The Declaration on the Right to Development as a First Step towards a Comprehensive Southern Vision on Human Rights

Tom ZWART^*

I. Introduction

By adopting the Declaration on the Right to Development on 4 December 1986 the UN General Assembly officially recognised the right to development as a human right. Since I had been personally involved in the campaign to promote the right to development at the international level by assisting in organising a high level conference in The Hague, ¹ and by lobbying the government of The Netherlands to cast its vote in favour of the Declaration, its adoption was a true highlight.

The adoption of the Declaration does not only mark the official recognition of the right to development, but it can also be regarded as the first successful joint action undertaken by the Global South at the international level in the area of human rights. Thus, the right to development as such was conceptualised by a prominent Southern scholar, named Kéba M’baye. ² The drafting and the adoption of the Declaration itself was the fruit of constructive cooperation between Southern states located on different continents.  ³As a result of their coordinated efforts and their numerical majority they were even able to overcome Northern opposition to the document, with the US remaining the sole dissenter. ⁴ The reference to the rights of “peoples” in the Declaration in particular exemplifies the preponderance of Southern philosophy and intellectual input during the drafting process. ⁵ Therefore, the document served as a challenge to and a repudiation of the individual-centred orientation of Northern liberal modernism.⁶

This paper makes the point that the time is right to again join Southern forces in the area of human rights to produce another document, this time to lay out a comprehensive Southern vision on human rights. The success of the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development can serve as a source of inspiration. Section 2 will explain why there is a need for such a vision. Section 3 will identify some aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (hereafter: UDHR) which can serve as support for such a vision. Section 4 will tentatively identify elements which could be included in such a document. Section 5 contains some concluding observations.

In this paper a distinction is being made between the North, which consists of Europe and the US, and the South, which comprises Asia, Africa and Latin America.

II. The Declaration on the Right to Development as a Source of Inspiration

On several occasions Southern countries have rightly taken issue with the hegemonic Northern view on human rights. Thus, as part of the “Asian values” debate, South East Asian countries have asserted their right to implement universal human rights within their own distinctive social, political and cultural context.  ⁷African states parties to the Rome Statute are abandoning the International Criminal Court because it insists on applying Northern retributive justice, while refusing to include the African sense of justice.  ⁸Southern states should be commended for making their positions known in this way.

However, for three reasons their attempts to impact the international human rights debate are less effective than they could be. First, most of their contributions to the debate amount to critique on the liberal-modernist positions taken by Northern governments, activists and academics. Consequently, these Southern comments come across as being defensive, while they leave intact the ability of Northern actors to set the agenda and to frame the issues. Second, these Southern interventions are often perceived and portrayed as challenges to the human rights system, rather than the liberal-modernist take on it, and not enough is done to correct that impression. Third, the positions are put forward by individual states and regional groups rather than the Southern community of states as a whole.

These shortcomings could be easily remedied if the community of Southern states would launch a document which lays out a positive vision on human rights, while fitting perfectly within the four corners of the international human rights framework. For the purposes of this paper this document will be called the Comprehensive Southern vision on a just and harmonious international human rights order, or the Comprehensive Southern vision for short.

The question should be raised whether there is enough similarity between the human rights views of Southern countries to act as a basis for a Comprehensive Southern vision. It is true that Southern countries do not always show the same voting behaviour at the international level regarding human rights issues, ⁹ but that does not mean that they do not share a common human rights vision. When one reviews the regional documents and the official positions taken by diplomats, such as vision becomes easily discernible. The different elements will be laid out in section 4. 

III. Towards a Comprehensive Vision: Relying on the Original Meaning of the UDHR

A. Introduction

The drafters of a Comprehensive Southern vision have the foundational document of the international human rights regime, the UDHR, to fall back on. The UDHR is often portrayed as an ode to liberal-modernism. However, when the proper rules of interpretation are applied, a different picture emerges, which supports many of the positions on human rights taken by Southern countries.

 
The interpretation rules relied upon in this paper are modelled on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. It is true that the UDHR is a General Assembly resolution rather than an interstate agreement, and therefore it declares ambitions rather than creating rights and obligations. However, since the drafters dealt with the contents of the document first and its status second, the UDHR was set up in a treaty-like manner, despite the fact that in the end this status was not accorded to it. In addition Article 8 of the Vienna Convention relies on a flexible rather than a formal treaty definition, which signals that it can also cover documents other than treaties.

