A Contrapuntal Reading of the Development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Asma Rahimyar, Yale University

Conceptualized, and ultimately codified, at the start of the Cold War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) provided both the United States and the Soviet Union with an opportunity to champion nascent human rights—and thereby to develop additional grounds for competition on the international stage. As debate regarding the UDHR within the General Assembly reveals, participating state delegates were starkly divided regarding the question of how “rights” ought to be understood. Ultimately, the US and the UK’s vision of a decidedly “individualist” universalism won out over the USSR’s collectivist conceptualization of universal human rights, as reflected within the abiding legal architecture of the UDHR. In this paper, I analyze archival data from the UDHR and subsidiary drafting meetings to crystallize the rhetorical framework employed by the US and the UK as it sought to advance an individualist universalism. However, I will also analyze resistance to this—particularly by smaller states—through the lens of Edward Said's contrapuntal method. I argue that while the US and the UK succeeded in determining the primary legal architecture of the UDHR, smaller states should also be understood as authors of the UDHR. Their resistance directly shaped the final UDHR as well as the two main UN human rights covenants.

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 Presented in Session 202. Crime, Justice and the Law