The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins by asserting that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. . .." The image of "the human family" is perhaps a rhetorical flourish, but it suggests that human rights are seen as the legal ordering of the common good. Human rights are not merely the claims that individuals have against the state or other citizens, but are ways of ordering life in the human family so as to ensure dignity for all its members.

This image of human rights is sometimes lost in the fray of ideological debate. However, it is embraced and articulated by religious leaders who affirm human rights as an expression of their faith. Religious leaders see human rights not only as means of protecting the individual from oppression by the state, but as the way of creating justice within states and peace within the world community.

In this chapter I will describe briefly the political debate over human rights, between members of the First, Second and Third Worlds and the shift in emphasis that has taken place in the human rights efforts of the United Nations. I will suggest that human rights advocates in the Third World are bringing together diverse notions of human rights into a new synthesis. Finally, I will review the support in the religious communities for this reformed notion of human rights.

Hersch Lauterpacht argues that the heart of the doctrine of human rights, as it has developed in the West, is that, "The sovereign was subjected to the higher law conceived as the guarantor of the inalienable rights of man."¹ This "first generation" of human rights, using the phrase introduced by French jurist Karel Vasak, is concerned with the civil and political rights of the individual.² It is concerned with the freedom of the individual from interference by the state, with what are often called "negative rights" for they involve assertions of what the government cannot do.

These rights dominate the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and are set forth in Articles 2-21, which include:

The Universal Declaration also includes the right to own property and the right not to be deprived arbitrarily of property, rights central to the struggle in both the American and French revolutions and to the rise of capitalism.

This expression of the Western liberal view of human rights stresses the rights of the individual over against the state, as necessary conditions for human dignity. Maurice Cranston argues that this view precludes any notion of rights that requires positive action by the state, and so he concludes that social and economic rights are not human rights at all.⁴ More recently, Jack Donnelly and Adda Bozeman have vigorously asserted that human rights are grounded in a concept of the individual lacking in the cultures of Africa and Asia.⁵

The history of the development of human rights in the United States suggests that this is not merely an academic debate. James Sellers argues that in America it is the ideas of Hobbes rather than those of Locke that came to predominate—what shaped American political thought most was "not natural law, or the common good, or the humanitarian impulse toward community," but "the absolute right of the individual."⁶ This impulse has until very recently not only limited American understanding of human rights to civil rights, but to the narrowest reading of civil rights, which stresses the rights of the individual in a society in which the state is conceived as guaranteeing protection only by not intervening in the lives of its citizens.

This is the context in which President Roosevelt in his annual message to Congress on January 6, 1941 affirmed the Four Freedoms that were to receive wide sanction a year later in the Joint Declaration of the United Nations. Roosevelt said:

Freedom of speech and expression and freedom of worship are clearly established in American constitutional law. However, freedom from fear is largely left to an informed public, and freedom from want is traditionally understood as the goal of charity rather than as the responsibility of government.

Arthur Holcombe argues that in the newly formed United States of America in the late eighteenth century:

Even today the struggle for freedom from want in America is an uphill battle against the tradition that identifies rights with individual opportunities, in a society guided more by private economic interests than by public policies to promote the general welfare.⁹

The history of human rights thought on the continent of Europe is somewhat different. In 1789 the citizens of France were confronted by intractable social and economic forces causing impoverishment and hunger. Hence, the distinctive emphasis on rights more raw and basic than those of individual civic dignity. Economic growth, with more fairness of distribution is the reigning value, and human rights (viewed 'collectively' rather than individualistically) depend upon governmental management, improved for the purpose by ridding itself of archaic involvement with religious preoccupations and institutions.¹⁰

The French embraced all of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man and not merely the sections that the Americans had taken to heart.¹¹ Thus, the French Constitution of 1791 provides for public relief for the poor and free public education, rights that were not protected in early American constitutions and in international law today are described as "economic and social rights."

