P. C. Chang
On the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafting committee, he served both as an effective Asian delegate and also as a mediator when the negotiations reached a stalemate. He served as Vice-Chairman of the original UN Commission on Human Rights and Republic of China delegate to committee and played a pivotal role in its drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948. He and fellow delegate Charles Malik, the Lebanese philosopher-diplomat, shared ideals of universal human rights, but debated what they were and how they could be described in an international document. By most accounts, Chang and Malik were the philosophical leaders of the deliberations. Chang argued that the modern world should pay heed to Chinese philosophers such as Mencius not because they were Chinese, but because their ideas had universal validity.
Virginia Gildersleeve
In 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt named Gildersleeve – the only woman named – to the U.S. delegation to write the United Nations Charter. They were instructed to address two issues: 1) the need to prevent future wars through the creation of a Security Council; and 2) the need to enhance human welfare, which they accomplished through the establishment of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Gildersleeve sought and received drafting responsibility for the work of this second Council—the one, as she put it, in charge of "doing things rather than preventing things from being done." She was able to insert into the Charter the following goals for people around the world: "higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development." She also persuaded the delegates to adopt the following aim for the United Nations: "universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." She insisted that the Charter require the appointment of the Commission on Human Rights, which under the direction of Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights three years later.