Ultimately, successwill depend on how we contribute to foster the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in a human rights-compliant manner. (H.R. Schillinger) So,in order to add significant leverage to our work in the coming years, working towards the realizationof any given SDGwill mean we must anchor development inthe internationally sanctioned human rights covenants.True, but are we ready to decisively commit to this?
Obligations to ensure fair access to adequate food, housing, health care, water, sanitation and other necessities of life, as well as to dignity and to security derive from the right to life itself
Is dignity equivalent to human rights? A very good question.The issue actually is ‘the right to dignity’, a very important civil, political, economic, social and cultural right. Dignity is the single most important aspect, content and implication of human rights. (posthumously, UrbanJonsson)
13. Actually, homelessness and denial of access to water, sanitation and health care all also refer to violations of Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Let it be noted that obligations under Article 6 frequently overlap with obligations to realize the rights to food, to clothing, to housing, to health, to water and sanitation and to other Economic, Social and Cultural rights (ESCR).In this context, let us not forget: The final arbiter for the interpretation of the human rights (HR) covenants is the respective UN HR Committee, not individual Member States.Take another example: Access-to and control-over land directly affects the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights. Conflicts over land are frequently at the heart of HR violations, both of civil and political rights, as well aseconomic, social and cultural rights — and we know that HR workers on land and environment issues are among the most at risk of all HR defenders. (Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
Now for the controversial stuff
14. Can violence be used to protect groups of people from human rights violations arising from human rights being violated with impunity? We live in an era where (particularly civil and political) proto-human-rights-actions are frequently used by the state, and by conservative and even by liberal human rights organizations, to ‘civilize’ explosive situations. If violence is traditionally associated with domination and human rights with emancipation, then the connection between the two seems odd. If the response to the question above is yes, would HR unavoidably be accused of opposing domination with domination? This may sound uncomfortable if the matter is ultimately to defend HR. For violence to be ‘legitimate’ in such an endeavor, one has to embrace a very specific ethics of violence. HR professionals have been working together to continuously develop additional treaties and ethical codes to regulate and refine the methods and means of the struggle for HR, and, purportedly, to protect civilians, as well as civil populations in armed conflict. The convergence between the protection and violence discourses would be justified by ‘the imperative to protect civilians’. The argument would then go: “Violent responses can be carried out within the framework of human rights (i.e., it is morally permissible) when they satisfy two forms of protection: the protection of the citizens and the protection of the state itself”. In this brave new rights-based world, the extent of this dilemma makes it difficult to understand if human rights and humanitarianism can call for violence or whether violence can determine the parameters of human rights.(N. Perugini and N. Gordon)
From delusion and deception to new hopes for the future (Society for International Development, SID)
15. Hannah Arendt coined the term ‘the-right-to-have-rights’. But Arendt knew well that this right-to-have-rights can only be an articulation of the problem, not the statement of a solution (which requires going from political thinking to action). That we still have not found the commensurate global political actions to address the huge HR gap is clear. As a start, we need to more openly expose our inability to address the HR of those who ‘are-nothing-but-human’. (O. Boehm) This is what these Readers have been attempting for almost ten years.
16. We need a ‘movement of movements’ and we need to build coalitions across traditional divisions of single-issue constituencies (environment, climate, women’s issues, etc). This means coming out of our silos and start to imagine a holistic (in good part anti-neoliberal) solution. Now is not the time for small steps. Now is the time for boldness. Now is the time to leap. The path is thus clear. It is also exciting. But it is difficult as hell. We must always remember this: difficult is not the same as impossible. Huge social movements have changed the world before through a magical combination of culture, theory, spirituality, policy and law. We can do it again. We will be told it is impractical, unrealistic, unserious and making the perfect the enemy of the good –as if perfect did not ‘leave the station’ more than 20 years ago. (Naomi Klein)
17. No, there is no such a thing as ‘maximum values’. But can one be oblivious and indifferent towards injustice and HR violations? As never before in the history of humanity social and ecological injustices have converged. More than ever before do we have to continue to be day-by-day revolutionaries for the continuity of life, justice and peace.(JulioMonsalvo)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Schuftan@gmail.com