"The single outstanding exception was the broad yet precise mandate communicated by the General Assembly in 1946 to prepare as soon as possible the Charter of Human Rights which the San Francisco Conference had not had the time or the courage to draw up"
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There is a quiet accusation hiding inside Cassin's bureaucratic calm: the world had just clawed its way out of war and genocide, and even then the founders of the UN still flinched at putting human dignity into binding language. By praising the General Assembly's 1946 instruction as "broad yet precise", Cassin elevates it above the usual fog of international consensus. The phrasing flatters the mandate while implicitly shaming those who required such direction in the first place.
The real blade is in the line about San Francisco lacking "the time or the courage". "Time" is the polite excuse - conferences always run long, agendas always overflow. "Courage" is the moral diagnosis. Cassin suggests that the omission of a human rights charter in 1945 wasn't merely logistical; it was political risk management. Newly victorious powers were eager to build a security architecture, less eager to invite scrutiny of their own empires, segregation, censorship, and treatment of minorities. A rights charter would have turned lofty wartime rhetoric into standards that could be cited against them.
As a judge and architect of what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Cassin is also staking a claim about legitimacy: the UN cannot be just a club of states managing borders and wars; it needs a moral constitution. His intent is to reframe human rights not as idealistic add-on, but as unfinished business - delayed not by complexity, but by reluctance.
The real blade is in the line about San Francisco lacking "the time or the courage". "Time" is the polite excuse - conferences always run long, agendas always overflow. "Courage" is the moral diagnosis. Cassin suggests that the omission of a human rights charter in 1945 wasn't merely logistical; it was political risk management. Newly victorious powers were eager to build a security architecture, less eager to invite scrutiny of their own empires, segregation, censorship, and treatment of minorities. A rights charter would have turned lofty wartime rhetoric into standards that could be cited against them.
As a judge and architect of what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Cassin is also staking a claim about legitimacy: the UN cannot be just a club of states managing borders and wars; it needs a moral constitution. His intent is to reframe human rights not as idealistic add-on, but as unfinished business - delayed not by complexity, but by reluctance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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