-Are human rights a shared charade or are they to be seen as a sign of moral and political progress?
-As a matter of priority, the strugglefor substantive equality must, first and foremost, counter exclusion–particularly political exclusion, but also social exclusion. (Sandra Fredman)
Human rights: From indivisibility to invisibility? (Stefano Prato)
1. Government policy makers are too often reluctant to(or, more so, indifferent about)giving their rights to the people –making human rights (HR) de-facto invisible. Take for example the fact that they ‘do not see’ hunger around them, simply because they have never experienced it. Calls for ‘intersectoral policy convergence’ is the best they (have) come up with. But how can they foster such convergence when there is no HR policy, e.g., not even a credible national assessment of hunger and malnutrition as HR problems? Intesectoral policy coherence is different from policies being coherent with HR standards and principles!Intersectoral coordination/collaboration can hardlyset limits to the sways and injustices of the market; HR do address the latter and, more, brings them center stage –ergoout of invisibility.
Are people in a healthy society mindful of the human rights of all human beings?
2. In modern times, the HR framework has, more and more, allowed us to jump-start work that directly aims at solving the problems of discrimination and of marginalization. This, as a result of the fact that, in this endeavor, the justice system is not mindful of HR (to say the least) and has left us in the cold since it finds guilty people where there actually, way too often, are victims (often too of HR violations). And, as we all know, there is no harshpunishment for the rich and powerful when guilty.*
*: Beware of impunity! He who does not punish bad people, negatively affects good people. (Cicero, 106BC- 43BC)
3. Also, not really mindful is the fallacious idea that, when it comes to HR protection, those suffering political and civil violence should enjoy privileged moral status compared with those who are victims of economic, social and cultural rights violations. Furthermore, the idea that the economic rights violations millions of people suffer from is not a global issue, but only the responsibility of the respective national government is equally fallacious. (Ndongo Samba Sylla)
4. Additionally not mindful (or worse),is the fact that IMF and World Bank lending has repeatedly been embroiled in the violation of HR. Prioritizing country standards over universal principles actually ends up violating HR. This is precisely what happens in the context of this lending. After all, major client governments view HR considerations as an intrusion into their internal affairs. In their eyes, environmental and social standards are little more than impediments to fast growth. When these loans reinforce such country standards it invariably puts communities of claim holders and the environment at risk. Nobody doubts this any more. (KorinnaHorta) [See the postscript for more on this].
Let’s not be discouraged, but rather provoked into action (David Zakus)
5. Real breakthroughs in HR work are possible and are happening. To multiply this potential, further action is needed to overcome the forces of political inertia that have doomed past global initiatives on HR. Implemented initiatives tend to end with an echo or ring of earlier initiatives or interventions only to become more micro-level, more short-term project-oriented and more fractured –with donor support for HR initiatives ever harder to find. Seen in perspective, current efforts not only seem, but are less ‘unique’ or ‘new’ and do carry the worrisome risk of failure. The issue here is that these interventions we so often see, by themselves, do not overcome the political impediments and inertia that already overwhelmed past efforts to achieve impact. Overcoming these impediments has less to do with the availability of knowledge and evidence and much more to do with entrenched global governance issues –or to put it another way, with the deplorable political economy of current development policies and actions.
6. Today, the main hurdles and sources of friction remain the same ones that repeatedly undermined efforts in the past 40 years.Depressing, no? Discouraging? No!Rather a call to action given that,in the battle for high-level policy attention, the forces of political inertia work constantly to push HR to a low priority repetitive cycle. As said, the perennially‘intersectoral coordination’ proposed instead will, alone, simply not cut it: Calling for complementaryactions across sectors does not, by itself, automatically give rise to fairer HR policies!
7. Moreover, when it comes to HR actions, issues of conflict of interest among development actors are a source of further deep concern and division.** These concerns are not without warrant. There is significant evidence of how the engagement with the private sector has distorted and/or undermined public policy especially towards HR. There is a need for strong and credible protections against conflicts of interest, but only counted public-private partnerships (PPPs) take this responsibility as a key issue to seriously address –this, nothing but a reflection of the extreme asymmetries of power.
**: Note that having conflicting interests is different from having conflicts of interest;we all have the former…
8. Large corporations –often part of now-fashionable multistakeholder platforms and PPPs– use several strategies to deflect public attention about their (negative) influence, namely
• blocking or diverting efforts to put in place public regulations,
• coopting policy makers,
• intenselyusing cash for lobbying against such regulations,
• directly attacking UN agencies’ positions,
• financing social campaigns designed to shape public opinion (often maliciously reframing issues of HR as ‘issues of personal choice’).
9. These corporations thus pursue private ends that undermine public policy and trust in public institutions and,way too often, theyoffer pledges that are seldom followed-through –with no mechanisms put in place to follow-up, track and report on the same. (The preceding is clearly evident in relation to the right to health and the right to nutrition).
If all the above does not provoke us into action, then what?
Moral suasion is clearly not enough.
10. The conclusion here is that strong firewalls against private sector engagement in public policy and regulatory issues must be implemented and enforcedand UN agencies are to play a crucial normative role in this providing needed guidance. Public interest civil society organizations and social movements must continue championing this cause!
11. It is further not realistic for UN organizations to seek private donor funds claiming a neutral status as ‘trusted facilitators of independent action’. An effective system of governance of HR action must be deeply rooted in the norms, member state solemn agreements and the institutional architecture of the UN system.Publicly watchdogging the UN’s accountability on this is crucial.*** (Michael Clark, FAO)
***: Consider also: It has been a colossal mistake to weaken the UN system replacing it by plutocratic, economic, social and cultural rights-skeptical groups such as the G8, the G7 and the G20 –not to speak of the ‘Davos clan’ of plutocrats. (Francisco Mayor)
12. In an interesting twist, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ZeidRa’ad Al Hussein, has likened HR violations to seismic signals that come before an earthquake, and has further provoked leaders to take actions now. He is of the opinion that disaster will strike unless these seismic signals are released gradually and soon through wiser people-centered policy making, i.e., where the interests of all humans override the growing pursuit of the narrowest, purely economic, national and ideologically-limited agendas. Otherwise –as the reading of human history informs us– a more sudden release, when it comes, will be a colossus of violence and death.****
****: The Chinese character for crisis combines the characters for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. Our ability to improve HR depends critically on our ability to recognize and address dangers, but also to seize opportunities made possible by recognizing that crises offer rare opportunities to pursue extraordinary options not normally available. (Jomo K. Sundaram)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org