Abstract: The concept of human rights was put forward by European and American countries in modern times and they bear a strong European and American cultural influence. But human rights have since experienced a slow process of neutralization. During the drafting process of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1947 to 1948, the concept of human rights experienced the neutralization of multiculturalism, making it the Declaration a matrix accepted by various cultures, which thus laid a foundation of consensus for its continued expansion and wide adoption.

Keywords: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights w neutralization w multiculturalism
 
The concept of human rights, with distinct Western cultural overtones, was put forward in several declarations and legal documents by some Western countries in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The drafting process of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1947 to 1948 was a process in which the concept of human rights experienced multicultural baptism and neutralization. It laid an important foundation of consensus for its widespread and continued expansion in the future. 

I. The Birth and Historical Limitations of the Concept of Human Rights in European and American Countries

The concept of human rights was produced on the basis of the theory of “natural rights” of modern European liberalism, which was reflected in political documents aimed at overthrowing feudal rule.
Modern Western thinkers of the Enlightenment put forward the theory of natural rights on the basis of “natural law”. They argued the existence of “natural rights” under the “natural state” from the perspective of the fundamental nature of human beings, and demonstrated the establishment of the social contract and its protection and restrictions on natural rights of human beings from the perspective of human’s rationality. The British philosopher Hobbes held that human “nature” is self-preservation, pursuit of interests and avoidance of harm, and endless pursuit of personal interests. In the “natural state”, everyone lives according to his or her own nature and realizes the “natural right” of possessing everything, which leads to “wars of all people against one other.” Out of their fear of death and desire for a comfortable life, people try to get rid of the natural state of everyone being the enemy of one another. Rationality tells people to observe the common rules of life and restrict natural rights with natural law, so as to avoid wars and achieve the purpose of protecting themselves. Therefore, people abandon their natural right of trying to possess everything through mutual contract and strive to build a country together. The duty of the country is to safeguard peace and security. Unlike Hobbes, another British philosopher, Locke, believed that the natural state is not a laissez-faire state, but a rational state in which everyone abides by natural law. In this natural state, everyone has the natural right to protect life, health, freedom and property from infringement. But in this natural state, everyone has the right to enforce the natural law, and has the right to punish those who violate the natural law. However, due to the lack of clearly prescribed laws, judges enforcing laws and the power to guarantee the implementation of correct judgments, confusion, hostility and mutually murderous wars often occur. In order to overcome the shortcomings of the natural state and better protect everyone’s natural rights, social members voluntarily renounce the right to enforce natural law through social contracts, and handle all disputes fairly and equally by a public authority with clear laws. In this social state that is above the natural state, people do not completely abandon the natural rights of life, health, freedom and property, but abandon the right to enforce natural law. The only purpose of establishing a government is to protect people’s life, health, freedom and property rights.

The French philosopher Rousseau, held a different view on the “natural state” from Hobbes and Locke. He believed that people in the natural state live a simple life. Natural self-respect and compassion regulate the relationships between people. There is no concept of good and evil, no concept of private property, and people enjoy natural rights such as freedom and equality. In this natural state, there are only natural inequalities due to different ages and physical strength, and there are no property and political inequalities. However, human’s innate ability for “self-perfection” has brought about the creation and use of tools, which continuously developed production and its technology, and the division of labor and cooperation also emerged, resulting in private ownership and social inequality. Human beings were pushed from the natural state into the social state, and have experienced three stages of development, namely, economic inequality, political inequality and autocratic power. He believed that only through the social contract reached through the people’s free agreement, can we build a society that enables people to regain freedom and equality. When reaching the social contract, people must transfer themselves and all their rights to the collective without reservation, and guarantee people’s natural rights of freedom and equality, which have been lost for a long time, through the country and laws established there from. However, this kind of freedom and equality are no longer natural freedom and equality, but social freedom and equality. Freedom means “obeying the law prescribed by people themselves”, and equality is “the equality of morality and law”.

The doctrine of natural rights has a direct impact on the various political documents concerning human rights in the revolutionary process of resisting feudal rule in modern times. In 1689, as a production of the “Glorious Revolution”, Britain passed the Bill of Rights with the aim of “guaranteeing the traditional rights and freedoms of the British people.”[1] In 1776, The Virginia Bill of Rights, drafted and submitted by George Mason, was passed by the Virginia Parliament on June 12, announcing that “all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”[2] On July 4 of the same year, the Second Continental Congress of the Unite States approved the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, declaring that “all human beings are born equal, and they are endowed with certain non-transferable rights from their creator, including the right to life, freedom and the right to pursue happiness”.[3] Ten amendments to the Federal Constitution passed in 1789 are known as the Bill of Rights in the United States, which includes provisions on civil rights. In August 1789, the French National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which states that “ignorance of human rights, neglect of human rights or contempt of human rights are the only causes of unfortunate government corruption, so it decided to clarify natural, inalienable and sacred human rights in a solemn declaration”.[4]

However, the concept of human rights in modern Western human rights theory and political documents reflects the vision of Western culture and has cultural and historical limitations. “People” in these documents do not include women, the impoverished people who cannot afford taxes, ethnic minorities and colonial people, and the content of rights only includes some basic civil liberties.

