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)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
When the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany became fully apparent after World War II, the consensus within the world community was that the United Nations Charter did not sufficiently define the rights to which it referred. A universal declaration that specified the rights of individuals was necessary to give effect to the Charter's provisions on human rights.