary measures be taken to stop them immediately. The UN Security Council must demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire and take every available measure to hold Israel and its accomplices responsible for the unconscionable crimes Israel is committing against humanity.

The world cannot carry on helplessly witnessing what Israel is doing and the slaughter and suffering of the Palestinian people. The Government of Canada refuses to take the most elementary measure of calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, proffering every excuse and apology for its crimes when, in fact, Israel deserves to be thrown out of the United Nations as unworthy of the statehood conferred on it in 1948. The demand must be to see Israel reconstituted on a modern democratic basis while the sovereign rights of the state of Palestine must be provided with a guarantee.

Human rights are not "values" that need to be adapted to local cultures and identities. Respecting human rights is not a political choice but a legal obligation. They are commitments with a universal scope, principles of law guaranteed by solemn declarations or legally binding treaties.

The days are long gone when a state -- whether constituted on a non-secular basis or on a secular basis -- can proclaim itself democratic when it discriminates on the basis of religion in deciding citizenship. Israel continues to grant immediate citizenship to anyone of Jewish ancestry and they justify it on the outmoded basis of a need for a place where Jews can come to avoid discrimination and victimization like the Nazi genocide. The world accepts that every human person should find safe haven wherever they live but it does not accept that in the name of providing safe haven for people of Jewish ancestry, Israel can dispossess, criminalize and deprive Palestinians of all the rights which belong to them by virtue of being Palestinian and by virtue of being human.

At a minimum, as a condition of continued membership in the United Nations, Israel should withdraw its forces to the pre-1967 boundaries and cease attacks on Palestinian territories done through confiscation of land for settlements, destruction of the means of livelihood, military control, arbitrary detention and massacres.

The formal inception of Human Rights Day dates from 1950, after the General Assembly passed Resolution 423 (V) inviting all States and interested organizations to adopt December 10 of each year as Human Rights Day. Far from it being a day when the U.S. and its partners, including Canada, try to cover up the crimes they are committing and overseeing all over the world, the peoples of the world are striving with all their might and main to make it mean something by ensuring there is a way to guarantee that the decisions of the General Assembly are implemented. Throwing Israel out of the UN and demanding it be reconstituted on a modern democratic basis in accord with its founding resolution and world standards, as a condition for membership in the UN, not those of an apartheid state, is a place to start.

The General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with 48 states in favour and eight abstentions. At that time it was proclaimed as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations" towards which individuals and societies should strive "by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance."

The Declaration with its broad range of political, civil, social, cultural and economic rights is not a binding document. Nonetheless it gave rise to more than 60 human rights instruments which together constitute an international standard of human rights. Ways must be found by the majority of UN member states to make sure the so-called rules-based international order imposed by the U.S. and its partners in crime, including Canada, is no longer able to smash the general consent of all United Nations Member States on the basic Human Rights laid down in the Declaration and make a mockery of rights by virtue of being human.

On the occasion of 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Annual International Human Rights Day: All Out to Speak With One Voice: Stop Israel's Genocide of Palestinians! Stop Israel!

All Out to Uphold the Human Rights of the Palestinian People,
Their Right to Be and Their Right of Return!

The Biggest Violators of Human Rights Shout Loudest About Human Rights Violations

– Pauline Easton –

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. December 10 is observed as International Human Rights Day to mark this occasion.

After the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, and even during its drafting and the adoption process, the Anglo-American imperialist forces launched the Cold War, based on the lie that the "West" is the "defender" of human rights, and that socialism and communism are not. It was a patent falsity, but it has obviously served as the backdrop for many of the crimes committed against the peoples fighting for national and social liberation since World War II. Not only did the Anglo-American imperialists refuse to de-nazify the zones under their control but they actually protected the Nazis, and gave them safe haven and positions of influence and authority.

At the same time they persecuted the communists, slaughtering them en masse as they did in Indonesia or keeping them in concentration camps for 40 years as they did in Greece and south Korea, while carrying out witch hunts, coups d'état and wars of aggression in the name of the containment of communism. They established NATO as an aggressive U.S. imperialist-led war alliance and its North Atlantic Council to make sure that only systems to their liking were permitted in Europe, based on definitions of rights and types of government which they themselves approved and imposed.

Anti-communism and the defeat of the Soviet Union and people's democracies, not defence of democracy and human rights, was their motivation and the most heinous crimes were justified on this basis.

The peoples of the world do not accept that conclusions can be reached about whether human rights are being violated in this or that country based on the self-serving propaganda of warmongering forces. A serious study of the economic, political and social system of a country will clearly expose what is going on there.

Serious study and investigation of social systems is not the desire of the U.S. imperialists and their allies, including Canada, who float "human rights" pretexts and organizations for their own purposes. For them, truth is a matter of creating an outlook which permits them to carry out their neo-liberal anti-social nation-wrecking agenda with impunity. They use the pretext of championing human rights in whatever manner suits their particular pursuit of the moment. If truth has to be bent and twisted to its opposite, so be it, if this is what serves their interests. The question of human rights is used by the Anglo-American imperialists as a political tool, a weapon to justify aggression and intervention against peoples and countries hostile to their interests.

Their accusations against others of violating human rights have proven to be well-orchestrated campaigns to divert attention from what the U.S. imperialists and the "West" have been doing at any particular time. At the time the Universal Declaration was adopted, the socialist countries fought against permitting rights to be treated as an abstraction. What was required, they pointed out, was an obligation to put in place the economic, social and cultural conditions required for their realization.

According to the U.S. imperialist mantra, communism is based on the violation of human rights and for this reason is to be overthrown. According to this logic, the overthrow of communism would thus prove the superiority of the U.S. democracy and its defence of human rights. To this day they continue to erect monuments to condemn the alleged crimes of the communists while the crimes the U.S. imperialists and their allies, including Canada, have carried out in the name of freedom, democracy and human rights are to be forgotten.

But history has its own cunning. Reality exists. Human beings not only exist but they strive to humanize the social and natural environment as a matter of their being human and this is what settles scores with the old conscience of society.

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union and people's democracies, the period of flow of revolution ended and revolution went into retreat. Far from revealing the superiority of U.S. democracy, U.S. imperialism began subverting the entire world in order to create a unipolar world under its dictate. Unprecedented crimes have been committed against humanity by the U.S. and the coalitions and cartels it uses. The pretexts of defending human rights, women's rights, Indigenous rights, minority rights, LGBTQ2S+ rights, bio-diversity and national security render the definition of rights and the principles involved in their defence nonsense.

There is no comparison to be made with the crimes committed during World War II because today wars are not politics by other means which can be ended with negotiated peace treaties. The U.S. and its Cold War creation of the oligopoly known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have resorted to the use of force to settle conflicts and impose the U.S. dictate. Whatever they cannot control, they are determined to destroy and all policy is driven by this aim. It is this drive of the imperialists against the peoples of the world that is behind the most flagrant violations of human rights everywhere, including in the U.S. and the "West" as we see on the news every day.

