Abstract

This chapter discusses international lawyer John Humphrey’s work on the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Before joining the UN, Humphrey’s academic writing revealed his commitment to the attempt to create the legal basis for an international society. From 1948 onwards, his personal diary recorded his frustrations at the UN’s failure to rise to this challenge. His notion of Shakespeare as an ‘international possession’ comes into focus when he uses a reference to Hamlet to express his outrage at the ideologically motivated obstructions he encounters from the USSR and the USA on key elements of the human rights agenda, and when he selects Shakespeare’s play for his daily reading at a time of intense personal and professional crisis. The chapter establishes frames of reference for the book as a whole in its discussion of concepts of community and society.