Reclaiming and rebuilding the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 1 June 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in Third World Quarterly
- Vol. 23 (3), 437-448
- https://doi.org/10.1080/01436590220138378
Abstract
The political history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is not well known and obscurity has fostered a number of assumptions that require inspection. Recent scholarship challenges the notion that the UDHR was uniquely sponsored and promoted by the Western powers, and indeed raises questions about great power support for efforts to craft international human rights standards. This article explores four political myths about the Universal Declaration, each of which contains a grain of truth, but each of which also misleads. If the historical role of large states in advancing human rights norms is exaggerated, the role and contribution of small states has likewise been overlooked. The Universal Declaration is a negotiated text and many states participated in its construction. Its legitimacy extends from the political process that gave it shape and all states thus have an interest in small states reclaiming their share in its history.Keywords
This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
- Universalizing Human Rights: The Role of Small States in the Construction of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsHuman Rights Quarterly, 2001
- The Universal Declaration of Human RightsPublished by University of Pennsylvania Press ,1999
- US Hegemony and the Project of Universal Human RightsPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1996
- Ideas and Foreign PolicyPublished by Cornell University Press ,1993
- The Road to San Francisco: The Revival of the Human Rights Idea in the Twentieth CenturyHuman Rights Quarterly, 1992
- The Contributions of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt to the Development of International Protection for Human RightsHuman Rights Quarterly, 1987
- Human Rights and United States Policy Toward Latin AmericaPublished by Walter de Gruyter GmbH ,1981