RIGHTS: Global Institutions with Teeth Needed

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 2000 (IPS) - As economic globalisation proceeds apace, the world needs global institutions to keep close watch on the human-rights records of both governments and private companies and to punish those which commit abuses, according to the largest US rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its latest annual survey of human rights practices around the world, the New York-based group highlights what it calls the “enforcement gap” between international rights standards and the ability of abusive governments and companies to ignore them with impunity.

“A reinforced global architecture is needed,” according HRW’s ‘World Report 2001.’ “The scope of today’s global human rights problems far exceeds the capacity of global institutions to address them.”

The 540-page report adds that the problem is “most acute” in the global economy “where a disturbing institutional void frequently leaves human rights standards unenforced”.

“Some of the most alarming by-products of globalisation are clear violations of rights enshrined in international treaties,” says the report’s introduction, which urges the adoption of a rights-based framework – by which it means mainly civil and political rights – to fight the tendency by some governments and companies to compete in the international economy by profiting from repression.

The report, which reviews rights developments over the last year in some 70 countries worldwide, as well as significant events relating to arms transfers and women’s and children’s rights, was released in advance of international Human Rights Day Sunday.

Among the year’s most positive developments in the rights arena, according to the report, were the ouster by a popular rebellion of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic; the conclusion of a treaty barring the use of children as soldiers; and the first UN Commission on Human Rights’ formal criticism of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, namely Russia, for its abuses in Chechnya.

HRW also applauded, the arrest order – unfortunately later overruled – issued by a Senegalese court against former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre to stand trial for abuses committed during his rule; Panama’s refusal to grant asylum to former Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos; and Mexico’s arrest of an accused Argentine torturer at the behest of a Spanish judge.

“These and other cases demonstrate an increasingly global effort – involving governments of the North and South – to bring abusive officials to justice,” the report said, adding that these efforts remain “rudimentary”, but, given the progress in this area since Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s arrest by Britain in 1998, still encouraging.

On the negative side of the ledger during 2000 were the “glaring failure” of the international community to put serious pressure on Russia to punish commanders responsible for atrocities in Chechnya; “the lack of international attention to justice in Central Africa” – particularly Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); and NATO’s continued failure to try to arrest Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader indicted for genocide and war crimes in Bosnia.

Other major disappointments included the renewal of atrocities in Sierra Leone and the slow-moving efforts of the international community to set up a war-crimes tribunal there; Indonesia’s failure to curb militias in West Timor and its army’s repressive tactics in Aceh and Papua New Guinea; the persistence of links between the Colombian military and right-wing paramilitaries responsible for grave abuses; and Israel’s use of “excessive and indiscriminate” force against Palestinian protestors.

The report was also deeply critical of what it called a “selective US vision of justice” as shown by the Bill Clinton administration’s continued insistence that it be exempted from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC); its release after a brief detention of a Peruvian intelligence officer accused of torture; its failure to enforce human rights conditions on a massive military aid package for Colombia; and its refusal to turn over any information to the prosecutor for the Yugoslav war-crimes tribunal investigating possible war crimes committed by NATO forces during the 1999 air war.

“Washington has been an active supporter of country-specific tribunals insofar as they apply to others, but it has stood in the way of efforts to establish a more universal system of justice that might apply to US citizens as well,” according to the report.

But the major analytical thrust of this year’s report, laid out in a lengthy introduction, calls for much greater attention to the challenge of building global institutions or arrangements which can punish rights abusers – be they governments, rebel groups, or private companies, particularly in the age of economic globalisation.

“(The) current system to regulate global commerce leaves little or no room for human rights and other social values,” the report insists, adding that, despite the arguments of globalisation boosters, “a world integrated on commercial lines does not necessarily lead to human rights improvements”.

It cites China, Sudan, and the emerging oil states of Central Asia as examples where increased foreign investment has not translated into an easing of repression.

At the same time, globalisation’s foes have not yet come up with an alternative model acceptable to many in developing countries who fear that Western efforts to tie worker rights or environmental standards to trade accords will be used by protectionists to keep out Third World exports at a time of declining aid.

It is in that context that HRW proposes that both sides consider a human-rights framework to address the problems posed by globalisation. Such a framework would adhere to international covenants which guarantee respect for the rights of workers to organise; of all citizens to elect and petition their own government; and of disadvantaged minorities to equal treatment under law.

Such an approach should prove acceptable to both proponents of “free trade” and those concerned with globalisation’s failure to address its social and other costs.

HRW also argues that it should give to poor nations a legal basis in which to broaden international discussions on trade and investment policy to include the necessity for reciprocal benefits that would help them fulfil the economic and social rights of their citizens.

The additional challenge, however, is to strengthen global institutions to enforce these rights, according to HRW. On worker rights, for example, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) “has no experience, culture or tradition of protecting rights; while the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which monitors worker rights worldwide, lacks adequate enforcement powers”.

The international financial institutions also have taken some hopeful steps in recent years, such the World Bank’s not-so-subtle warnings to the Indonesian government that it could lose assistance if it did not withdraw from East Timor and its insistence in some cases that representatives of civil society participate in donor meetings. But its attention to these issues has been inconsistent and “ad hoc”, according to the report.

While those agencies can call attention to government abuses, “multinational corporations have largely been left to themselves”. While human rights has increasingly penetrated the policy rhetoric of these companies, the most they have been prepared to do is to commit themselves to “voluntary” codes of conduct, an approach adopted by the United Nations itself when it launched its “Global Compact” last July.

But, by definition, such voluntary approaches lack real teeth. And just as the United Nations sends peacekeeping forces to Africa and elsewhere without the resources or mandate to enforce peace, so the international community calls for respect for worker or human rights without providing adequate means to enforce them. “An urgent global dialogue is needed to fill this enforcement gap,” according to HRW.

RIGHTS: Global Institutions with Teeth Needed

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 2000 (IPS) - As economic globalisation proceeds apace, the world needs global institutions to keep close watch on the human-rights records of both governments and private companies and to punish those which commit abuses, according to the largest US rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW).
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