The Bill of Rights of 1689 in Britain mainly includes two aspects. One is restricting the power of the king and the other is guaranteeing the power of Parliament (legislative power, fiscal power, judicial power, military power, etc.). In the Bill of Rights, the British “people” refers specifically to the urban and rural propertied class, and does not include ordinary people such as farmers and underprivileged businessmen.

“All men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence of the United States, refers to the equality between white males with status. The 1787 Constitution of the United States expressly stipulates that racial discrimination should be retained, blacks, Native Americans and women should not enjoy equal rights with white men, and slavery should be allowed to exist. It also prescribed that elections should be restricted by factors such as skin color, race and taxes, and that the number of the blacks should be converted as three-fifths of the population in the allocation of state representation in House of Representatives, etc. “Freedom” in the Bill of Rights of the United States includes the freedom of trade slaves.

In the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France in 1789, “man” and “citizen” refer to “male” and “male citizen” in French, excluding women, colored people, Chinese and the impoverished. During the French Revolution, most parliamentarians believed that women were born weak, lacking in ideas, were emotional and capricious, and were “objects of exchange, who were kind of properties”; women lacked independent identity and personality, and were only “the wife of a citizen or a female resident of a country,”[5] who were under protection of the society and men. They could only enjoy natural rights, but couldn’t participate in public political affairs. Therefore, Parliament explicitly denied women’s right to vote, and even the compromise proposal that “women have no rational talent and only a few outstanding women can enjoy their rights”[6] was rejected. The Constituent Assembly also passed a law on the right to vote on December 22, 1789, according to Sieyès’ theory, dividing all French citizens into “positive citizens” and “negative citizens”, and only positive citizens enjoy the right to vote.[7] In 1791, the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen was issued, declaring that “women are born free and equal with men in rights.” Olympe de Gouges was sent to the guillotine after being defeated by the French National Assembly at the end of October 1793.

II. The Multicultural Background of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Its Neutralization of the Concept of Human Rights

The process of drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the end of World War II made the concept of human rights going through an important baptism of multiculturalism. Peng-chun Chang, Vice-Chairman of the Drafting Committee and representative of China, put forward at the beginning of the drafting work that “the declaration of human rights must cover views besides those of the West”. The Declaration should embody the human rights concept of “global consensus,” rather than the human rights concept of Western centralism.

A.    Multicultural background of the declaration

In 1948, UNESCO sent letters to experts and scholars around the world to investigate human rights concepts in various countries in order to provide suggestions for the drafting of the Declaration. In their replies, many countries elaborated on the concept of human rights in their own civilization. These scholars include those who come from China, India and the Islamic world.

In the process of drafting the Declaration, many countries issued opinions and suggestions, including Canada, the Netherlands, the United States, France, Britain, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, New Zealand and other Western countries, as well as eastern socialist countries such as the Soviet Union, and developing countries such as China, India, Panama, Lebanon, Egypt and Mexico. As the New Zealand Government pointed out in the response to the draft, “The countries involved are at different stages of economic and social development, and their economic and social structures do not conform to the same model, and other philosophical ideas come from different historical conditions. In this case, no matter how eager it is to reach an early agreement on human rights, sufficient time must be given to enable governments to take into account the views and comments of other governments and to reconcile different views in order to achieve the greatest possible agreement.”[8]

B.     Neutralization of the concept of human rights

In the context of multicultural differences, the drafting process of the Declaration became a neutralization process of the concept of human rights, which is mainly manifested in the following aspects.

1. From the rights endowed by the creator to the inherent rights

At the initial stage drafting of the Declaration, the representative of Lebanon, Charles H. Malik, proposed that “endowed by the Creator” be added to the article 16 of “Protection of the Family”. The representative of the Soviet Union responded: “Many people do not believe in God and the Declaration is intended to protect the whole of mankind, whether they are religious or non-religious.”[9]Finally, this proposal didn’t pass. Later, at the seventh session of the Economic and Social Council, the representative of the Netherlands proposed to include God or the Creator in Article 1 of the Declaration, which Canada supported. In the deliberation by the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on the Declaration, the representative of Brazil interpreted the amendment to Article 1 as follows: “Man is created in accordance with the image and will of God and is endowed with reason and conscience.”[10] But Chinese representative Peng-chun Chang pointed out that Chinese people account for a large part of the world’s population, and they “have different ideas and traditions from Christianity in the West, including good manners, etiquette, courtesy, and consideration for others. However, Chinese representatives did not advocate that they should be covered in the Declaration.” He also advocated deleting all expressions about “nature”. Ultimately, the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly decided to avoid declaring, implying or denying that the international human rights system was based on any natural or God basis. The representative of France, Rene Cassin, commented that the ultimate acceptance of the Declaration by the whole world was most likely due to its purely secular nature.[11]

