The Universal Declaration: A Productive Ambiguity

This episode describes the drafting process of the Universal Declaration within the United Nations. It was fundamentally different from its eighteenth-century antecedents in that the process involved every UN member, myriad Non-Governmental Organisations and dozens of highly committed individuals.

However, there was opposition to it (from the UN Secretary-General down) and debates became fractious in the climate of the Cold War. This episode contains parts of an interview with John Humphrey, the Canadian Head of the Human Rights Division within the UN Secretariat and reputedly the author of the initial draft of the Declaration.

The aim was to provide common grounds for agreement – a synthesis of world views – and the compromises involved produced a document containing a productive ambiguity. The document that resulted was revolutionary as it re-aligned the normative concept of international law which would no longer be the sole province of state sovereignty, but it was not the product of a revolution.
The final vote in the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, produced no votes against the Declaration, although there were 8 abstentions. There was not unanimity. But it heralded a vision of humans and humanity and forever changed the political debate at international level.

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