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Canada & the UN > Newton Bowles Reports
Human Rights, Human Rites? Rights, rites: not just word play. The UN is the world of words (you can say!); and it is healthy to ask whether, when, how much UN words affect "culture" (the cult of cults), how "we the people" see ourselves in our societies, how we behave. Is the endless sparring between "North" and "South" (porous groups) just an institutional rite, a ritual that is played out when the gavel comes down? When we scan our telecommunity, horrors great and small continuing this past year, easy it is to lapse into despair: words are lies. Yes, if that is all you want to see. There are tunnels at the end of those lies; and you know what lies at the end of the tunnel. Fiat lux. Closing the book of our century, we register both unprecedented anarchic violence, and unprecedented international codes of conduct. Humanitarian law, most written since World War II, now covers basic ways we behave, in war and peace; and gaps are being filled from year to year. For example, in 1999, the General Assembly adopted a Protocol to the Convention on Discrimination against Women; and last year also a Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child was approved. (I have discussed these Protocols elsewhere in this report.) Also at this Assembly a treaty to block the financing of terrorism was adopted. Other protocols and conventions are in the works (e.g. on sexual exploitation of children, on organized transnational crime). And let us not forget the "Compact" between big business and the UN, proposed by the Secretary-General. What remarkable vitality in extending international law, in setting norms for civilized behaviour. A radical development it is that all these aspects of human behaviour-- war, peace, crime, women, children, big business-- come together at the UN under human rights. For years, talk about human rights was side-lined to the Human Rights Commission over in Geneva. Still today, of course, the basic monitoring of national compliance is done by Committees for each Convention (or Treaty) and by the Commission. Ending the Cold War, however, made it possible to get serious attention to human rights at the international political forum, the General Assembly; and this has been happening more and more since the Vienna World Conference on Rights (1993). In his functional restructuring of the Secretariat, Kofi Annan put human rights into everything, asserting that rights are fundamental and pervasive: security/peacekeeping, political affairs, development, humanitarian affairs, women, children, population, the environment. The Annan "intervention" speech in effect made human rights the centerpiece at this Assembly. Along with this has been the unprecedented Security Council concern in 1999 over what war does to civilians, how to protect them, and how to prevent conflict. (Canada had a lot to do with this activation of the Security Council.) You could say that human rights are not advanced by the tedious replay of political ping-pong in the G.A. and Security Council; or you could say that it is good to keep them in the political theatre where things have to change. If talk means nothing, why do governments care about all this? Why so aggressively defensive? After all, consensus at Vienna reaffirmed the universality of human rights as defined with formal commitment in the great international Conventions. Lost battles are not lost, it seems. Not quite. Before the G.A. debate got underway, on 17 September 1999, the Security Council had adopted historic resolution 1265, a remarkably comprehensive and strong policy on protecting civilians. It did not go quite as far as the proposals in the Secretary-General's report, but it was indeed a great achievement. It urges compliance with humanitarian and human rights law, says impunity from war crimes must be broken, humanitarian aid must be accessible, humanitarian workers must be protected, peacekeepers should be trained in human rights, and much more (see Annex 6). Only later in the year did reluctant members of the Council (China, Russia) stand aside and let High Commissioner Mary Robinson appear. New ground is being broken in Kosovo (the UN picks up where NATO leaves off) and in East Timor. In each case, the UN is creating a new socio-political entity, including judiciary and police. Reporting to the Security Council in July 1999, the Secretary-General spells out in clear detail how the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo is approaching this task and what it aims to do. On human rights, the UN will make sure that police and courts operate according to "international standards of criminal justice and human rights"; and will deploy UN monitors to ensure human rights protection and investigate abuses. This is building from the ground up. I assume this pattern is being adapted to East Timor. We are lucky to have persons of the caliber of Dr. Bernard Kouchner (a leader of Doctors Without Borders in France) and Vieira DeMello (from Brazil, just diverted from heading UN Humanitarian Affairs in New York) to run these pioneering UN-country establishments. (I hope that something similar will eventually happen in Sierra Leone, at present unsettled with old rebels turned bandits, and national leadership unsure.)In any case, the Human Rights Commission, in special session, decided to launch an inspection of abuses in East Timor. A similar investigation was done by the Indonesian government. Both inspections have confirmed extensive violations and have named names. If Indonesia is unable to prosecute, the UN stands ready to do so. Here we have dramatic examples of turning UN words into action. I have touched on others in my discussion of security, and of the international war crimes tribunals and the International Criminal Court. That international treaty law is growing teeth is manifest by the arrest in London of Chile's General Pinochet (a blow for all encrypted dictators, whether or not the doctors send Pinochet home); and the arrest in Dakar, Senegal, of Hissene Habré, ex-President of Chad, on torture charges (Senegal has adhered to the UN Convention Against Torture). Mary Robinson's 1999 report to the G.A. gives a comprehensive account of what the UN is doing in the context of world-wide violations and of existing UN machinery, including treaties. Human rights "thematic" experts (21 in all) are examining:
Experts are also at work on poverty and the right to development. "Thematic" as above means global. In addition, Mary Robinson has her people who look at 14 specific countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, FR Yugoslavia, Burundi, Cambodia, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine since 1967 occupied. Iran, Iraq and Myanmar refused visits by UN rights officials. At this session, the G.A. reviewed and expressed concern for rights in 10 of these countries.That's not all. There are also "field presences" (people) stationed in 19 countries. Inter alia, they contribute to improving national legislation, human rights institutions, training of police and military, and education in human rights.If you think that all this is sinecures for playmates or political posturing, you don't know Mary Robinson. Have a look at what the Human Rights Committee says about Canada, 1999 Report, UN document A/54/40, Vol. 1, pages 48-51. (I thought of annexing that to this report, but there are already too many annexes.) Human rights, human wrights. The harassed, the tortured tell us that all this UN activity, along with persistent NGO's (Amnesty, Human Rights Watch), makes a difference, begins to open up the hidden dungeons. |
