The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, by a vote of 16 to 0, with Yugoslavia and Belgium abstaining, approved a controversial article on economic and social rights for the proposed Covenant on Human Rights which, under a Polish amendment, would obligate governments to “guarantee” all economic and social rights to all persons “without distinction of any kind,” such as race, color, sex, language, religion, origin or political status.
Some countries such as the United States, France and Britain, though voting for the article, served notice that they would seek its revision later because it imposed “impossible” obligations on governments. In essence their argument was that the Polish amendment assumed all states were controlled welfare states.
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