Home > Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity > Roosevelt, Eleanor

[OCTOBER 11, 1884–NOVEMBER 7, 1962]

American first lady, humanitarian, and diplomat

No issue was more important to Eleanor Roosevelt than the question of how nations should respond to the refugee crisis after World War II, and her appointment by President Harry Truman to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations (UN) put her at the center of the discussion. Roosevelt's first major achievement as a delegate was to defeat Andrei Vishinsky, the leader of the Soviet delegation, in a debate in the General Assembly on the issue of whether European displaced persons should be forced to return to their countries of origin or be free to seek asylum. As the U.S. representative on the Committee for Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Affairs, Roosevelt participated vigorously in the debates on the creation of the International Refugee Organization (IRO), which was established to resettle or repatriate the refugees. Vishinsky argued that those who did not wish to return were traitors, war criminals, or collaborators. Roosevelt replied that many displaced persons feared returning because they disagreed with the new regimes in their home countries and insisted that refugees decide for themselves under what form of government they wanted to live.

As chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Roosevelt guided her colleagues in the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). She insisted that the Declaration be written in clear, nonlegal language that the average person could understand. Under her leadership, the majority of the CHR thwarted the efforts of the Soviets and their allies to qualify the protection of individual rights in the Declaration by asserting the rights of the state. On the other hand, Roosevelt believed strongly that the Declaration should include economic and social rights as well as civil and political rights, and she persuaded a skeptical U.S. State Department to accept their inclusion. The majority of the CHR wanted to make the rights in the Declaration a part of international law. Once again bucking resistance in the State Department, Roosevelt sided with the majority but supported the drafting of two documents, a nonbinding statement of principles (the Declaration) and a covenant. She pushed for the drafting of the Declaration first, recognizing that drafting the covenant would take longer and that the Declaration would not require ratification by the U.S. Senate. When the Declaration came to a vote in the General Assembly in December 1948, the vote was 48 in favor, 0 against, 8 abstentions, and 2 absent. Although the CHR did not complete the covenants on civil and political rights and economic and social rights until 1966, Roosevelt's years as chairperson prepared the way for the CHR's later accomplishments.

Although successful in defending the rights of refugees at the UN, Roosevelt was less successful in persuading Americans to admit more displaced persons. In her newspaper column, "My Day," and speeches, she urged Congress to fund the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the IRO and argued that more refugees should be admitted to the United States. Her 1946 visit to displaced persons camps in Germany fueled the urgency of her appeal and made her "more conscious than ever of what complete human misery there is in the world" (Roosevelt, February 20, 1946). When the Daughters of the American Revolution opposed President Truman's modest 1946 proposal to fill the unfilled immigration quotas with displaced persons from Europe, Roosevelt asked, "Why should other countries make any sacrifices" when America refused to act accordingly? (Roosevelt, November 20, 1946).

In 1948 she supported a bill aimed at assisting the IRO in resettling thousands of European refugees by admitting 200,000 persons to the United States. She helped raise funds for refugee groups, such as the United Jewish Appeal. She supported the immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine and, frustrated by the refusal of the United States and other nations to accept more Jewish immigrants, became a strong supporter of the establishment of the state of Israel. When war broke out in 1948 over the creation of the Jewish state, creating thousands of Palestinian refugees, Roosevelt supported a UN resolution granting $29 million in aid to them, although she blamed the problem on the Arab leaders for urging the Palestinians to leave their homes. When she visited the Middle East in 1952, she toured Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. Upset by the conditions she observed, she urged continued international assistance, but she remained blind to Israel's share of responsibility for the situation. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Roosevelt was frustrated by the unwillingness of the U.S. Congress to make it easier for refugees to immigrate to the United States. In 1955 she criticized the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 for placing obstacles in the way of European refugees seeking entry into the United States. She also responded to hundreds of pleas from refugees around the world.

SEE ALSO United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights

John F. Sears
Allida M. Black