The fight for human rights

]F you happened to be stroll-

ing through the corridors.
of the low-slung, cement-
block, former war plant
Which houses the United Na-
tions at Lake Success, some time
in May or June, you might have
walked into one of the confer-
ence rooms and seen a curious
sight. A.score of men and women
were grouped at the end of a
large chamber, some with ear-
phones for the translations, some
not. One or two reporters might
have been seated on the side,
along with a party from some
women’s club of perhaps Mont-
clair, New Jersey. Otherwise, the
chamber was empty. It was the
UN’s Commission on Human
Rights. And even though Mrs.
Franklin Roosevelt sat at the
head of the group on the raised
dais and directed the proceed-
ings for four solid weeks, the
meeting attracted little attention.

Yet it was the scene of a very
important ideological debate, one
of the most significant ever held
at the United Nations.

This UN Commission, consist-
ing of 17 delegates, had the job
of revising a draft declaration
formulated at several meetings in
Geneva during the past two
years. Actually, 18 nations had
been delegated for this task, but
Iran’s spokesman did not attend
this spring’s session, The .revised
draft still has to be studied by the
Economic and Social Council of
the UN, and then submitted to
_ the annual General. Assembly,
_ which won’t get the document un-
til its 1949 session,

- In addition to the Declaration,
- which is simply a declaration -of

aims and is not binding on mem-

Commission still has to prepare
an International Covenant on Hu-

‘man Rights, which will be, when

-_-patified, a fully-binding treaty.
_ Very litle progress has been made
on the covenant thus far. The

- delegates have had more than they
could do with the Declaration it-
self.

It’s not gerally known that four
nations abstained from voting for
the Draft, after repeatedly pro-
posing amendments which were
- not accepted, though hotly debat-
ed. The Soviet spokesman, Prof.
| Alexi Pavlov was joined by the
delegates from the Byelorussia,
the Ukraine and Yugoslavia, in
criticizing and not voting for the
_ Draft. Those who supported it, in
_ addition to the United States,
were spokesmen of Britain, and
_ France, China, Lebanon, Panama,
Uruguay and the Philippines,

e

2 SRO, the. Soviet ambassador
at to Belgium and professor of law
at Moscow U: carried
the brunt of the fight. A medium-

A. S. Stepanenko of Byeloruasia.
‘They made a team with whom
_ Mrs. Roosevelt sometimes found
__ it difficult to cope, From time to
time, especially where socia] or
colonial aspects of the debate de-

_ veloped, they were joined by Mme.
Hansa Mehta of India, and the

_ spokesmen for China, Egypt, and
- One day, in arguing that the De-
claration should specifically- dis-
tinguish between human rights
for democrats and fascists, Pav-
lov opened up a big argument in

which the Filipino and the British ~

spokesmen were involved. The
_ Filipino insisted that you could

an amendment:

not make the distinction. It
would be, he said, as though, in
trying to get at the fascists, you
would pump the air out of a
room in which adherents of de-
mocracy were also living.
Pavlov shot right back that it
wasn't necessary to pump air out

* of the room, It was simply a mat-

ter of putting the fascists out of
the room, and treating them as
they had been treated at Nurem-
burg. A

The British spokesman,
Geoffrey Wilson, a former coun-
sellor of the British Embassy in
Moscow, spoke up to say that the
way to deal with the fascists was
to win them over by persuasion
and education, To which the ever-
ready Pavlov answered back:
“As you tried to do at Munich.”
And then he added a phrase
which brought all around: “It is
as useless to\ try to convince the
fascists as it would be to vaccin-
ate a telephone pole.”

‘ The Soviet attitude toward
the original draft was indicated
by Pavlov in a speech, of May
4: 3

“A Declaration on Human
Rights should first of all guar-
’antee respect for human rights’
and fundamental freedoms for
all, without distinction of race,
nationality, class, religion, lan-
guage or sex, in accordance with
the principle of democracy,
state sovereignty and the po-
litical independence of states.

“A Declaration on Human
Rights must not only proclaim
rights, but guarantee their real-
ization, regard being taken, of

Rights must not only define the
rights, but also the obligations
of citizens toward their. coun-
try, people and state.”

