Editor's introduction: The Downfall of Human Rights?
Article under review: “The Downfall of Human Rights” by Joshua Kurlantzick. Newsweek. February 19, 2010.
~ The Editors
“The age of global human-rights advocacy has collapsed, giving way to an era of realism unseen since the time of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. In the West, the failure of George W. Bush's moralizing style of democracy promotion, combined with the pragmatism inspired by the global financial crisis, has made leaders far more reticent to assert a high profile on rights issues.” This quote is the essence of Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, Joshua Kurlantzick’s recent article in Newsweek. According to Kurlantzick, the United States and leading Western states are no longer interested in promoting human rights; instead, they focus on overcoming the financial crisis and building international alliances to pursue their strategic interests. The author pictures an even darker road ahead for human rights advocacy, one in which “the changing global balance of power may now prevent human rights from ever gaining the international attention it did in the 1990s and early 2000s.”
Has the rise of China and the changing balance of power negatively affected international human rights regimes? Has the global financial crisis weakened the international human rights agenda? On what grounds is it possible to claim that the “downfall” of human rights is upon us? Our panelists analyze these questions in light of the history of the human rights movement, along with President Obama’s human rights policy. The contributors emphasize that it is important to generate a balanced assessment on the future of human rights advocacy, highlighting that there are at least three relevant factors that give us hope for a more optimistic view of the future of human rights.
First, after the devastating international effects of the Bush administration and the global coalition of the “War on Terror,” Western states need to reestablish their credibility as human rights promoters. International human rights regimes are a good example of an area in which Western democracies are taking the lead for human rights protection worldwide, recovering part of the international legitimacy that they lost in recent years. The United States rejoined the United Nations Human Rights Council; the International Criminal Court is now in place and working after a difficult start; and the European Court of Human Rights—to mention one regional mechanism—continues to increase its influence.
Second, the incremental changes in human rights protection take shape in many different forms—not just in interstate relations, as Kurlantzick points out. The history of the human rights movement has been rooted in the work of local and international NGOs, as well as scholarly research, that have sought to shape the international agenda and raise international human rights standards worldwide.
Third, the improvement of human rights does not happen overnight, and it is by no means without setbacks. The recent past of human rights advocacy, which is Kurlantzick’s point of reference, is full of human rights atrocities worldwide. The 1990s witnessed devastating conflicts in Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and southern Sudan. The 2000s saw the West’s “War on Terror,” including torture and prisoner’s abuse in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Put in this context, the recent lack of interest in human rights is nothing new. The protection of international human rights will continue to be a campaign fraught with struggles and obstacles, but it is also one that brings fundamental human rights advancements.
These issues and others are considered in this month’s Roundtable.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
May 2010: The Downfall of Human Rights?
Editor's introduction: The Downfall of Human Rights?
Article under review: “The Downfall of Human Rights” by Joshua Kurlantzick. Newsweek. February 19, 2010.
~ The Editors
A Positive View of the Trajectory of the Human Rights Movement
by David Akerson, University of Denver
"Joshua Kurlantzick, in his article “The Downfall of Human Rights,” laments that Obama’s failure to address human rights in speeches in China may be emblematic of a retreat by the United States in regards to human rights advocacy. I would take the view that this phenomenon is merely tactical. The human rights movement relies on many weapons. That includes advocacy, of course, but also diplomacy, policy, foreign aid and assistance, and so on. Obama isn't abandoning human rights; he is making a tactical decision on timing and methodology. His administration is, at its heart, more committed to human rights than any other administration since Roosevelt."
In 1988, during the waning days of apartheid in South Africa, I was a young American lawyer working for South African Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria. On one occasion, I accompanied some of my African colleagues to a conference, the purpose of which was to begin visualizing post-apartheid South Africa. While the apartheid regime was still in power, it was clearly in hasty retreat, and it was equally clear that its days were numbered. The African majority would soon be taking over the reigns of power, and they were excited to begin visualizing what freedom and human rights might and should look like in post-apartheid South Africa. This conference, and many others like it around the country, provided forums for an aggrieved population to dream about how they would institutionalize human rights protections that had been so long denied them. It was a treat for me to tag along with Africans as they giddily went window shopping for human rights. At this meeting, the atmosphere was euphoric. There were passionate discussions about just about every human rights issue imaginable—free speech, political participation, racial equality in all aspects of society. I recall one particular debate that centered on whether the franchise, after it was extended to persons of all races, should be extended down to 13-year-olds. After all, it was argued, youth had played a significant role in the anti-apartheid struggle and had sacrificed greatly.
