Chaim Cohn, Israel’s Attorney General, today criticized “the Great Powers” who are members of the United Nations for their disinterest in the adoption of the human rights covenants that have been pending for years before the General Assembly.
Mr. Cohn has been, for three years, a member of the UN Human Rights Commission, representing Israel. The covenants, however, must be adopted by the Assembly, and Mr. Cohn said he saw “no prospect at all of those covenants coming into force in the near future.”
The Israeli disagreed with some experts in the field of human rights who have taken the position that the United Nations might as well cease its efforts to adopt the covenants. These experts hold that the UN should rely, instead, on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because most member states will probably refuse to sign the covenants when and if they are adopted here.
“The Declaration itself,” stated Mr. Cohn, “has no binding force, and prescribes only minimum standards of behavior. I think I would prefer a covenant, even if it is signed only by 20 nations, rather than reliance on the beautiful words of the Declaration which have no sanctions. Under a covenant, a. country could be sued for violating human rights.”
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