Therefore, applying the rules of interpretation as stated in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention by analogy appears justified. These rules give centre stage to the terms of the document, its object and purpose, subsequent agreements and subsequent practice, as well as the traveauxpréparatoires or preparatory work. 

The object and purpose of the UDHR consists of the goals that motivated the drafting of the text and its adoption. These goals have been reconstructed by an analysis of the text of the UDHR in light of the discussions that took place between the drafters, as reflected in the traveauxpréparatoires.

Due to the grave injustice of colonisation, many African and Asian countries were not present at the table when the UDHR was being drafted. Since its adoption these countries have become independent and they have provided their own interpretation of the UDHR in regional documents like the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. The colonial deficit of the negotiating process can be partly solved by giving extra weight to these subsequent agreements. 

B. Object and purpose: a spiritual guide for humanity

The object and purpose of the UDHR has been expressed in the concluding recital of the Preamble, which describes the promotion and observance of the rights contained therein by every individual and every organ of society as its end. ¹⁰ Therefore, in the words of the Chilean member of the Drafting Committee, the UDHR was meant as a spiritual guide for humanity: ¹¹ the rights laid out in the UDHR should be brought to life by the people in their relations with other people. This has been confirmed in the second recital of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, which emphasises that the human person is not only the prime beneficiary of these rights and freedoms, but should also participate actively in their realisation.

The idea that it is mainly up to the people to respect and realise the rights of their fellow human beings is also expressed in other ways in the document. Thus, during the final stages of the drafting process, the title of the UDHR was changed from “international” to “universal”. This was done to shift the focus of the document away from the delegates and nations that did the drafting to the ordinary men, women, and children to whom it was primarily addressed. ¹² The drafters were also intent on keeping the document short, so that it could be understood by the common man.¹³

This intention to rely mainly on the people to bring the rights and freedoms of the UDHR to life is the “object and purpose” of the UDHR within the meaning of article 31 of the Vienna Convention.  ¹⁴It acts as the interpretative polestar which can assist in navigating the document. It is both amplified by and provides meaning to other key elements of the UDHR. 

Thus, in Article 1 of the UDHR trough use of the words “conscience” and “in a spirit of brotherhood” the people are called upon to turn human rights into a reality by doing good to others. In addition, because rights are shaped mainly within horizontal relations, the UDHR emphasises the importance of duties as corollaries of rights of other members of the community. Moreover, the framers have done their utmost to draft a common document which would be appealing to the largest possible group of people, regardless of their philosophical, religious or political outlook. Therefore, they avoided elevating one philosophy above the others in order not to unnecessarily alienate part of the world population.

C.The UDHR does not represent one single philosophy or worldview

In view of its object and purpose, the delegates were intent on and did succeed in drafting a document which does justice to all civilizations and has the potential of touching the soul of every human being. They went out of their way to turn the UDHR into a “big tent”. Although regrettably the representatives from Asian and African countries were small in numbers, they more than made up for that by the high quality and aptness of their contributions, which represented the worldview and the interests of the people of those continents.

Although some of the language used in the UDHR is reminiscent of Enlightenment philosophy,  ¹⁵this was not the dominant view among the drafters. Morsink argues that most drafters did not share the Enlightenment belief in a single - divine or natural law - source of value.  ¹⁶They came from a great variety of ideological and philosophical backgrounds, such as Judeo-Christianity, Marxism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Islam and they did not think that the rights in the UDHR were the prerogative of any particular philosophy.  ¹⁷Therefore, those who only apply an Enlightenment lens run the risk of misreading the document.¹⁸

The diverse nature of the UDHR is also exemplified by the fact that the human rights provisions of a large number of constitutions from across the world served as its building blocks. They were gathered by the Secretariat, which brought them together is a voluminous document on which the first drafts were based.

It should not come as a surprise that these different approaches led to different positions during the discussions. The delegates were very much aware that they had to overcome these differences. Compromises had to be made and pragmatic choices were unavoidable. It was clearly the intention of the drafters, therefore, to reach consensus between these approaches, as repeated calls were made to draft a declaration which would be acceptable to all the participating states. ¹⁹ As the Chinese representative Zhang Pengchun indicated, the process was meant to bring together the strong points of different civilizations.

