Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The settlement of the Second World War yielded two important changes in the normative order of international relations. These are the prohibition of war except in self-defence, expressed in the UN Charter (1946), and the limitation of sovereignty by a common set of protections of individuals, expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1948). Looked at in historical perspective, these innovations are two dimensions of a single movement – a collective effort at the global level to impose discipline on the external and internal behaviour of states. Neither innovation lacks ambition, but of the two, the more far-reaching is certainly the doctrine of human rights. It aims to bring the domestic conduct of governments under agreed international norms – to define and establish ‘a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations’ (UDHR, Preamble) to which the organized international community can hold individual governments accountable. Neither the idea of a common standard nor that of international action to enforce it were really new. These ideas have long histories dating at least to the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which incorporated both in its provisions protecting religious minorities in the German principalities. What is new is the idea of an international practice devoted to the protection and advancement of human rights – a standing capacity to ... log in or subscribe to read full text