Western Spin of the Human Rights Revolution: How the Global Hegemony Manipulated Change for Demands after World War II

By: Leo Clarke

Abstract

The Human Rights Revolution of the mid-twentieth century is widely regarded as an existential paradigm shift in the valuation of human life. And yet, the decades that followed the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) has failed to yield the bold change in priorities it promised. Many historians and scholars have since interpreted these supranational legislations as placations for citizens of the global south and marginalized populations across the globe. It also stymied the momentum of domestic and global socialist revolution. Documents like UDHR articulate a highly ambiguous notion of justice, as well as a non-committal approach towards enforcement and punishment of human rights violations. As a result, the international dynamics of power remain largely the same since 1945, only now with adapted and modernized methods of subjugation.

De nombreux historiens et universitaires ont depuis interprété ces législations supranationales comme des apaisements pour les citoyens des pays du Sud global et des populations marginalisées du monde entier. Cela a également freiné l’élan de la révolution socialiste nationale et mondiale. Des documents comme la DUDH articulent une notion très ambiguë de la justice, ainsi qu’une approche non contraignante de l’application et de la répression des violations des droits humains. De ce, les dynamiques internationales de pouvoir sont restés globalement inchangés depuis 1945, maintenant avec des methodes adaptées d’asservissement.

Introduction

Despite the assertion of their “self-evdence” in the American Bill of Rights, 1 human rights did not percolate into the plane of international law until the aftermath of World War II. To many, the following two decades spelled a Human Rights Revolution, marking a seemingly ubiquitous ideological and humanitarian shift, akin to that of the Enlightenment Era. However, to others – namely, subjects of colonialism, oppressed minority groups, and ideological opponents to capitalism – this era is rife with disingenuous promises and desperate compromises proposed by Western-based supranational organizations, to resist both an imminent global socialist revolution, and the unraveling of imperial empires. This paper will elaborate on three historical angles regarding the inception of human rights into international law and discourse. Firstly, it will argue that the verbiage of the promises made has been explicitly noncommittal and caveated, which characterizes human rights as a broad culture to aspire to, rather than a policy objective. Secondly, although the post-WWII era coincided with the formal divorce of colonies from their colonizers, this was not the epoch of humanitarian reform it promised to be. Finally, the paper shall close with a discussion on how the inauguration of human rights continues to leave marginalized groups in the periphery of political discourse to this day.

Origins of Human Rights Language

Human rights have been noncommittal and verbose since their inception. The language serves to propagate a liberal, capitalist framework rather than shepherd human wellbeing. Article One of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man qualifies man’s inherent status of “free and equal” as contingent to subjective “social distinctions” that can be imposed by the government based on a vague “general good”. 2 This inclusion essentially permits the French government to renege on their promise of rights when it suits their agenda. 3 Nearly 160 years later, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) echoes similar virtues, and expands on them, urging people to “act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”, and condemning “distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language…”. 4 The use of such commanding language is insufficient to make a document binding. They fail to sufficiently articulate precise definitions for human rights or supplement an enforcement infrastructure in the language. Therefore, violations go unpunished on a regular basis. The definition of human rights was sabotaged by obfuscation, because both private and public institutions were built on subjugation of some degree, and legislature that was emphatic and binding would have hurt them tremendously.

The Enlightenment Era was a critical prologue to the conception of human rights because it fostered the “subtle but momentous changes in the perception of bodies and selves”, 5 necessary for human rights. Lynn Hunt, a professor of Modern European History at UCLA, and author of The Paradoxical Origins of Human Rights, explains that the “rising threshold of shame about bodily functions and the growing sense of bodily decorum […] created clearer lines of demarcation between individual bodies and greater respect for bodily integrity”. 6 The difference between progress of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and the Human Rights Revolution of the mid-twentieth century, is that the former was a bottom-up collective intellectual discovery, whereas the Human Rights Revolution was a top-down series of declarations, prescribed by hegemonic powers, as a method of deflecting accountability. Post-WWII global politics are defined by performance rather than potency. In Daniel Cohen’s words, “rather than a radical shift in moral standards, the Human Rights Revolution reinforced the sovereign prerogatives of nation-states”. 7

