(East-West Question) Short Comment: Who wrote "conscience" into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

　　China News Agency, Beijing, April 22, Question: Who wrote "conscience" into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

　　China News Agency reporter An Yingzhao

　　On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which began with: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience, and shall The spirit of brotherhood should treat each other.” The person who advocated the inclusion of “conscience” in the Declaration is Zhang Pengchun, the representative of China on the 130th anniversary of his birth today.

Zhang Pengchun

　　On April 22, 1892, Zhang Pengchun was born in Tianjin. His elder brother was the famous educator Zhang Boling.

Zhang Pengchun's life is quite legendary. In his early years, he served in the United States as a student of Geng, and later helped his elder brother to organize Nankai University, cultivated the drama artist Cao Yu, and proposed the creation of the "World Health Organization"... Among them, the most popular one is the Participated in the drafting of the Declaration as Vice-Chairman of the UN Commission on Human Rights and the representative of China.

Zhang Pengchun, Vice-Chairman of the UN Commission on Human Rights (picture from the UN website)

　　Mary Ann Granton, a Harvard law professor and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, wrote in Brave New World: The Birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Zhang Pengchun was not only a key participant in the drafting of the Declaration, but also It played an important role in the teamwork that led to the acceptance of this document by the UN General Assembly.

As her research shows, Zhang Pengchun incorporated traditional Confucian ideas such as benevolence, loyalty and tolerance, and tolerance into the "Declaration", making this the first international bill of rights in human history a classic that condenses the wisdom of Eastern and Western civilizations.

　　When discussing the first article of the draft Declaration, the representatives of most Christian countries advocated that "God's creator status" and "human rights are endowed by God".

Zhang Pengchun repeatedly reminded that the "Declaration" should apply to all parts of the world and reflect the diversity of human rights culture. The Chinese people account for the largest proportion of the world's population, and their human rights concepts and traditions are different from those of Christian countries.

If it only embodies the Western human rights culture and imposes Western human rights concepts on non-Western countries, this in itself is not about human rights.

　　Zhang Pengchun also emphasized that it is not enough to just write "rationality", but also the "benevolence" in Chinese traditional culture.

He explained that the literal meaning of "benevolence" is translated into English as "two-man mindedness", which can also be understood as "sympathy" or "similar consciousness" in the English context. (consciousness of one's fellow men).

After repeated discussions, the representatives of all countries agreed to juxtapose the English words conscience (conscience) and reason (reason), which are closest to "benevolence", and this is the famous first clause of the "Declaration".

　　The process of repeated debates and mutual understanding between Zhang Pengchun and representatives of various countries is a vivid interpretation of Confucius' thought of "harmony but difference".

As John Humphrey, the first director of the United Nations Human Rights Division, said of Zhang Pengchun: "He is a master of the art of coordination, with a set of classic Confucian sayings, and he can often provide rules to enable the Human Rights Commission to get out of the deadlock."

　　In fact, it is Zhang Pengchun's excellent traditional Chinese culture that has been passed down for thousands of years behind the "Declaration" that has written universal human rights concepts such as "conscience"; it is not the word conscience that allows Westerners to understand the idea of ​​human rights in the East, but 16 to 16 In the 19th century, there were three hundred years of cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and Europe.

The UN Human Rights Council "Cloud Meeting" was held in Nanjing.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo

　　Some Western scholars, such as Jacques Maridan, believe that the philosophical or rational basis of human rights is natural law, and if human rights are not rooted in natural law, there will be no vitality.

It is true that the concept of "human rights" was first put forward by modern Western Enlightenment thinkers, but the idea of ​​human rights has existed in China since ancient times. Confucianism talks about "benevolence", Mohism talks about "universal love", and Taoism talks about "human nature".

　　Although different civilizations have different understandings of human rights, respecting and protecting human rights is the common pursuit of mankind.

In the 17th century, the French scholar Lamette Levalier read about Confucianism in Matteo Ricci's "Notes on China", compared Confucius to Socrates, and believed that "do not do to others what you do not want to do to yourself". Proverbs are the quintessence of Chinese morality.

In the 18th century, Voltaire, who called himself the "Master of the Confucian Temple", even more bluntly said that this is an "unswerving law", comparable to Newton's law of gravity, and should be "engraved in everyone's heart".

Contemporary Enlightenment thinkers such as Diderot and Montesquieu also often quoted Confucius' famous words and praised it as "moral philosophy".

　　At the end of the 18th century, after the outbreak of the Great Revolution, the French National Convention passed the first official human rights declaration in human history, the Declaration of Human Rights and Citizenship.

　　John Locke emphasized in "On the Government" that "since all people are equal and independent, no one shall infringe upon the life, health, liberty or property of others". Harm” has the same meaning.

John Mill said in "On Freedom" that "as long as an individual's actions do not involve the interests of anyone other than himself, the individual does not have to be accountable to the society", which is also in line with "the change of the main road and the positive life of each individual" in "Zhouyi Qian Gua". Same way.

　　Human rights are historical, concrete, and more realistic.

Commemorating Zhang Pengchun not only expresses his respect for representing China and contributing to the world, but also, as Granton said, "let our world benefit from the wisdom of that great generation."

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