70 years to the human rights declaration - why did they write it?

In 1945, war world II ended. The allies’ soldiers, American, British, Russian, Canadian, went into occupied Europe. They entered the concentration camps, are were amazed by what they saw. What we know today from stories, testimonies and pictures, they saw for the first time. Wearing uniform and baring weapons, they came face to face with the people in the camps, the sickness, death, hunger. They were their liberators, the first good people the survivors met, after years of suffering.

 And from that moment on, the world was never the same again.

 It was clear that the world needed to do whatever possible so these things won’t happen again.

Sounds obvious, isn’t it? apparently, it’s not. In order to be really shaken by what they saw, they needed to believe that you can’t act like that just because you’re at war. Wait, what? it’s not obvious as it seems to us. Because up until around 200 years ago, the western world was based on status and social class. If you were a noble or from the clergy, good, you had rights and power. If not, good luck to you, as the state belonged to the king, not the people. The king had a divine right to rule, and the rest didn’t. Equality wasn’t part of the game.

 Only in the 17th century, with the philosopher John Locke, a new idea came around - that every person deserves basic rights, just because we were born. This idea continued to develop with the Enlightenment movement of the 18th century, together with idea that there should be equal relationships between the citizens and the state. The idea of democracy rights for every individual started to become more and more widespread, until its peak in the 20th century.

 In the mid 19th century, the world had gone through a period of wars, after relative quiet, post Napoleon. One of the centers of conflict was Italy, then not yet an independent state. In 1859, there was a battle in northern Italy, Solferino battle. It was one battle of many, but this one was witnessed by a Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant. He got there unintentionally, on a business trip, and saw the battlefield in the aftermath: tens of thousands of soldiers left dead and wounded in the field, with no one to assist them. There was no way to evacuate the wounded during the fighting, and no medical assistance afterwards. Dunant arranged for the local population to help the soldiers, no matter which side they were from. He published his experience after his return, and called for action. That’s how the Red Cross was created. And another thing, not less important, was created: the Geneva Convention. For the first time all of the world’s countries gathered together, and thought how they could fight while protecting the soldiers as much as possible, not forgetting they are people too. For the first time, they agreed on rules for evacuation of wounded soldiers under fire, on neutrality of medical teams. Even at war, you need to act as human beings even if you fight. For the first time, the countries of the world agreed on basic rights that all individuals deserve.

Henry Dunant in Solferino, 1860s, unknow artist

From then on, the international treaties on rules of war continued to develop. In 1906 the convention was expanded to naval warfare. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the world leaders gathered and signed two the Hague conventions, in 1899 and 1907, which  extended the treaties according to ways warfare had developed, like the use of gas or chemical weapons, treatment of neutral people, what to do with property taken at war. It was also decided on the establishment of a court that would inquire in cases of conflicts between states, which exists to this day in the Hague, the Netherlands: the Peace Palace. As weapons continued to develop, so did the treaties.

 While all these attempts to make warfare more fair were going on, to protect the soldiers’ rights even in a seemingly rightless situation, a world war had erupted. The hardest, most violent war until then. The tank was first introduced in World War I; giant war ships. For the first time, soldiers no longer meet each other and stap one another to death; the shooting comes from afar, unpredictable, and much more lethal. After the war, more treaties were signed: another Geneva Protocol was signed in 1925 and was added to the Hague convention in 1928, dealing with biological weapons. In 1929 the third Geneva Convention was signed, about treatment of war prisoners. All of these treaties still apply.

Woodrow Wilson, the US president, wanted to establish an organization where the world’s countries would cooperate for the first time, to prevent additional world wars. He also wanted to promote national rights, establishment of independent states for interested peoples. And so the League of Nations came about, an organization with representation for the different countries of the world.

 But when the allies freed the prisoners from the camps in World War II, they saw everything that was done to them during the war. And that was something that haven’t seen before.

 They knew firearm, and knew cold weapons, and knew tanks, and knew spears, and knew wounded and killed soldiers in uniform.

But they didn’t know citizens from all walks of society taken from their homes, put in camps, shot into pits; separated from their families, starved, murdered. They didn’t carry weapons, they weren’t sent by a country, they didn’t try to kill anyone, not even for a great cause.

They also didn’t know citizens who sat at their homes, like in many countries in Europe, into bombing and destruction of their neighborhoods. At the end of the war, European cities stood in their ruins.

 The world had never before seen such offense on citizens. There rules of war, and horrors at  war, there were the wounded soldiers left in the field. But the separation between battlefront and war front became blurry, when armies bombed citizens as part of war. And the horrors that the Nazis executed. It was amazing, and new, and horrifying. The world couldn’t stay the same.

 The League of Nations, the organization established to bring states together, was disassembled. The United Nations was founded instead, in 1945, the last year of the war.

The first thing they did, was to formulate new principles of how humans should be treated. And for the first time, not just during war, but always, with the agreement and cooperation of all countries of the world. In 1946 the committee of the Universal Human Rights Declaration sat together for the first time. It was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, the former US First Lady, and participated by representatives from different continents and cultures.

 Hernan Santa Cruz from Chile, who took part in drafting the declaration, wrote:

 “I perceived clearly that I was participating in a truly significant historic event in which a consensus had been reached as to the supreme value of the human person [...] which gave rise to the inalienable right to live free from want and oppression and to fully develop one’s personality. . . . there was an atmosphere of genuine solidarity and brotherhood among men and women from all latitudes, the like of which I have not seen again in any international meeting.”

 That was the feeling of drafting a first international effort to protect each person for being a person. No matter the situation you got into because of where you live - you deserve protection. And the world’s countries now agree on that,  even the one now fighting yours, wants to take its land, or wants to protect itself, it doesn’t matter. If you’re a citizen, you deserve to live, to work, not suffer violence or humiliation, continue with your life.

Eleanor Roosevelt with the Human Rights Declaration

 In December 1948 the Universal Declaration for Human Rights was published. The first paragraph of the declaration says: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.

 The second one says: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty".

It’s not a legal document, but a set of international guiding rules and basic rights that everyone deserves, everywhere. The right for fair trial, the right the marry by choice, freedom of movement, right for privacy, for personal property, to take part in elections and government of your country, the right for leisure, health, education, personal development.

From then on, international protection of citizens continued to develop. In 1949 another Geneva Convention, the 4th one, was signed. This time, it added protection of civilians during warfare. An international court for war crimes was founded, one that doesn't only deal with state to state conflicts, but crimes against individuals.

At the end of the day, each state has its sovereignty. These rights are still ignored sometimes during war, and human rights aren’t always kept during peace. But we do know that we deserve rights. We have a standard between states, there are rules to follow, there’s a court if you don’t. There are states’ signatures that say that they agree on these terms.

The importance of this 70-year anniversary is clear, but there won’t be a smashing ending, because that’s not the thing. The Universal Declaration for Human Rights is first and foremost a standard of how the world should operate. Human rights strive to define what it means to be human, what we deserve for being so. That we’ll know to act this way towards others, and to demand this treatment for ourselves. It started from wars, dead, conflicts, international treaties and organizations with acronymed names. But it’s meant for us, for our daily lives, the most ordinary lives. Because you can’t take our humanity away. And what can you do, that sometimes you need all that to protect this simple truth.

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