2. From the rights of men to the equal rights between men and women

From the Secretariat Outline to the Cassin Draft and then to the Geneva Draft, the reference to “people” in the Declaration is expressed in terms of “men”. Brazil suggested replacing “men” with “everyone” or “every person”.[12] Ms. Bodil Begtrup of Denmark, the Chairman of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, attended the meeting and suggested that “men” should be replaced by “human beings”. This proposal was supported by the representative of India, Mrs. Hansa Mehta, and was implemented in the Declaration. They also suggested that the expression of “act toward one another like brothers” in Article 1 of the Declaration could be changed to “act toward one another like brothers and sisters”, but the final version takes a relatively vague and analogous expression of “in a spirit of brotherhood”.[13] Peng-chun Chang translated it as “live in harmony and the love is as the relationship between hands and feet”.[14]

3. From the rights of the white to the equal rights of all races

Peng-chun Chang believed that in terms of human rights equality, “it is necessary to emphasize the concept of racial unity and coherence to ensure that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can always be correctly understood and that no wars in the name of racial inequality will happen in the future.”[15] Article 2 of the final text of the Declaration clarifies the principle of equal rights without distinction of race or skin color.

4. From “negative rights” to “positive rights”

The United States emphasized people’s negative rights, namely civil and political rights, and opposed the inclusion of people’s positive rights, such as economic, social and cultural rights in the Declaration. The representative of the United States maintained that the State and society had no responsibility to ensure that individuals realized their economic, social and cultural rights, and that the full realization of human rights depended on the organization and resources of different countries. The United States believed that it would be better not to mention the positive responsibility of the State in employment in the Declaration. The representative of Republic of Belarus proposed that the right of work should be included in the positive responsibility of the State: “The State is obliged to take all necessary measures to eliminate unemployment”, which was supported by the representative of Brazil.[16] The Declaration adopted the views of the Soviet Union, some socialist countries and representatives of other countries that the people should enjoy economic, social and cultural rights, which more comprehensively reflected human rights.[17]

5. From the rights of Europeans to the rights of all nations and all peoples

Until the third session of the Commission on Human Rights, the final paragraph of the preface in the Declaration was still regarded as a common standard to be achieved by all states. The representative of the Soviet Union pointed out that it excluded colonial people who had not yet established an autonomous government. The representative of China Peng-chun Chang immediately agreed that “there is no doubt that those people who have not yet enjoyed autonomy should be included in the Declaration”. He advocated adding the phrase “all people” before “all countries” to cover more people, thereby “excluding any possibility of misreading”. The final expression of the Declaration is “a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations.”

6. From absolute rights to restricted rights

Egypt commented that restrictive conditions should be specified about the rights and freedom formulated in articles 16-19 of the Declaration and suggested adding a paragraph after articles 23-26: “The rights formulated in articles 23, 24, 25 and 26 can only be exercised in accordance with the economic conditions and potential of each country.”[18] Brazil commented that the Declaration should focus on obligations corresponding to rights, and that it should not be expressed as the state “limiting” individual rights, but should be amended as “the exercise of these rights is conditioned by the rights of others, the legal requirements of the State and the responsibility of fraternity”. It also required that restrictions on freedom of association be applied to those which intended to violate social and political order.[19] Mexico suggested that restrictions on the exercise of rights should be expressed as follows: “Everyone who exercises rights shall be restricted by rights of others, protection of freedom in law, welfare and security of all people and the just requirements of a democratic state.[20] India expressed concern about the establishment of international human rights mechanisms which failed to fulfill human rights obligations. India believed it as a difficult issue, since it involved national sovereignty.[21]

Article 29 in the final text of the Declaration embodies the requirements of the rights-holders’ obligations and the restrictions on the exercising of their rights.

III. Expansion of the Concept of Human Rights After the Release of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The neutralization of the concept of human rights in the Declaration makes it a commonly accepted “matrix”. When this matrix is combined with the actual needs of various regions and countries, many “new” claims of human rights appear. These divisions and multiplication on the one hand enrich the concept of human rights, which is mainly embodied in the following four aspects.