The debates were sophisticated and thoughtful. But after many hours of discussion, one issue that hadn't been brought up was that of gender equality despite the fact that there were plenty of women participating in this conference. Gender discrimination was rife in South Africa, including African society. Women of color had been staring down the twin barrels of racial and gender-based enmity for generations. I raised my hand at one point and ventured into the debate. “How might gender discrimination be addressed in post-apartheid South Africa?” I queried. An unsettling quiet overtook the room. One of the women cleared her throat and responded to my question, asserting herself on behalf of women in South Africa. In a measured voice, she assured me that there will be a time to address gender issues. But, she added, racial equality had to be addressed first. The conference participants considered that for a moment, and then promptly returned to the previous debates with full vigor.
My point with this story is that the progressive implementation of human rights requires constant strategy and calculated trade-offs. The South African woman in my story wasn't abandoning gender equality, but she was taking a sophisticated, diplomatic approach that maximized the chance of gender being included at the end of the day.
Joshua Kurlantzick, in his article “The Downfall of Human Rights,” laments that Obama's failure to address human rights in speeches in China may be emblematic of a retreat by the United States in regards to human rights advocacy. I would take the view that this phenomenon is merely tactical. The human rights movement relies on many weapons. That includes advocacy, of course, but also diplomacy, policy, foreign aid and assistance, and so on. Obama isn't abandoning human rights; he is making a tactical decision on timing and methodology. His administration is, at its heart, more committed to human rights than any other administration since Roosevelt. This can be demonstrated on many grounds, but I list three: the unequivocal rejection of the practice of torture, Obama's appointment of Michael Posner, founder and former president of Human Rights First, to a prominent role in the State Department, and the US commitment to re-joining the United Nations Human Rights Council, which reverses a devastating policy of the Bush administration.
Kurlantzick expressed similar concerns about Western democracies abandoning human rights. His worries in this regard are particularly unfounded. There are many reasons to be optimistic. The influence and prestige of the European Court of Human Rights continue to grow. The International Criminal Court is established and is finally beyond the inevitable start-up difficulties. Human rights are codified in twenty-six of twenty-nine European constitutions and central to their policy-making. An international rule of law is undeniably crystallizing and gaining ground. Kurlantzick raises legitimate points in his article about public advocacy, and it is not a bad idea to keep reminding state violators and their victims of our objections. However, we should also remind ourselves that public advocacy is only one arrow in the quiver.
Visiting Professor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law, Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, South African Lawyers for Human Rights, President Commission for the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.
Human Rights Pragmatism Under Obama
by Sonia Cardenas, Trinity College
"Engagement makes sense only if it does no harm—if it does not itself contribute to human rights abuses. Engagement that unwittingly fuels domestic incentives to repress (through trade or security relations) or that diminishes societal groups (by not condemning abuses publicly) is at best worthless and at worst dangerous. In steering clear of ideological posturing, the Obama administration must guard against pragmatism itself becoming the new ideology: pragmatism for its own sake, after all, can be self-compromising. Obama’s human rights pragmatism still holds great promise, as long as it takes seriously the local contexts in which real people are coerced and struggle for change."
Bypassing realists and idealists, President Obama has staked out a boldly pragmatic approach to human rights. Critics depict the policy shift as “the downfall of human rights” and a set of “empty promises.” The problem is not with Obama's embrace of pragmatism, or with his rejection of ideology to advance human rights. The problem is in the emphasis: human rights pragmatism should not privilege external inducements over vital on-the-ground domestic realities.
The new pragmatism rejects self-righteous moral condemnation and adopts a strategy of engagement—a willingness to sit down with repressive rulers, refrain from overly vocal criticism, and offer incentives for reform. The logic is captured in President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize remarks:
The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach—condemnation without discussion—can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door…. There's no simple formula here. But we must try as best as we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.
