Abstract: Recent histories of human rights have emphasized the importance of the 1970s as the “breakthrough” moment for human rights. This article assesses this claim and proposes a more variegated and paradoxical account. It revisits the UDHR on its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1973, and surveys the fractured set of meanings that “human rights” had acquired by that time within the United Nations, national contexts and in civil society. The article points however to the shared appreciation of the power of human rights language and the Continue reading → Continue reading →

In the mid-1970s, the United Nations hosted a dramatic attempt to totally transform the world economy, which appeared to be on the cusp of victory at the Sixth Special Session of the General Assembly in April and May 1974. In a moment that represented the highest tide of southern self-confidence, the Group of 77 (G-77), unleavened by the language of compromise, demanded global redistribution as a matter of right. The manifestos of this revolt of sovereigns were the Declaration on the Establishment of a New Continue reading → Continue reading →

Burke argues for the decisive influence of the Third World on the development of economic and social rights in the postwar human rights program. For states confronting extreme poverty and underdevelopment, the urgency of securing these rights was a constant refrain. Yet the challenge of delivering them in the context of immense resource constraints soon led to significant departures from the accepted formulation of the 1948 Universal Declaration, which held all rights in an organic unity. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Third World campaign would compromise their very character as “rights” wielded by the individual, transforming them instead into interstate claims far removed from the citizen.