"The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom": Human Rights at the Bandung Conference

This article explores the place of human rights at the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, a meeting that founded the Third World as a political entity. Contrary to most existing accounts of the conference, which emphasize the anti-colonialism and latent anti-Westernism of the participants, it will argue that there was a significant positive engagement with human rights by a range of newly decolonized states. When recognition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was challenged by Communist China, that document found enthusiastic champions at the conference, including Charles Malik, one of the major figures involved in its creation.