Anniversary Celebration:

• W. W. Finlator
• Dan W. Figgins

The United States of America Bill of Rights
And
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Remarks by Dan W. Figgins
North Carolina State Capitol
December 15, 2003

Slater Newman and Joyce Scapicchio, Co-Chairs of the North Carolina Human Rights Coalition,
I.T. Littleton, Chair of the Wake Country United Nations Association and other UNA officers,
Charlotte Carrere and Adaline Pasour from the Caswell-Nash Chapter of the Daughters of the Amercan Revolution,
Seth Jaffe, American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, and
W.W. Finlater, who is a member of most of these organizations,

Rev. Finlater, it delights me to speak at this same gathering that you have addressed for at least the past five years.

I'm pleased to say a few words today on behalf of the United Nations Association of Wake County about the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the occasion of the December 15^th 212^th anniversary of the 1791 ratification and coming into effect of the United States Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

There are, as this audience well knows, many similarities. This is no coincidence. The United States political and judicial commitment to protecting the rights of individuals after the U.S. War of Independence was a model for the United Nations dedication to protecting the rights of individuals after the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II.

There are many salient similarities. There are also some interesting differences. I will note just one similarity and one difference. Here is a similarity. Both sets of rights were introduced in stages.

In the United States case, the years are 1788, 1791, 1865, 1870, and 1920. Ms. Carrere just a few moments ago gave us many fascinating details about the first two steps of 1789 and 1791 and especially the role of North Carolina delegates.

In 1788 the United States Constitution took effect when ratified in June by the legally-required nine former colonies and in July by the politically-required former colonies of Virginia and New York. Three and a half years later, on December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights took effect.

The 1788 Constitution itself contains a mini-bill of rights in Article I. Section 9 of Article 1 insists on protections of individuals against potential abuses by the U.S. Congress and Section 10 against possible abuses by State Governments. Both Section 9 and Section 10 prohibit Bills of Attainder (that is, passing legislation which declares an individual guilty of having committed a crime), and both sections prohibit ex post facto laws (that is, finding a person guilty of a crime for an act which was not yet a crime at the time that it was committed).

And Section 9 of Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution also insists on not suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus (that is, the right to be brought before a judge and told exactly for which crime one has been arrested and detained).

So, this was stage 1, 1788, the Constitution itself.

• 3 years later, stage 2, 1791, the first ten amendments to the Constitution
• 69 years later, stage 3, 1860, the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, slavery is prohibited
• 10 years later, stage 4(a), 1870, the 15^th Amendment, the right to vote shall not be denied because of race, color, nor previously having been a slave
• 50 years later, stage 4(b), the 20^th Amendment, being female is not grounds for being denied the right to vote

The United Nations also introduced individual rights in four major stages.

Stage 1 was a legally binding treaty, the United Nations Charter, which entered into force on October 24, 1945, when it was ratified by the required 26 nations out of the 51 signatories including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The third stated purpose of the United Nations, contained in the Charter, Article I, paragraph 3, is
To promote respect for human rights … for all without Distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion

And the Preamble to the UN Charter states,
To reaffirm the equal rights of men and women

• 3 years later, stage 2 of United Nations human rights is not legally binding. Three years later, on December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by a vote of 41 in favor, zero against, with 10 abstentions. Since abstentions are not counted in calculating majorities, the vote was “unanimous.”
• 18 years later, 1966, stage 3, the UN General Assembly adopted the legally-binding "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights"
• 11 years later, 1977, stage 4(a), the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" came into force for the nations which had ratified it
• 15 years later, 1992, stage 4(b), the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" came into force for the United States when it was ratified by the U.S. Senate

So, guaranteed rights coming into legal effect in stages is common to both the now-50 United States of America and the now-191 nations of the United Nations. At the beginning of their lives, neither organization was willing to wait the three years which it took to complete the negotiations on the detailed contents of their foundational document enumerating the most basic rights. But neither were either the U.S. or the UN willing to wait for more than three years.

If entry into effect of basic rights in stages is a commonality of the U.S. and the UN, what is the most significant difference?

It is this. There is one huge difference between the 1780s and 160 years later. By the 1940s most individuals were enmeshed in economic institutions of gargantuan, behemoth, leviathan, corporations. By the 1940s almost all of our life's necessities had to be purchased with wages determined in far-flung, impersonal markets. In the 1780s the world had not yet seen a single university with a Department of Economics. The discipline of economics was not separated from the discipline of politics until Adam Smith broke new ground in describing this new, barely emerging reality. It was only in 1776 that Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations.

The nations of the United Nations responded to this changed reality, the erosion of the power of individuals and families to provide for themselves in largely rural and even frontier settings.

Therefore, Articles 1 through 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights largely repeat the U.S. Constitutional Amendments, but Articles 22 through 28 add, as new basic elemental human rights, such economic rights as the right to rest and leisure, the right to social security, and the right to join labor unions and bargain collectively.

Twenty-eight years after 1948, in 1976, a treaty embodying these economic, social, and cultural rights came into legal force. However, unlike its companion treaty on civil and political rights, the United States has not ratified this treaty.

Having outlined these similarities and differences between the United States endeavors to protect human rights in the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries and the United Nations endeavors, often with United States leadership, in the 20^th century, I now count on W.W. Finlater to give us a vision of what endeavors we must undertake in the future to preserve and expand human rights for ourselves and for all.

In conclusion, I recently received letters from fifth graders at Emma Conn Global Communications Magnet Elementary School thanking me for helping them to study the U. S. and the UN traditions of human rights. Fifth graders Nick Cain and Wison Hester wrote:

“Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, `… slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.' … What if you were a hard working slave? Who had no rest, no life. Their family at an auction also separates them. Wouldn't that be horrible? Just because of your race doesn't mean you are different. … Did you know this was my favorite article?
Why you ask, Because there is not one who should be slaved.”