Balancing accusation with conversation is bound to alienate purists of all kinds, but not the majority of Americans who, in recent polls, have favored moving “cautiously” in promoting human rights abroad. “Principled pragmatism,” to borrow Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's term, resonates with a public wary of hypocritical pronouncements and costly activism.
Skeptics highlight the policy's inconsistencies and mixed signals. Yes, President Obama moved to correct abuses in fighting terrorism and to tame the arrogance of earlier rights discourse. But the administration is also charged with perpetuating “the spirit of Guantánamo”; being overly deferential to repressive leaders; demoting rights abuses in foreign policy; and delaying crucial treaty ratifications. Human rights advocates recoil from engaging with repressive regimes—painfully reminiscent of “constructive engagement” with apartheid South Africa—and demand moral outrage instead.
Reconciling extremes is not easy, and President Obama is correct to resist hanging America's human rights policy on one-sided indignation and isolation. He is correct that human rights reform occurs over time, simple formulas are pointless, and a broad mix of strategies is critical. These insights, however, do not necessitate the current policy of engagement, so central to the administration's human rights approach.
The turn to engagement is apt to disappoint. It is too fixated on the external engines of change, while insufficiently attentive to the domestic sources of reform. The key is not just to balance isolation and engagement. The key is to focus on the internal, unintended effects of US policy. Is engagement undermining domestic supporters of reform? Is it reinforcing the structural underpinnings of repression (e.g., armed conflict and poverty, exclusionary ideologies, non-democratic processes)? Public condemnation matters because it bolsters domestic human rights claims; and against a coercive state, such claims can be essential in raising the transnational costs of repression.
Engagement makes sense only if it does no harm—if it does not itself contribute to human rights abuses. Engagement that unwittingly fuels domestic incentives to repress (through trade or security relations) or that diminishes societal groups (by not condemning abuses publicly) is at best worthless and at worst dangerous. In steering clear of ideological posturing, the Obama administration must guard against pragmatism itself becoming the new ideology: pragmatism for its own sake, after all, can be self-compromising. Obama's human rights pragmatism still holds great promise, as long as it takes seriously the local contexts in which real people are coerced and struggle for change.
Sonia Cardenas is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Human Rights Program at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She is the author of numerous publications, including Conflict and Compliance: State Responses to International Human Rights Pressure (2007), Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope (2009), and Chains of Justice: The Global Rise of National Human Rights Institutions (forthcoming), all from the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Premature Judgment
by Todd Landman, University of Essex
"But any assessment of the state of human rights and a proclamation about the “collapse” of human rights advocacy surely needs to be more balanced, especially if it relies too heavily on Freedom House scores and a few policy utterances from a handful of democracies in the world. Human rights advocacy takes many forms. Unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral promotion by states is one avenue available, but others include the work of non-governmental organizations, the burgeoning world of academic research, and the engagement of the academic community in significant knowledge transfer activities related to human rights."
Just as Mark Twain said in 1897, “The report of my death was an exaggeration,” many commentators have prematurely reported the death of human rights. For example, in 1999, in The Theory and Reality of the Protection of International Human Rights , J. Shand Watson sees human rights as a “mere fiction” in light of a century of state-sponsored killing. One year later, Costas Douzinas, through an appeal to history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis proclaimed the “end of human rights.” It is thus no surprise that the article by Joshua Kurlantzick is yet another attempt to warn us that human rights have met their match, that leading states in the world are ignoring them, and that the “downfall” of human rights is upon us. His context is the late 2009 Obama trip to China, during which the rights agenda was downplayed, a trend within the world that he says is gaining strength as states turn their attention to surviving the economic crisis and other “realist” interests.
But what is Kurlantzick's evidence for this “downfall?” He only names three established democracies (Japan, Australia, and France) and three “new” democracies (South Africa, Thailand, and Cambodia), from which he concludes that “The age of global human-rights advocacy has collapsed, giving way to an era of realism unseen since the time of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon.” He conflates the “democracy promotion” agenda of George W. Bush and other Neoconservatives with human rights advocacy and bemoans a return to pragmatism, and a willingness of rights-protective states to do business with less savory regimes in the world. I, too, do not want leading world powers to remove human rights from their policy agendas. I celebrate the growth in democracy and human rights that has occurred throughout the latter half of the 20th century. And I would not want a global regression from the progress in human rights that has been achieved.
