ABSTRACT
The Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik was in no doubt that the end of World War II inaugurated an exceptional moment, pregnant with potential for the utter transformation of international life. As he declared at the San Francisco Conference of April 1945, "there is presented today to the peace-loving nations of the world a unique historic opportunity to organize the peace." Any peace that did not rest on a "foundation of real justice", and was not "grounded in man's ultimate rights and freedoms", could not bring a veritable end to conflict. This chapter focuses on Malik should not be mistaken for an attempt to beatify him, a call for his inclusion in that canon of secular saints celebrated for their pursuit of human rights. It seeks to show the ways in which Charles Malik's thought differed from that of contemporaries with whom he has sometimes been lumped.