Zhang in particular ensured that the UDHR retained its diverse character. During the discussions, he stressed that a human being at all times has to be conscious of other persons, in whose society he lives,  ²⁰which is encapsulated by the notion of ren or “two-man-mindedness”. ²¹ This notion of consciousness of one’s fellow man²²,  or human interrelatedness, exemplifies the idea that every person is a social being, whose life gets shape through relationships with other people. The road to personal fulfilmentleads through commitment to community as opposed to selfishness and isolation.²³

Zhang expressed the view that the UDHR should aim for the humanization of man. ²⁴ Therefore, at Zhang’s insistence, ren was included in the UDHR and appeared both as “conscience” and as “the spirit of brotherhood” in Article 1.  ²⁵According to Zhang, the notion of brotherhood matched the Chinese concepts of li, or propriety, and ren, the considerate treatment of others.  ²⁶These Confucian notions have three dimensions: man as a social being; the need to bring about goodness; and the importance of people relying on their inner conviction.

His interventions prevented the Northern perspective from acquiring too dominant a position. Thus, according to Zhang, the aim of including the notion of brotherhood in Article 1 was to prevent the catalogue of rights from becoming a source of selfishness and insularity. ²⁷ By introducing these Confucian notions, Zhang assisted in preventing the UDHR from becoming a manifestation of self-centeredness.

D. The realisation of human rights has to take place within their local political, social and cultural context

In view of the fact that the UDHR was meant to be applied first and foremost by the people in their relationships with others, while the document serves both as a reflection and legitimization of diversity, it does not come as a surprise that it assumes that human rights need to be implemented within their local political, social and cultural context. Applying human rights in relations with others should be stimulated by an inner drive. This calls for human rights which are embedded, i.e. which match the values and norms of the people on the ground. The importance of the implementation of human rights in a way which resonates with the people is exemplified by the fact that many of the subsequent agreements are of a regional nature, which were meant to give room to the regional social, political and cultural context to the maximum extent possible.

The need to take account of the particular cultural, social and political circumstances has been stated in paragraph 5 of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. This provision stresses the importance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds. The Preamble of the African Charter indicates that the virtues of Africa’s historical tradition and the values of its civilization will be taken into consideration while applying the document. According to Article 7 of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, the realisation of human rights must be considered in the regional and national context bearing in mind different political, economic, legal, social, cultural, historical and religious backgrounds.

E. There is no monopoly on implementation through law and individual enforceable rights

For some time during the negotiations it was unclear whether the document would become a “Manifesto”, which would state a number of ambitions, or an “Act of Parliament” which would lay down binding obligations, which had to be implemented.  ²⁸During the final stages the Manifesto format was chosen, which meant that questions regarding implementation would be left to the negotiations on the covenants.

What remains is a reference in the eighth recital of the Preamble to teaching and education, as well as to national and international progressive measures, to promote the rights and freedoms contained in the UDHR as well as to secure their recognition and observance. This essentially leaves the states free to choose any measure of implementation they see fit.

A similar picture emerges from the subsequent human rights covenants, which do contain binding obligations and indeed deal with implementation. Their implementation clauses do not prescribe incorporation, relying on law - albeit with a few exceptions - or according individual court enforceable rights. Implementation was left as a discretionary matter to the states parties, in accordance with public international law. This means that there is no basis, neither in the UDHR nor in subsequent conduct, for assuming a monopoly of implementation through legislative measures.

In addition, associating “rights” in the UDHR with enforceable claims and entitlements should be avoided. Especially in light of the reference to “consciousness” and “in the spirit of brotherhood” in Article 1, legal concepts were not what the drafters had in mind. According to Twiss, the framers identified “priority interests” which were captured in rights language: “the use of this language was not intended to subvert or supplant other cultural idioms at the local level which might be used to guarantee the ‘priority interests’ represented by international human rights language”.²⁹

F. Since rights are being exercised in relation to others and within the community, they also entail duties

The idea that the UDHR is a “people’s charter” which comes to life when people do good to each other, goes hand in hand with the need for duties. The individual is a member of society and he must affirm his right to be a human being by clearly recognizing the duties which were corollaries of his rights.  ³⁰The duty of one person corresponds with the right of the other.31

There was widespread support among the delegates for including duties as complements of rights.  ³²Thus, this support was not only expressed by the Chinese ³³ and the Egyptian ³⁴ representatives, but also by the French ³⁵, and the Australian³⁶  representatives. Initially, the UDHR was even referred to as a declaration on rights and duties.³⁷

Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that Article 29 stipulates that the individual owes duties, both to the community as a whole and to others. The importance of duties is also a common element in regional documents. The African Charter devotes even a separate chapter to duties,  ³⁸while these are also mentioned in Article 6 of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration and Article 32 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

G. Conclusion

The UDHR is a “people’s charter” aimed at the promotion and observance of the rights contained therein by every individual and every organ of society. It is an amalgam of different philosophies and worldviews, which is meant to appeal to people from different cultural, political and philosophical backgrounds. The document serves as a platform for multiple human rights approaches, including community-oriented ones like the theory on human interrelatedness laid out by Zhang Pengchun.

