The Road to San Francisco: The Revival of the Human Rights Idea in the Twentieth

Century
Author(s): Jan Herman Burgers
Source: Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Nov., 1992), pp. 447-477
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/762313
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HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY

The Road to San Francisco: The Revival

of the Human Rights Idea in the
Twentieth Century

Jan Herman Burgers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction 447
II. The League of Nations
III. The Pioneer Role of Andre
Involvement of Nongovernmental Organizations 450
IV. The Emergence of Nazi Germany and the
Haitian Proposals to the League of Nations 455
V. Continuing Neglect of the Human Rights Concept
by Prewar Political Thought 459
VI. The Rights of Man Campaign of H.G. Wells 464
VII. President Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms 468
VIll. The Human Rights Movement During World
IX. The Opening Phase of the San Francisco Con
X. Epilogue-The Need for Further Research 477

1. INTRODUCTION

Twice in the course of history the idea of human rights arose as a wa

exerting a powerful influence in the fields of politics, legislation and
administration of justice. The first wave had its beginnings in the sevente
century and its culmination towards the end of the eighteenth century. T
second wave began its rise in the present century and has, I am sure,
yet reached its culmination. But what was the origin of this revival of
human rights idea? When did it come about and how?
Many historical accounts treat this question in a way that cannot satisf
me. Having dealt with the famous declarations of the late eighteenth cent

Human Rights Quarterly 14 (1992) 447-477 e 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University P

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 448 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

they make a big jump to the San Francisco Conf

promotion of human rights was included among th
Nations. This inclusion is then explained as a re
committed during the Second World War. I do not
between the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis du
phasis placed on human rights in the San Franci
only be a partial explanation. Human rights alr
as a matter of international concern in importan
the most sinister part of these horrors-the holo
On 6 January 1941 President Roosevelt said in
Message: "Freedom means the supremacy of hum
support goes to those who struggle to gain these
that time the United States, the Soviet Union and Ja
in the war. On New Year's Day 1942, less than four
the Allied Powers included the protection of human
aims by stating "that complete victory over their e
preserve human rights and justice in their own
lands." Evidently, human rights were already bac
an early stage of the war. One might even guess th
rights as guiding principles for national and intern
in the period between the First and the Second Wo
seen the rise of a new phenomenon, the Totalit
disregard for human life and liberty made previous
comparatively mild. Wouldn't it seem logical to a
the totalitarian threat, freedom-loving intellect
value of the human rights concept?
For many years I have wished to read a book
revival of the human rights idea in the twentieth c
intrigued by this question because the idea of h
enjoyed tremendous popularity in the late eighteenth
oblivion until my own lifetime. In view of the
question, I made an investigation of my own dur
For this purpose I relied mainly on two libraries in
the Royal Library (which is the Dutch national libr
Peace Palace.
The results of this limited research were surprising. I learned about the
important contributions of two men I had never heard of before: the lawyer-
diplomats Mandelstam and Frangulis, a Russian and a Greek who lived as
dmigres in Paris. Contrary to my expectations, I found that the comeback
of human rights to the political scene had not really started before the Second
World War. I discovered that this comeback was mainly due to a large-scale
campaign initiated by a person I knew very well but not in that role: the
British author H.G. Wells. Finally, the prominent place of human rights in
the United Nations Charter turned out not to be a reaction to information

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 449

that had become available in San

Reich. In the following sections I

II. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE MINORITY CLAUSES

One of the most striking differences between the Covenant of the Leagu
of Nations of 1919 and the Charter of the United Nations of 1945 is that
human rights had no place in the Covenant (apart from some references in
Article 23 to "fair and humane conditions of labour" for everyone and to
"just treatment" of the native inhabitants of dependent territories). This is
not to say that human rights matters had not been raised during the drafting
of the Covenant.'
President Wilson had proposed at the Paris Peace Conference to include
in the Covenant an obligation of all League members to respect religious
freedom and to refrain from discrimination on the basis of religion (draft
Article 21). The British delegate Lord Robert Cecil considered this not strong
enough and proposed to give the Council of the League a right of intervention
against states that would disturb world peace by a policy of religious intol-
erance. For President Wilson this proposal went too far. In the course of the
discussion the Japanese delegate Baron Makino proposed to add to draft
Article 21 an obligation of all member states to refrain from discrimination
on the basis of race or nationality against foreigners who would be nationals
of League members. The Japanese proposal obtained majority support at the
commission level but was rejected by the United Kingdom and the United
States. In this situation the American delegation also withdrew its own pro-
posal concerning religious freedom. As a result, no obligations regarding
human rights were incorporated in the Covenant of the League.2
However, in various other instruments established in the aftermath of
the First World War explicit obligations were laid down with a view to
protecting the members of minorities (in the sense of groups who by language,
religion or race differed from the majority of the population). These "minority
clauses," which applied only to some specific countries or regions, were
contained in the peace treaties with Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey
(not in the peace treaty with Germany), in special treaties concluded with
Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia, and in decla-

1. The data in this section are mainly based on: A.N. Mandelstam, "La protection international
des droits de I'homme" in The Hague Academy of International Law, Recueil des Cours
(1931), 129-229, and Ren6 Brunet, La garantie internationale des droits de I'homme
(Geneve: Ch. Grasset, 1947).
2. See also Paul Gordon Lauren, "First Principles of Racial Equality: History and the Politics
and Diplomacy of Human Rights Provisions in the United Nations Charter," Human Rights
Quarterly 5 (Winter 1983): 2-3.

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 450 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

rations which Albania, Estonia, Finland, Latvia an

as a condition for their admission to the League of N
clauses were included in two bilateral treaties, nam
and Poland regarding Upper Silesia and between
regarding the Memel Territory. All these instrum
pervisory powers to the Council of the League of
It is important to note that the special regime cre
clauses" included guarantees that were not limited
norities as such. In fact, the regime consisted of
gations. Firstly, it guaranteed full and complete prot
to all inhabitants of the country or region concerned
birth, nationality, language, race or religion. Secondl
nationals would be equal before the law and woul
and political rights, without distinction as to rac
Thirdly, it provided for a series of special guarantees
to minorities, for instance concerning the use of the
to establish social and religious institutions.
Although the minority clauses only covered a hand
were of historical significance as unprecedented
sovereignty under international law. The states up
had been imposed protested time and again that t
against since no other states had to observe similar in
The only result of their protests was that the As
Nations adopted on 21 September 1922 a resolutio
that states not bound by such clauses would neve
treatment of their own minorities at least as high a
toleration as required by these clauses. In 1925 some s
clauses proposed in the Assembly of the League the e
convention among all League members determining t
minorities. This proposal was rejected. The same h
posals in 1930 and 1932.