The developments in the United States, said to be the greatest champion of human rights, expose in stark detail the overall clash between authority and condition. Increasingly, narrow private interests usurp authority to carry out a desperate anti-people agenda.

Prerogative powers are, by definition, above the rule of law. Their use by both the executive and judiciary branches of government and ministries at all levels means broad wrecking in the name of "rules-based" actions where the rules are made up as they go along and others are forced to submit or face the consequences of the use of force against them. All of this is done in the name of defending democracy, freedom and human rights against authoritarian regimes or foreign interference by authoritarian regimes. No matter what crimes the oligopolies and their cartels and coalitions commit, including NATO, all of it is done in the name of human rights, opposing corruption and fraud, defending the national interest and other pretexts.

Today, even domestically, the peoples can see the extent to which the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and countries which form part of their blocs are using totalitarian methods and police powers to privatize all public services. They use the state treasury to pay the rich to retool and build the infrastructure they require in this digital age in which artificial intelligence has transformed technology, making much of what has hitherto existed obsolete. In the course of these developments human beings have become things which are disposable, but still the governments of the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Germany and countries with which they form cartels and coalitions claim to champion human rights.

The fundamental human right they violate most is the right to conscience. Representatives of the imperialist powers at the UN Human Rights Council make hollow statements to divert attention from this reality and seek to render all opposition hopeless. Their preferred method is to create straw men and red herrings in order to push their interests, but if this fails, they justify wars of destruction, colour revolutions and coups d'état while accusing others of human rights violations and atrocities which they themselves pay paramilitary and reorganized Nazi squads to commit.

All of it shows that the spearhead of the struggle for human rights today is the affirmation of the right of all human beings to be, while the imperialist powers and all those who have usurped power by force are threatening them with extinction. This, in turn, means that the affirmation of human rights today requires the affirmation of the right to conscience. This is what participating in making the decisions that affect the lives of human beings and their social and natural environment is all about. Those who make the decisions and take responsibility for their implementation also render accounts for the results and have an interest in solving problems in favour of the people. Only then will rights by virtue of being human be given the meaning human beings intend and deserve.

(TML Daily, December 10, 2022)

Providing Rights With a Modern Definition

– Hardial Bains –

In his important work from 1992, The State of Human Rights After the Cold War, Hardial Bains writes:

"Human beings are not only social in the way they acquire their living, but in all aspects of their life, they constitute a break with the animal condition. This break with animal existence -- with the vagaries of nature -- places a new, vital condition on all humans, the condition of being.... This condition of being dictates ... that human beings must have a say in the production and reproduction of real life. The demand of a say emerges out of the condition of socialization and leads to further socialization.... The condition of being demands that everything be judged on the basis of the extent to which the conditions permit the actualization of human rights."

"A right is fundamentally a phenomenon of human civilization [and] reminds the powers-that-be that we are human beings and that we should be treated in a way which befits human beings," Hardial Bains writes. He explains:

"A clash between the act of being, Authority, which refuses to do its duty, and the act of being, Condition, which is demanding that the people do their duty, is the order of the day.... The act of being of the condition has assumed the primary position over the formalities and abstractions used as justifications by various authorities. When authorities do such a thing [neglect their duty], the right to conscience is violated.... Either the authority must bring about changes in the conditions, that is to shoulder its responsibilities so as to favour the right to conscience, or the conditions will continue to deteriorate until the people terminate the authority....[The people] are doing their duty by claiming their rights from the act of being in definite conditions; they want to overcome those conditions."

The violation of human rights today is done by asserting the right to be of Authority in the face of anarchy and violence and the danger to the security of that Authority. This is to cover up that Authority has become anarchy and violence in the form of a state which "never stops claiming that it is innocent of any wrongdoing and that everything which is being done is for the well-being of the entire people and humanity. But the very act of being, the very existence of anarchy and violence, refutes such a claim.... If such a government were fighting for the interests of the people, and were actually doing its duty, anarchy and violence would not take over. This is because the people, who despise anarchy and violence above all else, since they are the ones who suffer from it the most, would certainly side with such a government.... When a government claims to combat anarchy and violence through the massive use of force, by an all-round assault on the mass of the people and through their humiliation, it is not beyond belief that such a government may have created that anarchy and violence in the first place."

The peoples of the world are doing their duty by "demanding their rights on account of their conditions of life." They are striving to end conditions which violate the human rights of the people and their right to conscience, their right to be. Hardial Bains writes:

"People are seeking to abolish the conditions which give rise to violations of human rights in the first place. They want to protect their right to conscience and use the content of their conscience to improve their condition of being.... It is the Authority which is increasingly coming under fire and it is the conditions which are more and more crying out to be changed and an increasing number of people are coming forward to take up their duty.... Forms will vary, but in every instance they will reflect the contradictory process posed by the clash between the claims of authority and the demands of the conditions.... The act of being is what has to prevail. The act of being of conditions overrides any claims of authority."

The struggle for human rights today is the struggle for the emergence of the modern democratic personality which upholds democratic principle as an act of being. Those who take up their duty to themselves and society force the Authority to change the conditions. An Authority which refuses to do its duty to the people and society, an Authority which refuses to submit to the Necessity for Change will be overthrown by the very force of history itself to remove all blocks in the path to progress.

Those whose Authority is out of tune with the needs of the times will be more concerned with the trappings and symbols of the Authority than in doing their duty to the peoples and their societies.

"By depriving the people of the right to conscience, Authority is being turned into a cult and conditions are being worshipped as final and immutable," Hardial Bains writes. He notes:

"Whether or not the right to conscience exists in real life, will actually determine whether a people live or die. It is the fundamental question of our time, along with matters related to the nature of a state, its form of organization and the economic system. It is at a par with these, and it actually overrides them in its importance.... Rights can only find their concretization in the solution of the problems facing a modern society, be they related to the economic well-being of the people or to the peace and harmony between peoples within a nation or between nations, or to matters of a spiritual and social nature.... Rights will be realized when Authority changes the conditions in favour of the people and the people carry out their duty by ensuring that Authorities do such a thing. People can perform their duty only if they have the right to conscience. This struggle, then, is the fulcrum on which the uplifting of the world and its renewal rests."

(The State of Human Rights After the Cold War -- A Theoretical and Political Treatment, Hardial Bains, 1992)

Necessity for Modern Definitions

– Ideological Studies Centre –

Modern definitions of democracy, elaborating and defining issues like the people, equality, membership in the polity, mechanisms of empowerment and accountability are needed more than ever at this time to block efforts by ruling elites in the United States and countries like Canada to impose old arrangements which are no longer functioning or suitable to the conditions today.

