RIGHTS: US Challenged on Moral and Human Values

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

NEW YORK, Sep 16 1998 (IPS) - A leading human rights organisation says the United States does not necessarily practice the moral and human values that it preaches to the outside world.

“One of the most serious challenges to democracy comes not from developing nations, but from the United States,” Joanna Weschler of Human Rights Watch declared Tuesday.

Speaking at the annual conference of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in New York, Weschler said the United States regrettably had opposed the convention against anti-personnel landmines and thwarted the establishment of the International Criminal Court.

“The United States also is one of two countries – besides Somalia – that had not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” Weschler told IPS. “Even the Vatican – which has no children – has ratified the convention,” she added.

The three-day conference, sponsored by the U.N.’s Department of Public Information, focused on the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose 50th anniversary is being commemmorated this year. The conference, in which more than 600 NGOs participated, ends Wednesday.

Weschler accused Western nations of circumventing human rights concerns in their pursuit of globalisation and free markets.

“A new challenge to human rights had come from states that had lowered standards of human rights protection in the name of economic development,” she noted. Western leaders had been quick to sympathise with those arguments for the sake of free markets. She also blamed “corrupt and unaccountable governments” for the economic crisis in Asia, and accused them of not providing protection for basic freedoms in their countries.

Weschler said that Human Rights Watch has been very critical of the U.S. for quite a while. “This has been one of the themes in our annual reports. But nothing seems to have changed,” she added.

She blamed the Republican right-wing dominated U.S. Congress – and specifically the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jesse Helms – for the rigid U.S. stance against human rights conventions.

Weschler said even an optional protocol for the Convention on the Rights of the Child – aimed at eliminating the concept of child soldiers – is being strongly opposed by the U.S. Congress and the Pentagon.

Elizabeth Evatt of the U.N. Human Rights Committee said there were six main international instruments of human rights, but they had not yet been ratified by all 185 member states. “Nor did the existing instruments deal adequately with the rights of women, protection of which should be integrated into the broader system of human rights protection,” she added.

These human rights convention include the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention against Torture and other Inhuman or Degrading Treating or Punishment, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Wortkers, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the International Convention on the Elimination of all Fors of Racial Discrimination.

Gerald Le Melle of Amnesty International said while human rights activities had focused on protecting civil and political rights, greater attention should be paid to economic, social and cultural rights: a view advocated by most Third World nations.

He admitted that economic rights had not received adequate attention by the United Nations and other bodies, including Amnesty International. The argument against it was that economic rights were more difficult to quantify and monitor. “Nonetheless, states had an obligation to promote such rights,” he said.

Le Melle said that Amnesty International was now working to provide more economic and social context in its human rights reporting. The roles of such groups as international financial institutions and international businesses needed to be closely examined, he noted. “Actions of countries which violated human rights in the name of economic progress must be examined,” he added.

Responding to a question from an NGO delegate, Le Melle said democracy was not a prerequisite for human rights. There were a number of countries with democratically-elected leaders that continued to violate human rights. And there were a number of countries that may not be ready for democracy, but had a solid human rights foundation, he added.

Shashi Tharoor, Director of Communications of the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, said human rights had not been developed by the West alone. A number of Eastern and developing countries had ratified and developed many of the human rights convenants of the United Nations.

Tharoor also pointed out that “culture” was often used as a defence against human rights. Culture, however, was constantly evolving and just because something was a “cultural tradition” did not mean it was positive and should be changed. “Slavery was part of world culture for many centuries, until it was abolished,” he added.

Kensaku Hogen, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, said that although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not have the binding force of a U.N. treaty, it had served as the basis for more than 60 human rights covenants and declarations covering the rights of women, children, refugees and migrant workers.

“Human rights was one of the pillars on which the United Nations Charter rested. The Declaration had been the first human rights instrument to be proclaimed by the United Nations, and was one of its major achievements,” he said.