Cui Zhiyuan
Cui also published an paper on Zhang Pengchun’s role in drafting United Nations’ the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Zhang Pengchun (1892-1957) studied with John Dewey and got his Ph.D. from Columbia University and was the first Provost of Tsinghua University in 1923. He was the only Vice Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (with Eleanor Roosevelt as the Chairman) in drafting the Universal Declaration, especially in inserting the Chinese concept “Ren” (, two men). Zhang initially translated “Ren” as two men mindedness, because “two men mindedness” is considered as too awkward, thus “conscience” was used in the final text of the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Cui's article discusses the important implications of this discovery in the UN archive about Zhang's key role for the current Chinese political and cultural debates—transcending the dichotomy of “Western Centralism” and “Cultural Particularism”— and has been translated into French and published (, Multitudes 2013/3)
Human rights in Asia
Southeast Asia has historically not adopted the same definition of human rights that could be found in Western European or North American countries. The first sign of human rights recognition came in the form of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) put forward by the United Nations. This declaration, however, was not binding and therefore not enforced. The UDHR had only 51 states worldwide ratify its existence (those who were members of the United Nations); many of the Southeast Asian countries had not yet acquired membership. This primarily Western-based notion of human rights had by no means permeated Southeast Asia; instead, the ideological opposite of human rights was true: there were no expectations of equal treatment based upon socioeconomic, cultural, religious, etc. status.