Malik, Charles Habib
Charles Malik of Lebanon played a vital role in shaping the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, Malik's fellow delegates credited him as the driving force behind the documents arrangement. He was commended by U.S. State Department aids to Eleanor Roosevelt for being jointly responsible, along with Mrs. Roosevelt, for the documents adoption. A strong advocate of the "natural law" approach to defining human rights, Malik believed the UDHR to be more than a document of morally persuasive worth. Like many other representatives on the Commission he understood that the Declaration would be immediately followed by a specific, legally binding treaty. Still, he was hesitant to regard the Declaration as simply a proclamation of human rights. He believed it to be far more significant than that. In Paris, upon adoption of the Declaration, Malik said that, Whoever values man and his individual freedom above everything else cannot fail to find in the present Declaration a potent ideological weapon. If wielded in complete goodwill, sincerity, and truth, this weapon can prove most significant in the history of the spirit. Maliks role in safeguarding international human rights was not confined to his position as Rapporteur within the Commission. He was also President of the Economic and Social Council and Chairman of the Third Committee in 1948 while the UDHR was being deliberated. Upon Eleanor Roosevelts retirement as Chair of the Commission on Human Rights in 1951, Charles Malik was chosen as her successor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ National Coordinating Committee for UDHR50. Copyright © Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. All rights reserved. From www.udhr.org |