such recognition would tend to subvert the natural relationship between a state and its own citizens. The Americans and English were not opposed in principle to the recognition of such a right, but favored a cautious approach to the problem in the existing state of the world, lest false hopes of efficient enforcement be aroused, leading only to bitter disappointment when the weakness of the United Nations should eventually be discovered by victims of oppression at the hands of one of the powers. They preferred to postpone the grant of a right of petition to private individuals until after the establishment of machinery of implementation and the gaining of experience in its use. Others, however, advocated the immediate recognition of such a right regardless of the arrangements that might be made for handling petitions from private persons at the offices of the United Nations. They contended that the denial of a right of petition to the humble and oppressed would be a mockery of human rights. The United Nations, they declared, cannot proclaim in the Charter its devotion to fundamental freedoms for all, and then refuse to listen when any one wishes to complain of their violation.

The Commission was forced to postpone action on this fundamental issue. The Russians modified their original position, conceding that the right of petition might be extended to organizations established on a "wide democratic basis," that is, presumably, to communist parties and other approved organizations, but not to other groups or to individuals. This concession did not make the Russian position more acceptable to the non-communist world. Most of the non-communist states, however, did not share the American and English reluctance to take action which would put the United Nations in a position where it might not be able to fulfill the expectations of oppressed peoples. They contended that the United Nations must try without undue delay to perform the obligations implied in the Charter and trust that efforts to ensure respect for human rights made in good faith, even if unsuccessful, will serve to strengthen rather than weaken the general international organization. A proposal that a universal right of petition be included in the Draft Covenant divided the Commission equally. Favoring the proposal were the representatives of France, Denmark, Lebanon, India, the Philippines, Australia, Uruguay, and Guatemala. Opposed to it were the Soviet Union, the Ukraine, Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Iran, China, and the United States. The alignment of states is not without significance. The deadlock was broken by the adoption of a resolution referring the problem to the Economic and Social Council with a request that the Secretary General be instructed to study it and report his findings for consideration by the Commission at the next session.

Examination of the record suggests that the Commission on Human Rights is unlikely to finish its work on the Draft Covenant as quickly and as successfully as that on the Declaration. The difficulties to be overcome are manifestly much greater. At the close of its fifth session the communist members of the Commission expressed great disappointment at the exclusion of the economic and social rights, and abstained

from voting on the simple proposition to accept the Commission's progress report. Other members must be equally, and perhaps more sincerely, disappointed at the unwillingness of the Americans and English to support vigorous measures of implementation. The Draft Covenant, if completed in 1950 as planned, might be approved by two-thirds of the General Assembly, but it cannot be completed, to say nothing of receiving the approval of the necessary majority in the General Assembly, without some great compromises between the conservative members of the Commission, led by the Americans and English, and the more liberal members, led by the French and Australians. Mrs. Roosevelt, the purposeful and experienced chairman, was sanguine enough at the close of the Commission's fifth session to report3 that its non-communist members "seemed to feel a good beginning had been made towards our ultimate goal." It is possible-but by no means certain—that they were justified in so feeling.

The root of the difficulties that stand in the way of the completion of the Draft Covenant lies in the nature of the problem of implementation. Effective measures of implementation mean the readjustment of the relations between private persons and the states to which they belong. If such readjustments are accomplished through the intervention of United Nations agencies, the relationship between the United Nations and its Members will also be changed. Effective implementation cannot be imagined except by measures which will put the United Nations well on the road towards transformation into a genuine World Federation. In the United States the original federal Bill of Rights did not apply to the relations between private persons and the governments of the states in which they resided. It applied only to the relations between the individual and the United States. It was not until the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment that the federal Bill of Rights began to cause the readjustment of the relations between the individual and his own state. If the United Nations should follow the example of the United States, a Covenant such as the Commission on Human Rights is trying to draft would not be adopted for a long time. The readjustment of the relations between Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, etc., and their respective states would be left to the lawmakers of the states themselves, acting under the inspiration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to approximate the standards established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as rapidly as circumstances should permit.

The task remaining for the present Commission on Human Rights would not be to draft a Covenant designed to put the United Nations at one stroke in the position reached by the United States after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead of trying to reform immediately the legal relationships between individuals throughout the world and the particular states in which they reside, the efforts of those who desire to promote greater respect for human rights throughout the world by law would be directed toward promoting greater respect for the

36 U. N. BULL. 3 (July 1, 1949).

4 See HOLCOMBE, op. cit. supra note 2, c. V, The Problem of Enforcement.

rights of persons regarded as citizens of the world. This means, among other things, insuring the right of persons everywhere to travel to the seat of government of the United Nations, to be informed concerning what is being done there, to report these proceedings to their countrymen without interference by the government of their own state, to criticize the attitude of their own government toward the questions under consideration by the organs of the United Nations, and to urge the adoption by their own government of such policies in international affairs as meet with their approval. A Covenant directed toward this end would mark a great advance over the present state of observance of human rights. It would greatly aid the United Nations in performing its duties under the Charter without interfering with the relations between the governments of Member Nations and their own subjects more than would be necessary to protect the rights of the latter as citizens of the organized world.

