Following this line of thought, this article aims to understand the Latin American contributions to the promotion of ESCRs in both global and regional debates by tracing the figure of the Chilean diplomat Hernán Santa-Cruz and his efforts as both a drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and founder of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). [...] This Conference adopted a mandate for the reorganization for the inter-Amer- ican system – including a declaration on the rights and duties of man3 – a collective security system,4 and a reiteration of regional international law.5 Moreover, the delegates engaged with the Dumbarton Oaks blueprints, and established the guidelines for the integration of the pan-American dynamic within such a framewor. [...] Santa-Cruz once claimed that the UN reaffirmed his convictions, which were ‘faith in democracy, in the value and the respect of the dignity of the human person, and the right of all peoples to determine their own destiny.’71 This last quote shows how Santa-Cruz was close to – while at the same time far from – the Western tradition of Catholic thought. [...] Morsink claims that ‘Humphrey took much of the wording and almost all of the ideas for the social, economic, and cultural rights of his draft from the tradition of Latin American socialism.’103 It is clear then that Latin American contributions inspired both the form and the substance of the UDHR.104 During the first session the drafter realized there were competing interpre- tations of what the ‘. [...] Whereas other delegates preferred a short statement about the inviolability of life (or the progressive prohibition of the death penalty),109 Santa-Cruz moved for a robust wording that expressed not only the right to life (from the moment of conception) but also the duty of the state to implement it.110 Accordingly, Santa-Cruz not only wanted to protect the life of the nasciturus111 (in a very Cat.
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