25 April 2008
The UNRIC event was held at Facultes Unviversitaires de Saint-Louis here in
Brussels. There were fewer participants than I had anticipated but the evening
was not short on conversation. The speakers were quite verbose, as were the
questioners.
Things began rolling shortly after its scheduled time to start at 6:30.
The opening speakers were employees from the UNRIC for Western Europe. Their
introduction set the tone for much of what was to be spoken of yesterday
evening. Among other issues, they introduced the problems of having a
‘universal’ declaration of human rights, the Eurocentric characteristics of the
document, and the inability of the UN to enforce the declaration.
Mr. Jan Fisher, Deputy Director for UNRIC for Western Europe was the first
keynote speaker. His task was to speak a bit on the history of the UN and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I must say that I was quite impressed with Mr. Fisher’s honesty about
the UN’s shortcomings-citing instances where the UN has been less than adequate
in enforcing human rights throughout the world.
Intuition tells me that if Mr. Fisher was not working for the UN he
might say much more about it. Adding to the constraint he showed as a UN
employee, he seemed to have a certain uneasiness about the whole organization.
Nonetheless, he seems committed to the cause of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, stating towards the end of his presentation, “Today’s human
rights violations will be tomorrow’s conflicts.”
The following speaker was Mr. Antoine Madellin, Director of the
International Federation for Human Rights-FIDH (in French it is: Federation
Internationale des droits de l’homme).
Mr. Madellin was an impressive young speaker with what seemed to be a
wealth of knowledge and passion for ‘des droits de l’homme’. He spoke in French
and there were no translators being used. Though my French is quite bad, I was
able to ‘comprendre’ the key points.
The human rights violations that have occurred as a result of the some
tactics used in the ‘war on terror’ have, according to Mr. Madellin, caused
great setbacks in progress made by human rights organizations for the past 60
years. More notably he cited the issues raised in Guantanamo Bay, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Iraq regarding torture and other instances of human rights
violations implemented by those fighting the ‘war on terror’.
He also mentioned China and the Olympics, a hot topic for everyone
lately. He asked the audience in a rhetorical manner, “What are we to do?”, “We
want to support our athletes, but at what cost?” (The photo at the bottom of
today’s entry is of a postcard that FIDH distributed at the event). Judging
from this alone we know where FIDH stands on the issue.
Mr. Madellin commented some on the Eurocentricism of the Universal
Declaration, and though in support of it in many ways, he has some qualms. As
was repeated throughout the evening, having a universal declaration of rights
poses as a great challenge in a world where everyone does not embrace the same
concept of what rights are.
He also said a short piece about the Vatican baptism over Easter of the
Muslim convert to Catholicism. He expressed what he believed to be the
unnecessary tension that is raised by these types of events and others such as
the Denmark cartoon controversy. “We need more tolerance”, said Madellin.
As he approached his conclusion he stated, “The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights is a great concept, a lot of valor in it, it is a concept that
educated people understand best however. We need to educate the world, and
educate them about their rights.”
The final speaker was Dr. Charles Ntampaka, a professor at the Facultes
Unviversitaires de Saint-Louis, The National University of Rwanda, and Notre
Dame-Paris. Dr. Ntampaka also delivered his speech in French.
He spoke extensively on some of the more typical topics that you would
expect to hear at that sort of event.
-Under-development (esp. in African countries)
-The social and economic divides that exist between
developed and undeveloped states
-Expressed the need for ‘Human Development’
He was overall quite critical, spending a good deal of time speaking on
the many shortcomings of the international community in development assistance.
He spent little time however offering plausible policy solutions to the
problems he identified.
Moving to the discussion, the questions were focused primarily on the
issues of whether or not one can have a “Universal” declaration of human rights
in a world with a broad range of values.
This is a question that need be asked, but even if we can come to a
consensus on the universality of human rights, we face another problem:
nation-states are sovereign. We cannot address human rights violations in a
country that will not allow the United Nations to intervene. It is a violation
of international law.
The conversation was quite dated, it preceded the important developments
made in this area in 2005 (though by-and-large still not acted upon), and
drafted in the UN High Panel Report: “The Responsibility to Protect”.
To conclude I would like to say a few words of opinion. Criticizing the
UN will get us nowhere if we do not follow up these criticisms with sound
policy advice in areas of ‘Human Development’ and more broadly human rights.
The international system is still one where ‘realpolitik’ is the name of the
game. States continue to look out for their own interests 9 times out of 10.
Though we have idealistic organizations like the UN who seek admirable goals,
we must be honest with the reality of the context we find the international
system in and conduct policies that are congruent with this reality.
Thank You for reading,
-Pat
24 April 2008
This evening I am attending the United
Nations Regional Information Centre-UNRIC for Western Europe discussion on Human
Rights. The event is in commemoration of 60th Anniversary of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There are some interesting keynote
speakers and I look forward to engaging in the ensuing discussion.
Here is a link to the event: http://www.unric.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16693&Itemid=42
I will report tomorrow morning on the
event if anyone is interested in knowing about what went on.
Best,
-Pat
23 April 2008
The site is up and functioning at this point. There remains to be some
things changed as research is updated and other aspects of the website improved
as my knowledge is furthered. Again, any comments, suggestions, etc. would be
more than appreciated.
Thank you,
-Pat
