Charles Malik

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 document’s arrangement. He was commended by U.S. State Department aids to Eleanor Roosevelt for being jointly responsible, along with Mrs. Roosevelt, for the document’s 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.

Malik’s 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 Roosevelt’s retirement as Chair of the Commission on Human Rights in 1951, Charles Malik was chosen as her successor.

Charles Malik on Human Rights:

International Bill of Human Rights (July 1, 1948) United Nations Bulletin.

What Are Human Rights? (August, 1948) The Rotarian.

Talk on Human Rights (November 4, 1949) U.S Chamber of Commerce.

National Coordinating Committee for UDHR50.
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Revised: July 08, 1998.