Editor's Introduction
“Germany's Integration Blinkers. What's So Bad About Parallel Societies?” by Henryk M. Broder, Spiegel Online, November 20, 2010
“Angela Merkel: German Multiculturalism has Utterly Failed,” by Matthew Weaver, The Guardian, October 17, 2010
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made international headlines with her recent remarks that “multiculturalism has utterly failed.” Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily “side by side” does not work in her country. The Chancellor’s statement created great debate since Germany recently has been immersed in an intense political controversy on multiculturalism and the question of whether or not there is a need to have a guiding national culture or “Leitkultur” when dealing with integration.
The article under review by Henryk M. Broder from the SpiegelOnline captures the extent of the debate through the following questions: “Why, then, does the term ‘parallel society’ have such a negative connotation in Germany? Why has multiculturalism ‘utterly failed?’ Why should people “with immigration backgrounds,” as Germans so carefully say, be forced to merge into the society of the majority if they would rather remain among themselves?” The article goes further by indicating that “ Only primitive societies that allow no differences of any kind, and dictatorships, which control all aspects of life, are free of parallel societies. Both the Third Reich and communist East Germany, for example, had no such thing. In flexible, changing populations, parallel societies are almost inevitable.”
These questions highlight an intense discussion about immigration policies in a country that is home to a great number of immigrants from Turkey, Russia, Poland, and other nations. In some cases the debate on multiculturalism has fostered discriminatory discourses against immigrants, particularly those of Muslim origin. Last week, Horst Seehofer, the Premier of Bavaria and a member of the Christian Social Union—part of Merkel's ruling coalition—called for a halt to Turkish and Arab immigration. Recent polls published by The Guardian showed one third of Germans believed the country was “overrun by foreigners.” It also found 55 percent of Germans believed that Arabs are “unpleasant people,” compared with the 44 percent who held the same opinion seven years ago.
Similar sentiments have been expressed in many Western countries, including Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands; in all of these places, anti-immigrant political parties made gains in recent elections. The United States is no exception to this tension, as demonstrated by the heated debate over Arizona’s new immigration law and the mosque-bashing at Ground Zero.
One of the biggest questions facing societies today continues to be how to respond to cultural and religious diversity. The backlash against multiculturalism, as expressed by Merkel’s statement, provides a new opportunity to re-examine the possible reasons behind the apparent failure of some national integration policies. This month’s panelists provide a wide array of perspectives on multiculturalism and integration through illustrative examples from Europe, Canada, and the United States.
These issues and others are considered in this month’s Roundtable.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
November 2010: Multiculturalism and Integration
Editor's Introduction
“Germany's Integration Blinkers. What's So Bad About Parallel Societies?” by Henryk M. Broder, Spiegel Online, November 20, 2010
“Angela Merkel: German Multiculturalism has Utterly Failed,” by Matthew Weaver, The Guardian, October 17, 2010
Citizenship, Rights and Culture
by Alison Brysk, University of California, Santa Barbara
"(…) Beyond this, those of us who are American citizens have a special obligation to hold our own society to its rights-based citizenship ideals. Racial profiling in Arizona’s immigration law, proposals to change the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to all born in the US, and mosque-bashing at Ground Zero and beyond are all betrayals of American values as well as international human rights."
Shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s repudiation of multiculturalism, the Soros Foundation announced the winners of its Fellowships for New Americans—an award for graduate study for foreign-born students whose career paths show initiative, accomplishment, and “commitment to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution.” Dozens of America’s best and brightest are pursuing degrees in law, medicine, public policy, business, and the arts that will immensely enrich our national and global communities. Many of these outstanding Americans remain deeply rooted in their homelands and cultures. Two of the women wear headscarves, four of the honorees work as advocates for immigrant and refugee communities, and several more plan development research focused on the problems of their countries of origin, such as tropical diseases. All are "truer to values of our Constitution" than native-born Christine O’Donnell, the Delaware Republican Senate candidate who recently revealed her ignorance of the First Amendment.
The Soros Foundation embodies the best aspects of the American model of citizenship based on rights and values, not blood and soil. Although our progress towards this American ideal has been marred in every generation by bigotry and backlash, the fundamental assumption is that newcomers to our society can earn equal citizenship by civic behavior and belief. Conversely, when some immigrants to Germany cause social problems by failing to behave in accordance with Germany’s democratic norms, Germany’s mistake has not been in “allowing” them to maintain their languages and religions, but rather in inviting them only as labor commodities rather than potential citizens—then belatedly confusing cultural practice with civic behavior. Hate crimes, domestic violence, child abuse, and fraud in government services are real and serious civic problems, but they are law enforcement problems caused predominantly by class and social marginality—not by eating hummus rather than sausage. They are also forms of uncivic behavior shared by some native-born, majority-culture citizens, from American Christian cults to European skinheads.
It is instructive, and ironic, that the same characteristics of immigrant groups that are said to undermine democracy in one group or generation are lauded in another. In both Europe and the US, Asian entrepreneurs with deep family ties and little contact with other groups are said to exemplify good Confucian norms, while Hispanics and Muslim families with the same values and behavior are depicted as dangerously insular. Meanwhile, empirical research shows that US Muslims—about two-thirds foreign-born—are decidedly “middle-class and mainstream.” In a previous generation, American Catholics, now prominent in democratic leadership at all levels, were said to be untrustworthy citizens due to their hierarchical religious culture with foreign ties—just as some contemporary leaders condemn Muslims on the basis of an allegedly undemocratic identity. To the French, who have banned headscarves in schools on this basis, I respond as a patriotic American: I do not care what you wear on your head—I care about the ideas inside it, and how you act upon them.
Beyond this, those of us who are American citizens have a special obligation to hold our own society to its rights-based citizenship ideals. Racial profiling in Arizona’s immigration law, proposals to change the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to all born in the US, and mosque-bashing at Ground Zero and beyond are all betrayals of American values as well as international human rights. If a religious group can be deemed to forfeit their right to practice near sites of victimization because some members of the group committed abuses or received impunity inspired by their religious identity, we should forbid Catholic churches near elementary schools.
Even when fully realized, however, the American model is not multicultural but rather culture-neutral. As the denigration of bilingual education in California shows, there is no right to cultural identity in US law, although cultural expression is protected when it coincides with religious freedom. This American assimilation norm contradicts the growing corpus of cultural rights at the international level, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights. The melting-pot model also ignores contemporary thinking like Kwame Anthony Appiah’s that sees the identity of “cosmopolitan patriots” as a building block rather than a barrier to universalism. My immigrant grandmother was welcomed to American citizenship and social status as a public school teacher despite her foreign birth, minority language, and religion—but one of her duties was to Americanize the names of her newly arriving students, so they could access the same opportunities.
On the other hand, in Canada, the most developed contemporary model of true multiculturalism has sometimes foundered on legal pluralism that privileges group rights or customary codes over universal human rights norms, such as an experiment with allowing sharia family law in Ontario along with other “faith-based arbitration.” Indigenous as well as Muslim women in Canada have complained that the gender equity guaranteed by Canada’s own national Charter of Rights, as well as by international norms to which Canada subscribes, may be lost when leaders and traditions of their cultural communities are granted power over specific areas of legal decision-making. Somehow, multiculturalism must find a way to promote a plurality of cultural expression without granting cultural authority over the lives of individual citizens, who should retain the full panoply of universal rights—guaranteed in and by their state—regardless of group membership.
