Towards a Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Towards a Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Author(s): Harold Laski
Subject(s): International Law, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
Published by: CEEOL Digital Reproductions / Collections
Summary/Abstract: In the light of considerations described in the inroduction, any attempt by the United Nations to formulate a Declaration of Human Rights in individualist terms would quite inevitably fail. It would have little authority in those political societies which are increasingly, both in number and in range of effort, assuming the need to plan their social and economic life. It is, indeed, legitimate to go further and say that if the assumptions behind such a declaration were individualistic, the document would be regarded as a threat to a new way of life by the defenders of historic principles which are now subject to profound challenge. Its effect would be to separate, and not to unify, the groping towards common purposes achieved through common institutions and common standards of behaviour which it is the objective of such a declaration to promote.

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