SUMMER 2016] UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS 185
legal character appeared at the very moment of its approval by the
General Assembly on December 10, 1948 when the delegate to the
United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, said, “It is not a treaty; it is not an
international agreement. It is not and does not purport to be a state-
ment of law or of legal obligation.”
77
On another occasion, at a meet-
supplying a standard of action and of moral obligation. It has been frequently re-
ferred to in official drafts and pronouncements, in national constitutions and leg-
islation, and occasionally—with differing results—in judicial decisions. These
consequences of the Declaration may be of significance so long as restraint is
exercised in describing it as legally binding instrument. However, in the years
since its adoption, the widespread acceptance of the authority of the Declaration
has led some to the opinion that while the Declaration as an instrument is not a
treaty, its provisions may have come to be the embodiment of new rules of cus-
tomary international law in the matter.”).
77
Eleanor Roosevelt, Chair, Drafting Committee of the Universal Declara-
tion of Human Rights, Statement to the United Nations’ General Assembly on the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Dec. 9, 1948), available at
https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/documents/displaydoc.cfm?_t=speeches&_do-
cid=spc057137 (“In giving our approval to the declaration today, it is of primary
importance that we keep clearly in mind the basic character of the document. It is
not a treaty; it is not an international agreement. It is not and does not purport to
be a statement of law or of legal obligation. It is a declaration of basic principles
of human rights and freedoms, to be stamped with the approval of the General
Assembly by formal vote of its members, and to serve as common standard of
achievement for all peoples of all nations.”); Lauterpacht, supra note 75, at 358;
U.N. SCOR, Comm. on Human Rights, 3d Sess., 48th mtg. at 5-6, U.N. Doc.
E/CN.4/SR.48 (June 4, 1948) (“The Declaration should not be in any sense a leg-
islative document. The General Assembly was not a legislative body . . . .Further,
it was clear that the Declaration, as envisaged, did not create legal remedies or
procedures to ensure respect for the rights and freedoms it proposed to the world;
that ideal would have to be achieved by further steps taken in accordance with
international and domestic law. The Declaration would have moral, not manda-
tory, force.”); Joseph M. Sweeney et al., Cases and Materials on the International
Legal System 630 (1988) (citing J.P. Humphrey, The UN Charter and the Univer-
sal Declaration of Human Rights, in The International Protection of Human
Rights 39, 51 (Evan Luard ed., 1967) (“Even more remarkable than the perfor-
mance of the United Nations in adopting the Declaration has been its impact and
the role which it almost immediately began to play both within and outside the
United Nations—an impact and a role which probably exceed the most sanguine
hopes of its authors. No other act of the United Nations has had anything like the
same impact on the thinking of our time, the best aspirations of which it incorpo-
rates and proclaims. It may well be that it will live in history chiefly as statement