Human Rights
The second meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which opened at Geneva on Monday, will, it seems, find the same difficulty in achieving agreement as other United Nations gatherings. Indeed, diverse points of view appeared almost as soon as the Commission was established by the Economic and Social Council in 1946. The Commission, holding its first session at Lake Success early this year, appointed a drafting committee to prepare a Bill of Rights for submission to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. In the first few weeks of this drafting committee's meetings differences appeared between the Soviet repre- sentative and the majority, with the result that, instead of being able to submit an agreed draft to the Commission at its present meeting, the committee has been forced to submit a number of working papers —among them a draft Bill drawn up by the United Kingdom-- showing only partial agreement. Also, now that the second session has begun at Geneva, a general cleavage of opinion has become appatent. Great Britain is in favour of a convention, with.an obliga- tion on Governments to keep some international body informed of the measures taken to implement it. The Russian delegate is in favour of something much vaguer—a general declaration of the rights of man without a discussion of specific subjects such as freedom of association or trade union rights—a general declaration which, as the Belgian representative pointed out, has already been made as long ago as the eighteenth century. It is obvious that East and West will not at the moment find it easy to discuss a Bill of Rights ; and even if a Bill is ever agreed on there will be questions of enforce- ment to be settled. The wisest method will probably be not to insist on unanimity but for those States who are willing to honour a con- vention to form a nucleus and to hope that, as post-war tension slackens, other States will join them.
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