Modern definitions of democracy also make clear that it is not a matter of ideals, but of structures of equality and of constituting society in such a way that guaranteeing the rights of all is central in both content and form. It is not happenstance that U.S. President Joe Biden began his "Summit for Democracy" by saying democracy is a matter of ideals, not actual reality. He said U.S. "democracy is an ongoing struggle to live up to our highest ideals and to heal our divisions; to recommit ourselves to the founding idea of our nation," that "all women and men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Biden said this in conditions where human rights and the right to live and be are under brutal attack as governments at all levels refuse to guarantee basic human rights to health care, housing, education, a livelihood and safe living and working conditions, let alone affirm them on a modern basis which is not based on considerations which favour the ownership of private property and furthering the wealth of narrow private interests.

This phrasing that "all are created equal," is promoted worldwide. As with "we the people," a main problem with its use is that the reference point is the rulers' conception of equality. Their equality has to do with owners of private property, today the private global oligarchs, having the equal right to pursue their ownership, their profits, their enslavement of others. To ensure that right for owners of private property, the U.S. Constitution enshrines a structure of inequality, including keeping the people out of power and the rich in power, evident from the days of the system of slave labour to this day.

In taking up the work of modern definitions, the concepts of equality needed for today require elaboration on the part of the people. This involves recognizing and providing structures for two kinds of equality. One is equality of membership, whether it be equal members of the polity, or of an organization or collective. Equality involves membership in a given collective. It is not separate from that. Further, being an equal member involves taking responsibility for both rights and duties. For example, when the people address the importance of speaking in their own name, they are referring to an important part of empowering themselves as individuals and collectives today. It is the right of all human beings to speak, to join in discussion, to decide matters of concern to their lives, participate in implementing their decisions and being accountable for the results. It is also a duty if members are going to affirm their rights.

Rights are not an abstraction as delineated in the U.S. foundational documents. They are not aspirations. Rights exist in their affirmation. They exist in the form of making claims on society for what belongs to people by right. These claims are both individual and collective ones, on the society on which people depend for their living, on organizations and collectives of which they are a part and lead others to do the same.

There is also equality on the path, that path being the forward march of history. It is a path of recognizing and taking up the necessity for change. This is the equality of transition, of the path, of membership on the path, of seizing the openings which the clash between Authority and Conditions reveal. It is the path to bring the New into being by settling scores with the old conscience of society. Modern definitions provide an opening for the New which harmonizes the individual and collective interests and the individual and collective interests with the general interest of society as identified by the forces bringing the New into being. That opening exists in the here and now today and is one that history is calling on the peoples to utilize for problems to be resolved in their favour and to avert the disasters which the rich and powerful are overseeing and unleashing.

When it comes to defining the people, the category being dealt with is people (individuals and collectives) changing circumstances. In other words, the people are the agents of changing circumstances. A people are historically constituted and exist within definite time and space, definite conditions with definite human relations. Human beings are not things. They exist in relations, social relations and, more broadly, in human relations. We have fidelity not to a cause per se, but to the whole ensemble of human relations and what they reveal, which is the need for the peoples to empower themselves to turn conditions around in their favour. This is the path to progress today.

In arguing for modern definitions, human beings today are arguing out how to sort out the interests of individual, collective and general – those of society and humanity. They are arguing that interests come from society, out of the ensemble of human relations and these relations should define constitutions which create modern nation-states. Today in many countries, the rulers claim that the state and constitutions adopted by those who constituted society in their image in days gone by, define society, citizenship, who is legitimate and who is not. However, those seeking to humanize the social and natural environment on a modern basis say society is the basis for the state, not that the state is the basis for society. A modern definition also recognizes that individuals are not abstract persons, with their single brains, with individual consciousness in which everyone is greedy or altruistic or whatever characteristic is seen to be good or evil and who fend for themselves on this basis. Individuals exist as individuals and collectives. Each person carries within them individual and collective and general interests.

The origin of the word interest is inter esse which means, among beings, social beings. The ensemble of human relations is the basis of interest. Individual interest is defined by that ensemble of relations, as is the collective interest. It is a higher order than the way which defines persons who, to form a collective, are added up in an irrational way which dismisses the relations they enter into as a matter of course, independent of their will.

A democratic constitution establishes what rules are to be followed. It is called rule by the people but the arguments required to judge that constitution involve the determination of whether it is suitable for the people and establishing the criteria to make that determination. Today people like Biden, Trudeau and others on both the official left and right of the spectrum talk about democracy by relating it to how close or how far it is from authoritarianism, autocracy, totalitarianism or fascism and such things. They are not giving arguments as to whether the rules they are establishing or the definitions or the constitutions and liberal democratic institutions they claim to defend are suitable to the people.

A modern definition recognizes that to be suitable to the people, the means to sort out the conflicts is to put individual and collective interests on a par, not one over the other. To put them on a par means there is an equivalence. Putting them on a par provides a means to harmonize the interests of all individuals and collectives and of both with the general interests of society and humanity. What is needed is the work to provide the means to harmonize interests by using the ensemble of human relations as the reference point, as the source of these interests. Getting to the interests involved, identifying them, harmonizing them is at the heart of providing democracy with a modern definition.

For the representatives of the ruling class who occupy positions usurped through control of power and privilege, such as Biden or Trudeau or any other occupants of such positions, the category that it is people who change circumstances, that the people are the force for change, is dismissed as are their interests. This is why the various contending forces speak of the "death spiral" of U.S. democracy and all claim in one way or another that "democracy is presently under threat and, for 15 years, has been on the decline," as Biden put it at his Democracy Summit.

Evidently, the broad mass movements in the U.S. for equality and rights and against the racist government and police killings are not considered part of a rise of a people's democracy and so too the movements in other countries and of entire nations fighting for their right to be are dismissed. The broad and growing resistance among Indigenous Peoples, among immigrants and refugees, among other workers and farmers, is also not considered a part of the battle of democracy, a battle waged by the peoples to advance the quality and structure of democracy so it is to their advantage.

The question on the minds of millions worldwide when it comes to democracy is Who Decides? all matters of concern related to peace, war, the economy, politics, culture. Any attempts to ask that question, answer that question or discuss matters of concern are to be blocked. This is what the peoples are dealing with when they wage the resistance movement to anti-democratic measures which constitute the fight for democracy which today is an integral part of the battle of democracy itself, of heeding the call of history to move on and bring the authority into conformity with what the conditions are demanding and giving rise to.

The U.S. Constitution and the democracy it enshrines is not in any way a model for democracy in these modern times. For the Canadian ruling class to use it as a reference point in everything it does will not save it from being the superfluous force it has become any more than it saves the U.S. ruling class from being the superfluous force it has become. Indeed, imposing the phrase "of, by and for the people" on the world is being used by the U.S. imperialist and reactionary forces to block the advance of democracy, the creation of structures, institutions and constitutions that provide for equality and accountability and affirm that the people are the decision-makers and no force exists above them.