The UDHR calls for taking account of the local political, social and cultural context when realising human rights. There is no basis in the UDHR or in subsequent conduct for the assumption that human rights obligations have to be implemented through law or individual enforceable rights. Since rights are being exercised in relation to others and within the community, they also entail duties.

This interpretation exercise shows that certain elements were included in the UDHR or played a part in the deliberations, which have since moved into the background. These are exactly the elements which are at the core of Southern human rights thinking. Therefore, it would be very important to include those elements in a comprehensive Southern vision document.

IV. Towards a Comprehensive Vision: Elements Which Could be Included

A. Introduction

It will be up to the Southern states themselves to determine what should be included in a Comprehensive Southern vision. However, based on the UDHR and the common positions taken by Southern actors, a few elements can already be identified.

B. Relying on culture, customary law, and morality

As the UDHR suggests, statements of human rights should stay as close to the outlook and experiences of the people as possible. This means that the implementation should not rely on formal state law, but on culture, customary law and morality. 

China takes the view that while law can play an important role in the implementation of human rights obligations, this role should not be restricted to formal written law, but should also extend to the moral rules which regulate society.  ³⁹At the local level human rights may be better protected by morality, or by a mix of moral and formal legal rules, than by formal law. As Jie rightly indicates, while the North only relies on legal standards to avoid and redress human rights violations, in China much importance is also attached to moral rules.  ⁴⁰Chinese people tend to believe that cultivating morality is an effective way to respect and protect rights.

C. Emphasising the need to respect subsidiarity and non-interference

As a result of signing up to the international human rights regime, countries can no longer claim to enjoy absolute sovereignty in the area of human rights. However, international human right law still emphasises the importance of subsidiarity, a principle under which it is first and foremost up to the States Parties to deal with human rights issues under their own jurisdiction. This principle has been expressed in Articles 2 of both Covenants. International bodies are only allowed to step in when the states fail to live up to their obligations. In addition, although the States Parties are supposed to live up to the obligations laid out in the instruments, they enjoy full discretion to determine how they want to discharge this duty.

Second, as the 1991 White Paper on Human Rights in China (hereafter: the White Paper),  ⁴¹makes very clear, China opposes the use of human rights by one state as a pretext to force its ideology on another. The international human rights instruments themselves prevent such use of human rights as a “Trojan horse”. These instruments do not prescribe a particular philosophy or world view which has to be adopted by States Parties. They are only supposed to live up to their obligations, nothing more, and nothing less. ⁴² Therefore, no support can be found in the instruments themselves for claims that they require the adoption of liberal-modernism by all States Parties. This would fly in the face of the UDHR which was meant by the drafters to be a value “big tent”.

D. Collective rights are at least as important as individual rights

The position that collective human rights are as important as individual ones finds support in the Universal Declaration and it drafting history. Thus, Article 1 of the UDHR stipulates that all human being are endowed with conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. As was discussed above, these words were included in Article 1 at the initiative of the Chinese delegate, Zhang Pengchun.

These notions are not only closely related the Chinese concept of ren, but also by its African counterpart ubuntu. Since in Africa power radiates outward from the core political areas and tends to diminish over distance, the state plays only a limited role in the daily lives of many Africans.  ⁴³Therefore the individual/state paradigm, which determines human rights relations in the North, is of less relevance to the African setting. Instead Africans tend to rely on and to invest in their local community, in particular in their extended family. Rather than pursuing individual self-interest, the African approach is focused on collective survival, and therefore relies on cooperation, interdependence, and collective responsibility. ⁴⁴ Individual rights exist within the context of the group and therefore must always be balanced against the collective interest.⁴⁵

E. The right to subsistence and development as paramount rights

In the White Paper the State Council has made it clear that the rights to subsistence and development are paramount human rights. According to the White Paper, for any country the right to subsistence is the most important of all human rights, without which the other rights cannot exist.  ⁴⁶Therefore, securing the right to subsistence is China’s main priority.

In addition, China also gives precedence to the right of the people to economic, social and cultural development. China emphasises that, according to the Declaration on the Right to Development, ⁴⁷ this right encompasses both individual and collective rights.⁴⁸  Therefore, the right to development also includes a fair and just world economic order, especially from the perspective of developing countries.

