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.
Drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Members of the Commission who contributed significantly to the creation of the Declaration included Canadian John Peters Humphrey of the United Nations Secretariat, Eleanor Roosevelt of the United States (who chaired the Drafting Committee), René Cassin of France, Charles Malik of Lebanon, P. C. Chang of Republic of China (Taiwan), and Hansa Mehta of India among others. While not a member of the drafting committee, the French philosopher Jacques Maritain was influential in the lead up to the drafting of the Universal Declaration, advocacy for it within UNESCO in 1947-8, and in its subsequent advancement.