Biden's definition of what constitutes democratic renewal amounts to nothing. It is akin to renewing a magazine subscription; it seeks to preserve and extend that which already exists. Biden and his courtiers have adopted the language of the forces fighting for people's empowerment in an effort to dismiss and sabotage the rise of the New against the Old which gives rise to modern definitions as required by the conditions today.

Modern definitions of democracy recognize the need to put individual and collective interests on a par and both in relation to the general interests of society and humanity in such a way that these many interests are harmonized – are sorted out in a manner that benefits each and all. It is this constant and continuous work for modern definitions which includes discussing the needs of democracy today, that contributes to the advance of the battle of democracy. The many battles peoples are waging for control over the decisions which affect their lives, for their right to make claims on society by putting their rights front and centre, reflect the urgent necessity for this advance – for fashioning a democracy where the people, the vast majority of those who have brought into being the advance of the productive powers beyond anything previously conceived, have the power to govern and decide.

(Ideological Studies Centre, Conversations, July 2021. Subsequently published in TML Monthly, January 9, 2022.)

Communism and Human Rights

Hardial Bains speaks at International Seminar on Communism and Human Rights, Toronto,
March 27, 1995.

Today, one of the most important arenas in which ideological struggle has broken out is that of human rights.

The modern definition of human rights stipulates that all human beings have rights by virtue of their being. This is not generally recognized. Instead, they are defined and circumscribed in various ways by reactionary forces in various countries who are screaming themselves hoarse that they are defenders of human rights and that countries that affirm their independence and uphold their right to be are authoritarian and violators of human rights. It is even suggested that communism, as a result of a quality inherent to it, is the enemy of human rights. Communism and human rights, according to these critics, are like oil and water. The two do not mix.

Is it really true that communism is the violator of human rights and that communism and human rights do not mix? This, of course, is not true. Communism is the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class, a condition for the emancipation of entire humanity. How can it be that communism which is the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class can violate human rights?

Communism, in its modern rendering, presents the Collectivity of Rights as the basic condition for the defence of all rights, whether they are inviolable and belong to all people by virtue of their being human or whether they belong to them because of their concrete objective conditions. If people as a collective nation or country do not enjoy the collectivity of their rights, how can they enjoy any other rights? The U.S. is attacking Cuba's collectivity of rights while screaming about the absence of human rights there. China, Russia, Syria, Iran, the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries are also being threatened on similar grounds.

Collectivity, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means:

"1. Collective state or quality; collectiveness ... Every unsocial act or sentiment tends to overthrow that collectivity of effort to which we owe all.

"b. ... The whole taken collectively; the aggregate, sum, mass... The collectivity of living existence becomes a self-improving machine.

"2. Collective ownership, collectivism in practice... I vote for the collectivity of the soil...and of all social wealth.

"3. The collective body of people forming a community or state.

"... The State is the real collectivity ... the State is everybody, it is the country. 1884, Rae Contemporary socialism – 149. An omnipotent and centralized political authority – call it the State, call it the collectivity; call it what you like – which should have the final disposal of everything."

Collectivity of Rights, like "collectivity of soil" or "collectivity of social wealth" or an "omnipotent and centralized political authority" is something which exists and must belong to all. What quality should a person have before that person can partake of the Collectivity of Rights? The person just has to be a human being. This is the broadest definition which can be given as it includes all people without exception by virtue of their being human. Not only does communism provide these rights to all as a matter of course, but it agitates for this definition at all times and under all conditions. This being the case, can it be said that communism and human rights do not mix?

The bourgeoisie provides an extremely narrow definition of what is a human right. According to the founding fathers of the U.S., such a right only belongs to the "natural aristocracy," to those who excel in the capitalist market. To eliminate the capitalist market through the socialization of the means of production is considered by the bourgeoisie to be a violation of "human rights." This is why it is preaching and demanding, including by force of arms, that every country in the world must have a capitalist system with an "open door policy" through which the big powers can enter and do whatever they wish.

Communists put the Collectivity of Rights on a pedestal for the simple reason that what is needed is to harmonize the rights of the individual with the general interests of the collective and the rights of all individuals and collectives with the general well-being of society. Individual or collective rights or the general well-being of society make no sense if the Collectivity of Rights is not put in the first place. How can the bourgeoisie support human rights when it demands that the Collectivity of Rights must be negated? Communists fight for a polity based on the Collectivity of Rights as a principle. They consider the Collectivity of Rights to be the guarantee of the rights of the individual and their collective and of all individuals and collectives and the general interests of society. Only the Collectivity of Rights has the power to coordinate and subordinate all rights to the opening of the door to the progress of society.

Today, it is important to participate and develop the discussion on Communism and Human Rights.

(TML Daily, December 10, 2022)

75th Anniversary of Adoption of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Inalienable Rights to Which Everyone Is Inherently Entitled as Human Beings

– Margaret Villamizar –

International Human Rights Day is observed every year on December 10, the date on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, 75 years ago in 1948. It was adopted with eight abstentions and no opposition by more than 50 States. It is said that the different ways of life and of functioning of these 50 States "reflected the universal nature of the text."

According to its Preamble, the Declaration, which contains 30 articles, was to constitute a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."[1]

UN General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Paris, December 10, 1948.

On the 70th anniversary of the Declaration, the UN described it as "a milestone document that proclaimed the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being -- regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status," and one that "establishes the equal dignity and worth of every person."

When it was adopted, the Declaration was accompanied by a General Assembly resolution that called its adoption "a historic act destined to consolidate world peace through the contribution of the United Nations towards the liberation of individuals from the unjustified oppression and constraint to which they are too often subjected."

The resolution called for the Declaration's dissemination "among all peoples around the world" and for governments to use every means within their power to solemnly publicize it and cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories; for the Secretary General to have it widely disseminated and to that end published and distributed not only in official languages but using every means at his disposal in all languages possible; and for specialized agencies and NGOs to do their utmost to bring this declaration to the attention of their members.

Towards this end, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the most translated documents in the world, available in more than 500 languages.

The Declaration has the character of a non-binding pronouncement. It is up to UN member states that accede to it to bring their domestic law into compliance with its principles for them to assume any legal weight.

Finally a resolution was also attached calling for the Economic and Social Council of the General Assembly to ask the Commission on Human Rights to continue to give priority in its work for the preparation of a draft covenant on Human Rights and measures for its implementation -- next steps in the creation of the International Bill of Human Rights to be comprised of the Declaration as well as a binding covenant and measures for its implementation.