Makau Mutua is a professor of International Human Rights and International Law at SUNY Buffalo School of Law. Mutua notes that “Non-Western philosophies and traditions […] were either unrepresented or marginalized during the early formulation of human rights”. 8 Essentially, he theorizes that historically rights have not been rooted in humanitarian interest so much as the protection of private property for the ruling elite. English philosopher and physician, John Locke, summated fundamental rights as “Life, Liberty, and Estate”. 9 Locke does not distinguish between right and privilege. That which is inalienable is not divorced from the tangible and opulent, and therefore reveals who philosophers of the time intended these “rights” for. This mantra was critically influential to the American Bill of Rights. Not only does this declaration make no mention of economic or cultural rights, but it fails even to condemn the USA’s “original sin”, slavery. 10 In fact, property rights were often evoked to victimize slave-owners in the face of abolitionist efforts throughout the nineteenth century, as slaves were legally designated as property. The above arguments allow us to infer that the language of rights rarely derived from benevolent or humanitarian motives, but rather the maintenance of exploitative Western practices.

Reconsolidation of Colonial Power Post-Revolution

Abolition of the slave trade is often regarded as the origin of human rights promotion through international law-making. It also marks the first instance of Western powers calculatedly renouncing oppressive activities, in a manner that sustains capitalist and imperial agendas. In 1806, Britain banned the transportation of slaves (a seemingly positive change), with ulterior motives. The bill was received enthusiastically in Parliament because it was presented as a political wartime maneuver against France, 11 with whom Britain was at war. This legislation helped Britain curry favor among other states. It also evaded diplomatic besmirchment from the French, which could have weakened their imperial standing. The USA followed suit the next year, and by the 1840s, over twenty states were party to international treaties pledging to abolish the slave trade. These treaties of the early nineteenth century are viewed by many scholars as both political posturing, and a calculated economic loss, eventually expected to pay dividends.

Makau Mutua explained that “far from being a selfless endeavor, abolitionism served the economic self-interest of influential factions of society made wealthy by the rise of industrial capitalism”. 12 The industrial revolution made abolition a more palatable loss, especially given the potential repercussions of sustaining slavery. Just one decade prior, in 1791, the first successful slave revolt in history occurred in St. Domingue. In February 1794, the French Assembly voted to abolish slavery in all its colonies. They also resolved that “slave-owners would be indemnified” for the financial value of their slaves. 13 Immediately, perpetrators of the most egregious violation of the law, would be financially rewarded. This was a pertinent case study of how imperial powers were forced to adapt their methods of oppression, and in doing so, disguised them behind ethical intent.

After World War II, colonies increasingly demanded greater self-determination; Western powers were forced to strategically relinquish some political jurisdiction, without releasing their grasp on global resources. Superpowers were backtracking from promises made during the war in the Atlantic Charter of 1941. 14 Suddenly, this prompted the importance of self-determination. In Samuel Moyn’s words, “global self-determination would have spelled the end of empire”. 15 United against a common imperial enemy, the Allies evoked democracy and freedom from oppression. When the war concluded, they faced an outstanding bill, owed to both domestic and colonial citizens. The introduction of human rights installed an atmosphere of change in global discourse and bought the West some time in resisting the anti-colonial insurrection. Samuel Moyn called human rights the “substitute” and “consolation prize” of true self-determination. 16

Western states dragged their feet throughout the UN human rights formulation. They deliberately constructed charters that surrendered minimal political and economic leverage. The original draft of the UN Charter made no reference to human rights. It is speculated that Britain “feared this might add fuel to the independence movements in its colonies”. 17 After all, there was precedent for rapid decolonization by force, namely in Haiti, and the USA. To maintain supremacy, colonizers carefully granted surface-level sovereignty to appease demands, without releasing states from their economic will. Caveats were included in UN legislation that impeded the realization of the global periphery’s agency; when petitions were discussed as a method of protest, some members insisted on a “Colonialist Clause”, restricting citizens of colonies from doing so. 18 And so, the new conditions under UN supervision remained unconducive to political liberty..