Diversity is a part of democracy. As Germany’s own history tragically teaches, democracy requires far more than majority rule—it rests on full and equal protection under the law, for native-born, naturalized, and non-citizens alike. I suggest that Angela Merkel visit the Soros website; this is what democracy looks like.
ALISON BRYSK is Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina (1994), From Tribal Village to Global Village (2000), Human Rights and Private Wrongs (2005), and Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy (2009). Professor Brysk has been a visiting scholar in Argentina, Ecuador, France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan. In 2007, she held the Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Chair in Global Governance at Canada's Centre for International Governance Innovation.
European Identity Struggles in the Age of Austerity
by Par Engstrom, University of London
"Right-wing political parties have managed to capitalize on the failure of integration of recent immigrants in many European countries and the increasing visibility of “parallel societies.” However, it is certainly paradoxical in a time of economic crisis and austerity that the most controversial political debates in Europe today seem to revolve around questions concerning the dress code of Muslim girls and women, and the building of minarets and mosques."
The economic crisis has coincided with a discernible rise of right-wing populist parties in a number of European countries. This was most recently seen in elections in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Right-wing populist parties also hold parliamentary seats in Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Norway, and they have been part of coalition governments in Italy and Switzerland for some time. In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, although not represented in parliament, wields considerable political influence, and may receive an additional electoral boost should Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, inherit the party leadership. True, these parties still enjoy only rather limited electoral support. But their influence is more significant than what is reflected in their parliamentary mandates, particularly in relation to ongoing struggles over “European values” and identity.
Right-wing populism in Europe has, of course, deep historical roots. There are also many differences between the various right-wing populist parties gaining ground in Europe today. However, a striking commonality of contemporary manifestations of right-wing populism lies in the way in which these parties have managed to exploit undercurrents of European Islamophobia for electoral gain. Exploiting Islamophobia has proven to be strategically more effective in contemporary European politics than more traditional forms of xenophobia. The exploitation of concerns regarding, and in some quarters the fear of, Muslim immigration is the common denominator of the most recent resurgence of right-wing populist parties across Europe.
The growing visibility of Islam in Europe and the problem of integrating the large minority of Muslim citizens have become electoral issues that reflect a deep unease about what is perceived as the changing character of European societies. Clearly, established political parties and political elites have been inept at responding to these concerns and have failed to convey to voters that they take them seriously. The traditional parties have indeed found it difficult to come up with a coherent set of integration policies. Whilst a plethora of institutions has been set up and a veritable industry of integration experts have been employed, the traditional parties have become increasingly removed from voters’ concerns. Faced with the electoral challenges from right-wing populist parties, the traditional parties have moved further to the right in their attempts to sideline the far-right. As a consequence, from Denmark to France, governments have adopted increasingly restrictive and coercive immigration policies that have already started to undermine the very (“European”) values that they often purport to safeguard.
The right-wing populist parties have capitalized on the ineptitude of European political elites by cobbling together a discourse that resonates with a significant strata of voters and draws on Islamophobic sentiments on the one hand and the fear of exploitation of the social welfare state on the other. In so doing, right-wing populism has been remarkably successful in appealing both to socially conservative voters and to those concerned with safeguarding what remains of European social welfare states. Right-wing populist parties have also managed to portray themselves as willing to express sentiments they claim no one else dares to express: that Muslim immigration is undermining European societies; that “Islam” is encroaching on Western values; and that the “West” must be saved. They purport to be defenders of “European values” (freedom of expression and women’s rights in particular), while at the same time actively advocating for the suppression of those values for certain sections of the citizenry and with regards to other related values (most notably freedom of religion).
Traditional defenders of values such as free speech, secularism, and women’s rights have been largely ineffective in their response to right-wing populists who claim to be defending these values in debates over practical issues that most people can relate to, such as veiling in schools and the building of mosques. In part this can be explained by the general reluctance of the political left, still recovering from its earlier embrace of rather crude notions of “multiculturalism,” to fully engage in the debates around “European values.”
However, the current malaise also reflects the more profound reality, highlighted by the economic crisis, of the long-term and structural decline of the (Northern) European social-democratic model. The recent rise of right-wing populism in Northern Europe in particular is linked with declining support of social-democratic parties. This broader trend raises fundamental questions regarding the sustainability of welfare systems based on notions of solidarity as societies become culturally more heterogeneous, societal bonds of trust increasingly fragmented, and shared values and common visions of what constitutes a “good society” increasingly challenged. It is also connected with underlying concerns about the future in a world where the balance of power is rapidly shifting away from Europe (and the West more generally) and in which an ageing Europe is existentially threatened by more dynamic parts of the world.
Right-wing political parties have managed to capitalize on the failure of integration of recent immigrants in many European countries and the increasing visibility of “parallel societies.” However, it is certainly paradoxical in a time of economic crisis and austerity that the most controversial political debates in Europe today seem to revolve around questions concerning the dress code of Muslim girls and women, and the building of minarets and mosques. Voters’ discontent must be seen partly against the background of the fears of many workers whose wages are being undercut by immigrant labor , and partly against a widely shared disillusionment with traditional political elites that have largely evaded the tough question of how to respond to voters’ concerns. Yet, in most of Europe, with the partial exceptions of France and Greece, political resignation reigns over the need for fiscal austerity. Instead of struggles against draconian budget cuts, Europe’s “autumn of discontent” has brought heated debates over European identity and values.
Par Engstrom is lecturer in human rights at the Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and teaches at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas. Current research interests focus on regional human rights institutions both comparatively and with a particular reference to the Inter-American Human Rights System. Further research interests include the relationship between human rights and democratization; transitional justice; the international relations of the Americas; human rights, humanitarianism, and foreign policy; and theories of international relations, particularly relating to international law and institutions. http://sas.academia.edu/ParEngstrom/About
Multiculturalism and the Struggle of National Normative Challenges
by Marc Alexander C. Gionet, St. Thomas University
"It may appear to be disordered and tensioned, but the existence of a multicultural society that is able to reasonably accommodate a vast spectrum of beliefs and practices without compromising normative values is possible. The functionality of such a society requires a high threshold of respect, education, and accessible mechanisms for conflict resolution."
Globalization has not translated into a set of universal monolithic values. As populations relocate for various reasons, increasingly less effort is required not only to stay connected, but to remain within the home community via satellite television, radio, telecommunications, and locally concentrated diaspora. Henryk M. Broder has described such a phenomenon as the development of “parallel societies, ” which result from immigrants’ failure or lack of interest in integrating into a host community. The question that many commentators have attempted to answer is: does the development of parallel societies, or even additional cultural diversity, represent a threat or a compromise to the normative values of a host country? The simple yet intricate answer is—it depends.
France has generated considerable discussion surrounding its decision to ban the niqab in official spaces such as hospitals, post offices, and public transit. A cross-party Parliamentary Commission published a report on the issue which stated “wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic.” And two out of three French citizens would agree, supporting a ban, which was recently passed, extending to all public spaces.
Whether the rationale for donning a face veil is cultural or religious in its roots is rather inconsequential. Whether the practice is viewed as an exercise of agency or the result of sexual inequality and oppression is also secondary to the fundamental question of how personal garb represents a threat to the Republic of France. If the threat can be more accurately referred to as a populist sentiment of discomfort, then that hardly seems to meet any sort of legal criteria. Such practices may be offensive to some, but its tolerance speaks to a democratic society’s foundational principles to provide space and accommodation for an inclusive spectrum of expression and belief.