Therefore, even within the framework of Western liberal thought, there is diversity as to how the conditions of human dignity are to be realized. Rights are seen to arise in response to particular situations, expressing demands on institutions that certain deprivations be ended. "Hence there can be a recognition of universal rights at the very time there is disagreement on the philosophical foundations of those rights."¹²

Jean-Bernard Marie suggests that human rights "are, quite simply, a way of living together in a society that values human dignity."¹³ As all societies fall short of such a vision, one might well conclude: "The movement for human rights is really a movement for world reform."¹⁴ In the West the American and French revolutions stimulated social reforms with different emphases. In the American tradition, liberty or freedom clearly dominated over equality, and thus equality came to mean only equality of opportunity.¹⁵ In the French tradition, equality was as important as liberty, and thus social and economic rights were more readily embraced.¹⁶

Socialists were quick to point out that Western liberal notions of rights had developed in the particular economic and political circumstances of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As these circumstances changed in the nineteenth century, liberal theory was unable to respond to the need for state action to secure fundamental human rights and freedoms for citizens. Socialist theories of rights, often described as the "second generation" of human rights, emphasize economic, social, and cultural rights. The socialist human rights position was in large part:

Those who affirmed liberal notions of natural rights resisted this development. In the words of Gregorio Peces-Barba, professor of law at the University of Madrid,

In the socialist perspective, this historical analysis explains "the assertion of doctrinaire liberalism that equality is incompatible with freedom" and allows for "attempts to correct the discriminatory character" which fundamental rights "have in the liberal conception. . .."¹⁹

Peces-Barba speaks of this approach as the "integral reformulation of the concept of fundamental rights" and sees in it great hope for humankind.

In a slightly different way than Jean-Bernard Marie, Peces-Barba also sees fundamental rights as central to "the historical development of democratic society," which has as its goal the strengthening of "the freedom of individuals and of the groups they form."²¹

Irving Louis Horowitz is correct in asserting that the present debate on human rights:

This struggle may be seen as an attempt to correct the overemphasis, in liberal notions of civil and political rights, on the rights of the individual over against the welfare of groups and peoples. Yugoslavian scholar Katarina Tomasevski writes: "The second generation (social, economic and cultural rights) emerged as a counter-balance to the dominantly Western concepts, [and was] advocated primarily by the newly founded socialist states."²³

It is important to recall at this point that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Articles 22-27, affirms:

As noted earlier, these are at least in part an effort to express what President Roosevelt described as "freedom from want." Thus, the concept of social and economic rights advanced within the socialist tradition is included in the Universal Declaration and not entirely absent from the liberal tradition.

Similarly, not all second generation rights can properly be described as "positive rights." For instance, the right to free choice of employment, the right to form and to join trade unions, and the right to participate freely in the cultural life of the community do not require action by the state to secure their enjoyment. However, certainly the emphasis of second generation rights is on claims to social equality; and so state intervention is essential in the allocation of resources required to enforce these rights.

Antonio Cassese, professor of international law and director of the Post-Graduate School of International Affairs of the University of Florence, describes the years 1960-1973 as the "second phase" in the life of the United Nations.²⁵ In this phase the socialist countries joined forces with Third World countries to champion the right of peoples to self-determination and to economic and social rights. Rather than resisting the development of human rights instruments, socialists now saw in international law the possibilities of promoting the very concerns for economic and social justice that had prompted their original opposition.

It is no accident that both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights begin with the same first article: "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."²⁶

Cassese asserts that this right has become "the linchpin of the United Nations strategy toward human rights."²⁷ He notes that until the middle of the 1970s the struggle in the United Nations was still largely between the Eastern and Western countries, with the developing countries frequently supporting the socialist position. However, since 1974 the Third World countries have come to dominate debate at the UN. Together, the Third World countries have shifted the agenda away from the liberal-socialist controversy to an explicit concern for changing international economic conditions.

