The issue of human rights had been a concern of the U.N. since its inception. The Human Rights Commission, affiliated to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), was set up for this purpose, as was the Third (Social and Humanitarian) Committee of the General Assembly. Yet the U.N. lacked any permanent machinery or procedure (whether comprehensive covenants or limited conventions) for considering complaints concerning specific instances of human rights violations.

While in theory any U.N. member state was free to propose questions pertaining to alleged violations, few states were prepared to risk lodging a complaint against a major power for fear of retaliation.

However, despite the technical impracticability and inexpedience of dealing with human rights violations under these circumstances, the U.N. became the main forum for an international campaign against all forms of discrimination — racial, national, religious, social — the African states in particular demonstrating a tendency to use it in order to air their views on the issue of race. In the course of these discussions the U.N. had on several occasions reaffirmed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At its Seventeenth Session in 1962 the General Assembly considered a draft declaration and a draft convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination and religious intolerance resulting from manifestations of antisemitism and other forms of racial prejudice and religious intolerance; these became Res. 1780 and 1781 (XVII).