Fear seems to stem from the question of what happens when “parallel societies” aren’t parallel at all, and instead of self-isolating fringe societies become assertive, resulting in a clash of rights which are held in equal esteem before the law. Canada is also going through a period of experiential learning in its attempts to balance societal norms with multicultural accommodation. The “kirpan case,” as it has come to be known, exemplifies a reasonable balance.
In 2001, a twelve year old orthodox Sikh dropped his kirpan, or ceremonial dagger, in a schoolyard. The school board’s governing body ruled that the dagger violated its ban on bringing "dangerous and forbidden objects" onto school property and told the student to leave it at home, despite protests that the kirpan was not a weapon but a religious symbol which must be worn at all times.
The case worked its way to the Supreme Court where, in a unanimous decision, the court ruled a complete ban was a violation of the Charter right to religious freedom—but concessions were made to school boards allowing for regulations to ensure public safety. As such, Sikhs could carry kirpans to school, but only if they were sewn into a protective sheath. Most would agree that the judicial remedy was a reasonable accommodation, but the process of coming to such a remedy took over five years and considerable resources to litigate.
With the increased publicity of similar cases, deliberated by courts as well as by provincial human rights commissions, an inflated fear of over-compromise seems to be gripping public sentiment. More conservative elements of society are pushing for “foreign” cultural or religious groups to secularize within the public sphere, while accepting dominant religious symbols and practices in the same public space. Perceived threats to normative values are further inflamed by sensational cases such as honor killings, which have occurred in Ontario and other provinces.
What seems to be lost in this exchange is the realization that, however tenuous, the mechanisms in place to help accommodate multiculturalism without sacrificing normative societal values are working. For example, a Sikh employee in a food warehouse wants to wear a kara, a metal bracelet that represents an expression of the Sikh faith, but the warehouse has a jewelry ban for employees who handle food due to hygienic concerns. As an accommodation, the employee could wear the kara provided he or she also wears a glove which covers the article and adheres to public health standards. Such an accommodation does not threaten normative values, and in cases where accommodation would be threatening—such as sentencing leniency for murder on the basis of cultural practice—no accommodation has been provided, nor remotely entertained.
It may appear to be disordered and tensioned, but the existence of a multicultural society that is able to reasonably accommodate a vast spectrum of beliefs and practices without compromising normative values is possible. The functionality of such a society requires a high threshold of respect, education, and accessible mechanisms for conflict resolution.
Marc Alexander C. Gionet is the Director of the Atlantic Human Rights Research and Development Centre housed at St. Thomas University where he also lectures within the undergraduate human rights programme. Mr. Gionet is currently teaching courses on Humanitarian Law, NGOs and Human Rights and Terrorism and Human Rights. His most recent publication discusses the transfer of Canadian captured detainees to third parties in Afghanistan.
A Protection Post-Mortem on the "Death" of Multiculturalism in Germany
"Of course, it is one thing if immigrants choose, as is their right, to maintain strong links with their cultural heritage and community of origin, thereby co-existing in so-called “ parallel societies,” all the while participating in Germany’s economic and cultural development. However, it is another matter entirely when state policy and practice put legal, administrative, and institutional obstacles in their path towards integration.
"Noticeably absent from the recent pronouncements of the “death” of multiculturalism in Germany, including Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own conclusion that the policy had “utterly failed,” has been any interest to seriously examine, let alone address, the reasons for such a failure.
Instead, it is asserted with matter-of-fact conviction that the lack of integration into German society by “immigrants” (a label that ignores the fact that many of the people in question have been in the country for two or three generations) is of their own doing. Of course, it is one thing if immigrants choose, as is their right, to maintain strong links with their cultural heritage and community of origin, thereby co-existing in so-called “parallel societies,” all the while participating in Germany’s economic and cultural development. However, it is another matter entirely when state policy and practice put legal, administrative, and institutional obstacles in their path towards integration.
Many of these problems originate in the education system, thereby impeding integration from the earliest age. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, following a fact-finding mission to Germany in 2006, reported on “the phenomena of exclusion and marginalization of schoolchildren, in particular those of immigrant origin” resulting from a system of classifying children at the age of ten for funnelling into one of three parallel education tracks. The criteria used for this life-changing assessment (for which it was found the assessors were not always adequately trained) give “disproportionate weight” to proficiency in the German language, with the effect of discriminating against children of foreign origin without adequately supporting them to achieve this requirement. Consequently, children of immigrant origin are over-represented at the Hauptschule vocational schools, while they are underrepresented at the academically-oriented Gymnasium schools. Echoing these findings, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has reported that children of immigrants also are overrepresented in “special schools for ‘under-achievers’ (Sonderschulen),” while being underrepresented in secondary and tertiary education. The UN Committee called on the German government to “take effective measures to ensure the integration of children of non-citizens in the regular school system” including by improving programs to support the German language skills of such children. A National Integration Summit and Summit on Education for Migrant Children, both convened by Chancellor Merkel in 2006, outlined over 400 additional suggested measures to improve access to education for children and youth with a migration background.
That much work remains to be done today is evident from the report to the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year by the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, who called for comprehensive corrective measures throughout all education levels. In particular, he underscored the need to invest more effort in promoting German language competence among preschool children, considering the long-term and wide-ranging impact this would have on their future educational and therefore also employment opportunities.
Another key concern is the discrimination that migrant communities face in terms of access to housing. Paradoxically, this discrimination is enabled, the Special Rapporteur pointed out, by a provision in the General Equal Treatment Act that allows different treatment on the grounds of race or ethnic origin in the case of housing rentals when this would “serve to create and maintain stable social structures [...] as well as balanced economic, social and cultural conditions” providing a large legal loophole in which discriminatory practices can flourish. This drives migrant communities to settle together in certain “minority areas” which then creates additional barriers to their integration, particularly with regard to their gaining language proficiency.
Further, the Special Rapporteur noted that this process of ghettoization has “fostered the image of migrant communities as being ‘secluded’ and ‘unwilling’ to integrate.” This speaks to a fundamental problem in how the debate over integration has been framed in Germany. The Special Rapporteur observed that although “integration should be a two-way process involving both migrants and German society”, in reality “the debate so far has focused solely on the ‘responsibility’ of migrants to integrate, a term which in many instances is interchangeably used to mean assimilation.” However, as the International Crisis Group (ICG) points out in its 2007 report on Islam and Identity in Germany, placing the onus of adjustment entirely on immigrants not only is an “unrealistic expectation” it also serves “to encourage the authorities and political class to evade their responsibilities to facilitate this evolution.” Accordingly, ICG concluded that “German rather than Turkish attitudes were the primary factor precluding effective integration.”
Like a prescription for a patient who is ill, the reports issued by the UN human rights system and by NGOs over the years not only have documented and diagnosed the problems impeding the integration of migrant communities in Germany; they also have recommended ways to remedy the situation. If the German government actually is interested to reverse the “failure” of multiculturalism and to fulfil its human rights obligations, it is still not too late to follow the doctors’ orders.
Erin Mooney is a consultant to the United Nations and the Brookings Institution on issues of human rights and forced migration and Adjunct Professor in International Relations at the University of Toronto (2008-10). The views expressed are those of the author, writing in an independent capacity.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
October 2010: MDGs & Human Rights
Editor's introduction: MDGs & Human Rights
Article under review:
“The UN millennium development goals can be put back on track” by Philippe Douste-Blazy. The Guardian. September 5, 2010.
