Human Rights, the Memory of War and the Making of a ‘European’ Identity, 1945–75

Abstract

One of the most novel and striking features of the immediate post-war world was the emphasis placed on the concept of universal human rights as the basis for a new and more secure world order. The highest embodiment of this principle was the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by 48 states² on 10 December 1948. However, the UDHR represented a last gasp of international agreement and its impact was swiftly stifled by the onset of the Cold War. Harold Laski, the British socialist and political scientist, had warned quite properly in 1947 that the Declaration may become another Kellogg-Briand Pact, ‘introduced with an enthusiasm only surpassed by the contempt with which it was ignored by its signatories’.³ Indeed, a combination of Realpolitik and the apparently irreconcilable conceptions of human rights across the Cold War divide ensured that no further progress could be made internationally towards creating a regime to safeguard such rights until the mid-1960s. Instead, the most immediate practical steps in this regard were taken at the ‘European’ level through the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) signed in November 1950, and subsequently through its associated commission and court. Although somewhat neglected at the time and slow to develop in efficacy, the Convention has become a landmark in the emergence of Europe as a realm of legally enforceable human rights.⁴

Whatever the theory, [Western conceptions of human rights in practice] often applied only to Europeans, and sometimes to only some among the Europeans. (Humayun Kabir, 1947)¹