III. THE PIONEER ROLE OF ANDRE MANDELSTAM AND THE

INVOLVEMENT OF NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

While in the period between the First and the Second World Wars mos
governments were unwilling to accept obligations under international law
regarding the treatment of their own citizens, a far more positive attitude
developed among the scholars of international law. The first scholar to be
mentioned in this context is the Chilean jurist Alejandro Alvarez, co-founder
and secretary-general of the American Institute of International Law. Already
in 1917 he submitted to this Institute a draft declaration on the fundamental
of future international law which included a section on "international rights

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1992 Road to San Francisco 451

of the individual," giving a detail

that should be enjoyed by any perso
the principal champion of internati
period after Versailles was A.N. M
Andrd Nicolayevitch Mandelstam
had been a diplomat under the Ts
the legal office of the ministry of f
had come into power, he emigrated
and teaching of international law
Institute set up in 1921 a commissio
and of human rights in general, wi
Several of Mandelstam's acquaint
national dimension of human rig
Guetzdvitch, a Russian of a young
international law before he was o
settled down in Paris, where he bec
Institute of Public Law. In 1929 he
rights provisions in the constitut
published a work on the new trend
In his efforts for giving human ri
had an important companion in the
emigre community, A.F. Frangu
Greek jurist and diplomat who ha
of Nations from 1920 to 1922, un
monarchy. Frangulis broke with t
"Greece has ceased to be a nation
army having a whole nation in it
founded in 1926 the Internationa
among others, the above-mention
Czechoslovakia, Eduard Beneg, and
ident Wilson, Colonel House). This

3. Brunet, note I above, 87. Albert Verd

universelle des Droits de I' Homme (Louva
Natos, La segunda sesidn del Instituto Am
1946 to 1955 Alvarez was a judge in the In
4. Mandelstam, note 1 above, 204. It may
undertaken under the aegis of the Intern
jurists including the Dutchman Tobias As
for already at the time of its inception, th
encompasses more than only relationshi
5. A. Aulard and B. Mirkine-Guetzdvitch
constitutionnels concernant les droits de I
dans tous les pays (Paris: Payot, 1929).
6. B. Mirkine-Guetzdvitch, Les nouvelles
(Paris: 1930).
7. Article by Antoine Frangulis, "Greece,

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 452 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

post of "perpetual secretary-general," organized

other activities; it also published a voluminous D
which appeared in an irregular series of editions
One of the first actions of the Academy was to
study the question of the protection of human r
Mandelstam were members of this commission. On the basis of a memo-
randum submitted by the latter, the commission drew up a resolution that
was adopted by the Academy on 28 November 1928. This resolution took
as its starting point the first and the second category of the obligations laid
down in the minority clauses of 1919 and 1920. It stated that it was highly
desirable to generalize the protection of the rights covered by these obli-
gations, namely the right of all inhabitants of a state to full and complete
protection of life and liberty, and the right of all nationals of a state to equality
before the law and to enjoyment of the same civil and political rights, without
distinction as to race, language or religion. The resolution concluded by
expressing the wish that a worldwide convention would be brought about
under the auspices of the League of Nations ensuring the protection and the
respect of these rights.9
Mandelstam already had presented to the commission of the Interna-
tional Law Institute a draft text on the same matter. After several rounds of
discussion in the commission, a modified version was finally dealt with by
the Institute in its plenary session in New York in 1929. This resulted in the
adoption on 12 October 1929 of a Declaration of the International Rights
of Man, consisting of a preamble and six articles. The preamble opened by
stating "that the juridical conscience of the civilized world demands the
recognition for the individual of rights preserved from all infringement on
the part of the state." The first three articles defined the duty of every state
to recognize the equal right of every individual on its territory to life, liberty
and property, religious freedom and the use of his own language. The other
articles defined obligations of the state towards its own nationals.'0
It is apparent from Mandelstam's writings that he accorded extraordinary
importance to this Declaration of the International Law Institute, which had
been adopted with an overwhelming majority in a meeting chaired by the
distinguished director of the "Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales" in
Paris, Professor De La Pradelle, who also had actively participated in the
elaboration of the text. Mandelstam thought that the Declaration, which
solemnly defied the notion of absolute state sovereignty, opened a new era

8. The second edition (1938) of the Dictionnaire contains an article of six pages under the
heading "Rights of Man (internationally guaranteed by legal means)" written by Frangulis
himself. The 1949 edition of the Dictionnaire contains a ten page article on human rights
by Ren6 Brunet. The 1968 and 1973 editions of the Dictionnaire contain articles on human
rights written by Rend Cassin.
9. Mandelstam, note 1 above, 218.
10. Ibid., 204-217.

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1992 Road to San Francisco 453

in international law, because the Dec

"the teachings of the most qualifi
law which the Permanent Court o
cording to Article 38 of its Statute.
Mandelstam did his best to give
philosophy underlying it. He publ
the subject." In January 1931 he
"lnstitut Universitaire des Hautes
summer of the same year he gave
of human rights at the Academy of
endeavored to involve other nong
International Law Institute and th
Maybe it was at Mandelstam's insti
of Public Law in Paris organized a di
in 1930. Mr. Alvarez took part in
1917 and declaring that the classic
to the conditions of modern societ
At any rate, it was on the basis
Council of the "International Feder
Rights of Man and of the Citizen
1931 endorsing the principles of t
Again on the basis of a proposal su
the matter was discussed by the A
Associations for the League of Nat
June 1933.14 According to the propo
would draw the attention of the L
convening a conference of all stat
vention for the international protec

11. A.N. Mandelstam, "La d6claration des

I'lnstitut de Droit international," Revue de
des droits internationaux de I'homme," L'E
isation de la protection des droits de l'h
LWgislation Comparde (1930); "Der inter
New-Yorker Erklarung des Instituts for V61
rights and the New York Declaration of th
auslandisches Offentliches Recht und Volk
de I'Homme [The International Rights of
"Les dernibres phases du mouvement po
I'homme" [The latest developments of the m
rights), Revue de Droit International, No
12. Brunet, note 1 above, 88. Brunet probab
13. See Mandelstam, Revue de Droit Intern
article on this in Les Cahiers des droits de
Federation had been founded in 1922.
14. See Mandelstam, Revue de Droit Intern
was not made by Mandelstam but by the
an organization living in exile.

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454 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

rise to animated discussions, in particular with r

ference under the aegis of the League of Nations.' I
was adopted unanimously which abandoned the
but charged a special committee of seven mem
bases a draft convention on international guarantee
be established.16 In the same resolution the Union d
of legal equality between men as well as between
eralization of the protection of human rights, and
ventions should be directed to all states where n
League of Nations as far as League members were c
of Montreux, the Union also adopted a resolution
of the Jews in Germany, in which it referred to t
on the international protection of human rights an
League of Nations in this domain.17
Before concluding this section I should menti
governmental organization that was probably not in
The French League of Human Rights adopted in
held in Dijon, a Complement to the Declaration
of the Citizen, consisting of a preamble and fourteen
document, expressing radical socialist conviction
porters of the human rights idea.'8 On the other
should be able to subscribe to the third sentence
"The international protection of human rights mus
and guaranteed in such a manner that no state
these rights to any human being living on its terri

15. It is remarkable that the proposal initially ran into strong

president of the Union, Lord Robert Cecil, who had been
religious freedom at the Paris Peace Conference. Lord Cec
every infringement of human rights would constitute a pro
any violation of individual rights inside a state would impli
warned against mixing up national and international law. Ev
revised text.
16. Mandelstam was of course a member of this committee wh
the Frenchman Jacques Dumas (who in 1937 gave a cou
International Law on "The international guarantee of human
Rolin (who in 1945 as a delegate in the San Francisco Con
the UN Charter with the words "We the peoples" and wh
the European Court of Human Rights). The committee later
Professor George Scelle. I do not know what results this co
17. Mandelstam, note 14 above, 1:71.
18. The French sociologist of law Georges Gurvitch praised
Ddclaration des Droits Sociaux [The Bill of Social Rights]
nection, he remarked that the document formulated in leg
Popular Front movement and government in France of 1
Herbert George Wells criticized the text of Dijon in his 194
of Man, or What are We Fighting For?