In his speech at the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit, President Obama noted that "if the international community just keeps doing the same things in the same way, we will miss many development goals." Regrettably, that is what many donors and recipients seem to be doing, and the opportunity to reach the MDGs is likely to be missed unless more urgent action is taken immediately. The United Nations 2010 MDG Report indicates that about one quarter of all children in developing countries are considered to be underweight and are at risk of long-term effects of undernourishment; more than 500,000 prospective mothers in developing countries die annually in childbirth or of complications from pregnancy; in sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion of people living on just over a dollar a day is unlikely to be cut in half. Additionally, in middle income countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia, inequality has also led to “pockets of poverty”–socially excluded groups that will need specific attention if their countries are to reach the MDGs.
Shortcomings in attaining these internationally accepted development goals are due to a range of factors. In this month’s centerpiece, former French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy indicates that the global economic crisis is sapping developed countries' efforts to fulfill their commitments for official development assistance (ODA): “A UN report warns that annual investment from these donor countries is falling $35bn short of the $150bn goal.” For Douste-Blazy, one of the ways to reach these goals is to put into place innovative financing mechanisms that could tap incrementally into global financial flows without disrupting economic activity.
Our panelists take the discussion even further. For them, the Millennium Project’s agenda has focused exclusively on identifying the operational priorities, organizational means of implementation, and financing structures necessary to achieve the MDGs. To be more effective, these endeavors should also be understood within a broader human rights framework. In fact, for each one of the MDGs, there is a corresponding set of human rights obligations, standards, and norms. For example, the goal of halving poverty is useful as a benchmark, but a human rights focus would add value by helping to ensure that those working towards that objective do not discriminate against communities that have historically suffered from prejudice.
Finally, our contributors suggest that MDG-related activities must also work to change the unequal power relations that sustain poverty. Such an approach would consider the power asymmetries of the international economic system as well as inequalities within countries. Many of the barriers to progress on MDGs lie in the social and political realms, and it is in this context that the transformative power of human rights should take priority.
These issues and others are considered in this month’s Roundtable.
Development as Power
by Alison Brysk
"The Millennium Goals are a wonderful way to focus world attention and political pressure on the development gap. While new mechanisms and modalities for transferring resources are a good first step, real progress requires deeper understanding of the power distortions that cause the gap. The most effective programs will be those that redistribute power, not just wealth. And the best way to construct new policies is not just to ‘follow the money,’ but ‘follow the power’."
While material progress towards the Millennium Development Goals is laudable, and pledges of new resources are necessary, we can never fully address poverty without talking about power. As Amartya Sen pointed out, true development depends on freedom.
At the current Millenium Development Summit, Bhutan's contribution was to encourage a broader and more holistic measure of development, based on its own Gross National Happiness Index, which measures good governance as a dimension of development. Along another dimension of the power-development nexus, Thomas Pogge has shown that decreasing economic inequity both within and between countries is inextricably linked to the fulfillment of all human rights.
Perhaps the clearest link between poverty and empowerment is in the area of gender equity. Women are the poorest, sickest, least educated, and least powerful members of most developing societies. We know that women's education leads to more sustainable levels of population growth; conversely, we know that gender inequity is correlated with underdevelopment. As far as the well-being of half of society, we know that gender-based inequity in political, property, and reproductive rights puts women at risk for the fatal consequences of underdevelopment, including AIDS, domestic violence, and maternal mortality. The Millennium Goals already recognize these connections, but there has been less progress here than elsewhere.
Across the board, as a "lowest common denominator" international consensus, the Millennium Goals are necessary but insufficient insofar as they do not address fundamental freedoms. While China and other rising powers in Asia still claim that "a rising tide lifts all boats," they fail to heed the lessons of the past generation of Latin America's experience of the perils of unequal development. It is no accident that the most violent countries are not the poorest, but rather the most unequal.
On the other side of the ledger, the programs that have actually reduced poverty are precisely those that empower the most vulnerable members of society. Micro-credit for women in South Asia and Africa has improved incomes, nutrition, education, and political participation, at least at the local level. Perhaps the single most effective anti-poverty program today is school allowances for children, notably in Brazil and Mexico. What makes these programs work is that they go beyond the necessary (but not sufficient) goals of transferring resources to poor families or protecting children from labor exploitation, and empower children within their families and societies through education.
Garnering the resources to support these programs and other facets of the Millennium Goals is also a question of power in several ways. First, it is a question of finding leverage to make powerful countries contribute to global common goods. For example, middle power Canada ended up increasing its pledge to the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria even under a conservative spending-averse government, because Canada will soon seek a seat on the UN Security Council.
Second, progress requires harnessing the growing power of non-governmental transnational exchange—like the tax on air tickets. Similar measures include fair trade campaigns to bolster developing countries' producers, and people-to-people micro-credit schemes such as KIVA. The proposed Tobin Tax on financial transactions would be another powerful mechanism, and is currently being debated in Europe.
Finally, we must find a way to link rising power to rising responsibility in the international system. Countries like China that grow from globalization must also contribute to ameliorate humanitarian suffering and the displacement of traditional producers. Something like a WTO Buffer Fund for food prices, indexed to growth, rates of rising powers would accomplish this goal. Even lower-income rising powers such as India or Brazil could contribute concessionary technology transfer or intellectual property—like bio-fuels or generic anti-retroviral drugs for HIV.
The Millennium Goals are a wonderful way to focus world attention and political pressure on the development gap. While new mechanisms and modalities for transferring resources are a good first step, real progress requires deeper understanding of the power distortions that cause the gap. The most effective programs will be those that redistribute power, not just wealth. And the best way to construct new policies is not just to “follow the money,” but “follow the power.”
ALISON BRYSK is Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina (1994), From Tribal Village to Global Village (2000), Human Rights and Private Wrongs (2005), and Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy (2009). Professor Brysk has been a visiting scholar in Argentina, Ecuador, France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan. In 2007, she held the Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Chair in Global Governance at Canada's Centre for International Governance Innovation.
The MDGs and the (New) International Economic Order
by Par Engstrom
"“(…)as the emerging economies continue to grow, they will have to manage increasing expectations that they should play a more active and forceful role in the foreign aid regime and that they should shoulder a greater burden in response to humanitarian emergencies, for example. This has significant implications for the foreign aid regime, as one cannot assume that emerging powers will simply be absorbed into the current global order."
The current economic crisis has indeed had far-reaching consequences beyond the “developed world” where the crisis originated. Yet, significantly, the impact of the crisis on the “developing world” has varied quite considerably. While parts of sub-Saharan Africa may have suffered as a consequence of rising food prices and reduced aid flows, other regions have fared considerably better. It is too early to talk about the decoupling of “frontier markets” (to use investment analyst jargon) from developed markets. Yet the solid performance of most Latin American and Asian economies in recent years raises interesting questions regarding the international economic system and the prospects for reducing poverty levels for large sectors of the population of the developing world.
The current buoyant economies of countries such as Brazil, China, and India have for many highlighted a stark contrast with the recession-struck economies of Europe and the US. For some, such contrasts indicate fundamental shifts in the global economy toward the “Global South” and herald the future of the world order. A major concern of US and European policymakers has been how to grapple with the notion that their era of dominance in world affairs is being fundamentally challenged. The growing power and influence of emerging states will clearly shape international development debates as well. Indeed, the rising economic influence of China (and India) in Africa, for example, has been a major concern for many traditional donors in that region. With the increasing clout of emerging countries in the foreign aid regime, the principles and “best practices” that have shaped that regime–for example with regards to the DAC (the OECD Development Assistance Committee) principles and the anti-corruption agenda–may face gradual erosion.