From this jumping-off point,
Pavlov introduced a series of
amendments to almost every one
of the 26 articles finally embod-
ied in the document the commis-
sion adopted. Some of these are
worth a more careful examination
to get a glimpse of the Soviet
views on the subject.

The first few articles of the pres-
ent declaration stress general
rights such as “right to life, lib-
erty and security of person,” or
the right of every person to be

protected against “cruel, inhuman

or degrading treatment or pun-
ishment,” or the right to “recog-
nition everywhere as a person be-
fore the law.” In general, the So-
viet spokesman went along with
these statements, although, at
some points, trying to make them
more concrete. =
But, on two issues, the USSR
was very insistent, without get-

ting very far. For instance, Pav-

Sir

1

lov wanted a flat declaration to —

the effect that “slavery and slave
trade are prohibited in all their
aspects, and all‘ violations of this
principle, whether they be of an
overt or clandestine nature, must
be punished according to law.”
This was not adopted by the
commission.

Another favorite Soviet. point

cropped up many times with re-
gard to the rights “of all persons

before the law.” Pavlov proposed
“Should the ac-
cused be unfamiliar with the na-

tional language, he must be en-

abled to acquaint himself with all
the details of the case by means
of an interpreter, and he must be
given the right to speak in court
in his native language.” This, too,
was defeated,

The original draft formulated in

‘

Geneva last year had contained
references to “ethnic and cultural
rights.” The new document elim-
inated these. The Soviet insistence
on this point provoked an inter-
esting debate with Mrs. Roosevelt
in which she said that she favor-
ed “assimilation” in the United
States and opposed any mention
in the declaration of the rights

that any accused had to be charg- ©

ed in his own language or have
the use of an interpreter.

Another interesting example of
the contrast between the Soviet
views and those of the capitalist
powers came on point 3 of article
14, which now reads: “The family
is the natural and fundamental
group unit of society and is en-
titled to protection.” The Soviets
went along with that, but wanted
to include five more words to the
effect that the family is entitled
to protection “by society and’ by
the state.” The commission would
not go for that.

e :

There was an equally interest-
ing contrast over Article 17, which
says that “everyone has the right
to freedom of opinion and ex-
pression; this right includes free-
dom to hold opinions without in-
terference and to seek, receive
and impart information and ideas
through any ‘media and regard-
less of frontiers.” That may seem
to be a good statement, but here
is what the Soviet and Yugoslav
spokesmen fought for—unsuccess-
fully: “Everyone must be legally
guaranteed the right freely to ex-
press his opinions and, in particu-
lar, freedom of artistic expression.
Freedom of speech and the press’
shall not be used for the purpose
of propagating fascism, aggres-
sion, and for provoking hatred
between nations,”

The Soviet emphasis, you see, is
to distinguish between freedom in
the abstract and the necessity of
denying fascists the freedom to
undermine democracy. But the
Soviet stand went further: “For
the purpose of enabling the wider
masses of the people to give free
expression to their opinions, the
state will assist and cooperate in
making available the material re-
sources (premises, printing
presses, paper, etc.) necessary for
the publication of democratic or-
gans of the press.”

This stimulated a big fight. Pav-
lov was quick to point out how
the press is monopolized in cap-
italist countries, especially the
United States, whereas in the So-
viet Union any trade union, any
Popular organization has the
right to publish and gets state
assistance in doing so. Of course,
the substitution for article 17 was

not accepted,

Then came Article 19 of the
present document which stresses
the rights of individuals to take
part in government. Point 3 says:
“Everyone has the right to a Bov-
ernment which conforms to the
will of the people.” Prof. Pavlov
wanted to include the following:
“The state shall consider the will
of the people as expressed in elec-
tions, which shall be conducted
periodically and must be univer-
sal and equal and be held by sec-
ret ballot.”

