"Despite the high expectations that attended its birth, the eighteen-member CHR was immediately dominated by Cold War realities. Its chair, Eleanor Roosevelt, was kept on a tight leash by the US government, which was determined to thwart any binding obligations that interfered with “the internal problems of nations” and to use the commission’s forum mainly to castigate the Soviets’ misdeeds. The US and Soviet delegates both rejected proposals to allow an individual to petition the UN over human rights violations by his or her government. The two Superpowers were also behind the CHR’s momentous decision to split its task into three separate components: the drafting of a nonbinding declaration of principles, followed—at some indeterminate interval—by the conclusion of a human rights convention and, finally, the creation of a means of enforcement. The first task was completed within two years, but the second took twenty more, and the third still another year to come to life. By 1948 the Superpowers had effectively blocked the efforts of human rights activists and the smaller countries to play a significant role in global politics."