The Pacification of Socialist Revolution

Not only was the Human Rights Revolution from the mid-1940s to mid-1960s a fabricated revolution, but it was a manufactured suppression of an ongoing, socialist revolution. If one assumes rights to be inherent, then one must conclude that rights cannot be created, only discovered. Therefore, Hunt argues natural rights would never have evolved into human rights without revolutions. 19 In 1950, the Council of Europe adopted the European Convention of Human Rights, intended to “generalize social democracy” against Communism. 20 That same year, the USA implemented NSC-68, a National Security Council document that affirmed that “any means were justified to increase American power relative to that of the USSR”. 21 “Any means” included military aggression in foreign, non-hostile lands, namely Latin American states that flirted with socialism. In 1954, Jacobo Arbenz, Pres- ident of Guatemala, was overthrown in a covert operation by US intelligence. Arbenz was regarded as a threat because of his sympathies with the Communist Party, his contacts across the Eastern Bloc, but most importantly, because he curtailed trade privileges to the United Fruit Company. 22 The Guatemalan coup is an example of the manner in which Western superpowers justified meddling in the democratic process and suppressing revolution with a sanctimonious and poorly articulated prescription of human rights.

The disingenuity of human rights became evident when socialist states were constantly rebuffed in their attempts to add breadth and teeth to UN literature. In the San Francisco Conference of 1945, twenty South American countries insisted on a more holistic approach to human rights. 23 Hernan Santa Cruz of Chile argued the “indivisibility” of rights. He insisted “liberal political regimes couldn’t secure sustained progress w/o assuring economic, social and cultural rights”. 24 The USA refused to accept economic human rights. This would have burdened American transnational corporations with higher wages, as well as fair pricing for their imports. Given the USA’s corporatist prerogatives, economic rights were a non-starter. Interactions like this indicate why many Latin A mericans deem human rights an “Anglo-Saxo n export”, 25 inappropriate for their countries. The American Convention on Human Rights, est ablished in 1969, gives an indication as to how the global human rights legislature could have looked without the dominant interference of capitalist interest, particularly after the Protocol of San Salvador provision in 1988, which articul ated economic, social, and cultural rig hts. 26 Instead, current globalist legi slation on human rights is muddl ed, unenforceable, and guarante es virtually nothing to its con stituents.

Human Rights in Relation to Minority Groups

Increased global exposure of racism and racial violence in the so-called “First World” threatened the façade that the West was the land of humanitarianism. It forced them to reinvent their methods of oppression. Steven Jensen, a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, reported that African, Asian, and Caribbean diplomats disclosed discrimination they experienced in Washington DC and New York, which became a heated point of contention during UN debates. 27 The USA was repeatedly embarrassed by their own human rights track record, once more in October 1962, when the court-ordered admission of Black student James Meredith into the University of Mississippi spurred widespread hate crimes. This incident “raised doubts about the ideals that the country claimed to represent”. 28 More significantly to US foreign policy, in the heat of the Cold War, it “allowed for easy propaganda for America’s opponents”. 29 Sure enough, the Soviet delegate “ignited a sharp ideological exchange” on the matter, 30 shaming the nation for its hypocrisy regarding voting rights, housing discrimination, work, and education. Controversies like the James Meredith case threatened to expose the USA’s true, cynical objectives. President Lyndon B. Johnson viewed critiques as “a risk that could also involve an oppo rtunity”. 31 Afterwards, the 1960s marked an era of inclusive legislation, including the Equal Pay Act (1963), Civil Rights Act (1964), Affirmative Ac tion (1965), and the Fair Housing Act (19 68). Although these are valiant examples of bottom-up revolutions, they were on ly enabled to succeed with approval from the powers at be. This attes ted to the fact that Western cou ntries were only willing to im plement progressive hum an rights laws when the y were on the defensi ve front, especially when that threat came from co mmunist actors.