F. The Yin and Yang of rights and duties

In the South, rights and duties are regarded as two sides of the same coin.  ⁴⁹This idea is being reinforced by Article 29 of the UDHR, which stipulates that the individual owes duties, both to the community as a whole and to others, did not come as a surprise. The importance of duties is also a common element in regional documents. Thus, they are mentioned in Article 6 of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration and Article 32 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

The African Charter devotes even a separate chapter to duties. ⁵⁰In Africa entitlements and obligations form the very basis of the kinship system. Each member is supposed to assist the family in operating as an economic and social unit. This assistance is embedded in a framework of interconnected rights and duties. ⁵¹ Inherent to the membership of the extended family are certain rights.⁵² These rights are complemented by the duties one has towards the members of one’s family.

In Northern societies it is up to the state to assist the infirm and the vulnerable, like elderly people, widows and orphans, through social welfare. Within the African context, by contrast, such assistance is deemed a family matter.⁵³  It is the responsibility of the family to help out those who have fallen victim to a bad harvest, fire, or theft, to settle disputes between its members, including husbands and wives engaged in domestic battles, and to invest in the education and advancement of its members.  ⁵⁴In Africa, therefore, duties are not owed to a distant and anonymous state entity, but to relatives who are close, and on whose support one depends in order to survive. Consequently, human rights relations in Africa are more direct, personal and reciprocal, and therefore more horizontal than they are in the North.

G. The dialectics of universality and contextuality

The UDHR was meant to be applied first and foremost by the people in their relationships with others. It also serves both as a reflection and legitimization of diversity. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that the UDHR assumes that human rights need to be implemented within their local political, social and cultural context. The need to give weight to the specific cultural, political and social context of the country concerned has been confirmed in several subsequent agreements, which serve as important tools for the interpretation of the UDHR.

Thus, the requirement to take account of the particular cultural, social and political circumstances has been stated in paragraph 5 of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. This provision stresses the importance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds. The Preamble of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights indicates that the virtues of Africa’s historical tradition and the values of its civilization will be taken into consideration while applying the document. According to Article 7 of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, the realisation of human rights must be considered in the regional and national context bearing in mind different political, economic, legal, social, cultural, historical and religious backgrounds.

V. Conclusion

The adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development does not only mark the official recognition of the right to development, but it can also be regarded as the first successful joint action undertaken by the Global South at the international level in the area of human rights. The paper makes the point that the time is right to again join Southern forces in the area of human rights to produce another document, this time to lay out a comprehensive Southern vision on human rights. The success of the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development can serve as a source of inspiration.

Southern states could have a major impact on the human rights debate by launching a Comprehensive Southern vision on a just and harmonious international human rights order, which lays out a positive vision on human rights, while fitting perfectly within the four corners of the international human rights framework.

The drafters of a Comprehensive Southern vision have the foundational document of the international human rights regime, the UDHR, to fall back on. The UDHR is often portrayed as an ode to liberal-modernism. Certain elements were included in the UDHR or played a part in the deliberations, which have since moved into the background. These are exactly the elements which are at the core of Southern human rights thinking. Therefore, it would be very important to include those elements in a Comprehensive Southern vision document.

It will be up to the Southern states themselves to determine what should be included in a Comprehensive Southern vision. However, based on the UDHR and the common positions taken, a few elements can already be identified, such as the need to rely on culture, customary law and morality for the implementation of human rights obligations; the importance of respecting subsidiarity and non-interference; the acceptance of the idea that collective rights are at least as important as individual ones; the recognition that the rights to subsistence and development are paramount; the acknowledgement that rights and duties are two sides of the same coin; and the acceptance of the idea that contextual implementation furthers the universality of human rights.

^*Tom ZWART, professor of human rights, Utrecht University, director at the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research.

¹See International Commission of Jurists, Development, Human Rights and the Rule of Law, Report of a Conference Convened by the International Commission of Jurists in The Hague on 27 April - 1 May 1981(Oxford:Pergamon, 1981).

²KebaM'baye, “Le Droit du Dévelopmentcommeun Droit de l’Homme”, Revue des Droits de l'Homme5 (1972): 503-534.

³R.N. Kiwanuka, “Developing Rights: The UN Declaration on the Right to Development”, Netherlands International Law Review25 (1988): 257-272. 

⁴Khurshid Iqbal, “The Declaration on the Right to Development and Implementation”, Political Perspectives1 (2007): 1-39, 4-5.