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 455

IV. THE EMERGENCE OF NAZI GERMANY AND THE HAITIAN

PROPOSALS TO THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

As far as Mandelstam was motivated by concrete experiences to work

international protection of human rights, his principal concerns relat
course to the Bolshevist repression in Russia. He was also deeply shoc
by the persecution and massacre of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, the mo
so because he had been posted many years in Constantinople as a Russ
diplomat and had been the drafter of a prewar agreement between R
and Turkey concerning reforms for Turkish Armenia.19 As to Frangulis,
may assume that he was primarily motivated by the repression in Gr
under the Venizelos dictatorship, but his concerns also related to hum
rights abuses elsewhere, including the persecution of the Jews in German
under the Nazis.
Already a few months after Hitler had come into power on 30 January
1933, the question of the anti-Jewish policies of the new regime was formally
put before the League of Nations. On 12 May a petition was submitted to
the Council of the League by Franz Bernheim, a thirty-two year old German
national of Jewish descent who had been a resident of Gleiwitz in German
Upper Silesia and was now temporarily staying in Prague.20 Bernheim stated
that he had been employed by a German firm in Gleiwitz which had dis-
charged him at the end of April because all Jewish employees had to be
dismissed. He based his petition on the 1922 German-Polish Convention
regarding Upper Silesia, whose Article 147 provided that the Council of the
League of Nations was competent to pronounce on petitions relating to the
minority clauses of the Convention and directly addressed to it by members
of a minority.
The petition cited a series of German laws, decrees and administrative
measures issued in April 1933 that provided for the discharge of Jewish civil
servants, exclusion of Jewish lawyers from legal practice, exclusion of Jewish
doctors from practice for health insurance funds, cessation of the activities
of Jewish notaries, and limitation of the admission of Jewish pupils to schools.
It also referred to a public boycott of Jewish businesses carried out by S.A.
and S.S. formations who were under the orders of the German Chancellor.
The petition pointed out that these measures and actions were incompatible
with the German obligations under the Convention regarding Upper Silesia
which guaranteed, inter alia, equality of all German nationals before the
law and in respect to civil and political rights, equal treatment of all German

19. Mandelstam devoted several publications to the plight of the Armenian people: La Socidt6
des Nations et les Puissances devant le probl&me arminien (Paris: Pedone, 1925), and
Das Armenische Problem in Lichte des VdIker- und Menschenrechts (Kiel, 1931).
20. The text of the petition of Franz Bernheim and the proceedings of the Council thereon are
reproduced in the Official journal of the League of Nations, July 1933.

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456 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

nationals regarding the exercise of their callings

protection of the life and liberty of all inhabitan
the Council to declare these legal and administrative
for Upper Silesia and to give instructions that th
the Convention should be restored, that the affected
in their rights, and that they should be given comp
The Council of the League, composed mainly of
affairs or their deputies, acted with amazing spe
discussions to the Bernheim petition during its sess
1933. The Irish delegate played a central role as
The German Foreign Office, which at that time
control, opted for the strategy of flexibility in r
representative, Mr. von Keller, to affirm categorica
legislation could in no case affect the fulfillment of
obligations and that any measures taken by subordin
be incompatible with the 1922 Convention would
the Council declared itself satisfied by these assur
with the proviso that damage that might have been s
or other members of the Jewish minority in Upper
to the local procedure.
The local procedure in this instance meant su
president of the Mixed Commission set up under
this procedure a compromise was reached with Mr. B
was concluded by the payment of 1,600 marks. Seve
employees, doctors and lawyers were settled in a
same procedure.21
The Bernheim case exposed of course the absurdit
for the protection of minorities created after the W
of the Council deliberations several speakers touched
ciples involved. However, matters of principle were
way in the Assembly of the League of Nations d
session. This session, which lasted from 25 Septem
was overshadowed by the recent developments in
At the start of the session some sensation was
arrival of the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph G
inscribed as a delegation member in the plenary and
(the political committee).22 However, Goebbels only

21. Georges Kaeckenbeeck, The International Experiment of

University Press, 1942), 266.
22. The Assembly of the League of Nations prepared most of it
but the themes were arranged in a different manner than
committees of the UN General Assembly. The first committ
the second committee with technical organizations, and the s
questions.

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 457

Assembly and did not take the

for an audience of invited jour
and then went back to Germany.
took no part in the general deb
Mr. Frangulis participated in
September he addressed the ple
existing system for the protectio
guarantees for human rights eve
lutions adopted by the Interna
ternational Law Institute in 192
Nations Associations in June 1933
Vincent, he tabled a draft resol
own Academy. According to the
would express the wish that a
about under the auspices of th
respect of the rights defined in
the Haitian proposal to the sixth
In fact, two committees of the
and internal implications of Na
problem of assistance to Jewish
and reached agreement on a Ne
missioner to coordinate this assistance. The sixth committee discussed the
anti-Jewish measures in Germany itself under the heading of protection of
minorities.
On 3 October Mr. von Keller explained to the sixth committee the new
German philosophy based on the concept of Volkstum: national identity
defined in terms of race. This new philosophy drew sharp criticism from
many delegations. Even the Italian delegate dissociated himself from Ger-
many's racial doctrine. The Bernheim case was cited and the question was
asked how Germany could reconcile its new legislation with its earlier

23. This speech has been published in Joseph Goebbels, Signale der neuen Zeit [Signals of
the New Era] (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1934). Having read the full text, I am
convinced it had originally not been written for journalists but for delivery in the Assembly
itself. Apparently, Goebbels' plan to speak in the Assembly did not get Hitler's consent.
It is interesting to note that the speech does not sound aggressive and clearly aims at
persuading the other powers to cooperate with "the new Germany." Evidently, when
delivering the speech Goebbels did not foresee that Hitler would decide a few weeks later
to withdraw Germany from the League of Nations, for if he had known this he would
certainly have given a different kind of speech.
24. The records of the plenary meetings of the 1933 session of the Assembly are reproduced
in Special Supplement No. 115 to the Official Journal of the League of Nations; the records
and the report of the sixth committee in Special Supplement No. 120. Mandelstam described
the discussions of the 1933 Assembly concerning the protection of minorities and the
proposal of Haiti in his 1934 article, "Les dernieres phases." Frangulis himself gave an
account in his 1938 Dictionnaire article, "Rights of Man." A somewhat confused account
of the same matter is contained in Brunet, note 1 above, 46-49 and 90-93.

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 458 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

commitment to treat all minorities with tolerance an

refused any comment on the Bernheim case; at the s
that the "Jewish problem" in Germany was a ques
outside the scope of the minority clauses.
Several delegations advanced anew the idea of
protection of minorities. Poland submitted a draft re
conclusion of an international convention to that end. France came with a
different proposal, consisting of two parts: the first part being a reaffirmation
of the 1922 Assembly resolution, and the second part specifying that this
should apply without exception to all categories of nationals who differ from
the majority of the population by race, language or religion.
Mr. Frangulis defended the Haitian proposal, arguing that the solution
should not be sought in generalization of the rights of minorities but in
generalization of the human rights pertaining to all people, whether be-
longing to a minority or to a majority. In the public debate hardly any delegate
referred explicitly to Frangulis' remarks. However, the Greek and the Irish
delegate did advocate the conclusion of a universal convention for the
safeguarding of human rights. The Greek delegate referred in particular to
the Declaration of the International Law Institute. The Czechoslovak dele-
gate, Minister Beneg, agreed that respect for the human being as such was
the only true basis for solving the problem of the minorities.
After this first round of discussion all proposals were referred to a sub-
committee meeting behind closed doors. There the delegates of Haiti and
Poland were persuaded to withdraw their proposals in favor of the French
proposal. The Polish draft had no sufficient support because many govern-
ments continued to dislike the idea of a general convention for the protection
of minorities, fearing that it would provoke minority problems where they
didn't yet exist and that it would stimulate separatist tendencies. As to the
objections raised against Frangulis' proposal, some had to do with its im-
plications for the situation in the colonies. It was also argued that acceptance
of the proposal would alienate the United States (obviously in view of the
position of the black population). Moreover, there were apprehensions that
the Haitian proposal would lead to a fateful confrontation with the German
government. At that time the other major powers were still bent on keeping
Germany in the League of Nations, in particular as they still hoped to achieve
agreement with the Germans in the Disarmament Conference. Anyway, a
majority in the subcommittee seems to have believed that, in the existing
circumstances, the French proposal offered the best prospect for strength-
ening the position of the Jews in Germany.25

25. This summary of objections raised against the Haitian proposal outside the public meetings
is mainly based on indications in Frangulis' 1938 article, "Rights of Man." Frangulis also
suggests that the Secretariat of the League of Nations played a negative role with regard
to this proposal.

