No Backbone: Failures of Human Rights

After the end of World War One, a new governing body was put into place in order to prevent future wars. This was known as the League of Nations and their policies stayed in effect from 1918 until 1940 when it failed from preventing the world from going to war again. It was not until 1945, with the establishment of the United Nations, that order again was resorted or at least a new, stronger governing body was put in place. One of the policies that were part of both organizations was the idea of human rights which was strongly controlled by the world powers at the time. This idea of human rights changed from organization to organization, with the League pressing for minority rights for the citizens of the world to individual human rights for the world in the UN. So how did these thoughts change the world and what made different countries reluctant to get behind this idea of individual human rights?

First, let’s look at the failures of the League of Nations version of human rights. Instead of focusing on the individual in 1918, the members of the League chose to instead focus on the minorities of the world. This cause was further pushed as most European States at the time supported the ideas of freedom of worship and the abolition of religious and civil disabilities, even though they pushed this belief on new States who wanted to join the European “family of nations” (Mazower, “The Strange Triumph Of Human Rights, 1933-1950,” pg. 381). This system worked for the most part until, like many policies of the League of Nation, it came time to enforce it. The problem was that the nations involved were still treating the world as if it were still the Victorian era, going back to their old ways of protecting Christianity and allowing racism (pg.382). To make matters worse, they did not understand the idea of the mixing of minorities and maid the League’s pleas with the Nazis to treat German Jews better fall on death ears (pg.382). As time went on, the larger countries who sponsored the newcomers began to get tired of holding them accountable for their actions towards minorities. As the Nazis took over Germany, they began arguing “the nation comes before humanity” and that they will not convert other minorities into German culture (pg. 384). With this, Germany exited the League of Nations and World War Two was about to begin. This idea of putting minorities first actually had the opposite effect on many countries at the time as they saw their pride as Germans, as French, as Czechs under attack from the minorities and the protection the country had to give them. This is what failed the Leagues version of human rights.

Fast forward to the end of World War Two, we see the beginning of the United Nations. As the temperament of the world changed, so did the ideas of the protection of minorities and the individual. Instead of worrying about groups of people in order to protect them, we should protect the individuals of the group and the world from harm by protecting their basic human rights (pg. 391). But this did not solve all the problems. Some, like the British and the Russians, believed that such an idea as human rights would give the international organization the right to pry into the affairs of States around the world (pg.391). Even the United States was afraid that this clause would allow the UN powers to overlook the United States Constitution and interfere with their internal affairs. So in a way of compromise, America proposed a use of both universal human rights to protect the individual and the domestic state rights to protect the countries in the UN (pg. 392). Russia and Britten still did not agree with this idea because of the possible human rights had towards their empires. They believed that human rights may lead to other countries under their control would demand to be set free under the new UN guidelines. Once the world learned of this plan for human rights, they could no longer ignore it. In the end, a compromise was met and in June 1945 the UN Charter was signed (pg.393). Most of the charter had ideas of human rights in it especially in Article I which stated, “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction to race, sex, language or religion” (pg. 393). This was the birth of true human rights on a world scale.

After the singing of this document, the world knew that each person had rights that no country could infringe upon, or could it. In the charter, the major countries-the US, Britten, and Russia-purposely left out who would be implementing and protecting these rights, making this document have beautiful words with zero follow through. This showed that, like with the League of Nations, the Great Powers was still calling the shots and the smaller nations had little to no say (pg. 394). As the atrocities committed by the Nazis were uncovered and the Nurnberg trials emerged into the public, people were angry that there was little to no mention of Genocide in the charter. With a proposal for a Genocide Convention, genocide was officially recognized as a crime and closed one path for possible government infringement on human rights (pg. 394). This goes to show that even though there a somewhat understanding of human rights at first, there was still plenty of holes to get around as far as the state is concerned. It was still a battle many years later as human rights and state rights again collided, this time with the US taking center stage. As members of the NAACP wrote to the UN for help against discrimination in America, the UN was again embarrassed to the world for not being able to do a thing about it, even though discrimination did follow under human rights violations (pg.395). Even with the Universal Declaration, the official document of human and state rights, everyone knew that the writing on it was important and the content was supposed to further mankind into a peaceful era, there was no true backbone to these claims (pg. 396). Making the UN weaker to the world helped the government but hurt the individuals whose rights were being defiled.

With both attempts of human rights, from groups of minorities to the individual themselves, neither truly reached the pinnacle of protecting the rights of humans around the world. Like many world treaties and agreements, these are just guidelines. The only difference is that these agreements were made by governments who would rather protect their image and empires over protecting the rights of people around the world. I find it interesting that these men and women who made such an impact by making a charter and declaration to the world that we will always respect one another failed to fully follow through, not once but twice. Luckily, today are less likely to let themselves do the evils that we saw in World War Two, but some still do and it is usually other countries and not the UN who must step in and right this wrong.