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Seven THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, MARITAIN, AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS Bradley R. Munro 1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10December 1948. That the Universal Declaration could be proclaimed by a body representative of most of the world's states is a remarkable achievement and worthy of celebration in this so-called postmodern world. Indeed, most of the states that since joined the General Assembly have also endorsed the UDHR. Truly remarkable about this tremendous achievement is the UDHR embracing a whole series of principles and value statements that define what constitutes human dignity. The world has an exceedingly rich array of cultures, languages, religions, and competing value systems. This broad set of differences has come together in the endorsement, by the states of the world, of the comprehensive statement/declaration of principles and values in the UDHR. The peoples of the world, as represented by their envoys to the world body, have agreed on a basic set of principles and values by which they could be judged by their peers. In contradistinction of the current philosophical tendency (post-modernism) that pervades late-twentieth-century thought and the relativism that it breeds, the UDHR is an example of a universal adoption of a set of universal principles and values. Following the proclamation of the Universal Declaration, the United Nations set about developing what became known as the "International Bill of Rights." While the UDHR had moral force, the three instruments of the bill, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and its Optional Protocol were developed as legal instruments with binding force in international law. While the General Assembly adopted them on 16 December 1966, it was 1976 before they were ratified by a sufficient number of countries (35 for the Covenants and 10 for the Optional Protocol) for them to come into force. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights came into force on 3 January 1976 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Optional Protocol came into force on 23 March 1976. The Optional Protocol permits private individualsto send communications (for example, complaints of human rights violations) for 110 Bradley R. Munro consideration by the Human Rights Committee. The Human Rights Committee is established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and consists of eighteen individuals elected by the states that have ratified the Covenant. These individuals act in their own capacity and are chosen for their high moral character and their recognized competence in the human rights field. The Human Rights Committee is charged with hearing communications (for example, complaints) from one state about another state's violations. Generally, when a country ratifies the two Covenants, the nation intends to undertake to protect the rights of its citizens as reflected in the UDHR. In addition to the rights of individuals found in the UDHR, the Covenants added the rights of peoples to self-determination and thereby to "freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."1 2. Maritain and the Universal Applicability of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Perhaps the most pressing issue with respect to the UDHR is the question of its applicability to all. Given the multitude of different cultures, languages, traditions, and religions, all with differing moral and value systems, how can we claim that the rights contained in the UDHR have universal application? Today there is real fear that the consensus won around the principles and values of the UDHR is beginning to unravel. Some view it as a document that reflects white Northern European and American values and not those of the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere and the Asian continent. To quote from a speech given by an economic advisor to the Malaysian government, "Developing countries particularly from the South have always been skeptical of the West's insistence that they conform to the high ideals to which even the performance of the West falls below what is expected."2 While we could argue that the UDHR was a product of Western philosophical thought, it was not created without input by persons from other backgrounds. With this problem in mind, I was drawn to chapter four, "The Rights of Man," of Maritain's book Man and the State. The first division of this chapter...

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