This got a rise out of the British
spokesman. He opposed including
the phrase “secret ballot,” argu-
ing that there are native tribes
in the British Empire who sup-
posedly express their will by voice
vote at public meetings. Pavlov
insisted, with an eye to: Mrs:
Roosevelt, and to Jimcrow prac-
tices against the Negro people in

our country, on the phrase “uni-

versal and equal.” But he got no-

By
JOSEPH
STAROBIN

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

As chairman of the UN com-
mission on human rights she
found some of the questions
raised by the Soviet Union’s
Prof. Alexei Pavlov difficult to

answer,

At Lake Success the
- Ideas of two worlds
clash on a key issue

where, and Mrs. Roosevelt her-
self voted against the amend-
ment.

Neither did Pavloy make any
headway after pointing out that
303 nations do not grant women
equal rights to vote, among them
15 Latin American. ‘

eS

Then followed disputes on that
section of the present document
which speaks of social rights,

' such as the right to work, hous-

ing, education, medical help and
leisure. The eastern European
spokesmen again battled for
specific phrases guaranteeing the
right of women, no discrimina-
tion, and the duty of the state in

‘implementing such rights.

For example, Article 22 men-
tions the right to “security in the
event of unemployment.” Pavlov
emphasized “social insurance at
the expense of the state or of his
employers,” and pointed out that
the original Geneva draft includ-
ed such passages. .

Both the British and American
spokesmen insisted that contribu-
tions to \social security funds
should come from the workers,
too, and not the state and em-
ployers alone, on the grounds that
this has a good “pedagogical ef-
fect” on the workers!

When the argument got down
to details of medical aid and hous-

ing facilities, Pavloy was full of |

statistics on the lack of hospital
beds in the United States, the
cases of veterans sleeping in the
parks, the “butcher shop” medical
care for the poor in the United
States compared with the fancy
prices which only the wealthy can
pay. 3

This riled Mrs. Roosevelt, who

shot back with facts about the

shortages in the Soviet Union.

“We recognize that things are

not what they should be in the
United States,’ Mrs. Roosevelt
said. “But they: are worse in the

“Soviet Union.”

To which Pavloy replied: “Yes,
but we had 1,710 cities destroyed
in the war, and 25,000,000 people

left without a roof overhead, De-.

spite this, we are prepared to
write a declaration which insists
on better housing as an absolute
right. But you object to so doing.
Besides, in our country, there are
no rich and poor. And, when we

rebuild, we rebuild for all, and
all benefit, not just the rich.”

e ‘

That’s the way the entire ses-
sion went. In every debate on a
phrase or a clause was revealed
the difference between social sys-
tems—a, dying capitalism, a grow-
ing socialism.

But it would be wrong to get
the idea that because the three
Soviet and the Yugoslav spokes-
men abstained from approving
the final draft that they consider-
ed the whole work of the commis-
sion negative.

On June 18, Pavlov put it dif-
ferently. He said the document
contains a “repetition of certain
old democratic principles and pro-
visions with which mankind has
long been familiar,’ This, he said,
is useful, especially for the peo-
ples of the colonial world who
have not yet been granted even
the old principles of capitalist de-
mocracy.

It is also a useful document at
a time when the resurgence and
propagation of anti-democratic,
fascist and other reactionary re-
gimes constitutes a real danger
for many countries of the world.

Thirdly, he noted that the new
Declaration introduces “certain
new rights, which are not includ-
ed in old constitutions, but which
are typical of the new modern
democratic constitutions (above
all, in’ the Constitution of the
USSR) rights such as the right
to work, leisure, education, social
security.” *

But the shortcomings of the

Declaration are still there: a fail-
ure to distinguish between demo-

cracy and fascism (in fact, the.

document only mentions demo-
cracy once); a failure to empha-
size the importance of non-dis-

crimination; a failure to specify.

the obligations of the state in
guaranteeing. the fulfillment of
human rights, and, finally, a fail-
ure td stress the obligations of

the individual toward society et

a whole, t

‘It’s too bad that the details of
the debates were not more widely
publicized and the ideological bat-
tleground was not more closely
observed by all of us. For it was-
n’t just another UN commission.
It was the arena of struggle be-
tween two worlds,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 27, 1948—PAGE 4

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