Abstract
The human rights disaster inflicted by World War II shocked the conscience of mankind, and in the meanwhile, it posted to the whole world a serious issue: “How to save future generations from the modern generation’s sufferings brought by the two world wars.” And it has become the common concern of all the people in the world. In order to explore the historic achievement of a common standard and outstanding contribution of the Chinese wisdom to the establishment of the international human rights system, this chapter starts with a description of the research background including Pengchun Chang and his colleagues, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Malik, René Cassin, and John Humphrey, and then briefly analyzes and discusses the existing research on P. C. Chang. It further introduces the design of the research including the research question (What contributions were made by the Chinese representative P. C. Chang as typical Chinese wisdom in realizing historic achievement of a common standard?), research data, and research methods. This chapter ends with the significance and values of the research.
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Notes
- 1.
It was an unprecedented conference with 282 attending representatives from different countries, 1726 companying staff including consultants, experts and secretaries, 1058 conference secretariat staff, and 2636 journalists. [See Wang (1991).]
- 2.
On October 24th, 1945, the five major countries, namely, China, the Soviet Union , the UK, the US , and France and the majority of the participating countries submitted the letter of rectification. Therefore, the Charter of the United Nations came into effect that day. Later, October 24th is recognized as the United Nations’ Day.
- 3.
Human rights appeared seven times in the United Nations Charter: Preamble, Article 1 (3), Article 13 (1)(b), Article 55, Article 62 (2), Article 68, and Article 76.
- 4.
Sun (2011).
- 5.
Cui (2004, p. 712).
- 6.
Other three official representatives of China to the UN were Dr. V. K. Wellington Koo (Gu Weijun), Dr. Foo Ping-sheung (Fu Bingchang), and Dr. Chien-Tai (Qian Tai).
- 7.
Malik (2000).
- 8.
- 9.
UN Document: E/CN.4/AC.1/3 (http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=E/CN.4/AC.1/3).
- 10.
UN Document: E/CN.4/AC.1/3/Add. 1 (http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=E/CN.4/AC.1/3/Add.1).
- 11.
UN Document: E/CN.4/AC.1/3/Add. 2 (http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=E/CN.4/AC.1/3/Add.2).
- 12.
Humphrey (1983, p. 396).
- 13.
Humphrey (1984).
- 14.
Hobbins (1994).
- 15.
Krumbein (2015).
- 16.
Lu et al. (2003).
- 17.
Lu et al. (2003).
- 18.
Lu et al. (2003).
- 19.
Sun (2012). (This book won the Second Prize of the 13th Excellent Achievements of Philosophy and Social Sciences of Beijing Municipality.)
- 20.
Ruth and Cheng (1995). Privately printed.
- 21.
Cui and Cui (2004).
- 22.
Cited from: Humphrey (1949, p. 355).
- 23.
Cited from: Humphrey (1949).
- 24.
Cited from: Humphrey (1949, p. 355)/Viewed from the quotation, we can see that “the Declaration of the Rights of Man by the French people in 1789” used by Eleanor Roosevelt was not accurate, but the accurate expression was “the Declaration of the Rights of Men and the Citizen, 1789”. From this point, we can see that Eleanor Roosevelt was not an expert of human rights and she was elected as Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights heavily depended on Roosevelt’s influence as well as the influence by the United States in the World War II. Unlike most other members of the Commission, Mrs. Roosevelt was neither a scholar nor an expert on international law. Her enthusiasm for her work at the United Nations was rooted in her humanitarian convictions and her steady faith in human dignity and worth. Although she often joked that she was out of place among so many academics and jurists, her intellect and compassion were great assets, and proved to be of crucial importance in the composition of a direct and straightforward Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Sun, P. (2018). Introduction. In: Historic Achievement of a Common Standard. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8370-9_1
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