Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Commission established a special Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, to write the articles of the Declaration. The Committee met in two sessions over the course of two years.
Morris C. Shumiatcher
Shumiatcher authored the 1947 Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, which was the model for the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Canadian Bill of Rights (1960). The bill – the first of its kind in the British Commonwealth – codified the rights of due process, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom of the press, and included protections against discrimination. Shumiatcher included a protection against gender discrimination, but it did not appear in the final draft. In preparation for writing the bill, Shumiatcher referred to "social science and legal research by Canadian and American Jews of various ideological leanings". However, the bill lacked an enforcement mechanism, making it "more a symbol than an instrument for defending human rights".