Book contents
- Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics
- Human Rights in History
- Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Anti-Colonial Struggles and the Right to Self-Determination
- Part II Postcolonial Statehood and Global Human Rights Norms
- 6 Cutting Out the Ulcer and Washing Away the Incubus of the Past
- 7 Codifying Minority Rights
- 8 Between Ambitions and Caution
- 9 “From This Era of Passionate Self-Discovery”
- 10 Reentering Histories of Past Imperial Violence
- Part III Colonial and Neocolonial Responses
- Index
7 - Codifying Minority Rights
Postcolonial Constitutionalism in Burma, Ceylon, and India
from Part II - Postcolonial Statehood and Global Human Rights Norms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 June 2020
- Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics
- Human Rights in History
- Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Anti-Colonial Struggles and the Right to Self-Determination
- Part II Postcolonial Statehood and Global Human Rights Norms
- 6 Cutting Out the Ulcer and Washing Away the Incubus of the Past
- 7 Codifying Minority Rights
- 8 Between Ambitions and Caution
- 9 “From This Era of Passionate Self-Discovery”
- 10 Reentering Histories of Past Imperial Violence
- Part III Colonial and Neocolonial Responses
- Index
Summary
This chapter recasts the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in light of the decolonization of India, Burma, and Ceylon in the late 1940s. At the same time that the United Nations drafted its first human rights instrument, decolonizing nations in Asia drafted national constitutions and debated how to define rights in their future independent states. Postcolonial constitutions reflected many of the same concerns that arose at the UN Human Rights Commission, but they delved into issues of minority rights and the relationship between fundamental rights and state sovereignty in greater depth than was possible at the international level. This chapter examines the entangled rights-making processes of the United Nations and Asian decolonization, which together constitute a fuller understanding of the rights ideas in circulation in the postwar era.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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