John Peters Humphreys
"Creating a Magna Carta of Mankind"

John Peters Humphrey, born in Hampton, New Brunswick, and educated at Mount Allison and McGill Universities, played a primary role in the preparation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in its adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. Eleanor Roosevelt referred to this Declaration as "The Magna Carta of Mankind"
 

The adoption of the Declaration was the culmination of a long and difficult process. from April 25 to June 26, 1945, an international conference of 50 nations met in San Francisco to develop the much-needed global organization that was formally established as the United Nations on October 24 of the same year, many delegates lobbied for the inclusion of human rights provisions in its Charter.

Although seven explicit references were made to such rights in the Charter, it became clear that the wide variety of cultural, legal and philosophical perspectives from which conference participants viewed such matters would prevent the inclusion of a comprehensive human rights statement in the Charter. Thus it was decided that a universal declaration on such rights, which would gain allegiance as well as respect, should be written and, when adequate agreement was reached at the committee stage, should then be presented to the UN General Assembly. When John Humphrey was appointed Director of the Human Rights Division of the Secretariat of the United Nations in 1946. he was well prepared to undertake the formidable task of preparing the draft for an international bill of rights. The request was made by the Executive of the Human Rights Commission consisting of Eleanor Roosevelt (Chairman), P.C. Chang(Vice-Chairman) and Charles Malik (Rapporteur).

He had studied law at both McGill University and the University of Paris and had practised law in Montreal from 1930 until 1936 when he was appointed Lecturer in Roman Law at McGill. Sub-sequently he studied international law at the University of Paris as a Carnegie Foundation Fellow and then, beginning in 1937, served as Secretary of McGill’s Faculty of Law. In 1946 he became Professor of Roman Law and was asked to become Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill. That same year, he went from McGill to the United Nations.

During his two decades of work as Director of the UN Division of Human Rights, Humphrey drew on the theoretical, historical, and practical understanding of the law that he had gained in his earlier career. After the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Humphrey and his UN colleagues prepared two international covenants on human rights to give binding legal effect to the rights proclaimed in the declaration. These — the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — were adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly on December 16, 1966.

Humphrey completed his full-time work as Director of Human Rights in 1966, but the efforts in which he had been engaged bore fruit later. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights came into force on January 3, 1976; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol on March 23, 1976.

These steps taken by the United Nations were major events in human history. They resulted in the first ever comprehensive international agreement concerning such basic rights as freedom of movement; equality before the law; freedom of association, conscience, expression, opinion, peaceful assembly, political participation, and religion. Approval of these agreements by the United Nations led to revolutionary changes in the theory and practice of international law.

Although the principles set out in the Universal Declaration are often violated by member states of the UN, its adoption has resulted in its provisions becoming fundamental features of customary law of nations in the modern world.

Director and Chairman, respectively, of the Human Rights Division, the United Nations, John Peters Humphrey and Eleanor Roosevelt meet in New York in 1951 to discuss "The Magna Carta of Mankind"

Thus, through the efforts of John Humphrey and his Human Rights colleagues and the action taken by the United Nations concerning human rights, an unprecedented step was taken. It was finally agreed that the rights and duties of States towards their own citizens logically require the acknowledgment of certain equally important human obligations of States to one another and to citizens of all other States as well as their own.

When he completed his full-time work with the United Nations, Dr. Humphrey returned to McGill University to serve as Professor of Law and Political Science from 1966 until 1971. Since then he has engaged in a wide variety of ongoing human rights issues and related activities, including compensation from Japan for the Canadian Hong Kong veterans and Korean “comfort” women. He has been honoured by many organizations and has served on important international boards and committees. He has written many articles on international, political and legal subjects and has lectured at leading universities while serving around the world as a special advisor to private and public agencies concerned with human rights.

While it is difficult to measure the full worldwide impact of the human rights code, Canadians should be proud of this native son who played a leading role in its creation and implementation.