Yet, as the emerging economies continue to grow, they will have to manage increasing expectations that they should play a more active and forceful role in the foreign aid regime and that they should shoulder a greater burden in response to humanitarian emergencies, for example. This has significant implications for the foreign aid regime, as one cannot assume that emerging powers will simply be absorbed into the current global order. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa are not likely to develop approaches to poverty alleviation in line with the “moral consensus” that Philippe Douste-Blazy refers to. In particular, these countries have traditionally emphasized the importance of protections from external interference and have opposed the idea and practice of coercive and intrusive interventions, whether these be military or economic in nature. Hence, rather than requesting increases in overseas development assistance (ODA), many developing countries are increasingly assertive in their demands for reforms of international trade and financial institutions which, they argue, better serve the interests of the rich and powerful than the needs of poorer countries.
The achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), therefore, is not simply a matter of an increase in ODA flows, the creation of “innovative financing mechanisms,” or the effective implementation of development policy. Broadly speaking, much of the development policy debate has tended to focus on three sets of issues: economic reforms to establish macroeconomic stability; institutions and “governance,” and their role in the enforcement of the rule of law and targeting of corruption; and an emphasis on “participation” as a way of involving people in decisions that affect them and their communities. This overlooks, however, the structural constraints that impede economic growth and human development for many developing societies. True, MDG8, with a focus on a “Global Partnership for Development,” seeks to address these structural constraints. It emphasizes the imperative for developed countries to provide financial resources, but also to support the creation of a fairer trade regime to respond to the needs of developing countries. However, in large part due to the economic crisis, the more far-reaching reform agenda incorporated in MDG8 concerning trade, the reduction of tariffs and quotas, the untying of aid, and debt relief has effectively stalled. Any progress on this front requires far more than another UN Summit.
Par Engstrom is lecturer in human rights at the Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and teaches at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas. Current research interests focus on regional human rights institutions both comparatively and with a particular reference to the Inter-American Human Rights System. Further research interests include the relationship between human rights and democratization; transitional justice; the international relations of the Americas; human rights, humanitarianism, and foreign policy; and theories of international relations, particularly relating to international law and institutions. http://sas.academia.edu/ParEngstrom/About
MDG: Reinvigoration or Mourning?
by Marc Alexander C. Gionet
"The international community still has a remarkable degree of separation between current achievement and MDG expectations to resolve over the coming five years. Only by shifting the narrative from that of selective championed goals to obligatory holistic achievement will the international community be able to compensate for the currently lagging effort. "
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit got underway on September 20th in New York. Opening speeches seemed to be a roster of who’s – who of contributors towards global poverty with the IMF and WTO leading the pack.As speeches progressed, a disturbing trend developed which romanticized the pre-recessionary period of progress towardsMDG achievement and reducing world poverty. As Dominique Strauss-Kahn stated on behalf of the IMF,
“Before the crisis, we saw strong growth and macroeconomic stability in developing countries—driven mainly by good homegrown policies, but supported by an enabling international environment. This was translating into falling poverty and improving social indicators, and gave us grounds for optimism. But because of the crisis…we have lost years of progress, and the momentum has been derailed.”
This defeatist tone was constant in opening speeches, with all lost progress attributed to the economic and financial crisis as well as to volatile food and energy costs. Bolivian President Evo Morales provided deviation from the defeatism stating,
"If we wish to make progress, it is our obligation to reach the Millennium Development Goals. And in order to reach these goals, the South has to stop financing the North. This millennium should see the closure of the open veins of the South that are bleeding towards the North."
The dominant narrative which has framed meeting the MDGs is in stark contrast to the views of Mr. Morales, who so aptly referred to Eduardo Galeano’s definitive work “Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina” which chronicles the historic subsidization of first world wealth and prosperity by the developing world. The MDGs were constructed to address the very worst consequences of the global inequitable distribution of wealth. It was not a charity drive organized by the fortunate to assist the less fortunate, but a pact to counteract injustice.
Despite its inception as a holistic accomplishment the dichotomy of MDG achievement has developed into the celebrated possible attainment of some goals, such as eradicating diseases like malaria, contrasted by the near resignation of failure to achieve other goals. Following the end of the Summit, the United Nations was quick to promote the pledges of more than $40 billion over the next five years towards women and children’s health, removing that effort from the larger context.
Canada is an excellent example of a nation that has made selective commitments, championing certain goals while withdrawing support for others. As the host of the 2010 G8 Summit, Canada led the Muskoka Initiative which pledged an additional $5.0 billion for disbursement over the next five years in an effort to accelerate progress towards MDGs 4 and 5, relating to maternal and child health care. Canada’s pledged contribution was $2.85 billion of this sum over five years. While this initiative should be applauded, Canada has also frozen its overall budget for overseas assistance. In addition, Canada “re-clarified” its 2005 G8 summit promise of $2.8 billion in annual aid to Africa to $2.1 billion. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also resisted calls to extend the Unitaid fee, a small fee attached to the purchase of airline tickets, to Canadian consumers despite the program’s success. Since 2007, the program has raised $1.5 billion which has been utilized to increase drug program accessibility for those in low income countries who need HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis treatments.
Canada, along with other states that take a similarly selective approach towards MDG achievement, needs to assume full responsibility towards the holistic objective. Unlike other commitments to the developing world, such as raising foreign aid contributions to 0.7% GDP, the MDGs are not an aspirational goal designed to be striven towards to the fullest extent possible within a state’s means. Instead, what the MDGs represent is an interdependent agreement to mitigate the worst effects of the global wealth disparity. And in order to properly address this, as the MDGs establish, total achievement is necessary.
The international community still has a remarkable degree of separation between current achievement and MDG expectations to resolve over the coming five years. Only by shifting the narrative from that of selective championed goals to obligatory holistic achievement will the international community be able to compensate for the currently lagging effort.
Marc Alexander C. Gionet is the Director of the Atlantic Human Rights Research and Development Centre housed at St. Thomas University where he also lectures within the undergraduate human rights programme. Mr. Gionet is currently teaching courses on Humanitarian Law, NGOs and Human Rights and Terrorism and Human Rights. His most recent publication discusses the transfer of Canadian captured detainees to third parties in Afghanistan.
The Misnomer of MDGs? When Goals are Rights
by Erin Mooney
“More fundamentally, what is required is to recognize that the MDGs are not merely ‘goals’ to aim for, hitting or missing as the case may be. Rather, they are about realizing rights which governments, individually and collectively, have pre-existing legal obligations to uphold and ensure."
That much more must be done to meet the Millennium Development Goals is evident. The proposals put forth by Douste-Blazy and the new pledges announced at the recent UN MDG Summit are steps in the right direction. More fundamentally, what is required is to recognize that the MDGs are not merely “goals” to aim for, hitting or missing as the case may be. Rather, they are about realizing rights which governments, individually and collectively, have pre-existing legal obligations to uphold and ensure.
Each of the eight MDGs can be framed in rights-based language. Doing so can be useful, by strengthening accountability for their realization. Ending poverty and hunger (MDG 1) is necessary to ensure the basic right to life as well as the right to food. Universal primary education (MDG 2) is a well-established right under international law, most notably in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Gender equality (MDG 3) is the realization of the fundamental human right of non-discrimination. Ensuring child health, maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS (MDGs 4, 5, and 6) are part and parcel of the right to health. Environmental sustainability (MDG 7) is linked to a range of rights, including the right to life, to health, to water, to food and to development. Moreover, a framework for global partnership (MDG 8) to realize these rights is essential, especially when the efforts of individual governments fall short.
