Before discussing any phenomenon or event, it is of crucial importance to identify the major factors, which contributed to it. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be analyzed within the context of the political, cultural, and religious situation, emerging in the middle of the twentieth century. As it is widely known, this act was adopted in 1948. According to this document, every person (or it would be better to say human beings) must be entitled to certain rights, which cannot take away from him or her (Weiss, 14).
At first glance, it may seem that this act should have been readily accepted by every nation; however, one should take into account that the Declaration of Human Rights was not received unanimously by all nations. For instance, representatives of some Islamic countries subjected it to heavy criticism. They stated that religious and cultural traditions were overlooked in this document (Ramcharan, 43).
The question arises of what prompted the United Nations Organization to develop and adopt this act. It stands to reason that first of all this declaration was the natural response to the events of World War II (genocide, violations of Genève convention, atomic explosion), which had proved that human rights could be easily violated even in the most developed countries. In addition to that, it became apparent that the international community did not come to a consensus about such a concept as “human rights”. As it has been pointed out earlier, Western and Eastern interpretations did not exactly coincide; therefore, some unification had to be achieved.
In this respect, we should explore the political situation in the Post-War period. Humankind was on the verge of a new conflict, the Cold War, but at that moment, the contradictions between the United States and the Soviets were not so aggravated, and both sides of the argument supported the idea of such declaration.
Regarding the religious environment, we should first say that the twentieth century is marked by a religious crisis, which means that to some extent, religion ceased to act as guidelines for people (the events of World War II eloquently substantiated this statement). Consequently, it was necessary to lay legal foundations, which were to ensure that at least basic human rights were preserved and protected (Asbeck,88). Naturally, we should not make generalizations because the religious crisis did not strongly affect Islamic countries but it was very tangible in Europe.
The events of World War II also showed that many people were not able to practice their religion. They were officially (or unofficially) prohibited to do it. In theory, the Declaration of Hunan guarantees that every person has religious freedom but it could not eradicate certain tacit laws, which still acted against some religious groups (Weiss, 134).
Furthermore, while analyzing the history of the twentieth century, scholars often attach primary importance to the so-called clash of cultures. At that moment, Easter and Western Worlds were only beginning to interact with each other but it was obvious that such notion as “human rights” was perceived in different ways. Partly, this declaration was aimed at strengthening the ties between the two most basic cultures or at least ensuring that they could efficiently cooperate (Ramcharan, 65).
New social developments also contributed to the adoption of this document. For instance, the growth of the feminist movement indicated that the roles of men and women should be reconsidered especially in terms of employment policies, and education. The adoption of the Declaration aroused a storm of protest in some Islamic countries because social equality of both sexes contradicted some tenants of the Muslim religion, especially regarding the role of women in the family and their dependence on their husbands.
In her book “A World Made New” Mary Glendon gives the reader insights into the atmosphere of that time. The author focuses on the role of Eleanor Roosevelt in developing this document. She was a member of the Human Rights Commission along with representatives of other countries. People, who were designated to draft this document, had to fight against insuperable odds, namely cultural-political, religious, and social controversies. It should be mentioned that even now this document is viewed as pro-Western and pro-American, though it seems its basic principles are universally applicable (Glendon, 33).
Nevertheless, the most important problem that Human Rights Commission had to resolve is how to make this doctrine applicable, in other words, whether this document had any legal force. Johannes Morsink in his book “The Declaration of Human Rights” argues that this legislative act was fully implemented only in the West; however, it did not become applicable in some other countries for example, in the USSR (Morsink, 8).
Thus, having analyzed political, religious, cultural, and cultural environment in the post-War Period we can arrive at the following conclusions: first Human rights commission had to resolve cross-cultural contradictions while drafting the declaration, especially different perceptions of human rights in the Western and Eastern cultures. However, the main problem that had to be resolved was the applicability of this legislative act. It seems that even now this issue remains very stressful because some countries only officially accepted the Declaration of Human Rights but even they do not follow its basic principles.
Bibliography
B. G. Ramcharan.Thirty Years After the Universal Declaration. BRILL, 1979.
Frederik Mari Asbeck. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Its Johannes Predecessors (1679-1948): And Its Predecessors (1679-1948). Brill Archive, 1949.
Morsink. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
Mary Ann Glendon. “A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” Random House, 2002.
Thomas George Weiss. “The United Nations and Changing World Politics” Westview Press, 2004.