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 459

However, when the sixth com

report, the German delegation sa
proposal as directed against Ger
were in favor. Accordingly, the p
since the notorious unanimity ru
voting in plenary meetings of t
On 11 October, the last day of t
unanimously the first part of t
was not put to the vote because
vote against it. Even this meager
progress, since Germany had now
which had been adopted in 1922
time it was not yet a member o
However, all this was of no av
its withdrawal from the League o
Conference.
I do not know whether the Ha
world press. But the monthly
the text of Frangulis' speech of 3
"The rights of man and of the ci
of Nations," together with a big p
that he had been named in Gen
In the Assembly session of 19
alization of the safeguarding of h
a brief Haitian draft resolution w
ence. Although the problem of av
Frangulis' proposal still found ins
cratic governments were wary of
rights, an idea which as yet had n

V. CONTINUING NEGLECT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS CONCEPT BY

PREWAR POLITICAL THOUGHT

The human rights concept, which had been popular in the eighteenth centur
fell into disregard in the course of the nineteenth century when the oppositio
between autocracy and freedom was gradually replaced by the alignmen
of political convictions on a left-right spectrum primarily dominated b

26. La Revue Diplomatique, No. 2.122 (31 October 1933), 56: 6-7.
27. The records of the sixth committee of the 1934 session of the Assembly are reproduc
in Special Supplement No. 130 to the Official Journal of the League of Nations. See al
Frangulis, "Rights of Man," note 8 above.

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 460 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

socioeconomic conceptions." In the 1930s, howev

traditional left-right formula became manifest, for
imply that the firmest opponents of Nazism should
conversely that those who abhorred Stalin's reign
Hitler's.
Until last year I thought that this was what brou
to the political scene. I assumed that, against the ba
polarization, several leading European intellectuals h
rights concept in order to set a positive philosoph
ideologies of left and right, a philosophy, moreover
by people of divergent persuasions, by socialists
of free enterprise, by atheists as well as by reli
assumed that human rights were understood in
requiring not only a national but also an internat
In the autumn of 1991 1 discovered that my assum
In that time I read and browsed in many books and
the late 1930s to find confirmation of my view. I f
positive concepts against right wing and left wing t
a characteristic trend indeed of the intellectual c
this trend was expressed mostly in terms of fre
almost never in a reassertion of the human rights i
What perhaps came closest to my view was a N
"Unity Through Democracy," founded in 1937, w
people from different political quarters in a commo
and communism. Its declared aims were: maintenance of the democratic
form of government, maintenance of the civil liberties, and maintenance of
the rule of law.29 Although these aims belonged entirely under the heading
of human rights, they made no explicit reference to the human rights concept
as such. Incidentally, one of the leaders of this movement, Professor Willem

28. This applies in particular to Europe, where the human rights concept fell into greater
disregard than in the Western Hemisphere. In Latin America, the human rights idea was
held in esteem by the influential anti-clericalist current which continued to pay homage
to the spiritual legacy of the Enlightenment. In the United States, the idea was kept alive,
at least on a theoretical level, as an essential element of the national heritage. Nevertheless,
I sometimes get the impression that even in the United States the human rights concept
went almost out of circulation. This is illustrated by three American dictionaries I consulted:
The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary (New York: American Heritage Publishing Co, 1975),
Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (Cleveland: William Collins,
1976) and Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield: Merriam-Webster,
1984). In these dictionaries I found entries for "human being," "human ecology," "human
engineering," "human nature," and "human relations," but not for "human rights." As to
the Netherlands: the gigantic subject index of the Royal Library in The Hague had no entry
for human rights up to the year 19801
29. Democratie of Dictatuur? (Bilthoven: Nederlandsche Beweging voor Eenheid Door De-
mocratie, 1937).

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1992 Road to San Francisco 461

Schermerhorn, became in 1945 th

after the war.
A British organization compa
"Association for Education in C
association organized in July
Democracy" which was address
Attlee, William Beveridge and L
lished in book form.30 The ope
written statements signed by Lor
in which they declared that they
fundamental aims of British dem
able to members of the Conservat
makes a strong stand against fa
struck by the remark: "The mos
has been the sudden reappearanc
believed to have disappeared fo
an assertion of the belief in huma
"The essence of democracy is the
individual; that the state exists
the concept of human rights is no
anywhere else in this volume.
Another illustrative publication
Nanda Anshen and published in 19
the war, its contents were almost
consists of contributions by ni
Charles Beard, Henri Bergson, Ben
J.B.S. Haldane, Harold Laski, Th
Russell, and A.N. Whitehead. Th
sample of freedom-loving weste
in the book's index containing o
"human nature," there are no en
or "fundamental freedoms." Alth
of freedom, most contributors do
all. Two American authors ment
term "human rights" when he d
cipation or the true city of huma
or the false city of human rights
length with such freedoms as fr
nicate, political freedom and relig
for a reassertion of the human ri
of freedom against the totalitar

30. Constructive Democracy, ed. Ernest

31. Freedom: Its Meaning, ed. Ruth Nan

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462 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

The lack of emphasis on human rights in this

striking in view of the following. In 1947 UNESCO se
a questionnaire on the theoretical problems of the hu
number of the answers received were published
volume.32 Here again we find a collection of celeb
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Aldous Huxley, Salva
Quincy Wright, and here again we have contributi
Harold Laski and Jacques Maritain. This time all these
about human rights.
The UNESCO volume was prepared by a Commit
by Professor E.H. Carr. In this context it is releva
scholar had published a book in 1942 under the ti
mainly consisting of essays he had written in the
Guarantees for the observance of human rights did n
among his conditions of peace!
As regards French political thinking before the
special attention to Rend Cassin (1887-1976) who
sonification par excellence of the human rights id
the two world wars Cassin was active in national and
organizations and was also an ardent supporter of
He knew the Declaration of the International Rights
probably also knew the resolution adopted in 193
Union of League of Nations Associations.34 He was a m
delegation to the Assembly of the League when Fr
his proposal for an international convention for t
rights. He was very conscious of his Jewish ident
thirties he showed himself an articulate opponent
harbored no illusions about the Soviet Union. Nev
any evidence that he advanced before the war the
unifying concept for the fight against totalitarianism
Another francophone writer to whom I gave at
Protestant author Denis de Rougemont, who was high

32. Human Rights: Comments and Interpretations, ed. UNE

1949).
33. Edward H. Carr, Conditions of Peace (London/New York:
34. In 1930, Cassin mentioned the New York Declaration with
Hague Academy of International Law on the domicile conc
(1930), 770. Furthermore, Cassin was a member of the French
of Nations, which makes it likely that the June 1933 resolutio
came to his knowledge, the more so as he was himself a deleg
35. 1 consulted his prewar articles reprinted in Rend Cassin, La Pe
F. Lalou, 1972), as well as, his biography by Marc Agi, Ren6
de I'Homme [Rend Cassin: Foot-soldier of human rights] (Pa

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 463

Schermerhorn whom I mention

political approach outside the tim
parties, an approach based on th
to all forms of totalitarianism. H
interest in the human rights idea
De Rougemont named his pol
the same time the earlier menti
developed a political philosophy
not a very different term.37 Bot
religious convictions, both emp
person against the collectivist red
rights concept of the Enlighten
writings. Where Maritain somet
a different concept in mind, as
from his contribution to Freedom
To round off my cursory review
I consulted a book published aft
of the French resistance movemen
If, as I assumed, the human right
French political thinking, some
clandestine documents of 1940-
flection. The volume contains on
1943 in the underground press, b
domestic setting and not as a g
Furthermore the book contains
York in November 1942 on "
I'homme," but this is just a ref
thinking. The volume has an intro
title "La pensde politique et consti
and constitutional thinking of th
Guetzdvitch. The fact that this
French thinking on human righ
author's own vivid interest in tha

36. The principal works in which De Ro

La Personne (Paris: Editions Je Sers,
hands) (Paris: Albin Michel, 1936), and
unemployed intellectuall (Paris: Albin
37. Maritain's political ideas can be found
and Principes d'une politique human
1944). In the latter volume he collecte
to the Anshen volume (Freedom: Its M
38. H. Michel and B. Mirkine-Guetzevit
documents clandestins 1940-1944 (Par
39. French politician who took part in
flee and became (like Ren6 Cassin) a c
40. See notes 5 and 6 above.