But any assessment of the state of human rights and a proclamation about the “collapse” of human rights advocacy surely needs to be more balanced, especially if it relies too heavily on Freedom House scores and a few policy utterances from a handful of democracies in the world. Human rights advocacy takes many forms. Unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral promotion by states is one avenue available, but others include the work of non-governmental organizations, the burgeoning world of academic research, and the engagement of the academic community in significant knowledge transfer activities related to human rights.
The history of the human rights movement is grounded in the work of non-governmental organizations that have sought to shape and change the global agenda. States have worked with NGOs to generate human rights standards, and the research on "transnational advocacy networks" suggests that, across certain cases, human rights advocacy that links inter-governmental organizations (INGOs), domestic NGOs, and states has actually worked. States have made concessions and institutionalized human rights. As in many political processes, however, the development of the institutions and supportive political culture for rights-protective states does not happen overnight, nor do they happen in an inevitable and linear fashion. Rather, they may take a generation and occur in fits and starts. Kurlantzick should have been more attuned to the incremental, prolonged and, at times, inconclusive nature of the struggle for rights.
My own quantitative research on the growth and effectiveness of the international human rights regime shows that there is a limited but significant impact of state ratification of human rights treaties on the actual protection of human rights. This impact, however, is conditioned by other factors, including the level and timing of democratization, the degree of interdependency of states, and the level of domestic conflict. These findings have been corroborated recently by Beth Simmons in her book, Mobilizing for Human Rights, which also shows how domestic processes contribute to rights protection alongside different international dimensions.
Ironically, as China waited for Obama to touch down in Beijing, my colleagues and I had just finished the second instalment of a training course for human rights scholars that had taken place in the southern city of Shantou. Funded by Norway and Sweden, the China program provides training for a cohort of Chinese academics in research methods for human rights. Along with Professor Rhona Smith from Northumbria University and Professor Bill Simmons from Arizona State University, our group of scholars is working on projects as diverse as water pollution and communities of river dwellers, occupational health of migrant workers, corporate social responsibility within small to medium size enterprises (SMEs), and the clash of rights between animal welfare and the right to an adequate standard of living. Anyone working in China knows that it is not a monolith, but has significant entry points for these kinds of academic interventions, where the incremental advance in human rights takes shape along different lines than the kind of state-to-state interactions that are the focus of Kurlantzick's attention.
I share his concerns about the downturn in the discourse of rights at these high levels, but I cannot pass the same kind of judgment on the human rights movement itself.
Todd Landman is Professor of Government and Director of the Institute for Democracy and Conflict Resolution at the University of Essex. His most recent publications include Measuring Human Rights (Routledge 2009), Human Rights, Volumes I-IV (Sage 2009), and the Handbook of Comparative Politics (Sage 2008). He carries out numerous international consultancies in the area of development, democracy, and human rights. www.todd-landman.com
Hope, Despair, and Human Rights
by James Pattison, University of Manchester
“Moreover, the notion that there is currently a Western indifference towards human rights can be questioned (…) More generally, the past decade has also seen the establishment of some notable international human rights mechanisms. In particular, the Human Rights Council, with its Universal Periodic Review mechanism, and the International Criminal Court offer some hope for the advancement of human rights protection worldwide, perhaps not with their direct rulings, verdicts, and procedures, but with their indirect effects of encouraging states to live up to their human rights responsibilities."
Joshua Kurlantzick's “The Downfall of Human Rights” in Newsweek makes for a sobering read. The major Western states, he argues, are no longer interested in the promotion of human rights, but are instead focused on rebuilding themselves after the global recession. Kurlantzick notes further that the Obama administration avoids strong criticism of China, Russia, and other human rights violators because of its desire to demarcate itself from the previous administration's moralizing democracy promotion. To add to Kurlantzick's case for the West's lack of concern about human rights, one could cite the recent and blatantly human rights-violating anti-terror laws of several countries, the UK Conservatives' attacks on the Human Rights Act, and the abusive treatment of economic migrants and asylum seekers.