⁵Bonny Ibhawoh, “The Right to Development: The Politics and Polemics of Power and Resistance”, Human Rights Quarterly33 (2011): 76-104, 85.

⁶Ibid., 86.

⁷Leigh Jenco, “Revisiting Asian Values”, Journal of the History of Ideas 74 (2013): 237-258; Dian K. Mauzy, “The Human Rights and ‘Asian Values’ Debate in Southeast Asia: Trying to Clarify the Key Issues”, The Pacific Review10 (1997): 210-236.

⁸Kamari M. Clark, Abel S. Knottnerus and Eefje de Volder, eds., Africa and the ICC, Perceptions of Justice(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2016).

⁹Peter Ferdinand, “Rising Powers at the UN: An Analysis of the Voting Behaviour of BRICS in the General Assembly”, Third World Quarterly35 (2014): 376-391.

¹⁰Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Origins, Drafting and Intent(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 35.

¹¹William A. Schabas, ed., The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The TravauxPrépataratoires(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013),719.

¹²Morsink,Origins, Drafting and Intent, 324.

¹³Schabas,TravauxPrépataratoires, 161, 784; Morsink,Origins, Drafting and Intent, 33-34.

¹⁴See Mrs. Roosevelt as quoted by Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2001).

¹⁵Morsink,Origins, Drafting and Intent, 282.

¹⁶Ibid., 283.

¹⁷Ibid.

¹⁸Ibid.

¹⁹Ibid., 21.

²⁰Sumner B. Twiss, “Confucian Contributions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a Historical and Philosophical Perspective”, in The World’s Religions, A Contemporary Reader, ed. Arvind Sharma (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 110.

²¹Ibid., 106; this, of course, is a literal translation of the Chinese character.

²²Morsink,Origins, Drafting and Intent,297.

²³Wing-Tsit Chan, “The Evolution of the Confucian Concept of Jên”, Philosophy East and West4 (1955): 311.

²⁴Twiss, “Confucian Contributions”, 110.

²⁵Ibid., 111; Morsink,Origins, Drafting and Intent,296-302.

²⁶Twiss, “Confucian Contributions”, 111.

²⁷Ibid., 111-112.

²⁸The two models were distinguished by Geoffrey Wilson, the British member of the Drafting Committee, see Schabas, TravauxPrépataratoires, 722.

²⁹Sumner Twiss, “Confucian Ethics, Concept-Clusters and Human Rights”, in Polishing the Chinese Mirror: Essays in honor of Henry Rosemont, jr., eds. M. Chandler and R. Littlejohn (New York: Global Scholarly Publications, 2008), 55.

³⁰Morsink,Origins, Drafting and Intent,247, quoting the Cuban delegate.

³¹Ibid., 243-244.

³²Ibid., 248.

³³Schabas,TravauxPrépataratoires,179.

³⁴Ibid., 198.

³⁵Ibid., 200-201.

³⁶Ibid., 21, 105, 179, 201.

³⁷Ibid.,4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 98.

³⁸Articles 27-29.

³⁹Liu Jie, Human Rights: China’s Road(Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2014), 31-32.

⁴⁰Ibid.

⁴¹The State Council Information Office of P.R.C., Beijing, 1991.

⁴²Tom Zwart, “Using Local Culture to Further the Implementation of International Human Rights: The Receptor Approach”, Human Rights Quarterly34 (2012): 546-569.

⁴³Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa, Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 251-272.

⁴⁴Josiah A.M. Cobbah, “African Values and the Human Rights Debate: An African Perspective”, Human Rights Quarterly9 (1987): 309-331, 320-324.

⁴⁵LakshmanMarasinghe, “Traditional Conceptions of Human Rights in Africa”, inHuman Rights and Development in Africa, eds. Claude E. Welch, Jr. and Ronald I. Meltzer (Albany, 1984), 33; Cobbahsupra note 44 at 320-324.

⁴⁶See also Robert Weatherley, The Discourse of Human Rights in China, Historical and Ideological Perspectives(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 121.

⁴⁷Adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 4 December 1986, A/RES/41/128.

⁴⁸See also Pinghua Sun, Human Rights Protection System in China(Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2014), 89.

⁴⁹Ibid.,94.

⁵⁰Articles 27-29.

⁵¹Cobbah, “African Values”,320-324.

⁵²Marasinghe, “Traditional Conceptions”,32.

⁵³Ibid., 34.

⁵⁴Ibid., 36.