Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Besides education, the other two important areas where members of linguistic minority groups have a great interest in seeing their language rights protected are religion and courts of law. Article 18 of the Declaration most certainly gives members of minority religious groups all the rights members of majority religious groups have, including the right to conduct all or any religious activities in their native tongue.

The thin approach to the delivery of the human good is evident in Article 18 of the Declaration, for it is governed by the underlying idea that a plurality of religious and secular ideologies should be able to live peacefully under the security umbrella of a single state. As far as the drafters were concerned the state does not have the task of delivering the good of religion to its people other than providing the framework within which each person or group is free to practice a given religion. For the late 1940s this thin approach was very progressive, for even the good (by standards of the Declaration) constitutions of that era took at best a mixed approach.

That approach was a thick one in that many of them made allowances for a majority religion or for one sponsored by the state, but the best ones were also thin in that they gave members of minority religious groups total freedom to practice their own religion within this framework of an official, dominant, or preferred religion. Because it does not share this mixed and therefore ambiguous perspective and is thin without qualification the Universal Declaration was in matters of religion way ahead of its time.

In the granting of rights to practice a religion, the Declaration does not regard majority or minority status as a relevant factor. A person who belongs to a dominant religion has no religious rights that a member of a minority religion does not have.

The document is neutral with respect to matters of religion, just as it is on issues of gender. Instead of presuming there to be a state-sponsored religion, Article 18 says that every person, of whatever religious or secular persuasion has "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." All this article does is set up the framework within which each person is free to pursue the thick human good of religion in his or her own way, alone or with others of like mind and heart.

It was in order to create such a framework for pluralism that in the First Session of the Drafting Committee the delegates preferred a rather long and detailed British proposal over Humphrey's much shorter one. That short one simply stated that "There shall be freedom of conscience and belief and of private and public worship".

The longer British proposal included everyone's right "to change his belief," to "practice either alone or in community with other persons of like mind, any form of religious worship and observance" and "to give and receive any form of religious teaching and to endeavor to persuade other persons of full age and sound mind of the truth of his beliefs, and in the case of minors the parents or guardians shall be free to determine what religious teaching he shall receive".

This article set the precedent for all the details we have in the final product. Malik captured the spirit behind these details when he urged that "the Committee recognize the fundamental right of differing fundamental human convictions, as in religion, to exist in the same national entity. The fact that a single nation is obligated by international law, to recognize the diversity of fundamental points of view on ultimate matters should, he believed, be considered an essential and fundamental right".

Malik therefore suggested that the first paragraph of the article read: "Individual freedom of thought and conscience to hold or change beliefs is an absolute and sacred right". This first sentence was adopted by the Committee, included in the Cassin rewrites, and from there sent to the Second Session with a second paragraph stating that "the practice of a private and public worship, religious observances, and the manifestations of differing convictions, can be subject only to such limitations as are necessary to protect public order, morals and the rights and freedoms of others".

Geoffrey Wilson, the U.K. delegate, wanted the right "to give and receive every form of religious teaching" stressed more than it was in the Cassin rewrites or in the version adopted by the Committee. A note to that effect was appended to the Committee's report. This right to teach others found its way back into the Declaration in the Second Session of the Commission.

Under sponsorship of Carlos Romulo of the Philippines, the Second Session adopted this second paragraph: "Every person has the right either alone or in community with others of like mind and in public or private to manifest his beliefs in worship, observance, teaching and practice".

In these ways the very structure of Article 18 is one of pluralism and openness to different perspectives. Against this background, and because the article stresses religious rights so much, it comes almost as a shock that the article does not explicitly state that people have a right not to join a religious community and not to have any beliefs related thereto.

Bogomolov, the delegate from the USSR, raised this issue in the Working Group of the Second Session. He argued that "in countries where the church was separate from the State, religious teaching was a private matter. Furthermore, such an article should grant freedom of conscience not only for the practice of religion, but also for anti-religious propaganda".

Roosevelt responded that "it had been understood in the Drafting Committee that the first paragraph of article 20 covered full freedom of conscience for believers as well as atheists".

That is true, but, given the way Article 18 is written, an explicit statement to this effect would have removed any lingering doubts about the matter. Emile Saint-Lot of Haiti made the same point during the much later Third Committee debates. In "the name of the great mass of free-thinkers," he observed that the drafters of this article had made an attempt "to proclaim not only freedom of belief, but also the right of the individual to change his belief.

There was therefore ground for astonishment that its authors had not thought of making it still clearer by affirming the right not to believe".

This right to be an atheist and all that that entails is, of course, part of Article 18's right to "freedom of thought," which at first was not placed first. Its present placement before "conscience and religion" is therefore significant since it embraces the other two, while they do not embrace it, not religion in any case.

Also, the very presence of the freedom of thought raises an important issue, especially for members of minority groups. At one point in the Third Session Malik, probably as a matter of oversight, had left the item "thought" out of the article's first sentence.

Pavlov pointed that out and Malik agreed to put it back in. As a way of getting the item readmitted, Cassin rhetorically raised the question as to why anyone should want or need to have the human right to freedom of thought. "It might be thought," he asked, "why freedom of inner thought should have to be protected even before it was expressed." Are people not always free to think what they want, and don't the limitations only arise when they want to express what they think?