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 464 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

When in the autumn of 1991 1 began my investig

of the revival of the human rights idea, I started wit
political thought of the 1930s. The negative outcome
contradicted my preconceived views, surprised m
prised when I learned later about the proposals o
Institute and the International Diplomatic Academ
the resolution adopted in 1933 by the Internatio
Nations Associations but found that they had not
political response. As far as I know, there has not be
leader in the prewar years who picked up the pol
in these proposals and resolutions: the vital need for
of human rights.

VI. THE RIGHTS OF MAN CAMPAIGN OF H.G. WELLS

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) wrote on 23 October 1939 a letter to

The Times in which he referred to "the extensive demand for a statement
of War Aims on the part of young and old, who want to know more precisely
what we are fighting for," but also to "the practical impossibility of making
any statement in terms of boundaries, federations and political readjustments
at the present time." He contended that there was, however, a way of
answering this demand in a satisfactory manner in the best tradition of the
Atlantic parliamentary peoples: the method of a declaration of rights.4"

At various crises in the history of our communities, beginning with Magna Carta
and going through various Bills of Rights, Declarations of the Rights of Man and
so forth, it has been our custom to produce a specific declaration of the broad
principles on which our public and social life is based .... The present time
seems peculiarly suitable for such a restatement of the spirit in which we face
life in general and the present combat in particular. . .. In conjunction with a
few friends I have drafted a trial statement of the rights of man brought up to
date. I think that this statement may serve to put the War Aims discussion upon
a new and more hopeful footing.42

The letter included the text of this draft "Declaration of Rights," consisting
of a short preamble and ten articles.

41. Most of the data in this section are based on: H.G. Wells, The Rights of Man, or W14hat Are
We Fighting For? (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1940); Vincent Brome, H.G. Wells
(London/New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1951), 214-18; Lord Ritchie Calder, On
Human Rights (H.G. Wells Society, 1968); Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie, The Time
Traveller: The Life of H.G. Wells (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), 421-25; and
in particular David C. Smith, H.G. Wells: Desperately Mortal (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1986), 428-33, 442-49, 601-08.
42. H.G. Wells, The Times, 23 October 1939.

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 465

The first friend with whom Wells

new bill of rights was Ritchie Calder
of the Daily Herald. This had led
contributed to the draft. Wells now
but after nearly a month The Tim
combination of the National Peace
serve as the forum for the discus
page a day for a month. Wells wo
the Declaration with an article fol
persons, followed by a free for all f
A drafting committee was form
Angell (recipient of the 1933 Nob
Labour politician), Ritchie Calder (w
(the editor of Nature), Lord Horde
former viceroy of India and leader o
after the war became the director
former Lord Chancellor, i.e., preside
liams (the editor of the Daily Her
economist). Lord Sankey who, by
International Diplomatic Academy
this group.
In the meantime Wells had sent his draft declaration to many people
he knew. President Roosevelt sent him a reaction on 9 November 1939.
Dorothy Thomson, America's best-known woman journalist, did likewise
on 20 November; she also wrote a column and gave a speech on the subject.
Wells himself wrote about his ideas in the Manchester Guardian and several
other periodicals, and in early 1940 he included the text of the declaration
in his books The New World Order43 and The Commonsense of War and
Peace.44
The final version of the Declaration, as elaborated by the drafting com-
mittee, was published in the Daily Herald as a series under the title "The
Rights of Man" from 5 to 24 February 1940, with comments by distinguished
persons continuing up to 1 March. Comments were printed of inter alia J.B.
Priestley, C.E.M. Joad, A.A. Milne, Kingsley Martin, Salvador de Madariaga
and Clement Attlee.
The Declaration now opened with a very long preamble, followed by
ten clauses which were not ordered in exactly the same sequence as in
Wells' initial draft. These clauses dealt interalia with the rights to nourishment
and medical care, the rights to education and to access to information, the
freedom of discussion, association and worship, the right to work, the free-

43. H.G. Wells, The New World Order (London: Secker and Warburg, 1940).
44. H.G. Wells, The Commonsense of War and Peace: World Revolution or War Unending
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1940).

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 466 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

dom of movement, and protection from viol

dation.
To give the reader some idea of the ambiti
laration, I quote here parts of clauses 7, 9 and

That a man unless he is declared by a competen

himself or to others through mental abnormality
annually confirmed, shall not be imprisoned for
without being charged with a definite offence again
three months without a public trial. At the end of t
been tried and sentenced by due process of law,
he be conscripted for military or any other servic
objection. . . . That no man shall be subjected t
sterilisation except with his own deliberate consen
or any other bodily punishment; he shall not be su
such an excess of silence, noise, light or darkness
. . . He shall not be forcibly fed nor prevented fr
desire ... That the provisions and principles emb
be more fully defined in a code of fundamental
made easily accessible to everyone."5

In later publications this Declaration is usually

Declaration" and it is interesting to know how
article on 5 February 1940 Wells made a digre
Prime Minister Chamberlain and Foreign Secr
their resignation. As a reaction Lord Lytton q
Although Lord Sankey personally agreed with W
had to resign; if he had done so, Lord Horder wh
doctor would have followed suit. In this embarra
found an elegant solution by persuading Wel
chairmanship of the committee to Sankey. Altho
the actual discussions of the group, which u
Sankey was never more than a figurehead, th
went henceforward by the name "Sankey Decl
sidered it convenient to have the Declaration
his own name.
As a follow-up to the Daily Herald series, a meeting sponsored by the
National Peace Council was held on 12 March 1940 at Central Hall, West-
minster, under the name "The New World Order-Its Fundamental Prin-
ciples." About 3,600 people attended this meeting presided over by C.E.M.
Joad and addressed by H.G. Wells and Salvador de Madariaga.
Soon thereafter, a Penguin Special appeared, The Rights of Man, or What