A. Self-determination and autonomy rights of nations and peoples

Traditional human rights focus on individual rights, but under the impetus of the decolonization movements and the national liberation movements of Asian, African and Latin American countries, the people of colonial countries put forward the rights of self-determination, and natural resources and wealth sovereignty under the framework of human rights. These rights belong to nations and human rights as a whole, and exceed individual rights of traditional human rights. In April 1955, the first Asian-African Conference sponsored and convened by Asian and African countries was held in Bandung, Indonesia. The basic issues of the Conference were to fight against colonialism and strive for and guarantee national independence. The General Assembly adopted the Final Communiqué of the Asian-African Conference which opposed colonialism in all forms. In 1961, the Conference of the Heads of State and Government of Non-Aligned Countries was held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The Summit adopted the Declaration of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries and the Statement on the Danger of War and the Appeal for Peace, which stated that “colonialism in all forms must be eradicated”. The first Conference of the Heads of State and Government of Non-Aligned Countries contributed to the birth of the Group of 77 in 1964. The Second Summit of Non-Aligned Countries, held in Cairo, Egypt, in 1964, adopted the Programme of Peace and International Cooperation, which stood more clearly against imperialism, old and new colonialism on the premise of achieving self-determination and sovereign equality.[22] The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, enacted in 1966, include self-determination and the autonomous rights of nations and people, and natural resources and wealth sovereignty.

B. Positive rights

Traditional human rights concepts focus on “negative rights” such as civil and political rights, but with the push of socialist movements, socialist countries include the right to work, the right to basic living standards, the right to social security, the right to health, the right to education and the right to culture in human rights. These economic, social and cultural rights belong to the so-called “positive rights” and exceed the “negative rights” of traditional human rights. The European Social Charter, adopted by members of the Council of Europe in 1961, also incorporates many economic and social rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, enacted in 1966, identifies economic, social and cultural rights as an important component of human rights.

C.    Rights of vulnerable groups

Traditional human rights concepts emphasize the equal enjoyment of rights, but there have been many campaigns for particular rights, many social organizations have proposed special protection for women’s rights, children’s rights, the rights of the disabled, the rights of the elderly, the rights of indigenous people, the rights of ethnic minorities and migrant workers and the rights of stateless persons. These special protection requirements exceed the traditional principle of equal rights of human rights. In the United States in the 1960s, African Americans struggled for substantive equality and special protection for a long time, forcing the United States Government to release the Affirmative Action by administrative order, reserving appropriate quotas for minorities to increase their opportunities in higher education, housing, economic contracts, job competition and other fields of welfare. Ethnic minorities and women can enjoy special treatment in many areas of social competition. The United Nations has successively adopted a series of declarations and international conventions on the protection of women’s rights, children’s rights and the rights of the disabled, especially the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination in 1963 and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1966, the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in 1967 and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1980, Declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1959 and Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, as well as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006, etc.

D. Collective Rights

Developing countries have proposed rights such as the right to peace, the right to development and the right to the environment. The United Nations has adopted resolutions and declarations on the right to peace, development and the environment, declaring these rights to be important components of human rights, in particular the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace in 1984, Resolution on the Right to Development in 1979, Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986 and Declaration on the Human Environment in 1972.

IV. Conclusion

From the above historical process, we can draw the following conclusions and inspirations:
First, the concept of human rights arising from special regions needs to go through a process of cultural neutralization before it goes to the world, is accepted by different cultures in the world, and grows healthily under the nourishment of different cultures.

Second, the process of formulating the Declaration is a process of neutralizing and baptizing the concept of human rights under the collision of multi-cultures. In this process, human rights have changed from the rights endowed by God to the inherent rights, from the rights of the propertied class to the rights of all people, from the rights of men to the rights of all genders, from the rights of the white to the rights of all races, from the rights of Westerners to the rights of all people.

Third, after the neutralization process, the Declaration has become a consensus acceptable to all countries and all people around the world and has been widely spread. The Declaration was translated into hundreds of languages and dialects and set a world record in 2009 for being the most translated document in the world. According to the data from the website of The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rightsfor Human Rights of 24 September 2018, there are now 466 different translations of the Declaration.[23]

Fourth, through the process of neutralization, the Declaration has become the “matrix” of the concept of human rights, and a richer concept of human rights has been bred and multiplied on this basis. As it is emphasized in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, Emphasizing that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which constitutes a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, is the source of inspiration and has been the basis for the United Nations in making advances in standard setting as contained in the existing international human rights instruments, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[24] On the basis of the Declaration, the concept of human rights continues to develop, further embracing self-determination and autonomy right of nations and people, positive rights such as economic, social and cultural rights, special protection of the rights of vulnerable groups, and collective rights of people and human beings.

The general conclusion is that the Declaration is an important watershed and milestone for the transformation of human rights from regional concept to global concept. The “neutralization” baptism experienced by the concept of human rights in the process of drafting enables it to get rid of the limitations of regional culture and become a value consensus generally accepted by all people. Based on the concept of the human rights “matrix” formed in the Declaration, the concept of human rights will continue to be enriched and develop in later generations.

(Translated by LI Man)