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)
Eleanor Roosevelt
In 1998, President Bill Clinton established the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights to honor outstanding American promoters of rights in the United States. The award was first awarded on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, honoring Eleanor Roosevelt's role as the "driving force" in the development of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The award was presented from 1998 to the end of the Clinton Administration in 2001. In 2010, then-Secretary of State of the United States Hillary Clinton revived the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and presented the award on behalf of the then-President of the United States Barack Obama.