The challenge to realize a "third generation of human rights" was first articulated in the 1974 Charter on Economic Rights and Duties of States.²⁸ It was reiterated in Resolution 32/130, which was proposed by Argentina, Cuba, Iran, the Philippines, and Yugoslavia and adopted by the General Assembly in 1977.²⁹

This resolution established two priorities for the future work of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The first priority is to combat violation of the human rights of peoples, with apartheid, racial discrimination and colonialism named as primary concerns. The second priority is the realization of a new international economic order. W. A. Whitehouse comments: "It is fair to observe that the language of human rights has been taken over from the worlds of liberal capitalism and of Marxist socialism and adapted to contend with the collective emergencies of Third World societies."³⁰

Resolution 32/130 also affirms that all human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible and interdependent and that the realization of civil and political rights is therefore impossible without the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. In addition, all human rights are seen as inalienable and their promotion globally is understood to involve different emphases in different parts of the world. Finally, realization of the new international economic order is identified as essential for the effective protection of human rights.³¹

George Shepherd argues that the Third World is the crucible in which a "global consciousness" is being forged, "because it is the center of the anticolonial and development process in which the two streams of individualistic and social human rights flowing from the first two worlds have met."³² He suggests that the Third World is developing a conception of human rights that goes beyond both individual and social notions:

The basic rights to survival and food are asserted both as qualifying civil and political rights and as depending upon them.

In the Third World human rights are understood to embrace political and religious concepts as well as indigenous traditional values.³⁴ Human rights are conceived as elements of the right to self-determination, which protects the rights of peoples to their cultural traditions and language, as well as their right to development.

Although socialist concepts may seem to predominate in the Third World, human rights advocates argue that civil and political rights are not subordinated to economic and social rights.³⁵ For example, the late José W. Diokno of the Philippines, former senator and presidential candidate, argues against the notion that governments in the Third World are inevitably authoritarian either because of the need for rapid economic development or because of indigenous traditions. He characterizes the second justification for authoritarianism as "racist" and the first as "a lie" that perpetuates an unjust status quo:

This is utterly consistent with the assertion by the Sengalese Kéba Mbaye that the right to development is a "fundamental human right, without which life in a society is not worth living."³⁷

In the Third World the right to self-determination, which "is an internationally recognized right of long and dubious standing,"³⁸ is being given a new shape. This is reflected in the Algiers Declaration of Third World Peoples, adopted on 4 July 1976, which attributes violations of human rights directly to the structures of the international economic system.³⁹

Richard Falk argues that the Algiers Declaration is important for at least two reasons. First, as a nongovernmental document it cannot be dismissed as a statement representing only the interests of ruling elites in the Third World. Second, it is an assertion of the principle of popular sovereignty—"that it is the peoples of the world that are the fundamental source of authority."

In this declaration of human rights it is every people, not every individual nor every state, that is said to have the right to existence, respect and self-determination.

The Algiers Declaration was authored largely by "non-Marxist communalists," as David Forsythe describes them, who are convinced that "effective respect for human rights necessarily implies respect for the rights of peoples. . .."⁴¹ Forsythe suggests that non-Marxist communalists, such as Tanzania's Julius Nyerere, are able to combine liberal and socialist notions of human rights. In 1968 Nyerere asserted:

Forsythe argues that on numerous occasions Nyerere defended individual rights, even as he asserted communal and economic rights as expressions of "working together for the common good instead of competitively for individual private gain."⁴³

Louis Henkin agrees that although many of the states of the Third World describe themselves as socialist, most are not essentially Marxist and are only pragmatically socialist in that they stress economic and social development. He argues that while there are many cultural and historical differences:

For instance, the Constitution of the kingdom of Burundi, which had been part of the Belgian Trust Territory of Ruanda-Urundi until 1962,

However, as Henkin readily acknowledges, almost all African constitutions also contain provisions for the suspension or derogation of rights in times of emergency. Therefore, these constitutions do not effectively limit the power of the state.

Affirmations of human rights in the Third World clearly reflect a convergence of Western liberal and socialist traditions and by no means the victory of one over the other.⁴⁶ What is also clear is that these reactants are being catalyzed by the cultural values of Third World peoples. In the crucible of the Third World there is not merely a reformulation of liberal and socialist doctrines of human rights—the first and second generations of human rights—but at the same time a reassertion of traditional values. The right to self-determination is seen as the right to shape the future in a way that protects as well as reforms the past.