45. H.G. Wells, The Rights of Man or What are We Fighting For? (London: Penguin Books,
1940), 82-83.

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 467

Are We Fighting For? by H.G. W

as well as the text of the Sankey
borrowed from Wells' articles in th
reproduced the text adopted in 193
which had been brought to his noti
drawn up, and he critically com
edition sold very well.
Besides disseminating the "Rig
Herald claimed to have 30,000 co
great effort was made to spread it
articles was made available at a nominal fee. Translation into ten different
languages was provided immediately, along with a message from Francis
Williams discussing possible press usage. A filing system was set up to handle
the various comments which came in. According to Calder the discussion
of Wells' articles was taken up in twenty-nine countries. It even got to the
front page of Mussolini's Popolo d'Italia and was attacked for a solid week
on Goebbels' radio. As to my own country: the leading Dutch newspaper
of the time, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, devoted on 13 February 1940
half a page under the headline "De rechten van den mensch" to the national
debate opened in Britain, giving the composition of the drafting committee
(still naming Wells as the chairman), the full text of the draft declaration, an
explanation of its purposes, and a summary of the first comments that had
come in. Evidently, all this was based on the briefing supplied by Francis
Williams. On 15 March 1940 the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant followed
this up with an editorial. In France publicity on Wells' initiative started earlier
since the monthly journal Les Nouveaux Cahiers had published Wells' initial
draft declaration on 2 January 1940.
Some time later, when Ritchie Calder became Director of Plans of Po-
litical Warfare in the Foreign Office, he had the materials on the Wells debate
dropped on the European continent. Wells himself had the Declaration
translated and published in an astonishing number of languages, covering
practically all European languages (including Estonian and Icelandic) as well
as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Gujerati, Hausa, Swahili,
Yoruba, Esperanto, and Basic English.
Among the persons to whom Wells spoke or wrote about the Declaration
were Jan Masaryk, Chaim Weizmann and Jan Christiaan Smuts (who in 1945
drafted the preamble of the UN Charter). He also received reactions from
Beneg as well as from Gandhi and Nehru. Furthermore Wells included the
Declaration in at least four works he published in 1941 and 1942.46

46. Guide to the New World: A Handbook of Constructive World Revolution (Londbn: Victor
Gollancz, 1941); Phoenix: A Summary of the Inescapable Conditions of World Reorgan-
isation (London: Secker and Warburg, 1942); The Outlook for Homo Sapiens (London:
Secker and Warburg, 1942); The New Rights of Man (Kansas: Handeman-Julius, 1942).

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 468 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

Wells' books and articles were widely circulated

from September to November 1940 Wells promote
a transcontinental lecture tour in the United States. A
of the issue in Britain had lost its momentum. It had
of public interest during the "phony war." After
offensive on the Western front in May 1940, the
urgent priorities than theorizing about an ideal w
hand, the United States was not directly involved in
1941. There, thinking about the post-war world orde
as will be illustrated in section VIII.

VII. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE FOUR FREEDOMS

When President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the US Congress on 6 January

1941 about the "State of the Union," he concluded his address with his
famous peroration on the Four Freedoms.47 This formula was entirely of his
own making. When the State of the Union Message was being drafted and
had already gone through three versions, Roosevelt surprised his collabo-
rators by dictating an addition which he opened with the sentence: "In the
future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world
founded upon four essential freedoms," after which he set out the freedom
of speech and expression, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want,
and the freedom from fear.48
Although the 1941 State of the Union address was the first occasion at
which Roosevelt presented his formula to the public, he had spoken before
in private of this concept. In a meeting with church leaders in January 1940
he had already advanced the idea of formulating some fundamental prin-
ciples for a new world order.49 I know no report of that meeting, but there
is a transcript of a talk with journalists on 5 July 1940 which makes clear
that he had then already set out his idea many times.50

47. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. Samuel I. Rosenman (New
York: Random House, 1950), 1940: 672.
48. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt (New York: Harper & Bros., 1952), 262-
64.
49. Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York: Da Capo
Press, 1972), 15: 61.
50. Ibid., 16: 18-23. Roosevelt replied to a reporter who had asked: "Off the record, last
January-I think it was January-you spoke about certain long-range peace objectives you
had." I believe Roosevelt had set out his idea many times before because of two mistakes
he made in this reply. First of all, he started with the list without having said what the list
was about, then interrupted himself and started anew. The transcript reads as follows:
"Now, I come down to your questions. The first is-you might saythere are certain freedoms.
The first I would call 'freedom of information,' which is terribly important." In the second
place, Roosevelt initially forgot to mention the "freedom from want" and had to be reminded

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 469

Incidentally, in that talk he list

he distinguished between "freedo
and "freedom to express onesel
What motivated Roosevelt to look for a short formulation of human
rights as long-term peace objectives? In the first place there was a practical
reason why he could not present the war that had started in 1939 as a battle
for the defense of American national interests, since up to December 1941
the United States did not participate in this war and the majority of the
American people wished to stay out of it. Therefore Roosevelt had to present
the issue in ideological terms. But I think he was also personally convinced
that internationalization of the care for human rights was the proper idea
for uniting the American people against the forces of totalitarianism. In order
to mobilize public opinion in this sense, he thought it expedient to cast the
human rights idea in a new simple form. The customary long list of civil
liberties, including sophisticated procedural guarantees, was not suitable for
that purpose. Besides, Roosevelt wanted to include more than only the
classical liberties. Therefore he proclaimed "freedom from want" as a syn-
opsis of social and economic human rights. The Sankey Declaration had
already demonstrated that the time was ripe for the inclusion of such rights.
Meanwhile, there is a peculiar problem about the interpretation of the
concepts "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear" because Roosevelt
gave a rather restrictive explanation of these concepts in his address of 6
January 1941. He explained "freedom from want" only in terms of economic
understandings between nations, and "freedom from fear" in terms of a
worldwide reduction of armaments. However, it is clear from many of his
other statements that he meant far more by these concepts than was covered
by that explanation. "Freedom from want" must be understood first of all
in the spirit of Roosevelt's New Deal philosophy: it refers to the responsibility
of governments actively to promote the well-being of their citizens. Later
Roosevelt worked out this concept in his plea for an "Economic Bill of
Rights" which should complement the classical bill of rights.s' As regards
"freedom from fear" Roosevelt meant protection of people against oppression
by their own state as well as protection of people against aggression by other
states. By way of illustration I quote the following from his Special Message
to Congress of 20 June 1941: "Our Government believes that freedom from
cruelty and inhuman treatment is a natural right. It is not a grace to be given

of it by the reporter. I believe Robert Sherwood was mistaken when he wrote that Roosevelt
had no name in mind for this freedom and took over the reporter's suggestion to call it
that way IRobert E. Sherwnvood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Harper & Bros, 1950),
2311. My reading of the transcript is that the reporter knew very well that Roosevelt had
used this label before.
51. He did so explicitly in his State of the Union Message of 11 January 1944. See Rosenman,
note 47 above, 1944-1945: 41.

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470 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

or withheld at will by those temporarily in a positio

defenseless people.""52
In the course of 1941 Roosevelt came back to th
and again.53 I dare say he has done more than any
century to bring the human rights idea home to the
way he prepared the ground for the inclusion of t
rights among the war aims of the Allied Powers i
January 1942 which I quoted in my introduction.
Roosevelt must have been encouraged in his acti
H.G. Wells. The two men knew each other well. W
than once with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in t
he had received a very cordial letter from Rooseve
in Autobiography. In November 1939 Roosevelt com
declaration of the rights of man.54 There can be littl
least parts of the discussion about the Sankey declara
considered that text too overloaded and too sophistica
support, and therefore worked out his own brief for

52. Ibid., 1941: 228.

53. For example, in an address for White House corresponden
weeks ago I spoke of four freedoms-freedom of speech and e
person to worship God in his own way, freedom from want, f
the ultimate stake. ... If we fail-if democracy is superseded
freedoms or even the mention of them will become forbidde
before they can be revived." Ibid., 65-66. Likewise, in a rad
human freedom" of 27 May 1941: "Today the whole world
slavery and human freedom.... We will accept only a world
speech and expression -freedom of every person to worship G
from want-and freedom from terrorism. Is such a world impo
Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of t
cipation Proclamation, and every other milestone in huma
which seemed impossible of attainment-yet they were atta
54. Smith, note 41 above, 419-20, 603.
55. Maybe Roosevelt was also influenced by the work of the Inter
of which he was an early member. According to Frangulis
the fifth edition of the Dictionnaire Diplomatique, probably of
into contact with the Academy at the instigation of Colonel H
became President of the United States. When he was in Par
Vittel, a luncheon was arranged in his honor where he met Fr
nent members of the Diplomatic Academy and was inform
activities. Apparently Roosevelt then became a member. In 19
about the foreign policy of the United States to the first edition
the immobilism of the Hoover administration). He also gave a
American members of the Academy. As a member he must
proceedings and publications of the Academy, but it seems un
look at these papers when he had become President of the
that he knew of the resolution adopted by the Academy on
first year of his Presidency he was of course keenly interested in
of Nations to German Nazism; one may wonder whether in th
the proposal tabled by Frangulis on 30 September 1933. 1 shou
sometimes a certain similarity between formulations of Mand