The United Nations has already made substantial progress toward the implementation of the rights of mankind regarded as members of an international community. The first General Assembly recognized the freedom of information as "the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated." It issued a call for an international conference on freedom of information, which was eventually held in Geneva in the Spring of 1948 and attended by the representatives of more than half a hundred nations. This United Nations Conference drafted three conventions, relating to freedom of information about affairs of international interest, designed to be the basis of international covenants when approved by the proper organs of the United Nations. Favorable action was taken by the third General Assembly on part of the program drafted by this Conference. Such conventions, when duly ratified, will provide a body of international law promising better protection than heretofore for the fundamental freedoms which are most important to the peoples of the nations regarded as citizens of the world. The problem of devising suitable measures of implementation for such a body of international law should be more manageable than that of implementing a Covenant such as the Commission on Human Rights is trying to draft. The Commission might well consider the wisdom of drafting a Covenant limited to the protection of those fundamental freedoms which are essential to a proper functioning of the United Nations itself before trying to complete the more ambitious and difficult task of enforcing all the rights which may be deemed necessary for the complete establishment of modern democracy in each of the various countries of the world. The best should not be permitted to become the enemy of the good.

Id. at 141-151.

HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER THE UNITED

NATIONS CHARTER*

BENJAMIN V. COHENT

In 1942 the American Law Institute undertook to produce a draft of an International Bill of Rights in preparation for the peace settlement. After working for nearly two years, its committee, without attempting to complete a formal draft, made a report and statement of essential human rights. I know that this work was very helpful to the Department of State in its own preparatory work in this field. These efforts, together with those of other public and religious groups, were also a significant factor in influencing our government to take a very active part in writing into the Charter of the United Nations principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in charging the United Nations with the responsibility for promoting respect for and observance of these principles.

The problems arising from the incorporation into the Charter of these principles, some of which I shall discuss, are therefore problems in which we all have taken a part and as to which we all share a responsibility. It is a responsibility, I think, that we should accept not regretfully but with pride, and with determination to realize our high purposes.

The Institute during the war responded to a genuinely felt need concerning the question of human rights. The need is not so keenly felt by us here today, but it is no less keenly felt by many, less fortunate than ourselves, throughout the world. We have a responsibility which we cannot shirk. The responsibility of being one of the strongest and most influential powers in the world is an awesome responsibility and sometimes an irksome responsibility. It would be more pleasant for us to till in our own garden. But the locusts come from afar.

Of course it is important not to neglect our own garden. History and experience, however, have taught us that we cannot long live undisturbed in our own garden if we ignore our responsibility to others. We know we have the capacity in case of necessity to wage war with telling effect. We have to learn to acquire a capacity to wage peace with comparable effectiveness when the need is equally great but is felt not nearly so keenly or so poignantly.

It is interesting to recall that at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, where the preliminary working draft of the Charter was prepared, relatively little attention was given to the question of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The emphasis was on determining the relations between large and small states and the rules to This paper is an address given before the American Law Institute on May 20, 1949.

+ Member of the American Delegation, United Nations General Assembly; formerly counsellor of the State Department.

govern their representation and voting in the various governing bodies. There was a tendency to avoid the problem of human rights.

Some of us became concerned that the Charter towards which we were working might, like the Constitution of the United States as it emerged from the Federal Convention, omit any mention of the principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms. We were told, however, that to inject this subject into the Charter would cause the Soviet Union to fear intervention in its domestic affairs. We were told that the British would fear that reference to fundamental freedom would somehow have serious complications for their colonial relationships. But we persisted and succeeded in incorporating a brief reference in the Charter to the responsibility of the United Nations to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The great powers thus became committed.

A number of religious and other public groups, however, were deeply disappointed that we had not accomplished more at Dumbarton Oaks. Some of them wished to see an International Bill of Rights made an integral part of the Charter. It soon became evident, however, to these groups, that this was not within the realm of practical accomplishment. They decided to concentrate their efforts, therefore, on securing in the Charter a more definite commitment to promote the observance of human rights as a basic obligation of the Charter. To this end they proposed the establishment of a Commission on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms whose first task should be to prepare an international definition and declaration of human rights.

On February 4, 1945, some time prior to the San Francisco Conference, their program was presented in a radio address by The Honorable John W. Davis. In that address Mr. Davis said:

The proposal I have just read to you urges the setting up of a Commission on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms... It is a necessary part of permanent peace, for there can be no such thing as lasting peace that is not founded on the decent treatment of human beings.

What Mr. Davis said then is no less true today. The program that he presented was vigorously sponsored and supported by virtually all the consultants representing non-governmental organizations cooperating with our government in San Francisco. They included leaders of the three great faiths, leaders of business, of labor, and of agriculture. Indeed, this program resulted not from the efforts of leaders in our government to stir up public support but from their response to a very keen and active public sentiment that then existed in this country. The program indeed had such public appeal that it was in the main not only accepted by our government but by other governments at San Francisco.

The Charter called, as you may remember, for the setting up of a commission to promote human rights, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission was constituted during the first session of the General Assembly. It took this Human