Human rights: Food for the weak defending their thoughts ‘enforcing HR’
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about the barriers silo approaches confront-us-with when trying to enforce HR. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Note: You can easily translate the Readers to many languages, Use the app deepl.com and it is done instantaneously. It takes seconds to download the app into your computer or phone and translations are of high quality.
–States often invoke their ‘own particular context’ when faced with allegations of human rights violations and when called upon to take steps to address them. Context is indeed important —but context must never be used to justify human rights violations! (Michelle Bachelet)
-When the weak bow, the strong strike even harder; only when the weak defend themselves (and go on the offensive) publicly, the strong give way. (Alain Peyrefitte).
1. Proclamations alone cannot secure rights, as they are bound up with power relations. Singing the language of rights can be empty rhetoric or just a bravado, depending on who is talking and in what context.
2. In written documents across levels, human rights (HR) are clearly integrated with ideas of health, nutrition education… but these are largely rhetorical devices mostly providing moral leverage and guiding language, not clearly directing action. Using the law (justicialization) can strengthen policy, yes, but can also narrow the focus in terms of populations covered and issues justiciable. Views on what a right means in practice are contested all the time. It is the appalling dearth of citizen’s HR learning that limits their participation due to (potential) claim holders not really knowing what their rights are –and what they can do about them. Add to that a lack of clear norms on who-should-be-doing-what as a factor that scatters accountability into nobody in particular.
There are three distinct aspects to a rights-based approach –rhetorical, legal and practical– unfortunately more-often-than-not the three acting in silos
3. Explicitly acknowledging these three functions of HR is an important first step if the ultimate fulfillment of HR is pursued. Furthermore, explicitly addressing these three aspects in combination and in context is fundamental to a coherent rights-based approach. The aim is to uncover connections and disconnections between different policies and practices so as to understand how synergies and differences in the use of the different silos affect different groups interpreting HR; it is fostering synergies that will increase their potential for addressing the violations encountered.
4. So, the key is how the concept of HR is understood and internalized by the very different groups affected by their violation –and this requires the ‘vernacularization’ of HR into intelligible and understandable ideas in different contexts. International HR language may be ‘common sense’, but if citizen groups lack the language to talk about rights, though they are patently clearer to them in practical terms, severely limits their ability to secure results through their active demands –thus the importance of massive HR learning campaigns.
5. Human rights learning is key here, because rights systems only work when the claim holders know what their rights are. (George Kent) So, a careful balance has to be struck between a) allowing principles to emerge from communities, while, b) also introducing education from a normative rights perspective. The learning must denounce the rhetorical nature of calls for rights in many policies, covenants and organizational mandates –that do not always provide a clear enough basis for action– but only set the moral and legal tone.
6. The different actors engaged in these three different worlds (policy, law, activism) rarely interact (particularly at the national level) –only with some exceptions since, as said, these worlds exist in silos. As a result, there is no consistent all-encompassing narrative guiding us not to rally for one of them only as a priority. As also said, while the moral frame for action clearly exists and has shaped rhetoric, the lack of a norm means there is no consensus on who ought to be acting, what they ought to be doing, or what will be the consequences if they do not. While there is a huge variety of potential actions to take, this lack of a norm for effective HR work makes action less coherent, and, therefore, makes it possible for many to dismiss HR as a useful roadmap for action. The called-for convergence can only be fully realized if the rhetorical, legal and practical aspects are taken together, as well as understood and addressed with a common reference, although adapted to different contexts. In order to implement a useful rights-based approach to tackling HR violations, these aspects need to be brought out of their silos. Period.
7. Accountability is the key mechanism that makes rights an effective approach; this is the major added value of the rights-based approach (Olivier de Schutter) The way things are, there are no clear consequences for inaction. The average world citizen also has little access to formal legal systems, limiting avenues to legal accountability. There is thus a need for local communities to identify who the duty-bearers actually are in their own contexts and work towards accountability that way –at the same time as pursuing HR learning and participatory accountability. With a lack of action in practice, all our efforts are futile. (all the above adapted from Jody Harris, Ruth Stirton et al)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
Postscript/ Marginalia
-Yes, context is indeed important –but context must never be used to justify human rights violations! An example:
Scientific advances are not always linear; they zigzag in unexpected ways. This is particularly true of genetics, which has a dark history of being coopted into eugenics and race science. But historically, eugenics was much more than race ‘science’. It was used to argue the superiority of the elite and dominant races, and in countries like India, it was used as a ‘scientific’ justification for the caste system. The reoccurrence of the race and IQ debate in sociobiology, picks up the white supremacy theory in part leading to the rise of white nationalism, another marker of theories of eugenics showing it to be very much alive. In India, the race theory takes the form of the belief that Aryans are superior and fair skin is seen as a marker of Aryan ancestry. Hard to believe, but scientific racism persists within science. It is a part of the justification that the elites seek, justifying their superior position based on their genes, and not on the fact that they inherited or stole their wealth. It is a way to airbrush the history of the loot, slavery and genocide that accompanied the colonization of the world by a handful of countries in Western Europe. Why is it that when we talk about genetics and history, ideology is placed above science? How did Mendel’s legacy of genetics become a tool in the hands of racist states, which included the U.S., Great Britain, Belgium, Portugal and other? Why is it that genetics is used repeatedly to support theories of superiority of the white race? All attempts to show the superiority of certain races started with a-priori assuming that certain races were superior and then trying to find what evidence to choose-from that would help support this thesis. The ideology has persisted for more than 100 years and it continues to thrive under the modern garb of an IQ debate or sociobiology. The reason is that it allows racism a place within science: changing the name from eugenics to sociobiology makes it appear as a respectable science. The power of ideology is not in the ideas, but in the structure of our society, where the rich and the powerful need justification for their position. That is why race science as an ideology is a natural ally of capitalism and groups like the G7, the club of the rich countries who want to create a ‘their’ rules-based international order. (Prabir Purkayastha)