Human rights standards also provide important guidance as to how these goals are to be achieved. Consider, for instance, the second MDG, of achieving universal primary education. Human rights standards prescribe that education must exhibit four essential features: (i) availability (in sufficient quantity and functional according to local needs); (ii) accessibility (i.e. open to all persons without discrimination, within safe physical reach, and affordable to all); (iii) acceptability (e.g. relevant, culturally appropriate and of good quality); and (iv) adaptability (responding to the needs of students within their diverse social and cultural settings). At a minimum, and as MDG 2 seeks to achieve by 2015, education is to be free and compulsory at the primary level.
A rights-based approach to the MDGs also serves to strengthen accountability and to underscore that these outcomes are to be expected and pursued at all times, and not limited to a “development” context, as strictly defined. Taking again the example of universal education, this right (and indeed all of the CRC) applies in all circumstances. International humanitarian law reaffirms this right in times of war, including during occupation and evacuations. Deliberate armed attacks against schools may constitute grave breaches of the law of war and even constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes, subject to prosecution under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In reality, however, of some 75 million school-aged children currently deprived of access to education, more than half– 40 million children-- live in countries beset by conflict.
Achieving the MDGs also can be critical for the realization of other rights. Access to education, for instance, is not only a right essential to the cognitive development and future opportunities of these children; the daily routine of going to school can provide a critical source of stability and psychological support in the volatile and precarious circumstances facing civilians during war. Education can also be a vital protection tool for children, potentially reducing their exposure to the risks of military recruitment, sexual exploitation, trafficking, and child labor. Schools can also be safe spaces for disseminating life-saving messages about other risks, such as landmines, and when curricula are sensitively designed, education can contribute to the rebuilding of war-torn societies.
However, the terminology of “MDG” reinforces tendencies to consider these rights strictly as “development” needs, to be addressed and funded only once conflict has subsided and major investments in rebuilding the infrastructure of war-torn societies can begin. For instance, Save the Children has found that only five donors worldwide include education in their funding strategies for responding to humanitarian emergencies. If current trends continue, children in conflict-affected countries will not receive the levels of basic education aid needed to achieve universal primary education (not to mention elementary or secondary education) until at least 2034, well beyond the 2015 MDG deadline.
In reality, realizing the MDGs, such as need not be contingent upon massive investments in infrastructure and thus await for development funding. Realizing the right to education, for instance, does not necessarily require the building of schools; learning can take place in more informal environments, for instance in tents or even under a tree. UNICEF’s “school-in-a-box” kits, which contain supplies for a teacher and forty students, are specifically designed to ensure the continuation of children's education within the first seventy-two hours of an emergency, whether in situations of armed conflict or natural disaster. Often, the key input is cooperation, not cash. In Central African Republic, advocacy by humanitarian actors led to an agreement with rebel forces (which had a history of kidnapping teachers and parents) to create “neutral areas” where the internally displaced children from makeshift “bush schools” set up in their hiding places in the jungle could come to write their national school examinations. In Nepal, community facilitators have negotiated with armed forces codes of conduct recognizing schools as “zones of peace,” mobilized local media to monitor attacks against schools, and provided psychosocial support to students and teachers. These are just some examples of how even in conflict it is possible to secure children’s access to education. Instrumental to such efforts has been rights-based advocacy underscoring the responsibility of parties to a conflict–states as well as insurgent groups– to uphold their obligations under international law.
Meeting the targets for all of the MDGs is proving challenging enough; complicating these efforts is that “MDGs” is somewhat of a misnomer, and in two important ways. First, the emphasis on development risks distracting from the fact that these objectives need to be pursued in all circumstances, including those outside of the “development phase” as traditionally defined as being pre-conflict and post-conflict. Second, recasting these goals as rights, which entail responsibilities for governments and non-state actors as well as for the international community can strengthen accountability and bolster efforts towards meeting these most basic benchmarks of human welfare.
Erin Mooney is a consultant to the United Nations and the Brookings Institution on issues of human rights and forced migration and Adjunct Professor in International Relations at the University of Toronto (2008-10). The views expressed are those of the author, writing in an independent capacity.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
August 2010: Human Rights and Foreign Policy
Editor's introduction: Human Rights & Foreign Policy
Article under review:
“A humane nation is a safer nation” by Tom Porteous. The Guardian. July 7, 2010.
In 1977 the United States President, Jimmy Carter, affirmed “America's commitment to human rights as a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy,” a statement that created high expectations for US international actions and fostered great controversy regarding how and under what circumstances states should give priority to human rights considerations in their foreign policy. A few weeks ago, the UK’s foreign secretary, William Hague, said that human rights should be the “irreducible core” of the United Kingdom’s foreign policy. Thirty years after Carter’s statement, it is true that human rights have greater prominence in contemporary foreign policies of more states that at any other time. But it is no less true that in few countries (if any—certainly not in the US or the UK) are international human rights even close to the top of foreign policy priorities. This month’s Roundtable discusses the realties and the limits of states’ human rights foreign policies, taking the example of the UK as presented by Tom Porteous’s piece published in The Guardian, “A humane nation is a safer nation.”
Porteous presents three reasons for having a human rights-friendly foreign policy for the United Kingdom. First, promoting human rights and the rule of law is a good way to secure some of the UK's most important foreign policy objectives, including preventing armed conflict and political extremism, and fostering economic development and political stability. Second, championing respect for human rights and the rule of law sets a good example and is good for the UK's international reputation. And third, the UK is involved in a multifaceted struggle against Islamist militancy that needs to be tackled not by military means alone. In the words of Porteous, “The ideological battle for hearts and minds is just as important, and victory on that front depends on the strictest adherence to human rights standards and the laws of war.”
Our panelists agree on the positive consequences for states that decide to promote international human rights. One additional benefit of adopting a human rights-oriented foreign policy that is highlighted by our contributors is the creation of moral, legal, and political interdependence that can deepen democracy at home. As Brysk notes, “Humanitarian foreign policy turns a spotlight on the very inconsistencies and hypocrisies Porteous chronicles for his own aspiring promoter state—and in some cases, improves them.” Human rights-oriented foreign policy helps democracy promotion and security at home and abroad.
However, our panelists also point out the possible “wrongs” of pursuing an international human rights policy that is based solely on rhetorical commitments. Matching words and deeds is even more pressing when human rights concerns have been identified as the heart of all other relevant policy considerations. The possible dangers are even more striking when governments decide to use human rights language without concrete substance or, even worse, when they use it as a means to reach other foreign policy objectives.
Thus, the concrete and more difficult question is how a country like Britain should promote human rights given its domestic and international constraints. Our contributors explore some possible areas for further concrete action, including international aid, development promotion, and international justice. However, prudence in establishing overly grand policy pronouncements seems to be an important first step for human rights promotion worldwide.
These issues and others are considered in this month’s Roundtable.
Doing Well By Doing Good
by Alison Brysk
"Not all countries are poised to become global human rights promoters, but the global survey that begins my study shows that dozens more pass a minimum threshold of democracy, development, and security that permits a principled foreign policy. What makes the difference is vision and mobilization—leadership, cosmopolitan values, and an engaged civil society."
As Tom Porteous contends in The Guardian, "a humane nation is a safer nation"—and ultimately, a more prosperous, healthy, happy, and green one too. My recent book, Global Good Samaritans, explores how half a dozen disparate nations came to adopt relatively humanitarian foreign policies, and how this has benefited global governance and their own development. Let us explore the lessons of history that inspired the real (albeit uneven) contributions of countries like Sweden, Canada, and Costa Rica—and why this should inspire more states like the UK to become active human rights promoters.