Work on Covenants to Accompany the Declaration

In the course of this work which ended up stretching out over no less than 18 years, with negotiations taking place when the Cold War was in full swing, and during the upsurge of anti-colonial wars and struggles for national liberation, including in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and many countries in Africa, there remained sharp differences over most of the same issues on which agreement could not be reached during the drafting of the Declaration. This eventually led to the decision to draft two separate covenants -- one dealing with civil and political rights, the other with economic, social and cultural rights which were to contain as many similar provisions as possible for implementation, and be opened for signature simultaneously.

It was eventually agreed as well that each covenant would contain an article on the right of all peoples to self-determination which was not included in the 1948 Declaration despite the best efforts of Yugoslavia, which had proposed an article to that effect, and other countries which fought for it. The proposed article read:

The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

Drafts of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights were presented to the General Assembly for discussion in 1954 but were only adopted 12 years later in 1966. Article 1 of each Covenant states that the right to self-determination is universal and calls upon States to promote the realization of that right and to respect it. The article provides that all peoples have the right of self-determination and adds that "By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."

It took almost another 10 years for enough UN member states (35) to sign on to them for the covenants to finally enter into force.[2]

Today there are 193 member states of the UN, of which 171 countries have acceded to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. A further four countries have signed but not ratified the Covenant.

Together, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two Covenants are said to be the foundational texts in the contemporary international system of human rights with the rights contained in the Declaration and the two Covenants further elaborated in such legal documents as the International Convention against Torture; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which declares dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred as being punishable by law; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, covering measures to be taken for eliminating discrimination against women in political and public life, education, employment, health, marriage and family; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which lays down guarantees in terms of children's human rights.

Notes

1. Today there are seven major UN human rights treaties:

1. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
2. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
3. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
4. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
5. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
6. Convention on the Rights of the Child
7. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

2. To see the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, click here. To see the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, click here.

(TML Archives)

Differing Perspectives on Human Rights During Drafting of Universal Declaration

The 1945 San Francisco Conference led to the founding of the United Nations and adoption of its Charter from the ashes of World War II. The hope was to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, ... reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom." There a "Declaration on the Essential Rights of Man" was proposed.

The Preparatory Commission of the UN, which met immediately after the San Francisco Conference, recommended that the Economic and Social Council establish a commission for the promotion of human rights. The Commission on Human Rights, convened for the first time on January 27, 1947 at Lake Success, New York was comprised of representatives of eighteen UN member states: Australia, Belgium, Byelorussia, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Lebanon, Panama, Philippines, Ukraine, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. Charles Malik, the delegate from Lebanon, served as its rapporteur and John Humphrey, a Canadian professor of international law and director of the UN Secretariat's Division for Human Rights, served as secretary. Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of U.S. wartime president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a delegate to the UN for her country, was elected chair of the Commission.

Three separate groups were formed to work simultaneously on drafting a declaration, a covenant (a document that, unlike a declaration, would become legally binding on the nations that ratified it), and methods of implementation.

A committee composed of eight persons, from Australia, Chile, China, France, Lebanon, the USSR, the United Kingdom and the United States, was charged with drafting the Declaration. It met over the course of two years. When the committee completed its work in June 1948, the text it settled on was sent to the Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Committee of the General Assembly, commonly referred to as the Third Committee, for its consideration. At its meetings between September 28 and December 9, 1948, in which all UN member states were entitled to participate, the Third Committee subjected the Declaration to intense scrutiny, debating every article and voting well over a thousand times on different amendments and proposals. As had already occurred in the drafting committee, sharp differences in the perspective on human rights and how they could be realized surfaced, mainly between republics of the Soviet Union and the newly formed people's democracies on the one hand, and the U.S. and old colonial powers of Europe and those under their influence, on the other.

Those who considered themselves part of the "western" bloc tended to give short shrift to economic and social rights, and collective rights generally, saying there was no obligation for states to guarantee these rights. Instead they concentrated on individual rights and freedoms, conceived often as protection from the state. The socialist countries saw the state as being duty-bound to create the conditions for the full enjoyment of social, economic and cultural as well as civil and political rights. Eleanor Roosevelt commented about one of the many amendments proposed by the Soviet delegation to this effect that she could not support it since to do so would mean the entire character of the Declaration would be changed. It was clear that the U.S. had put itself in the position of dictating that the document must be aspirational only -- and as revealed in documents published later, a propaganda tool for use against the Soviet Union, which it sought to portray as a violator of human rights. This all took place as NATO was in the process of being founded.

Issues of Contention

Reports in the 1948-49 UN Yearbook reveal various issues of contention in the plenary, and also in the committee, between those countries that sought to concretely protect and enshrine human rights, and those who merely sought to have an aspirational document.[1]

The representative of Poland "thought that the application of those articles dealing with the right of asylum, the freedom of opinion and expression, and the granting of freedom of assembly and association should be limited so that fascists would not be able to profit by those provisions in order to overthrow democracy. He submitted that the adoption of the Declaration should not entail any interference in the domestic jurisdiction of sovereign States. He also felt that there were several omissions in the draft, such as the omission of the right of nations to use their own language and to develop their own culture."

"The representative of the USSR considered that the draft Declaration did not satisfy the three conditions which were ... indispensable to the completion of the Declaration, namely: a guarantee of basic freedoms for all, with due regard to the national sovereignty of States; a guarantee that human rights could be exercised with due regard to the particular economic, social and national circumstances prevailing in each country; and a definition of the duties of citizens to their country, their people and their State. He regretted that fascism was nowhere condemned in the draft. He declared that the rights specified in the draft were illusory as they lacked effective guarantees."

As well, the representative of the USSR "considered that the article dealing with the freedom to disseminate ideas did not solve the problem of freedom of expression, as the diffusion of dangerous ideas, such as warmongering and fascist ideas, should be prevented. That same article, he submitted, made no provision for the free dissemination of just and lofty ideas. If freedom of expression was to be effective, the workers, he argued, must have the means of voicing their opinions, and for that they must have at their disposal printing presses and newspapers. The right to street demonstrations, he said, should be guaranteed." That argument was rejected by Eleanor Roosevelt who said opinions of newspaper owners were confined to the editorial pages, and could be easily discerned and that furthermore, in the U.S. it was the people who controlled the government and the press, so there was no problem!

The Soviet representative also "declared that it was necessary to make certain that scientific research would not be used for war purposes which would obviously hinder progress. He drew the Assembly's attention to a defect in the Declaration which he considered to be fundamental: the absence of provisions guaranteeing the rights of national minorities [including the preservation of native languages and cultures]. He also regretted the failure of the Declaration to mention the sovereign rights of States.

"He submitted a draft resolution (A/785/Rev.2) recommending that the General Assembly postpone adoption of the Declaration until its fourth regular session. The representatives of the Byelorussian SSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Ukrainian SSR and Yugoslavia supported the Soviet draft resolution.

