Book Reviews and Notices : Human Rights in the Modern World. By ARTHUR N. HOLCOMBE. (New ' York: New York University Press. 1948. Pp. viii, 162. $3.75.)

• Published date: 01 December 1949
• Date: 01 December 1949
• Author: L.C. Green
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294900200409
• Subject Matter: Articles

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES
Human Rights in the Modern World. By ARTHUR N. HOLCOMBE. (New ’
York: New York University Press. 1948. Pp. viii, 162. $3.75.)
When Professor Holcombe delivered the James Stokes Lectures on
Politics in March and April, 1948, he considered some of the problems
arising in connection with Human Rights in the Modern World, and he
chose as his standard of comparison the fate of bills and declarations of
human rights in the United States of America.
As with major issues of international politics, so with human rights
there is a basic difference of approach, if not actual conflict, in the atti-
tudes of the United States and the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent,
even in the attitudes of the United States and Great Britain and France.
Although it is almost certain that few, if any Englishmen would agree that
&dquo;none of the other major powers attempts to give to the fundamental
freedoms of its citizens the same kind of protection that we attempt to
give in the United States&dquo; (p. 10) -
for a written constitution and a bill
of rights are not the only means of giving such protection -
few would
argue with the statement that &dquo;if an international bill of rights is to be
comprehensive and specific,&dquo; and yet secure support from the Big Four,
it &dquo;can be accomplished only by the acceptance of ingenious compromises,
which are likely to be generally unsatisfactory, if not meaningless. The
alternatives are either a comprehensive and specific bill of rights, which
will not be acceptable to all the major powers of the modern world, or
a bill of rights, which ... will not attempt to do more than declare some
general objectives of political action&dquo; (p. 90).
Professor Holcombe is not completely satisfied with the record of
the United States on fundamental freedoms and human rights, and he
points out that, whatever the content of bills and declarations may be,
the actual enjoyment of such rights depends mainly on the attitude
...