If diverse cultural contexts in the Third World make the traditional distinctions between individual and group rights less clear, the oppressive character of many governments renders the debate between liberals and socialists a luxury. Patricia Weiss Fagen argues in a study of human rights literature in Latin America that, "the human rights movement has begun to function in Latin America as a means of keeping politics alive."⁴⁷ Against the claims of the ruling elites of Latin America that individual rights must be subordinate to the state, those working for human rights insist "that individual human beings have rights which take precedence over the state's and must be recognized by the state."⁴⁸

Fagen identifies the largest body of this literature as the product of Catholic and Protestant groups working for human rights.

In general, the writing from religious perspectives begins with the assertion that the rights advanced in the UN and inter-American human rights declarations and covenants correspond to accepted religious ethics. Catholic clergy equate human rights principles with the spirit of major theological statements since Pacem in Terris (Pope John XXIII).⁴⁹

Therefore, in Latin America it is understood as natural and necessary for church leaders to defend human rights and for many church programs to be devoted entirely to human rights advocacy.

Fagen concludes that where political systems are open it is not necessary

In Latin America, as in Africa and Asia, human rights claims are a means of affirming basic moral values in the face of severe oppression.

The breadth of the concept of human rights is an asset in this respect, for it encompasses different social, political and ideological perspectives and "is therefore useful to the political left, right and center, to religious and secular humanitarian associations and to victims of the many forms of repression."⁵¹ The ambiguity of human rights language, as well as its association with established legal and religious institutions, allows a certain amount of protection for those seeking redress for their grievances, as they would be more vulnerable using ideological or political language.

The shift in the last forty years from largely individual notions of human rights to a broader affirmation of social and communal human rights has been supported by many leaders of religious communities.⁵² At the same time that Third World concerns have become more central in the deliberations of the United Nations, religious leaders from the Third World have become more prominent in the global struggle for human rights.

Mohammed Allal Sinaceur, writing within the Islamic tradition, asserts that:

Human rights are a means of humanizing the development of modern society, for they preserve the dignity of the human person.

Among Christians this is perhaps clearest in the World Council of Churches. Here advocacy for human rights was first centered on freedom of religion. However, in the middle of the 1970s the consensus of the WCC listed six human rights, including the right to basic guarantees of life, the right to self-determination, and the right to participate in the decision-making of the community, as well as the right to religious freedom. Jürgen Moltmann clearly recognized the shift in the WCC from liberal concerns for civil and political rights to socialist and Third World concerns for social and basic life interests. He affirmed that the ecumenical church movement had grown with this shift in emphasis and now was fully involved in supporting human rights in the pursuit of the common good of all humanity.

The development of Roman Catholic social teaching can be understood in much the same way. The teachings of the church had resisted individualistic notions of human rights, as formulated in the French and American revolutions. However, in the twentieth century the church began to defend the rights of workers against the obvious injustice of laissez-faire capitalism. When John XXIII embraced human rights in Pacem in Terris, the relationship of rights and obligations within community was clearly articulated. Today in the Roman Catholic tradition, human rights are affirmed as the social conditions for human dignity. Human rights belong to persons in community, and thus are neither the rights of the individual over against the community nor the rights of the community over against the individual. The goal is "a social order that respects the dignity of the human person and serves the common good."⁵⁴

As with the World Council of Churches, the human rights asserted within Roman Catholic social teaching include social and economic and communal rights, as well as civil and political rights. These human rights are a means of ordering the welfare of the community. Even as human obligations imply rights, so human rights imply obligations. Thus, Catholics are taught today that their faith requires the defense of basic human rights, so that the dignity of all human beings might be guaranteed. They are taught not merely to assert their own rights, but to accept the duty to defend the rights of others.