However, I want to paint a less pessimistic view of human rights advocacy and, in doing so, present some grounds for optimism. But, before doing so, a clarification is necessary. The Neoconservatives did not tend to use the language of ‘human rights” to justify their policies, but favored much more the diffuse notions of “freedom” and “democracy.” And, advocating democracy or freedom worldwide is not necessarily the same as human rights promotion. To be sure, proper respect for human rights entails democratic governance, but democratic governance—at least as the term is used in practice to denote the performance of free and fair elections—does not entail human rights. So, for all the Bush administration's talk of freedom and democracy, this talk did not lead to concern for human rights. On the contrary, history will remember the Bush administration as one of the worst in terms of human rights, given Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the firebombing of Fallujah, extraordinary rendition, and the unflinching support for Israeli action in Southern Lebanon in 2006.
After the rampaging liberal imperialist rhetoric and practice of the Neoconservatives and support in many other Western states for the War on Terror, the West diminished its ability to act as a norm carrier for human rights. That is, it lost its credibility in the eyes of the international community to criticize other states' human rights violations and to highlight the importance of human rights more generally. The West, and the United States in particular, needs to win this credibility back. A less belligerent and moralizing foreign policy will be key. The United States needs to re-establish its reputation with actions, by showing the rest of the world that its criticisms of others' human rights records are not simply double standards. This does not mean that the United States and others in the West should now refrain from criticizing other states' human rights records when necessary on occasion. Rather, my point is that the United States and other liberal democracies should make their criticisms count by working hard to re-establish their reputations and avoiding the preaching and aggressive tone of the Bush administration.
In addition, it is important not to romanticize the recent past in terms of human rights advocacy. The 1980s saw egregious support for authoritarian, anti-communist regime states in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The 1990s are often held up as the high point of humanitarianism, but saw devastating conflicts (largely ignored by the West) in Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and southern Sudan. The 2000s saw the West's War on Terror and support for human rights-violating regimes, such as Uzbekistan. Put in this context, the recent lack of interest in human rights that Kurlantzick points to is nothing new.
Moreover, the notion that there is currently a Western indifference towards human rights can be questioned. Indeed, Kurlantzick notes at one point that the Obama administration has made some recent moves to advance human rights, including strongly rebuking Zimbabwe and Iran. In fact, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, has recently claimed that “[f]rom a human rights perspective, there is no doubt that the Obama White House has done better than the Bush administration.” More generally, the past decade has also seen the establishment of some notable international human rights mechanisms. In particular, the Human Rights Council, with its Universal Periodic Review mechanism, and the International Criminal Court offer some hope for the advancement of human rights protection worldwide, perhaps not with their direct rulings, verdicts, and procedures, but with their indirect effects of encouraging states to live up to their human rights responsibilities. To this we can add the notions of “human security” and the “responsibility to protect,” both increasingly employed in the international community to make clear that states have human rights responsibilities to both their own citizens and to those beyond the borders of their state.
None of this is meant to deny that substantially more should be done in terms of human rights advocacy worldwide. Nor is it meant to deny that there are many terrible human rights violations currently ongoing (some highlighted by Kurlantzick) and that the West is not properly responding to them. The point is that we need to avoid being overly pessimistic and a fatalism about achieving human rights. There have been some recent and notable improvements in human rights, and there will be some more advancements if we campaign and work hard to achieve them.
Dr James Pattison is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester. His research interests concern the moral issues raised when using military force abroad, including humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect, and the increased use of private military companies. His PhD on humanitarian intervention was awarded the Sir Ernest Barker Prize for Best Dissertation in Political Theory by the Political Studies Association in 2008. He has recently completed the book, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene?, which has just been published by Oxford University Press (Spring 2010). He has also published various articles on the ethics of force, including for Ethics and International Affairs, International Theory, the Journal of Military Ethics, the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, the Journal of International Political Theory, the International Journal of Human Rights, and the Journal of Social Philosophy. Before joining Manchester, he was a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of the West of England, Bristol (from Sept 07-09). He has also spent time as a Research Affiliate at New York University and he was a temporary lecturer in the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology at Newcastle University.
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