Cassin answered that "the opposite of inner freedom of thought was the outward obligation to profess a belief which was not held. Freedom of thought thus required to be formally protected in view of the fact that it was possible to attack it indirectly".

Behind this seemingly innocuous right lies the profound right not to be compelled to profess a belief or ideology which one does not hold. This is an enormous protection for members of minority groups, for there are numerous situations and nations where they are forced to profess a religion or ideology they do not hold in order to obtain or keep a job, acquire a marriage license, be able to vote or to change domiciles. Cassin later suggested that since "thought" had this deep metaphysical significance it should be listed first, which was done.

Some constitutions in the late 1940s protected their citizens against violations of this right. Thus Article 8 of the Portuguese constitution said that "no one shall be compelled to answer questions concerning the religion he professes unless for statistical inquiry prescribed by law." Article 49 of the Swiss constitution said that "freedom of faith and conscience shall be inviolable. No one shall be compelled to take part in any religious society or in any religious instruction, or to undertake any religious act."

Similarly, the Spanish constitution stated that "no one may be compelled to make official declaration of his religious views." After much struggle the Third Committee voted to keep the right to change one's religious convictions in the Declaration. This was done over the strong objections of Muslim delegations and led Saudi Arabia to abstain in the final vote on the Declaration.

The discussion of that right involved problem of proselytism and the behavior of missionaries in foreign countries. These problems in turn led some delegations to think that people have a right to be protected against fanaticism, especially if the fanatics are in the majority.

Accordingly, the Swedish delegation submitted to the Third Committee the following rationale and amendment: "In order to protect individuals who have religious beliefs different from the officially acknowledged religion, or who have no religious belief whatever, against manifestations of religious fanaticism, it is proposed that the following words be added to the end of this article after '. . . worship and observance': 'provided that this does not interfere unduly with the personal liberty of anybody else'".

This amendment was not discussed much, but its proposal did draw out more of the meaning of Article 18.

Alexander Contoumas, the Greek representative, also was worried about "the unfair practices of proselytizing" and said he "understood that the representative of Sweden shared his apprehensions to a certain extent. But he felt that the danger of such unfair practices was a threat, not only to the minority groups of a given country, as Lindstrom had indicated, but also to the religious majority.

While admittedly every person should be free to accept or reject the religious propaganda to which he was subjected, he felt that an end should be put to such unfair competition in the sphere of religion".

Dehousse, the Belgian delegate, inquired about the exact implication of the amendment presented by the delegation of Sweden, which he said "seemed vague both in conception and in form. What, precisely, was, in the field of religion, the meaning of the phrase 'interfere unduly with the personal liberty of anybody else?

In professing or propagating a faith, one could, to a certain extent, interfere with the freedom of others by seeking to impose an unfamiliar idea upon them. But proselytism was not limited to any one faith or religious group. If it was an evil, it was necessarily an evil from which all sides had to suffer." He could not accept the amendment "as long as its exact intentions were not clear".

Aquino of the Philippines "shared the anxiety of the Swedish delegation to ensure effective protection for the individual from the manifestations of religious fanaticism.

It was obvious that so long as attempts at religious proselytism remained within the limits of public order, freedom of thought was not threatened: quite on the contrary, the free exchange of religious ideas was one of the healthiest signs of freedom and democracy. But when religious action left the realm of pure thought, it might constitute a threat from which human society must be protected. His delegation thought, however, that the basic text contained all the guarantees desirable".

Carlos Garcia Bauer, a delegate from Guatemala, also thought that the Swedish amendment "was superfluous" because "article [29] . . . gave all the necessary guarantees in that respect".

Ulla Lindstrom, the Swedish delegate, sought to answer these redundancy objections, saying that "similar observations . . . had been made in connection with other articles and that, in some cases, it had been decided that it was necessary to reiterate principles that had already been stated," which is why she wished to maintain her amendment. It was rejected by 27 votes to 10, with 7 abstentions.

As one last point on the matter of religion I remind readers that "religion" is on the list of nondiscrimination items in Article 2. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of its presence on that list. It means that in the implementation of all the articles in the Declaration discrimination of "any kind" on the basis of religious affiliation or thought is strictly prohibited.

The only qualification is the one in Article 29 about "the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society." These limits hold for everyone, members of majority and minority groupings alike.

They have all of the rights in the Declaration and they may not be barred from the enjoyment of such rights as to food, life, a fair trial, physical security, a job, and all the others listed. In short, what Article 18 does for everyone's right to practice his or her own minority religion, Article 2 does for all the other areas of a life lived as a member of a religious minority group.

Take, for example, Article 21's right to take part in the government of one's country. Both the prohibition in Article 2 and the detailed contents of Article 18 say that this participation is to be an equal one.

The Declaration rejects every connection between religion and politics. It does not allow for a state-supported religion, not even for a tacitly dominant one. There is no presumption in the Declaration that the morality of human rights requires any kind of religious foundation.

The drafters went out of their way to avoid having the Declaration make a reference to God or to man's divine origin. Most groups and nations that see an intimate connection between religion and the machinery of the state do so because they think that religion is needed to provide the moral cement that holds a nation together.

The Universal Declaration rejects this connection and gives everyone total freedom of religion, including the right not to have one. It places the religious convictions and expressions of all persons on the same equally distant footage from the seats of political power.