Our safety and stability are interdependent in a world of global conflict, and the human security approach to global governance has begun to draw attention to the myriad ways we are only as free as our weakest neighbors. Today's refugee may easily become tomorrow's terrorist, and failed states are vectors for all kinds of "global commons" problems--from epidemic diseases to drug trafficking. More broadly, the democratic peace theory of international relations shows that democratic states tend not to engage in conflict with other democracies, suggesting that mediating global conflicts and promoting the rule of law abroad diminishes threats to one's own state or region. In my own study, Costa Rica protected itself from a bad neighborhood by promoting peace, and benefited economically from being an island of stability.
Beyond security interdependence, global good citizenship also pays off in long-term prosperity and quality of life. As former Amnesty International director William Schultz shows in In Our Own Interest, more peaceful and democratic countries make better partners for all of us in trade, tourism, environmental cooperation, and health. Moreover, recent research on economic development shows that the existence of forced or indentured labor in a country is one of the leading determinants of poverty—and that conversely, protecting and empowering vulnerable populations may be the most effective means of poverty alleviation, with local and global benefits.
But perhaps the most important benefit from adopting a human rights-oriented foreign policy is the creation of moral, legal, and political interdependence that can deepen democracy at home. Humanitarian foreign policy turns a spotlight on the very inconsistencies and hypocrisies Porteous chronicles for his own aspiring promoter state—and in some cases, improves them. For example, Canada's strong record and legitimacy claims in peacekeeping allowed much stronger challenges and improvement of questionable practices that developed during its presence in Afghanistan than the unilateralist U.S. This is in part because humanitarian foreign policy springs from (and in turn strengthens) civil society, and helps to build transnational linkages empowering peoples relative to their governments.
Not all countries are poised to become global human rights promoters, but the global survey that begins my study shows that dozens more pass a minimum threshold of democracy, development, and security that permits a principled foreign policy. What makes the difference is vision and mobilization—leadership, cosmopolitan values, and an engaged civil society. We can all do better in the long run by being better global citizens, and greater awareness of the benefits of global goodness should inspire the citizens of all democracies to demand it.
ALISON BRYSK is Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina (1994), From Tribal Village to Global Village (2000), Human Rights and Private Wrongs (2005), and Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy (2009). Professor Brysk has been a visiting scholar in Argentina, Ecuador, France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan. In 2007, she held the Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Chair in Global Governance at Canada's Centre for International Governance Innovation.
UK Foreign Policy and Human Rights
by Par Engstrom
"Given this broader scenario then, support for human rights may indeed serve the UK’s (and the US’s) long-term interests as Porteous suggests. But, just as ignoring human rights can be “a recipe for failure and further instability,” so too can justifying coercive foreign policies by recourse to the rhetoric of human rights have dire consequences. For many in the UK at least, the jury is still out in this regard in relation to most such foreign policy initiatives under the Blair government. There is therefore a strong case for prudence when promoting human rights."
William Hague’s assertion that human rights should constitute the “irreducible core” of foreign policy under the new UK coalition government may seem a radical departure for the new Foreign Secretary. Hague is, after all, a leading figure in the British Conservative Party, which in its recent election manifesto called for the repeal of the UK’s Human Rights Act that incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Given this profound ambivalence over the substantive value of human rights at home, the new UK government is not likely to adopt more assertive human rights policies abroad. Human rights advocates may lament Hague’s lack of policy details with regards to human rights, but the UK government is likely to continue to pledge allegiance to the lofty ideals of human rights, while resisting providing specific policy details on what role human rights will and should play in the government’s foreign policy. Clearly, it is the role of organizations such as Human Rights Watch to push governments to convert rhetoric into practice. While this endeavour is never uncomplicated, human rights organizations lobbying the UK government are currently facing an increasingly steep uphill struggle.
In recent years, UK governments have been at the forefront in efforts to shift the normative balance between human rights and security in the name of “war on terrorism.” The results of these efforts both at home (explosive growth of anti-terrorism legislation) and abroad (collusion in torture) are widely documented. For many, these threats to human rights have shown the inherent power-based logic underpinning the global human rights regime. For others, however, the resilience and normative strength of the human rights system is demonstrated by the ways in which the human rights discourse has re-asserted itself, challenging even the most powerful.
It is in this fragile domestic and global context that the UK’s future voice on human rights is likely to remain inconsistent at best. Indeed, state policies on human rights tend not to be consistent, especially when human rights policies clash with what is perceived to be in states’ self-interest, whether those interests involve commercial ties with abusing states or the prospects of information from a terrorist suspect subjected to “stress and duress” by foreign intelligence services. Therefore, in relation to international criminal justice, for example, the “push-back from some political leaders determined to avoid accountability” that Tom Porteous refers to may not only come from “the usual suspects,” but could also include Tony Blair, whose indictment by the International Criminal Court was portrayed, in a legally highly implausible but politically suggestive fashion, in Robert Harris’s novel, The Ghost (recently translated to the big screen by Roman Polanski). And it is not likely that the current UK government will take a leading role on issues related to accountability for grave international crimes with British soldiers engaged in increasingly deadly and dirty counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan.
Beyond these more immediate human rights concerns however, the global human rights regime is facing potentially even more destabilizing challenges. These are most acutely reflected in ongoing debates surrounding the meaning and wider implications of the rise of non-Western states and shifting global power balances. It is clearly the case that the emergence and consolidation of the international human rights regime has coincided with and resulted from the expansion of the global liberal order sustained and promoted by Western states in general and the US in particular. If power is important in understanding the rise of international human rights, what are then the implications for human rights as power shifts in the international system? Porteous argues that support for human rights can act as a substitute for economic and military power for declining states such as the UK. Yet, values are not easily separated from the hard power that underpins them. As US hegemony (and Western liberalism more generally) becomes increasingly challenged by rising powers, the status of human rights as the dominant moral discourse may come under threat as well. It should therefore be somewhat reassuring for human rights advocates that the evolution of human rights has become, to some extent, decoupled from the hard power of Western states.
Given this broader scenario then, support for human rights may indeed serve the UK’s (and the US’s) long-term interests as Porteous suggests. But, just as ignoring human rights can be “a recipe for failure and further instability,” so too can justifying coercive foreign policies by recourse to the rhetoric of human rights have dire consequences. For many in the UK at least, the jury is still out in this regard in relation to most such foreign policy initiatives under the Blair government. There is therefore a strong case for prudence when promoting human rights. The current UK government is likely–not least given the dismal domestic economic situation—to focus on domestic rather than foreign policy. Hence, even if anyone is willing to listen to the UK government when it comes to human rights, it remains to be seen whether it will have anything to say.
Par Engstrom is lecturer in human rights at the Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and teaches at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas. Current research interests focus on regional human rights institutions both comparatively and with a particular reference to the Inter-American Human Rights System. Further research interests include the relationship between human rights and democratization; transitional justice; the international relations of the Americas; human rights, humanitarianism, and foreign policy; and theories of international relations, particularly relating to international law and institutions. http://sas.academia.edu/ParEngstrom/About
Regenerating Leadership or Rhetoric?
by Marc Alexander C. Gionet
"The true potency of human rights as the nucleus of policy development will be dependent on the level of priority the government places on this ambitious objective and there are competing priorities, especially on the domestic front. The temptation to simply apply the rhetoric of human rights and not the substance will be overwhelming given the level of resources that the protection and promotion of human rights demands."
