The Appeal of Dignity: John Peters Humphrey and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Paul Martens is an associate professor of ethics at Baylor University. This post is excerpted from an article in the December 2023 special issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs commemorating the 75th anniversary of the UDHR.

In early 1947, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights embraced a clear mandate to draft an international “bill of rights” that would eventually become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Seventy-five years later, this document has become rather familiar and ordinary; at the time, it was daringly revolutionary, and its adoption was vehemently contested. Few saw the revolutionary nature of the UDHR as clearly as John Peters Humphrey, the first director of the Division of Human Rights at the United Nations; even fewer had the opportunity to shape its terms and categories. The purpose of the following commentary is, therefore, to recount the unlikely contribution of Humphrey to the UDHR and, especially, its foundational affirmation of human dignity.

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The Sacralization of AI and the AI-zation of the Sacred

The presence of AI, in the form of smart technologies and machines, is rapidly becoming an intrinsic part of our lives. It teaches, guides, advises, and entertains us, and at times seems to know better than we do which media best fit our own views or what we want for dinner. It also threatens to further polarize human societies by locking individuals and groups into their own political and ideological bubbles without the opportunity, or even the intention, to interact civilly with “opponents.”

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Professor Scharffs in Bukhara, Uzbekistan: Human Dignity—From the Punta del Este Declaration to the Bukhara Declaration

Brett G. Scharffs is Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies and Rex E. Lee Chair and Professor of Law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School.

Scharffs, along with ICLRS Associate Director Elizabeth Clark and BYU Law Professor Eric Jensen, participated in an international forum in Uzbekistan, held at the Academy of Public Administration, 16–20 May 2022. In Tashkent, they helped organize a certificate program on religion and the rule of law, co-organized by the University of World Economy and Diplomacy. In Bukhara, Professors Scharffs and Clark participated in a conference on the Dialogue of Declarations that (1) sought to build on momentum from other declarations relating to religious tolerance and freedom and (2) culminated in the promulgation of the Bukhara Declaration. This blog post is adapted from Scharffs’s discussion of the Punta del Este Declaration on Human Dignity for Everyone Everywhere, an initiative he helped lead.

Introduction

I have been invited to speak about the Punta del Este Declaration on Human Dignity for Everyone Everywhere and the role of human dignity in creating communities of toleration and respect, which is one of the primary calls to action in the Bukhara Declaration we are here to adopt and celebrate today. I begin with the first sentence of Article One of the Punta del Este Declaration because it resonates with the themes of this conference and with recent efforts to emphasize human dignity in Uzbekistan.

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