Conservative Protestants are somewhat uncomfortable with the modern affirmation of human dignity, as their theology is based on the biblical notion of the sinfulness of fallen men and women. However, some conservative Protestants have found many areas where they can relate the biblical witness to the modern concern for human rights. John Warwick Montgomery and Carl F. H. Henry both are troubled by the lack of reference to God in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but each as a Christian supports the rights contained within the document. Montgomery derives from the Bible a list of human rights that exceeds in protection the rights affirmed in the Universal Declaration, and Henry supports these human rights. Moreover, Montgomery specifically supports, on biblical grounds, the call by the Third World nations for a new economic order, so long as civil and political rights are not sacrificed in the process.⁵⁵

The broad support among Christians for human rights struggles in the Third World has been documented in chapter 4 of Part I. Christian voices raised to protest human rights violations in the Third World are numerous and vigorous, despite the persecution that may result. In fact, many Christians have already been martyred for human rights.⁵⁶ Given the teachings of the churches and continuing violations of human rights, it is likely that more Christians will risk and lose their lives in this witness.

In Part II other religious groups and individuals, as well as Christians, were seen to support human rights.

Jewish leaders were instrumental in the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a persecuted minority in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, Jews have stressed civil and political rights. Moreover, because Israel is a minority nation in the Middle East, Jews have felt that Israel is unfairly singled out by Third World nations for accusations of human rights violations. However, many Jews maintain that their tradition supports economic and social as well as civil and political rights. The prophetic witness against the abuse of power by the rulers of a state is well known. Less attention has been given to Talmudic support for the notion of equality of treatment within a community and to the traditional concern for the sojourner and the stranger.

Respected Muslims, too, support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and are leaders in the Third World in stressing the newer social, economic, and peoples' rights. The basic rights of food, clothing, shelter, education, and employment are stressed by Muslims as long central to their tradition. Moreover, like other religious advocates of human rights, Muslims teach that rights and duties are essentially related aspects of human dignity. With many Christians and Jews, many Muslims affirm that human rights are the gift of God. Unlike Christians and more liberal Jews, most Muslims do not affirm the right to religious liberty, as they believe deviance from Islam is opposition to the divine will. However, there is at present a struggle within the Muslim community over how to interpret scripture in this regard.

Hindus and Buddhists are primarily living in Third World countries, and therefore it is not surprising that they have supported the shift from individual liberties to a greater emphasis on social and communal human rights. However, Hindus also affirm civil and political rights and have written them into their laws. While India's constitution is unequivocal concerning equality of citizenship and the illegality of untouchability, Hindus have yet to reform their caste traditions in the way Gandhi and others advocated. However, as with other religious supporters of human rights, many Hindus argue that sacred duties can only be understood today as implying human rights necessary for the protection of human dignity.

Most Buddhists have been reluctant to identify the Dharma with human rights, because they fear that the individualistic connotations of the West will draw attention away from the interdependent nature of reality. However, some Buddhists assert that the human rights to food, clothing, shelter, and justice reflect basic precepts of their tradition. Moreover, in the Third World Buddhists and Christians have joined together to work for justice through the promotion of human rights.

Finally, in Africa and Asia advocates of traditional values have argued strenuously against Western notions that are limited to individualistic formulations of civil and political rights. They assert that traditional values in the Third World protect the basic human rights that are essential for human dignity. Thus, they defend the modern synthesis of human rights, which sees individual and social rights as expressions of the right to self-determination.

Perhaps noted Chinese scholar Wm. Theodore de Bary offers wise counsel in how to interpret changes in the Third World. He argues that human rights are being translated and adapted into Chinese thought in the same way that Buddhist concepts were assimilated in the early Middle Ages.⁵⁷ Therefore, he resists the argument that human rights are intelligible only within Western culture:

The synthesis of human rights concepts in the Third World is to be embraced rather than resisted, for it means that the possibility of a truly global standard for human dignity is becoming a reality.⁵⁹

Therefore, I conclude that around the world religious support for human rights has followed the shift from a narrow conception of human rights, cast largely in the language of Western liberal theory, to an eclectic notion that emphasizes the needs of Third World peoples.⁶⁰ Perhaps religious leaders have not simply followed this shift, but have helped to create it. For today throughout the Third World religious advocates are in the forefront of the global human rights movement.

Moreover, despite the obvious violations of human rights there is hope. R. N. Trivedi, director of the Human Rights Institute in Lucknow, India, affirms that

In the Third World, faith in human rights is a way of living, in the face of renewed barbarism and systematic oppression, with hope for the future of the human family.

Notes to Chapter 12 - Common Good

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