The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Soviet Political Religion, and Soviet Law

Abstract

This article discusses the Soviet contribution to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the interplay between the UDHR and Soviet legal system. The paper focuses on legal aspects of the Soviet Union’s lack of interest in the UDHR and argues that, due to the nature of the Soviet political regime, which can be defined as a political religion, Soviet law itself was fully incompatible with any meaningful idea of human rights. In order to demonstrate this incompatibility, the paper explores three aspects of Soviet law: Marxist-Leninist philosophy of law as the ideological premise of Soviet legal system; Soviet understanding of human rights; and Soviet theory of international law. The paper ends with a discussion of the role the UDHR played in Soviet and post-Soviet law.