Conclusion

Oftentimes, we regard any seemingly virtuous diplomatic initiative as a step in the right direction, even when they are performative actions, and especially when they span across cultures and continents. However, the development of human rights in the two decades following WWII must be interpreted more critically. Colonial subjects were obstructed from agency and denied a pathway to a more socially equitable state. Minority factions were continually contained in submission through the guise of a more benevolent paternal relationship. Political revolutions were stalled and stymied by paper-compromises, deflating political momentum, and burying important issues from mainstream discourse. Articulating universal pillars that are “abstract enough to be safely embraced”, 32 has not only muddled the path to universal self-determinism and promotion of well-being, but directly benefited the hegemonic actors who this kind of legislation should reprimand and punish.

Endnotes

1. Thomas Jefferson, et al, July 4, Copy of Declaration of Independence. -07-04, 1776 2. Robespierre, Maximilien. 1850. Declaration of the rights of man and the citizen.: [publisher not identified]. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/MOME?af=RN&ae=U107508699&srchtp=a&ste=14&locID=edmo69826. 3. David René, & P., D. V. H. (1958). The French legal system: An introduction to civil law systems. Amazon. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www. amazon.com/Civil-Law-Tradition-Introduction-Systems/dp/1503606813. 4. United Nations General Assembly, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (1948), http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights. 5. Lynn Hunt, “The Paradoxical Origins of Human Rights,” in Human Rights and Revolutions, edited by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom et. al., 2nd edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), 5. 6. Lynn Hunt, “The Paradoxical Origins of Human Rights,” in Human Rights and Revolutions, edited by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom et. al., 2nd edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), 7. 7. Daniel Cohen, “The Holocaust and the ‘Human Rights Revolution’: A Reassessment,” in The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, edited by Akira Iriye et. al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 69. 8. Makau Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 155. (Conclusion) 9. Jenny S. Martinez, “The Anti- Slavery Movement and the Rise of International Non-governmental Organizations,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, edited by Dinah Shelton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 227. 10. Wallis, Jim. America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2017. 150. 11. Jenny S. Martinez, “The Anti- Slavery Movement and the Rise of International Non-Governmental Organizations,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, edited by Dinah Shelton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 240. 12. Makau Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 157. (Conclusion) 13. “Slavery in the French Atlantic World.”. Accessed October 6, 2021. https:// www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo- 9780199730414-0270.xm 14. Seddon, M. (2016). The origins and limitations of the atlantic charter: Britain, the USA, Venezuela, and the development of Free Trade, 1933–1944. Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 14(1), 71. 15. Samuel Moyn, Human Rights and the Uses of History (New York: Verso, 2017), 163. 16. Samuel Moyn, Human Rights and the Uses of History (New York: Verso, 2017), 160. 17. Jenny S. Martinez, “The Anti- Slavery Movement and the Rise of International Non-Governmental Organizations,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, edited by Dinah Shelton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 240. 18. Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 128. 19. Lynn Hunt, “The Paradoxical Origins of Human Rights,” in Human Rights and Revolutions, edited by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom et. al., 2nd edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), 3. 20. Daniel Cohen, “The Holocaust and the ‘Human Rights Revolution’: A Reassessment,” in The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, edited by Akira Iriye et. al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 67. 21. Kathryn Sikkink, Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 39. (Chapter 2. “The Idea of Internationally Recognized Human Rights”). 22. Táíwò, O. O. (2021, December 6). When the United Fruit Company tried to buy Guatemala. The Nation. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www. thenation.com/article/economy/united-fruit-guatemala/ 23. Kathryn Sikkink, Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 23. (Chapter 2. “The Idea of Internationally Recognized Human Rights”). 24. Kathryn Sikkink, Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 23. (Chapter 2. “The Idea of Internationally Recognized Human Rights”). 25. Kathryn Sikkink, Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 26. (Chapter 2. “The Idea of Internationally Recognized Human Rights”). 26. DSI :: Indicators of protocolo de san salvador. OAS. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2022, from https://www.oas.org/en/sare/social-inclusion/protocol-ssv/indicators.asp 27. Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 121. 28. Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 120. 29. Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 120. 30. Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 120. 31. Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 121. 32. Daniel Cohen, “The Holocaust and the ‘Human Rights Revolution’: A Reassessment,” in The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, edited by Akira Iriye et. al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 70.