Cassin, a key drafter of the UDHR, is regularly celebrated as a great universalist, but his universalism coexisted with a deep belief in the civilising role of colonial rule, and the legitimacy of violence in sustaining it. As the French state jailed nationalist electoral candidates in Algeria and Britain waged violent counterinsurgencies in Palestine and Malaya, both delegations argued for colonial clauses to take account for the fact that the territories under their administration were 'constantly progressing along the road to self-government and independence', as the UK delegate put it. Cassin too relied on an idea of measured progress to argue that applying covenants automatically to non-self-governing territories would 'result in a general alignment at the level of the most backward people', as France could not impose progressive measures that her subjects were unable to understand 'on account of their attachment to their own traditions'.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 269