In response to the German Peace Proposals of 1916 the Allied...

In response to the German Peace Proposals of 1916 the Allied Powers affirmed inter alia that “no peace is possible as long as the reparation of violated rights and liabilities, the acknowledgement of the principle of nationalities and of free existence of small states shall not be assured.” Though the League of Nations concerned itself with minority rights, labor rights and rights of the individuals in mandated territories, human rights did not receive specific mention in the language of the convention.

This was not surprising in view of the then prevailing notion that these questions were not, primarily, of international concern.[^6] Indeed, a problem often becomes an object of international concern and action, only after a dramatic event crystallizes awareness. This explains why more immediate reasons for the genesis of international concern for human rights were born out of the events concerned with the origin and conduct of the Second World War.

The systematic carnage of millions of innocent civilians by Germany during the war resulted in the general conviction that the effective international protection of fundamental human rights was a fundamental condition for gaining international peace and progress. This faith was given repeated expression in several official statements and declarations of the Allied. Franklin D.

Roosevelt, the president of the United States, in an address to Congress, in January of 1941, set forth the doctrine of the Four Freedoms.

In August of the same year, Roosevelt and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, formulated the Atlantic Charter in the form of a joint declaration which laid down a number of principles and policies to be put into effect when peace was achieved so that the people of the world could live free from fear and want .[^7] These principles included those that were to be incorporated four years later in the Charter of the United Nations.