Champion of human rights

Charles Malik of Lebanon was destined for an acad-emic life, focusing on the philosophical contributions of such luminaries as Alfred North Whitehead and Martin Heidegger. Remarkably, he not only achieved a well-deserved standing in his discipline but also earned a superlative reputation as a champion of human rights and a defender of liberty as the United Nations came into existence in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Few Arabs, and fewer Lebanese, galvanised international public opinion the way Malik did. For over two decades in the middle of the 20th century, the noted Lebanese played a vital role in shaping and drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, served as a rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights and painstakingly earned his fellow delegates' respect by co-producing the final draft that was adopted on Dec-ember 10, 1948.

Although Eleanor Roosevelt is often credited with being responsible for the document's creation and adoption, it was in fact the Lebanese who became the driving force behind its final language and near-universal acceptance.

From Lebanon to the US

A renowned philosopher, Malik devoted his life to human rights at a time when the topic played peripheral roles in international affairs. For the young academic, the centrality of freedom and the quest to ensure that all of mankind reached that pedestal were life-long missions. Eager to expand his knowledge, Malik enrolled at Harvard University, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy.

Luckily, president Bisharah Al Khoury tapped this immense talent, appointed him Lebanese ambassador to the United States and the UN and asked him to represent Lebanon at the 1945 San Francisco conference that established the UN. As a founding member of the world body, Lebanon was present at the creation, eager to play a greater role that the country's minuscule size warranted.

In Malik's own words, nothing concerned the Lebanese more "than the problem of human rights and fundamental freedoms". Speaking at one of the UN sessions debating the proposed covenant, the ambassador offered the following: "The history of my country for centuries is precisely that of a small country struggling against all odds for the maintenance and strengthening of real freedom of thought and conscience. Innumerable persecuted minorities have found, throughout the ages, a most understanding haven in my country, so that the very basis of our existence is complete respect of differences of opinion and belief.

"Nothing therefore would please us more, nothing indeed would answer more truly to our fundamental character than the responsible creation and effective implementation of a fundamental Bill of human rights, founded on the basis of human conscience at its best and highest."

Beyond its eloquence, these words concentrated on the need to encourage freedoms of thought, conscience, expression and being. In other words, while many representatives emphasised the freedoms and rights to work, the Lebanese focused on the fundamental freedom of thought. This was neither an easy argument to make, nor sufficient to persuade or even impress, international delegations mobilised by the post-Second World War Cold War that polarised most of the community of nations at the time.

Offering a masterful eschatological contention, he posited that the ultimate destiny of mankind — surely shaped by the ambassador's strong religious beliefs concerning the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, or the Last Judgment — necessitated the notion that "it was not enough to be" but that one "must also be free to become what [one's] conscience requires him to become".

Noteworthy contributions

Few delegates anticipated such significant contributions representing "the point of view of Lebanon". Even fewer predicted that Malik would insist on the notion of freedom of conscience to be internationally recognised and adhered to by all governments. Remarkably, if this specific aspect was included in the final Bill of human rights, it was due to his diligence and stewardship.

Elected rapporteur for the Commission on Human Rights in 1947 and 1948, the Lebanese philosopher/diplomat became president of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which played key assistance roles to emerging nation-states. An outspoken participant in General Assembly debates, the Lebanese championed the underprivileged and was not seduced by the Soviet Union's Third World rhetoric.

Malik never failed to recall that the ECOSOC report was adopted 12-0, with four abstentions (USSR, Belarussian SSR, Ukrainian SSR and Yugoslavia), which baffled him.

In addition to his participation in the 1945 UN Charter Conference, Malik was proud of his 1948 assistance to Eleanor Roosevelt — the wife of the American president who headed the American delegate to the General Assembly and who chaired the Human Rights Commission meeting in Paris — to co-draft the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His contributions eventually boosted his candidacy to succeed her in 1951 as the Human Rights Commission's Chair.

For Malik, the drafting of this declaration represented one of mankind's greatest achievements, as it sought to expand and secure the rights of man. Whether the Lebanese drew strength from the Babylonians, who first tackled this thorny subject nearly 4,000 years ago, was difficult to determine. In the event, the philosopher was well placed to rely on the Code of Hammurabi, which established freedom within the law, along with contributions made by Greeks and Romans, who added value through their Justinian Code.

More recently, Malik often recalled, the English Magna Carta and the French Bill of Rights ensured that man was entitled to "unalienable rights", which were best etched in the American Declaration of Independence. Still, as none of these essential contributions recognised universal rights that went beyond national or regional frontiers, Malik was anxious to give hope to the hopeless. This, it may be safe to posit, was his true contribution.

A vision for the United Nations

Aware that the 58 sovereign countries that formed the UN at the time professed a bewildering variety of cultures, histories, racial origins, religions, systems of government and legal practices, the erudite Lebanese understood before others that only a fresh and bold vision would break the chains of man's self-created slavery.

Echoing the Preamble of the UN San Francisco Charter, Malik wrote in 1948: "We the peoples of the United Nations are determined, first, to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and, secondly, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small."

Yet Malik also believed that truth and conviction needed to be entrusted to genuine leaders to save humanity from the scourges of war and destruction. Leadership, he reasoned, required that those in a capacity to do so assume that mantle while respecting every individual's basic rights.

Malik returned to teaching in 1960 and was a visiting professor at several American universities, including Harvard, the American University in Washington DC, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Notre Dame University in Indiana. A marathon traveller, he went back to his beloved AUB in 1962 and taught philosophy there until 1976.

Following the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, which raged from 1975 to 1990, Malik helped found the Front for Freedom and Man in Lebanon that eventually became the Lebanese Front.

A Greek Orthodox Christian, he was the only non-Maronite among the Front's senior leaders, who included Phalangist Party founder Pierre Gemayel and former president and National Liberal Party leader Camille Chamoun.

Widely regarded as the brains of the Front, in which politicians were the brawn, Malik distinguished his views from raw sectarian partisanship. He championed freedom for all and, at the height of the conflict, clashed with his co-religionists.

Malik left Lebanon by choice in 1981, first to Canada, where he accepted the position of Pascal Lecturer at the University of Waterloo, and then the US between 1981 to 1983, when he was the Jacques Maritain Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

A noted theology student who successfully reached across confessional lines, Malik appealed to his fellow Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals alike and edited a key volume of God and Man in Contemporary Islamic Thought. A prolific writer, he authored several commentaries on the Bible and on the writings of the early Church fathers. His ecumenical appeal and his academic credentials led to his election to the presidency of the World Council on Christian Education from 1967 to 1971 and as vice-president of the United Bible Societies from 1966 to 1972.

Legacy

A strong advocate of "natural law", Malik emphasised that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights required much more than a mere proclamation. During the Paris deliberations, the Lebanese pleaded that "whoever values man and his individual freedom above everything else cannot fail to find in the present Declaration a potent ideological weapon. If wielded in complete goodwill, sincerity, and truth, this weapon can prove most significant in the history of the spirit."

Six decades after its adoption and despite significant shortcomings, the Declaration has not lost sight of its main objective, namely to "proclaim man's irreducible humanity", to better allow every human being the privilege to "recover his creative sense of dignity and re-establish his faith in himself". That was Charles H. Malik's ultimate legacy, a modest contribution from a small land that produced an innovator, who stood larger than his own life.

Selected works by Charles Malik

Dr Joseph A. Kéchichian is an author, most recently of Faysal: Saudi Arabia's King for All Seasons (2008).

Published on the third Friday of each month, this article is part of a series on Arab leaders who greatly influenced political affairs in the Middle East.