"The representative of the Ukrainian SSR stated that the Declaration contained a series of rights which could not be exercised, in view of the existing conditions and the economic structure of a great number of countries. Several elementary democratic rights which could be realized even in a capitalist society had been deliberately omitted. Before the right to work, to rest and to education could be put into effect, he submitted, it was necessary to alter drastically the economic system of private enterprise. He said that there could be true equality among men only under an economic system which guaranteed to everyone equal conditions and opportunities for the development of his own potentialities, and that was not the equality mentioned in the Declaration. In making his case he spoke to "the absurd theory current among colonial powers that there were superior and inferior races," saying it was reminiscent of the defeated Nazi theory and must be eradicated, giving the example of South Africa, but saying it was not alone in this regard.

"The Declaration, maintained the representative of Czechoslovakia, was not imbued with revolutionary spirit; it was neither bold nor modern. The abolition of the death sentence in peace time was not agreed to; nor were 'fascism' and 'aggression' denounced publicly and formally. The Declaration, he observed, took no account of the practical aspects of the question of the right to work; it simply expressed lofty ideals, making no provision for their implementation in the difficult daily life of the workers. He stressed the fact that there was no point in proclaiming the right to leisure, for example, if some men had no means of exercising that right.

"According to the representative of the Byelorussian SSR, the Declaration was merely a proclamation of human rights, and it contained no guarantee of the rights it proclaimed. The right to national culture and democracy's struggle against fascism and Nazism were not mentioned."

This stand of the USSR and other socialist countries on the need to prevent the propagation of fascist and warmongering ideas was opposed by the U.S., Britain and Canada who said this was not possible because there was no common understanding about what terms like "fascism" and "democratic system" entailed.

"The Declaration stated only traditional freedoms and rights of the old liberal school, the representative of Poland asserted. It failed to mention that the counterpart of those rights was the duty of the individual towards his neighbours, his family, his group and his nation. It completely ignored the right of every person to speak his own language and to have the protection of his national culture ensured. He stated that the Declaration, in reality, represented a step backward if compared with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which had been produced during the French Revolution; if compared with the Communist Manifesto, which had declared human rights as binding and necessary a hundred years ago; and if compared with the principles which had inspired the October Revolution.

"The representative of Yugoslavia felt that the principles of human rights set out in the Declaration lagged behind the social progress achieved in modern times; and that they did not grant full juridical and social protection to man. He considered that the radical change in social conditions emphasized the necessity of widening the traditional categories of human rights -- which generally included political and civil rights -- and of establishing a system of social rights, including the collective ones for certain communities. He regarded the Declaration as an instrument of international codification rather than as an instrument which opened a new and bright future for the individual in the vast field of social rights."

The representative of the USSR "stated that the Declaration was directed against national sovereignty and was therefore entirely inconsistent with the principles of the United Nations. The independence and well-being of a nation, he argued, depended on the principle of national sovereignty, and this principle was the sole protector of the smaller countries against the expansionist dreams of more powerful States. He submitted a number of amendments (A/784) to the draft Declaration proposed by the Third Committee. These amendments, similar to those presented in the Third Committee -- and which provided for, inter alia, (1) the extension to the population of Non-Self-Governing Territories of the provisions regarding the human and civic rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the Declaration; (2) a declaration that it was the inalienable right of every person freely to express and disseminate democratic views, and to combat fascism; (3) a declaration that every citizen of any State must have the right, among other rights, of access to any State or public office in his country; and (4) the insertion of a new article declaring that the rights and freedoms enumerated in the draft Declaration should be guaranteed by national laws -- were all rejected by individual roll-call votes."

At the time, there were 58 countries in the United Nations. Of these only six were people's democracies in which the people were striving to affirm their human rights in very concrete ways, for national sovereignty against domination by foreign powers, against the class divisions of the old society, and who had borne the brunt of defeating Nazi-fascism at tremendous cost. However, such amendments as those from the USSR were anathema to the Anglo-American imperialists and the countries in their sphere of influence who outnumbered the people's democracies, and who sought to dominate other countries via exploitative and colonial relations.

The U.S. took up sophistic arguments to oppose the concrete issues raised in the USSR's amendments, making smug and self-serving justifications about the meaning of democracy, and that human rights exist only on an individual basis, not a collective one. This condescension toward the USSR comes across in the report in the UN Yearbook: "While paying a tribute to the USSR delegation for the tenacity with which it had defended its convictions, the representative of the United States remarked that people sometimes had to co-operate loyally with the majority even when they disagreed with its views."

In some cases, the concerns raised by the USSR in its amendments were dismissed on a purely bureaucratic basis: "The first Soviet amendment, the United States representative said, dealt with the question of minorities, and the Third Committee had already decided that that question required further study, and had recommended that it be referred, for that purpose, to the Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Human Rights. According to the representative of the United States, it was clear from the second USSR amendment that the aim was to guarantee the rights of certain groups, and not the rights of individuals, with which alone the Declaration was concerned."

As concerns the issue of the need to bar the promulgation of fascist and Nazi propaganda, then as today, the U.S. equivocated in the name of high ideals, covering up the Anglo-American hope during the war that the Nazis would defeat the Soviets, and their protection and recruitment of Nazis after the war. The U.S. representative remarked, "The effect of the third USSR amendment would be to restrict freedom of opinion and expression [and would] set up standards which would allow any State to deny freedom of opinion and expression without violating that article."

With respect to the fourth USSR amendment that would have obliged signatories to proclaim the obligations of the State with regard to the affirmation of human rights, the U.S. representative seemed to suggest an ulterior move, complaining that "the USSR delegation had tried to introduce [this concept] into practically every article of the Declaration. She submitted that if that conception were adopted, the entire character of the Declaration would be changed."

Similarly, the representative of India turned the issue of opposing fascist and Nazi propaganda into one of freedom of speech in an abstract, out of context manner that negated the serious concerns raised about such reactionary propaganda and its role in inciting aggression and war that led to millions of deaths. She "maintained that the right to hold different opinions was a sacred right and the prerogative of every truly democratic people. She declared that India, like other countries, would never agree to restricting political rights in order to realize social aims, however noble those aims might be." Needless to say, the partition of India had been imposed only the year before in August 1947, in which the British colonial power had sown divisions in society on the most backward and communal basis, with great tragedies for the people.

For its part, Bolivia, an important supplier of tin to the U.S. during World War II, took up the reactionary Cold War line of the containment of communism, by presenting a caricature of the discussion on the Declaration as "on the one hand, the thesis upheld by the USSR, characterized by the 'desire to subordinate the individual to the State,' and, on the other hand, the thesis supported by all the democratic countries, which was designed 'to make the individual capable of organizing a State which, in turn, would respect the rights of the individual.' Referring to the objections formulated by the representative of the Ukrainian SSR, the representative of Bolivia stated that the democratic peoples abhored the thesis that the happiness of mankind should be subordinated to the interests of the all-powerful communist State." Such a misrepresentation was of course a denial of the democratic empowerment in the people's democracies and the exploitive class society and the impoverishment of the peasantry and workers in other countries the world over, including the exploitation of tin miners and others in Bolivia.

