Universal Declaration of Human Rights

About the Author

The UDHR has no single author. The UN's Economic and Social Council was responsible for the formation of a permanent Commission on Human Rights, established in June 1946. Eleanor Roosevelt, who had worked tirelessly as a social and political activist during her years as first lady and who had been appointed as a delegate to the United Nations by her husband's successor, Harry Truman, chaired the commission as it worked on its first, critical, task: to draft an international bill of human rights.

The Human Rights Commission comprised eighteen members. The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China would be permanent members. The other thirteen seats would rotate among the other UN member nations at three-year intervals; at the time, the additional thirteen countries were Australia, Belgium, Byelorussia, Chile, Egypt, India, Iran, Lebanon, Panama, Philippines, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Yugoslavia. The first director of the Human Rights Division of the UN Secretariat (the UN organ headed by the secretary-general) was a Canadian, John Humphrey, a legal scholar and human rights activist who would play a critical role.

The entire commission may be considered the author of this document, but certain delegates played particularly important roles. Following intensive research, Humphrey drafted the original text on which the declaration was based. The commission then had to revise this document. A subcommittee of four quickly realized that this task would be best conducted by one individual. René Cassin, a French legal expert, revised the document and provided a valuable structure. In addition to Roosevelt, Humphrey, and Cassin, key authors included Charles Malik of Lebanon, a prominent philosopher, diplomat, and later Lebanon's minister of foreign affairs and member of that nation's National Assembly, and Peng-chun Chang, a well-known Chinese diplomat and playwright who was likely selected as vice-chair of the commission because of his Western education at Princeton University, his English fluency, and his recognized ability to bridge Asian and Western culture. However, everyone had the opportunity to speak and be heard as the document went through many revisions. NGOs, other UN members, and individuals attended the meetings and lobbied for their positions on human rights.