113 / 262
THE ENFORCEMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
S.A.D.S.I INAUGURAL
PART I
The Inaugural Meeting of the 89th Session of the
Solicitors Apprentices Debating Society was held in the
Library, Solicitors' Buildings, Dublin, on 23rd March
1973 at 8 p.m.
Mr. T. V. O'Connor, President, took the chair, and
the Records Secretary, Mr. Denis Barron, B.C.L., read
a humorous account of the 88th Inaugural Meeting.
Having referred to
"De Bello Mallico"
which meant
that the bell tolled for Des O'Malley, who came to the
meeting with his foot soldiers known as
"Brachii Speci-
alii",
and
"Gardii
O'Malii"
—friends
of the great
general. The women opposing him shouted
"Brutalitas
Gardiorum"
and, having been driven back shouted
"Desmondus delendus est".
Then O'Mallius erroneously
said:
"Fiat Justitia ruat caelum"
which translated
means "I'll be Minister for Justice even if the heavens
fall". The customary awards for Oratory, Legal Debate,
Impromptu and Irish Debate were then distributed.
The Auditor,
Mr. Bryan C. Sheridan,
then read his
Inaugural Address on "The Enforcement of Human
Rights", as follows.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen.
1973 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the adop-
tion by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights in 1948, the twentieth anniversary of
the entry into force of the European Convention on
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in 1953, and
the fifteenth anniversary of the achievement by the
European Court of Human Rights of its competence
to hear cases under the Convention.
These afford a timely excuse for a review of Human
Rights Law and Practice.
While the concepts are much older, it was really in
the "Enlightenment" that, as d'Entreves puts it, Natural
Law became more a "theory of rights than a theory of
law". From this period date the Virginian Declaration
of Rights of Man, the American Declaration of Inde-
pendence and Declaration des Droits de l'Homme et du
Citoyen which together form the precedent for the
inclusion in nation's constitutions of recitals of the
freedoms their citizens should enjoy.
Human Rights after the Second World War
It was in the period after the Second World War that
Human Rights and especially the idea of universal en-
forcement of Human Rights came into its own. Conse-
quently it is on this period I intend to concentrate.
It was the reaction to the denials of, and outrages
against, Human Rights in the Second War that brought
about the specific inclusion of promotion and encour-
agement of respect for Human Rights in the Charter
of the United Nations Organisation. That war for many
proved the necessity of respect for Human Rights as a
prerequisite for world peace.
At the height of the war, in the Atlantic Charter of
14th August 1941, which was later endorsed by forty-
seven nations, Roosevelt and Churchill expressed the
hope that peace when achieved would "afford assur-
ances that all men in all lands may live out their lives
in freedom from fear and want".
The Declaration of the United Nations signed on
1st January 1942 by twenty-six countries at war and
later endorsed by twenty-one others, declared that vic-
tory was essential to "preserve human rights and
justice in their own lands as well as in others".
The Charter of the tjnited Nations
The promotion of respect for Human Rights formed
part of the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks proposals which
became the basis upon which the San Francisco Confer-
ence of 1945 drew up, and opened for signature, the
Charter of the United Nations Organisation.
In the Preamble to the Charter the peoples of the
United Nations "express their determination to reaffirm
faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men
and women and of nations large and small".
The encouragement of respect for human rights and
for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as
to race, sex, language or religion is declared by Article 1
of the Charter to be one of the purposes of the United
Nations.
The initiation of studies and the making of recom-
mendations to assist in the realisation of human rights,
is given to the General Assembly by Article 13 and to
the Economic and Social Council by Article 62.
All members pledge themselves to take joint and
separate action in co-operation with the U.N. for the
achievement of universal respect for, and observance of,
human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Economic and Social Council was to set up a
Commission for the Promotion of Human Rights and
this was done in 1946.
At the San Francisco Conference, and indeed even
before, the idea of drafting an International Bill of
Rights was put forward. The first object of the Com-
mission on Human Rights was to be the preparation
of such a Bill. When work on this was started it was
decided that the Bill of Rights would be in two parts,
a Declaration and later a Covenant, containing measu-
res of implementation.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Thus in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights was presented to the General Assembly by the
Chairman of the Commission, Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt,
and on December 10th of that year was adopted by
resolution of the Assembly. Of fifty-eight States then
members of "the United Nations, forty-eight voted in
favour, none voted against, eight abstained, and two
were absent.
Inasmuch as it is merely declaratory and sets stan-
dards to which governments should conform the Declar-
ation resembles the Declaration des Droits de l'Homme
but it is original in the scope of rights covered. For as
well as listing what might be called the traditional
rights such as life, liberty, and person, the Universal
112