Differences even arose in discussion about the order in which various rights and freedoms appeared in the final draft. The Soviet delegate took issue with too little emphasis being placed on the rights of man as a toiler and his place in society, shown by the fact that man's role as the creator of wealth had been placed last in the text. The Cuban delegate argued that in a 20th century document, social rights, which he called the achievement of the 20th century, should come before "legal rights" that were acquired long ago and repeated in a number of similar documents. Roosevelt pooh-poohed these arguments, insisting that no articles deserved precedence over any others as all were of equal importance.

Finally on December 7, 1948, the Third Committee voted 29 to 0 with 7 abstentions to approve the final draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and send it to the General Assembly for adoption. The following countries abstained: the USSR, Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine, Soviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Canada.[2]

Three days later, the text was brought to a plenary session of the General Assembly where it was adopted, with 48 countries – this time including Canada – voting in favour, none against and eight abstaining (the USSR, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa). Two countries did not take part in the vote.

In presenting the Declaration to the members of the General Assembly, Eleanor Roosevelt announced, "We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This Declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere."

Notes

1. UN Yearbook 1948-49.

2. Voting in favour were Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, France, Greece, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America and Venezuela.

(TML Archives)

Perspective of the Soviet Delegation on Draft Covenant on Human Rights

Discussion on human rights at the United Nations continued after adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, specifically on the Covenant on Human Rights.

In the official records of the United Nations General Assembly of December 4, 1950, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics delegation pointed out that "the chief fault of the UN Declaration on Human Rights was its formal, legalistic character, since it confined itself to proclaiming a few human rights in an extremely general and incomplete form, without stating the ways and means of implementing these rights."[1] The delegation pointed out that the draft Covenant "not only contains all the faults of the Declaration, but it also omits any mention of certain rights which are vitally important to millions of people, such as the right to work, the right to social security, the right to leisure, the right to education and many other social, economic and cultural rights which are contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, although in a proclamatory, unsatisfactory and incomplete form." It said that the UN, two years after the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," is even further from solving the problem of protecting and ensuring respect for human rights."

The USSR delegation proposed amendments and corrections to the draft Covenant "to ensure that all citizens, without distinction, have an opportunity to take part in the government of the State and therefore to abolish all restrictions, based on property, education, or anything else, on the right to take part in elections of candidates to representative organs, and to afford all citizens the opportunity of occupying any State or public office."

It also proposed changes "to ensure the right of every people and every nation to national self-determination and to the development of their national culture," as well as "to provide that the State should be obliged to guarantee to everyone the right to work and to choose his profession, so that conditions may be created in which the threat of death from hunger or exhaustion will be ruled out;

"Fourthly, to ensure access to education without any discrimination whatsoever. And to ensure this by the provision of free elementary education and the organization of a system of scholarships and schools;

"Fifthly, to ensure the right to rest and leisure by providing by law for a reasonable limitation of working hours and for periodic holidays with pay;

"Sixthly, to introduce social security and social insurance for workers and employees at the expense of the State or at the expense of the employers, in accordance with the laws of each country;

"Seventhly, to take all the necessary measures to ensure decent living quarters to every person;

"Eighthly, to guarantee the strict observance of trade union rights and to create conditions in which the unhampered activities of trade union organizations can be ensured;

"Ninthly, to ensure that the rights proclaimed in the covenant are not used for purposes hostile to humanity and, in particular, for purposes of war propaganda, for fomenting hostility among nations, for inciting to racial discrimination, or for spreading slanderous rumours.

"Finally, to provide that the activities of any fascist or anti-democratic organization must be prohibited by law, subject to penalty."

The delegation of the USSR was also "unable to agree to the proposal ... for the establishment of various international organs, such as the committee on human rights; such a measure would constitute interference in the internal affairs of States and a violation of their sovereignty, since the implementation of the provisions of the Covenant in every State falls entirely within the domestic jurisdiction of the States signatories to the covenant and must allow for the specific economic, national and other characteristics of each country."

The USSR delegation believed that "it cannot be expected that the covenant should reproduce the principles and provisions of the Constitutions of socialist States, such as the Soviet Union and the peoples' democracies, where the above-mentioned human rights are confirmed by law and are guaranteed in practice on the basis of the socialist system of social relations. It must be borne in mind that such legislation is possible in the USSR and in the peoples' democracies because all exploitation of man by man has been eliminated in these countries and a firm foundation has thus been established for the universal respect for and implementation of human rights."

It further argued:

In defining the future work of the Commission on Human Rights, the General Assembly cannot, of course, ignore the particular economic and social circumstances of the various States Members of the Organization, circumstances which prevent many of them, at the present time, from settling in a consistent and satisfactory manner the problem of establishing living conditions which are really worthy of human beings. The Soviet Union delegation considers, however, that even so, the General Assembly can recommend to the Commission on Human Rights that it should include in the Covenant the aforementioned minimum rights, the implementation of which affects millions of people. This is particularly essential because it is impossible to state seriously that the draft Covenant guarantees real, and not imaginary, human rights.

Note

1. General Assembly, 5th session: 317th Plenary Meeting, December 4, 1950.

(TML Archives)

Canada's Less than Honourable Role

Canada's abstention in the vote at the Third Committee on the final draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 7, 1948 raised a lot of eyebrows at the time. Writing about this in the McGill Law Journal, William A. Schabas said:

In a speech to the General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Lester B. Pearson explained the decision as a federal concern about infringing provincial jurisdiction. Even at the time, many, including Canadian international law professor John Humphrey, who served as director of the UN Secretariat's Division for Human Rights, and secretary to the Preparatory Commission of the UN, found the story hard to accept. The author's research of archival documents now available shows that Canadian hesitation was principally due to discomfort in the Federal Cabinet with substantive norms enshrined in the Declaration, including freedom of religion and of association. The evidence suggests that provincial jurisdiction was little more than a pretext for federal politicians who wanted to avoid international human rights commitments. The Canadian Government misled both domestic and international public opinion by concealing its substantive opposition to the Declaration behind procedural arguments. [...]

Despite the enthusiastic involvement of Humphrey, the Canadian government's attitude toward the Declaration was skeptical; at its extreme, Canada's attitude bordered on hostility. During the vote on the draft Declaration in the Third Committee of the General Assembly, the Canadian delegation, under the personal direction and instruction of Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson, broke ranks with the vast majority of United Nations' members and declined to support the Declaration.[1]

In May 1947 as work of the drafting committee proceeded, Canada established a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms with a mandate to consider how obligations arising from a UN Declaration on Human Rights could best be implemented by Canada. Legal counsel for the Department of External Affairs and Humphrey emphasized to apparently skeptical parliamentarians on the Committee that the Declaration would not be a human rights treaty which would bind states that acceded to it but rather a resolution of the General Assembly with no binding effect on international law.

