P. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

by Hans Ingvar Roth

Overview

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the world's best-known and most translated documents. When it was presented to the United Nations General Assembly in December in 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the writing group, called it a new "Magna Carta for all mankind." The passage of time has shown Roosevelt to have been largely correct in her prediction as to the declaration's importance. No other document in the world today can claim a comparable standing in the international community.

Roosevelt and French legal expert René Cassin have often been represented as the principal authors of the declaration. But in fact, it resulted from a collaborative effort involving a number of individuals in different capacities. One of the declaration's most important authors was the vice chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Peng Chun Chang (1892-1957), a Chinese diplomat and philosopher whose contribution has been the focus of growing attention in recent years. Indeed, it is Chang who deserves the credit for the universality and religious ecumenism that are now regarded as the declaration's defining features. Despite this, Chang's extraordinary contribution has been overlooked by historians.

Peng Chun Chang was a modern-day Renaissance man—teacher, scholar, university chancellor, playwright, diplomat, and politician. A true cosmopolitan, he was deeply involved in the cultural exchange between East and West, and the dramatic events of his life left a profound mark on his intellectual and political work. P. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the first biography of this extraordinary actor on the world stage, who belonged to the same generation as Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek. Drawing on previously unknown sources, it casts new light on Chang's multifaceted life and involvement with one of modern history's most important documents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781512825541
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	08/08/2023
Series:	Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Hans Ingvar Roth is Professor of Human Rights at Stockholm University. He has previously worked as Human Rights Officer for OSCE in Bosnia and Herzegovina and as Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Justice in Stockholm.

Read an Excerpt

Preface

A very special artwork adorns the platform walls of the subway station at Stockholm University. Look carefully and you will find in it all thirty articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Strikingly, all are reproduced in uniform capitals and without spaces between words or periods at the end of the sentences. They include the right to life, liberty, and security of person; the right not to be held in slavery or subjected to torture; the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; as well as the right to an adequate standard of living (Articles 3, 4, 5, 18, 25). The artwork also illustrates the central idea behind this important statement of rights. It is, above all, a matter of a whole, or an assembly, of human rights, none of which can be separated from each other. Each of its articles plays an important role in contributing to that unity which might be described as the declaration's overarching function: to promote respect for the inviolable dignity of every human being.

The artwork has its origins in an art project by the French artist Françoise Schein titled To Write the Human Rights, or, alternatively, TO INSCRIBE the Human Rights. There is an equivalent mural in the Paris Metro station of Concorde. Realized by the organization INSCRIRE, this global art project is just one of many instances that illustrate the fact that the UN Declaration is one of the most widely disseminated and best-known documents in the world today. (I will use the expressions the UN Declaration, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UDHR as equivalent in the following text.)

As a student, I used occasionally to stop and look at the articles, wondering about their meaning. Later on, I was fortunate enough to be able to work as a researcher and teacher with a specialist interest in human rights. Initially, I did not think about the individuals involved in drafting the declaration, with the exception of Eleanor Roosevelt, the distinguished chair of the Commission on Human Rights. My interest in this aspect has deepened over the years, however, with my attention becoming increasingly drawn toward the principal authors of this document. While the drafters of the founding documents of the United States are very well known persons all around the world, the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are not so famous (with the exception of Eleanor Roosevelt).

One person has emerged as particularly fascinating with respect to the core elements of the Universal Declaration: the Chinese philosopher, pedagogue, and diplomat Peng Chun Chang. When I began this writing project several years ago, I discovered to my surprise that very little had been written about Peng Chun Chang and his contribution to the UN Declaration. Despite the appearance in recent years of growing numbers of articles on Chang and his involvement as coauthor of the declaration, the scholarship on him remains relatively slight and includes no critical study or biography dedicated to Chang specifically. The present book is an attempt to fill that gap.

A number of people have provided me with inspiration, information, and valuable input during the writing process. I wish to offer special thanks to Stanley (Yuan Feng), son of Peng Chun Chang, without whose kind assistance this book would not have been possible.

I should also like to acknowledge the generosity of Habib Malik, Willard J. Peterson, Harald Runblom, Göran Möller, Sven Hartman, Göran Collste, Mary Ann Glendon, Torgny Wadensjö, Torbjörn Lodén, Ove Bring, Jenny White, Yi-Ting Chen, Magnus von Platen, Hans Ruin, and Gunnar and Hongbin Henriksson. My thanks go also to the participants at the research seminars at CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University, which I joined during a visit to China in March 2017, as well as to my audience at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights in February 2017. I am also grateful for helpful discussions on the philosophy of human rights with James Griffin, David Miller, and John Tasioulas through the years. For granting me research leave I am grateful to Paul Levin and Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies. I am also indebted to Lily R. Palladino, my editor at Penn Press who did an excellent job with my manuscript. Last but not least, a big thank you to Birgit och Sven Håkan Ohlssons Foundation for a translation subsidy, and to my translator, Stephen Donovan. To one and all, my deepest thanks!

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction

PART I. LIFE AND TIMES
Chapter 1. Peng Chun Chang's Early Life in China and Studies in the United States
Chapter 2. Raising a Family, Theatrical Activities, Universityand Diplomatic Careers
Chapter 3. New York and the United Nations
Chapter 4. Chang's Multifaceted and Intense Life

PART II. THE IDEAS BEHIND THE UN DECLARATION
Chapter 5. Peng Chun Chang and the UN Declaration on Human Rights
Chapter 6. Chang's Ideas About Ethics and Human Rights
Chapter 7. Chang, Malik, and Cassin
Chapter 8. Chang's Intercultural Ethics and the UN Declaration
Chapter 9. Chang's Triumphs, Defeats, and "Blind Spots"

Conclusion

Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"In this unprecedented work, Hans Ingvar Roth casts a spotlight on the life and times of Chinese philosopher Peng Chun Chang, who has remained in the shadows too long-in spite of his signal contributions to the making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Gathering much new evidence and insisting on Chang's relevance even today to a movement that seeks cross-cultural and global purchase, Roth has made a noteworthy contribution to the history and theory of human rights."

author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequ Samuel Moyn

"[A]n excellent book that made accessible an otherwise arcane subject to the general reader and specialist alike. Roth's book is a landmark study in its field and deserves a broad readership."

Connections

"This volume is an important addition to the literature on the history of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and also a fascinating biography of the complex, multitalented, cosmopolitan P. C. Chang (1892–1957)."

Choice

"A fine and deeply engaging book. P. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is quite the page turner, with a unique and novel angle into a much-researched topic, which is timely, both among practitioners and scholars, and Hans Ingvar Roth's approach fits well with the new generation of transnational historians of human rights."

Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen

"[A]n excellent book that made accessible an otherwise arcane subject to the general reader and specialist alike. Roth's book is a landmark study in its field and deserves a broad readership."—Connections

"In this unprecedented work, Hans Ingvar Roth casts a spotlight on the life and times of Chinese philosopher Peng Chun Chang, who has remained in the shadows too long—in spite of his signal contributions to the making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Gathering much new evidence and insisting on Chang's relevance even today to a movement that seeks cross-cultural and global purchase, Roth has made a noteworthy contribution to the history and theory of human rights."—Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World

"A fine and deeply engaging book. P. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is quite the page turner, with a unique and novel angle into a much-researched topic, which is timely, both among practitioners and scholars, and Hans Ingvar Roth's approach fits well with the new generation of transnational historians of human rights."—Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Sweden

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