In his introduction to a major series of new writing in The Irish Times marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Seamus Heaneyreflects on how the Declaration's 30 Articles remain a profound force for historical good
In an essay published in 1998 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Thomas Buergenthal, a former President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, drew an important distinction. He pointed out that whereas the original Charter of the United Nations internationalised human rights as a legal concept, the subsequent Universal Declaration gave the concept moral force.
When the Declaration was being framed in 1948, several of the UN member states were, for better or worse reasons, against a document that would be legally binding, with the result that the text is more akin to an exhortation than an edict. And yet, as Buergenthal also pointed out, it is the "eloquent, expansive and simple" nature of the language in the document which has proved most potent in the long run - as is evident from the brief First Article:
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.
In the boldness and buoyancy of these words there are echoes of many of the great foundational texts of western civilisation, from Sophocles' "wonders of man" chorus through Christ's Sermon on the Mount on up to the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. So even if this First Article cannot guarantee what it declares, if its writ cannot be made to run in China or Zimbabwe or Guantánamo, it nevertheless gestures so confidently towards what human beings desire that it fortifies a conviction that the desirable can in fact be realised.
Over the past 60 years, of course, the philosophical basis of the Declaration in the western tradition has been contested, and increasingly so in the post-9/11 period, when a "clash of civilisations" has been touted as the future way of the world. Even though the initial emphasis on "brotherhood" is a reminder that the individual operates in a community, adversaries claim that the western concept is excessively individualistic and neglects community solidarity and cultural diversity. Yet it seems to me that this problematic truth can be acknowledged without relinquishing belief in the larger overall good which the Declaration has effected.
Since it was framed, the Declaration has succeeded in creating an international moral consensus. It is always there as a means of highlighting abuse if not always as a remedy: it exists instead in the moral imagination as an equivalent of the gold standard in the monetary system. The articulation of its tenets has made them into world currency of a negotiable sort. Even if its Articles are ignored or flouted - in many cases by governments who have signed up to them - it provides a worldwide amplification system for "the still, small voice".
Thus, Vaclav Havel can concede that in the decades since the Universal Declaration was adopted by the UN, human rights have been repeatedly violated or suppressed in many countries; yet he can also argue that these breaches of its principles have been far outweighed by the historic importance of the global covenant which it represents. It is, he says, "an instrument holding up a mirror to the misery of the world".
In that image, which echoes Hamlet's claim that plays and players "hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature", we hear the voice of Havel the dramatist as much as the voice of Havel the former prisoner and victim of human rights abuse in a totalitarian system. We hear, in effect, the voice of the artist gaining on the voice of the activist, so it comes as no surprise to find him concluding that the roots of human rights lie deeper than the world of human covenants. They are far more profound than contracts between governments and have their origin