Minutes of the Joint Committee's meetings in 1948, reproduced or referred to by Schabas, reveal some of the concerns Canada had with the Declaration as the vote on a final draft approached. One was that it did not mention, but should, that all rights came from God; another was that the non-discrimination clause appeared to conflict with Canada's internment of people of Japanese origin, to which a BC MP responded by saying that "there was no human rights violation in the treatment of the Japanese [since] they had been interned not because of 'race' but because of 'loyalty or subversive attitudes.'" Another concern was that the democratic rights provision in the Declaration would entitle Indigenous peoples to vote at a time when Status Indians were prohibited from voting in Canada. Senator Gouin said that was not a problem since "they have the right to choose to be wards of the state and not vote, or to vote and have freedom."

In the end, the parliamentary committee indicated that it generally viewed the Declaration favourably; however in its report it did ask that the Canadian delegation take into account that it was generally opposed to "unnecessary" articles and wanted it on the record that the name of God should be embodied in the first article.

Canada Abstains in Vote to Approve Final Draft of Declaration

When discussion in the Third Committee moved to articles in the Declaration dealing with economic and social rights, Canada declared its intention to abstain from voting, claiming this was not out of opposition to the principles set forth in those articles but because the federal government "will not invade the field of provincial jurisdiction, particularly in regard to education."

Canada also argued in the Third Committee against the inclusion of a minority rights clause, claiming that in Canada there were no such issues that needed addressing. Its delegate said, "It has been stated that the problem of minorities may arise as the result of the arrival in a country of new settlers from a foreign country, or it may arise from the unfavourable circumstances in which certain indigenous national groups may find themselves. I can say quite confidently that for Canada the problem of minorities, regarded in either of these two ways, does not exist...in the sense that there is no discontent."

As the time approached for a last vote on the final draft, different scenarios were discussed between officials at External Affairs and the delegation in Paris for how Canada could work to stall the vote to buy time to tailor the document more to the government's liking. The problem however was how, in so doing, not to fall afoul of the U.S and Britain, who were both keen to pass the Declaration without further delay, and how to avoid making Canada the subject of criticism for appearing in principle to oppose the adoption of a human rights declaration.

Matters were brought to a head, however, with an unambiguous message sent by acting Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, who said he was particularly concerned about the potential for articles dealing with freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and the right to employment in the public service to be used "as an undertaking not to discriminate against communists because of their political views and of article 27 as obliging a state to provide higher education to everyone at the cost of the state if he cannot pay for it." The delegation replied, "In accordance with your instructions the Canadian delegation will not sponsor nor support the early passage of the Declaration on Human Rights in its present form."

The back and forth continued, however, over what Canada should do as Lester Pearson became increasingly concerned that abstaining in the final vote and standing against the vast majority, including the U.S. and Britain, would not be good for Canada's image. Domestic political calculations appear to have led Pearson in the end to advise abstaining in the Third Committee vote and voting in favour of the Declaration in the General Assembly.

On December 7, when it came time to vote on the final draft in the Third Committee, Canada joined the USSR, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in abstaining. Schabas writes that after the vote Pearson, who was by now in Paris to attend the upcoming meeting of the General Assembly, informed Ottawa that Canada's delegation was urgently approached by the United Kingdom and the United States, who explained they were prepared to approve the Declaration in the form it was in, despite its imperfections, because of its value as a propaganda tool for use against countries in the Soviet bloc where, they claimed, people's human rights were being denied. They regarded Canada's abstention "as a serious weakening of the propaganda position which they were hoping to achieve," Pearson said. It also was not lost on him how it looked for Canada to have been the odd-man-out by abstaining, along with the members of the "Soviet bloc" -- if for very different reasons.

Three days later, in keeping with the plan, Canada switched and voted in favour of the Declaration at the General Assembly. Pearson's December 10 speech to the Assembly addressed a number of Canadian reservations concerning some "difficulties and ambiguities" in the Declaration, but clearly implied that there were no serious problems with the substance of the instrument. Not convinced, Schabas says:

Yet the documents in the National Archives reveal a different story. Prime Minister St. Laurent himself had expressed major concerns about freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and the right to employment in the public service, because of their potential invocation by Communists. Unnamed members of the Cabinet also complained about protecting freedom of religion as the provision might provide support to Jehovah's Witnesses. Even the opposition to recognition of economic and social rights, presented as nothing more than a federal-provincial dispute, clearly cut deeper. The Parliamentary Committee had already indicated that it felt such provisions, which imposed duties on states rather than granting rights to individuals, had no place in the Declaration... [...]

The Canadian Government, and the Department of Foreign Affairs in particular, misled both domestic and international public opinion by concealing its substantive opposition to the Declaration behind procedural arguments. Aside from the outright hostility to specific provisions of the Declaration, there was also a strong dose of indifference.... [...]

There was simply no "human rights culture" within the Department of External Affairs. It is impossible to identify a single official among the many distinguished Canadian personalities who then worked for the Department -- including Pearson, [Escott] Reid and [George] Ignatieff -- who viewed the Declaration as being of real significance. None of them even mentioned the subject in their memoirs. They seem to have been preoccupied by other issues of the day, such as the Berlin airlift and the creation of NATO.

Note

1. "Canada and the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," William A. Schabas, McGill Law Journal, 43 (2) (1998), pp. 403-441.

(TML Archives)

Text of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Preamble

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, therefore,

The General Assembly,

Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1

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.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.

2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14

1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15

1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21

1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.

3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26

1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29

1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

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National Day of Action, Ottawa, November 25, 2023

Hardial Bains speaks at International Seminar on Communism and Human Rights, Toronto, March 27, 1995.

UN General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Paris, December 10, 1948.

Work on Covenants to Accompany the Declaration

Notes

Issues of Contention

Notes

Note

1. General Assembly, 5th session: 317th Plenary Meeting, December 4, 1950.

Canada Abstains in Vote to Approve Final Draft of Declaration

Note

1. "Canada and the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," William A. Schabas, McGill Law Journal, 43 (2) (1998), pp. 403-441.

Preamble

Article 1

Article 2

Article 3

Article 4

Article 5

Article 6

Article 7

Article 8

Article 9

Article 10

Article 11

Article 12

Article 13

Article 14

Article 15

Article 16

Article 17

Article 18

Article 19

Article 20

Article 21

Article 22

Article 23

Article 24

Article 25

Article 26

Article 27

Article 28

Article 29

Article 30

Hardial Bains speaks at International Seminar on Communism and Human Rights, Toronto,
March 27, 1995.