A/73/227 Annex Towards a global history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though drafted from 1946 to 1948, at a time when many States had not yet achieved independence, was truly the product of a global drafting process, and delegates from every region of the world, both women and men, made significant contributions to strengthening its guarantee s. 1 For example, important contributions were made to the drafting of article 27 on cultural rights by States including Chile, France and Peru and by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The representative of Peru, José Encinas, introduced the word “freely” to the draft, insisting that it was not sufficient to state that everyone has the right to cultural participation and development, but that the document should emphasize complete freedom of creative thought “in order to protect it from harmful pressures which were only too frequent in recent history.” 2 2. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is truly an intercultural document in multiple senses: “people from various cultures and religions were involved in th e writing of the text”, it “voiced a concern for cultural belonging and the importance of culture for the well-being of the individual person” and it “was a product of what one could call ‘intercultural strategies and dialogues’, that is, argumentation that tried to reach agreements even though the drafters have very different cultural/ethical backgrounds and views.” 3 The representative of China, Peng Chun Chang, was among those who emphasized that the Declaration should be “universal and religiously neutral”. 4 3. Women’s rights advocates from around the world worked to enhance the Declaration and make it “the universalizing document it has remained”. 5 Anti-colonial and anti-racist activists contributed to the surrounding debates. The text adopted was not an imposition of the values or cultures of any one region of the world, but rather a foundational challenge to entrenched systems of racial and sexual discrimination, as well as religious privilege, that were prevalent around the world at the time of its drafting. A universalist frame based on reason and conscience rather than on God and country was arrived at, not in spite of cultural, religious or philosophical diversity, but because of such diversity, as the only way to guarantee __________________ 1 2 3 4 5 24/26 On the many contributions of the Global South to the elaboration of human rights standards, see Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (Cambridge University Press, 2016). There were 58 States Members of the United Nations when the Universal Declaration was adopted on 10 Dece mber 1948. Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), p. 218. Hans Ingvar Roth, “Peng Chun Chang, intercultural ethics and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, in Göran Collste, ed., Ethics and Communication: Global Perspectives (London, Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016), pp. 98 and 99. For more on Chang ’s contributions, see Hans Ingvar Roth, P. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Ibid., p. 105. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “Women helped make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ‘universal’”, 6 March 2018, available at https://medium.com/@UNHumanRights/women-helped-make-the-universal-declaration-ofhuman-rights-universal-784479830153; citing an interview with Rebecca Adami, author of Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (forthcoming). 18-12312