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 471

VIII. THE HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT DURING WORLD WAR II

Whereas before the Second World War the idea of giving human rights an
international status was only advocated by some limited circles without
meeting a meaningful political response, during the war it finally broke
through to the mainstream of public discussion. A flood of publications
developed on this issue, mostly in the United States. We may assume that
much of it was triggered by Wells' Rights of Man campaign and further
stimulated by Roosevelt's battle-cry of the Four Freedoms.s56
Of the numerous organizations and institutions that participated in this
discussion, I will highlight here only one. Although the United States wa
not a member of the League of Nations, there did exist in this country an
American League of Nations Association. After the outbreak of the war in
1939 this Association set up a "Commission to Study the Organization of
Peace." Chairman of the commission was the eminent historian James T.
Shotwell, who had been a member of the United States delegation at the
Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and who had been ever since an outspoken
advocate of American entry into the League of Nations. Shotwell's com-
mission achieved more than just the preparation of studies. It exerted a
considerable influence on public opinion and ultimately on the decision-
makers in Washington. The international safeguarding of human rights was
one of the subjects to which it gave attention.
The wartime proposals for giving human rights an international status
related to catalogues of rights as well as to international machinery for
promoting and protecting these rights. In the course of my investigation I
found so much information on such proposals that I shall mention here only
those documents that refer explicitly to the human rights concept in their
titles, leaving aside all such proposals which constitute only a clause or a
paragraph of a broader scheme for postwar world organization. Furthermore
I shall limit myself to documents presented prior to the publication of the
official Dumbarton Oaks proposals in October 1944.
The Movement for Federal Union published in 1940 a pamphlet under

guage used by Roosevelt. Frangulis wrote, for example, in his 1938 article, "Rights of
Man": "It is, in fact, between the concept of freedom and the concept of non-freedom
and slavery that the future war will be waged."
56. The data in this section are largely based on the works of Brunet, note 1 above, Lauren,
note 2 above, and Verdoodt, note 3 above, as well as on: Jacob Robinson, Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms in the Charter of the United Nations (New York: Institute of
Jewish Affairs of the American Jewish Congress, 1946). All publications mentioned in this
section are referred to in one or more of those works. These publications, which appeared
in the United States while the Netherlands was under German occupation, are not available
in the libraries in The Hague, except the books by Maritain and Gurvitch which were
republished after the war and the reports of the Commission to Study the Organization of
Peace which were reprinted in the journal International Conciliation.

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 472 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

the title How Shall We Win? which included a prop

charter of freedoms.57
On 14 April 1941 Wilfred Parsons S.J. presen
title An International Bill of Rights to the Catholic A
Peace."5
A chapter "New Rights of Man in an International Organization" was
contained in The World's Destiny and the United States, a report of a con-
ference of experts in international relations published in Chicago in 1941 .9
The popularity of the idea of international bills of rights is illustrated by
the fact that the New Educational Fellowship Conference adopted on 12
April 1942 in London a charter setting forth basic rights for all children.60
On 3 June 1942 an International Declaration of Human Rights was
proposed by Rollin McNitt, honorary dean of the Law School of Southwestern
University (Los Angeles).6'
Jacques Maritain wrote a book, Les Droits de l'Homme et la Loi Naturelle,
which was published in New York in 1942.62
The Czechoslovakian president-in-exile Eduard Beneg wrote an article
"The Rights of Man and International Law" in the 1942 Czechoslovak Year-
book of International Law.63
Meanwhile the United States State Department had set up a special legal
subcommittee for studying the problems of postwar international organi-
zation. James Shotwell also participated in this subcommittee, which worked
in secrecy.64 The subcommittee presented in July 1942 a preliminary draft
and in December 1942 a final draft of an International Bill of Rights. However,
the higher echelons of the State Department made no use of this document
and it was never published.
From 1941 onwards the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace
issued a number of reports on postwar world organization. In February 1943
it published, together with its Third Report, a paper presented to the Com-
mission by Quincy Wright, entitled "Human Rights and the World Order."6s

57. "How Shall We Win?" (The Movement for Federal Union, 1940).
58. Wilfred Parsons S.J., "An International Bill of Rights," Appendix C of American Peace Aims
(Washington: The Catholic Association for International Peace, 1941), 23-24.
59. "New Rights of Man in an International Organization" In The World's Destiny and the
United States (Chicago: World Citizens Association, 1941).
60. See Jacques Maritain, note 62 below, 138.
61. Los Angeles Daily Journal, 3 June 1942.
62. Jacques Maritain, Les droits de i'Homme et la Loi Naturelle (New York: Editions de la
Maison francaise inc., 1942).

63. Eduard Bene.,

International Law"The Rights
[HI idka of Man prava]
mezinarodniho and International Law."
(London: Published underInthe
Czechoslovak
auspices Yearbook of
of the Czechoslovak Branch of the International Law Association).
64. Lauren, note 2 above, 7-9.
65. Quincy Wright, "Human Rights and the World Order," in The United Nations and the
Organization of Peace: Third Report of the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace
(New York: American Association for the United Nations, 1943). Wright's paper was also

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 473

Under the aegis of the Twenti

published in 1943 The Internat
Concordance.66
Hersch Lauterpacht expounded his own draft of an international bill of
rights in a public lecture at the University of Cambridge in 1943.67 Two
years later he published a bookletAn International Bill of the Rights of Man.68
The American Law Institute had started in 1942 extensive work for the
preparation of an international bill of rights. One of its preliminary reports
contained a survey of existing human rights clauses in national constitutions.
In February 1944 it published the final result, a Statement of Essential Human
Rights69 drafted by a committee of advisers representing the principal cultures
of the world. This text has had a considerable impact since it became the
principal source used by John Humphrey in 1947 when he drew up the first
draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.70
In May 1944, the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace issued
the last part of its Fourth Report under the titled International Safeguard of
Human Rights.71 In the concluding paragraph the Commission summarized
its recommendations as follows:

.. we propose that measures be taken to safeguard human rights throughout

the world by (1) convening without delay a United Nations Conference on
Human Rights to examine the problem, (2) promulgating, as a result of this
conference, an international bill of rights, (3) establishing at the conference a
permanent United Nations Commission on Human Rights for the purpose of
further developing the standards of human rights and the methods for their
protection, (4) seeking the incorporation of major civil rights in national con-
stitutions and promoting effective means of enforcement in each nation, (5)
recognizing the right of individuals or groups, under prescribed limitations, to
petition the Human Rights Commission, after exhausting local remedies, in order
to call attention to violations.72

reproduced in the monthly journal International Conciliation (published in New York by

the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), No. 389, April 1943, 238-62.
66. Irving A. Isaacs, The International Bill of Rights and Permanent Peace Concordance (Boston:
The International Bill of Rights Committee of the Twentieth Century Association, 1943).
67. Hersch Lauterpacht, International Law and Human Rights (London: Stevens & Sons, 1950),
79.
68. Hersch Lauterpacht, An International Bill of the Rights of Man (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1945).
69. Americans United for World Organization, Statement of Essential Human Rights (New
York: American Law Institute, 1945).
70. John P. Humphrey, Human Rights & the United Nations: A Great Adventure (Dobbs Ferry:
Transnational Publishers, 1984), 32.
71. Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, International Safeguard of Human Rights
(New York: American Association for the United Nations, 1944). This part of the Com-
mission's Fourth Report was also reproduced in International Conciliation, No. 403, Sept.
1944, 552-75.
72. International Conciliation, No. 403, 574.

