famous canadian

John humphrey (1905-1995)

A tragic childhood no doubt made John Humphrey to become the man he became. He was born in Hampton, New Brunswick. He lost his father when he was not even a year old and his mother died when he's at the age of 11.
At the age of six, he had his left arm amputated after a serious burn. when he entered school, his schoolmates didn't like him and teased him and the teachers did very little to help him. starting at a young age he has understood that it was necessary to protect the individual against the society and the government.
At 1920, after attending Mount Allison University, John humphrey moved to Montreal. He studied economics even though the family who was taking care of his education wanted him to become a banker. And finally. after completing his economics degree he was able to study law and he finished second in his class.
As a young lawyer, he started private practice and In 1929 he married Jeanne Godreau, a young francophone Quebecer from Montmagny.

In 1950 after being a lawyer for several years in Montreal, John Humphrey joined the Faculty of Law at McGill University and stayed there until the end of World War II. He accepted the invitation of helping the United Nations step up it's Human Rights Division. He was the director the the division, he wrote a 400-page draft that became the foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Committee chair Eleanor Roosevelt famously called it "the Magna Carta of all mankind."
On December 10, 1948, after much debate, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - "a vision of how the world should be" - was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly. And it has served as the model for numerous constitutional documents drawn up in many countries, such as the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"There is a fundamental link between human rights and peace," he believed. "There will be peace on earth when the rights of all are respected."

sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peters_Humphrey
http://www.tolerance.ca/Article.aspx?ID=92&L=en
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0003905