The new coalition government in the UK is expediting efforts to mark a differentiation from its predecessor. In regards to foreign policy, the Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague, has identified human rights as the “irreducible core” in his initial speech of a four-part series intended to outline the new government’s priorities and approach.
It is interesting that Secretary Hague would choose “irreducible core” to describe a term which appears only once in a speech containing over 5,000 words. In comparison, “security” appears eighteen times and “influence” twelve. If human rights are indeed to form the core of British policy, this aspirational goal must be weighed against a few inherent realities which are currently challenging the government.
In Secretary Hague’s second speech within the series, delivered in Japan on July 15, 2010, the phrase “humanitarian assistance” was mentioned once, “human rights” was not mentioned at all, and “economic” and “economy” combined were mentioned 38 times within the 3,425 word speech.
The true potency of human rights as the nucleus of policy development will be dependent on the level of priority the government places on this ambitious objective and there are competing priorities, especially on the domestic front. The temptation to simply apply the rhetoric of human rights and not the substance will be overwhelming given the level of resources that the protection and promotion of human rights demands.
A practical example of this is the coalition government’s renewed commitment to meet 0.7% GNI in foreign aid by 2013. If this were an easy objective, the previous UK government (along with its G8 counterparts) would have satisfied the commitment long ago. Justifying such resource allocation in recessionary times when domestic social security cuts are inevitable will be challenging to say the least. The G8, which includes the UK, has already acknowledged that 2010 AIDS treatment targets will not be met following the Summit in Toronto. Accomplishing the 0.7% foreign aid goal or continuing the aspirational rhetoric will be indicative of the government’s true priorities.
In terms of utilizing a moral authority in foreign policy, the UK's self-proclaimed high ground as a rights respecting nation has been visibly eroded following the military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as government complicity in torture and renditions following 9/11. Prime Minister Cameron has made overtures to increase accountability, announcing a judicial inquiry into torture and renditions, almost one year exactly after Gordon Brown announced the Iraq Inquiry.
In terms of Afghanistan, the new coalition government is encountering the problem of declaring a departure from the previous foreign policy approach while still maintaining existing foreign policy commitments. On July 21, 2010, Secretary Hague reported to the House of Commons the results of the Kabul Conference, during which he fully endorsed the Kabul Process and the UK’s combat role for the next five years.
If the new coalition government truly wishes to establish human rights as foreign policy’s “irreducible core,” a substantial effort (even in terms of paying lip service to the idea) remains to be seen. At such an early stage in its mandate, the only praise the UK government can expect is a cautious endorsement of the concept.
Marc Alexander C. Gionet is the Director of the Atlantic Human Rights Research and Development Centre housed at St. Thomas University where he also lectures within the undergraduate human rights programme. Mr. Gionet is currently teaching courses on Humanitarian Law, NGOs and Human Rights and Terrorism and Human Rights. His most recent publication discusses the transfer of Canadian captured detainees to third parties in Afghanistan.
Human Rights at the “Core” of UK Foreign Policy Requires Respect for Core Human Rights
by Erin Mooney
“(…)as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK has a special role and responsibility to strengthen UN efforts to safeguard civilians during armed conflict. In recent years, the Security Council has adopted several important resolutions on the protection of civilians, including specific commitments for protecting children and combating sexual violence in armed conflict. Yet, as outgoing UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (and former British diplomat) Sir John Holmes bemoaned to the UN Security Council last month, for millions of civilians caught in the midst of armed conflict, “too little has changed on the ground.” Much more needs to be done to bridge the gap between the norms espoused at the UN in New York and the harsh realities in the field."
The true measure of whether human rights indeed are the "irreducible core" of the UK’s new foreign policy will be the extent to which the coalition government respects and protects “core” human rights.
Five areas are sure to be critical benchmarks:
First, the government’s commitment to human rights will be evidenced by its own acceptance of these standards. Of the nine internationally-recognized “core human rights instruments,” the UK still is not a party to the conventions concerning the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearances and the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers; nor has it ratified the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Ratifying all of the core human rights instruments is an obvious first step. It follows that the government also must ensure respect for these standards. The assessment of the UK’s human rights record by the Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council pinpointed a number of ways in which the UK must do better. Following up on the various recommendations should be a priority for the government; the UK’s human rights record will be reviewed by the UN again in 2012.
Second, core human rights cannot be a casualty of efforts to combat terrorism. The coalition government sent a strong signal to this effect in June by authorizing an inquiry into allegations that British intelligence officers were complicit in the mistreatment of suspects held by the United States, Pakistan, and other countries. However, the decision to appoint as the judge leading the investigation the very official who has overseen the UK’s intelligence services for the past four years has raised serious concerns about the objectivity of this inquiry.
Third, the UK has obligations under international law to grant asylum to recognized refugees and, for those denied asylum, to refrain from sending them back to countries where their lives would be at risk. Contrary to the advice of the UN Refugee Agency (or UNHCR), the coalition government has continued its predecessor’s policy of deporting rejected Iraqi asylum-seekers back to Iraq where conditions remain, as the Foreign and Commonwealth acknowledges, “highly dangerous.” Moreover, the High Court ruled last month that the policy of “fast-track” deportation of foreign nationals refused permission to remain in Britain (giving deportees but a few hours notice, often late at night, without adequate time to contact legal counsel) was unlawful; the Home Office plans to appeal the verdict.
Fourth, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK has a special role and responsibility to strengthen UN efforts to safeguard civilians during armed conflict. In recent years, the Security Council has adopted several important resolutions on the protection of civilians, including specific commitments for protecting children and combating sexual violence in armed conflict. Yet, as outgoing UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (and former British diplomat) Sir John Holmes bemoaned to the UN Security Council last month, for millions of civilians caught in the midst of armed conflict, “too little has changed on the ground.” Much more needs to be done to bridge the gap between the norms espoused at the UN in New York and the harsh realities in the field. The UK, as the current chair of the UN’s expert group on the issue, has a critical role to play in pushing this agenda forward. Encouragingly, the government has pledged to keep the protection of civilians “at the forefront of our political, security, human rights and humanitarian work.”
Fifth, ensuring that there is no impunity for perpetrators of human rights violations is essential. Historically, the UK has been a leader in such efforts, most notably with the arrest in 1998 of Chile’s former military ruler, Augusto Pinochet, for mass human rights abuses against his own people; and through its support for the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Particularly disappointing, therefore, is the recent announcement by the coalition government’s new Minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham, that the UK will be “candid friends” with the Government of Sudan. President Omar al Bashir has been indicted by the ICC, accused of masterminding war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the conflict that has raged since 2003 has caused the deaths of at least 200,000 civilians and the displacement of some 2.9 million. In mid-July, the ICC updated the charges against Bashir to include genocide. “We voiced our concern about certain issues,” Bellingham stated, presumably in an oblique reference to the ICC issue, “but we also said we want the relationship to be a strong one and one where UK bilateral trade will increase,” in particular through investment in Sudan’s oil sector. Oil revenues are widely regarded as having bankrolled the Government of Sudan’s military operations in Darfur. Incidentally, the UK’s decision also flies in the face of oil revenue and anti-terrorism sanctions against Sudan imposed by the US, with whom the UK boasts “our most important relationship” and an “unbreakable alliance.”
Championing a foreign policy based on human rights is one thing; matching lofty words with deeds is quite another. Principled action by the coalition government in these five key areas would be a start.
Erin Mooney is a consultant to the United Nations and the Brookings Institution on issues of human rights and forced migration and Adjunct Professor in International Relations at the University of Toronto (2008-10). The views expressed are those of the author, writing in an independent capacity.
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