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 474 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

An article by C.A. Baylis, "Towards an Internation

published in the Summer 1944 issue of Public Opi
A book by the French sociologist of law Georges G
des droits sociaux, was published in New York in
What I have mentioned above, mainly the work of
the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In 1947 Rene Brune
and ex-delegate to the League of Nations, describe
[A] vast movement of public opinion which, born in
States nearly at the beginning of the hostilities, grew i
scope as the war rolled on. Hundreds of political, sc
ganizations have, by their publications, appeals, man
tions, spread and irripressed the idea that the protectio
be part of the war aims of the Allied Powers, and that
not be complete if it would not consecrate the princ
tection of human rights in all States and if it would not
in an effective manner.7s

IX. THE OPENING PHASE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CONFERENCE

As regards an international status for human rights, the proposals for a ne

world organization worked out by the United States, the United Kingdo
the Soviet Union and China at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Septe
ber-October 1944 did not meet the expectations raised by the human rights
movement. An American proposal to insert into the Charter a statement of
principle about respecting human rights had been opposed both by th
United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. A Chinese proposal to write into the
Charter the principle of equality of all races (reminiscent of the Japan
proposal at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919) had even been opposed
by the United States. As a result, the draft charter emanating from Dumbart
Oaks mentioned human rights only in one place, in one of the last chapters
where it was said that "the Organization should facilitate solutions of i
ternational economic, social and other humanitarian problems and prom
respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms."76

73. C.A. Baylis, "Towards an International Bill of Rights," Public Opinion Quarterly (Summe
1944).
74. Georges Gurvitch, La declaration des droits sociaux (New York: Editions de la Maison
frangaise, inc., 1944).
75. Brunet, note 1 above, 93-94.
76. The data in this section are mainly based on the works of Brunet, note 1 above, Lauren,
note 2 above, and Robinson, Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as well as on:
O. Frederick Nolde, Free and Equal: Human Rights in Ecumenical Perspective (Geneva:
World Council of Churches, 1968), and M. Glen Johnson, "The Contributions of Eleanor
and Franklin Roosevelt to the Development of International Protection for Human Rights,"
Human Rights Quarterly 9 (February 1987): 19-48.

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1992 Road to San Francisco 475

Eventually far stronger langua

Charter at the San Francisco Con
notion of how this came about.
whereas the war in Europe had end
of May the media brought many
found in the liberated concentra
of piles of emaciated corpses in B
sion. During many years I thought
reports which had convinced th
rights deserved more emphasis in
about the revival of the human rig

This renewed interest in the old id

against the ideologies and practices
to power in several countries. The
the collapse of the Third Reich wh
by the Nazis came to light. This pro
at the Conference of San Francisc
rights an important place among th

However, my reading of the last m

not correct. All decisive steps towa
on human rights were taken befo
Very important amendments in th
States, the UK, the USSR, and Ch
before the German capitulation.
Two groups of actors have been r
human rights clauses of the UN C
States nongovernmental organiza
The Latin American states (exce
had not been invited) held a con
Chapultepec, Mexico, from 21 Fe
slighted by the United States becaus
Oaks proposals, contrary to an ea
it would consult its Allies in the W
proposals for a new world organ
voted much attention to the hum
adopted dealt specifically with th
human rights. The resolution cal
would define those rights and th

77. J. Herman Burgers and Hans Daneliu

A Handbook on the Convention against
Treatment or Punishment (Dordrecht/B
5.

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 476 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 14

committee with elaborating a preliminary draft o

it also envisaged the conclusion of an inter-Amer
vention. At the Conference of San Francisco many
tions played an active role in the spirit of this resolu
The second group of actors consisted of nongovern
that tried to influence the US government. For exam
Committee on Religious Liberty, set up in 1943 b
Churches. After the Dumbarton Oaks proposals h
October 1944, this committee issued a memorandu
the establishment of a specialized agency under the U
Council with responsibility in the area of human rig
idea of an international bill of rights as a long range
of 1945, the American Jewish Congress and the Syna
ica called likewise for an international human ri
framework of the United Nations and for an interna
Commission to Study the Organization of Peace pr
The United States government was determined t
the failure that had occurred after the First World War when the Senate
withheld its approval to the Covenant of the League of Nations for which
President Wilson had exerted himself in Paris. Therefore the State Department
invited forty-two American nongovernmental organizations to send repre-
sentatives to San Francisco to act as Consultants to the US delegation. These
NGOs included organizations in the fields of law, education and labor,
church groups, women's associations and civic organizations such as the
NAACP and the American Association for the United Nations. Among the
Consultants in San Francisco were several key spokesmen of the human
rights movement, such as Judge Proskauer of the American Jewish Com-
mittee, Frederick Nolde of the joint Committee on Religious Liberty, and
James Shotwell who was chosen as chairman of the Consultants.
The San Francisco Conference started on 25 April. Because 4 May was
the deadline for the submission of formal amendments to the Dumbarton
Oaks proposals, a group of Consultants including the persons I just mentioned
drew up a letter in which it urged the US delegation to sponsor certain
specific amendments on human rights. On behalf of twenty-one nongov-
ernmental organizations this letter was presented to Secretary of State Stet-
tinius in a dramatic meeting on 2 May.78 The US delegation, who until then
had been divided on the human rights issue, now rallied to the cause and
persuaded on 3 May the delegations of the UK, the USSR, and China to go
along with amendments that would include promoting respect for human
rights among the purposes of the United Nations and would provide for the
establishment of a commission for the promotion of human rights under the
Economic and Social Council.

78. Nolde, note 76 above, 22-24, and Johnson, note 76 above, 25-26.

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 1992 Road to San Francisco 477

As regards other amendments

may mention a South African pr
"to reestablish faith in fundament
a proposal of New Zealand to inc
members "to preserve, protect an
adopted).
Taking into account the amendments that had been tabled by 4 May
1945, the agreed position of the Latin American delegations and the positive
attitude towards the human rights issue with which several other delegations
entered the San Francisco Conference, I now realize that in this matter the
founders of the United Nations were not "prompted by the horrors that came
to light after the collapse of the Third Reich." Besides, even at the day the
Charter was signed the delegates in San Francisco did not yet grasp the full
scale of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis. It has taken many years before
the real dimensions of the holocaust became widely known. I may add that
most delegates in San Francisco had also no notion of the dimensions of
the horrors committed under Stalin.

X. EPILOGUE-THE NEED FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

My limited investigation into the comeback of the human rights idea yield
a considerable amount of information that was completely new-not on
to me but also to several of my friends who have worked many years in th
field of human rights. How is it possible that the human rights movem
of today is unaware of the credit it owes to the efforts of A.N. Mandelstam
and the campaign of H.G. Wells? Why had we never learned that a form
proposal has been submitted to the League of Nations for the elaborati
of an international convention to protect human rights?
The findings which I set out in the present article have not diminished
my curiosity about the origins of the human rights revival. On the contrar
they have intensified my wish to see a substantial book written on this subje
There is so much more to be explored, for example concerning the influenc
exerted by the different groups who worked for an international statu
human rights, and concerning the thoughts they developed on such questio
as codification, supervision, sanctions and intervention. I would hope t
one or more historians sufficiently familiar with the human rights issue wou
set themselves the task of examining the records of as many as possible
the institutions and organizations that have played a role in this matter
the 1920s, the 1930s and the early 1940s. I hope they could still speak w
some of the people who once participated in the movement meant by Brune
If a book would be written on the human rights revival of the first hal
of this century, I am convinced it will tell a fascinating story and find man
interested readers.
The Hague, 23 March 1992

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