new thread
This is important, but seems to have slipped "under the radar" to a large extent. I believe it is imperative that socio-political developments of this magnitude be understood by as many rational, intelligent members of the human race as is possible, which is why I'm sharing it here.
--Val
Vote on freedom of expression marks the end of Universal Human Rights
For the past eleven years the organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing the 57 Islamic States, has been tightening its grip on the throat of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yesterday, 28 March 2008, they finally killed it.
With the support of their allies including China, Russia and Cuba (none well-known for their defence of human rights) the Islamic States succeeded in forcing through an amendment to a resolution on Freedom of Expression that has turned the entire concept on its head. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression will now be required to report on the “abuse” of this most cherished freedom by anyone who, for example, dares speak out against Sharia laws that require women to be stoned to death for adultery or young men to be hanged for being gay, or against the marriage of girls as young as nine, as in Iran.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan saw the writing on the wall three years ago when he spoke of the old Commission on Human Rights having “become too selective and too political in its work”. Piecemeal reform would not be enough. The old system needed to be swept away and replaced by something better. The Human Rights Council was supposed to be that new start, a Council whose members genuinely supported, and were prepared to defend, the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Yet since its inception in June 2006, the Human Rights Council has failed to condemn the most egregious examples of human rights abuse in the Sudan, Byelorussia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and elsewhere, whilst repeatedly condemning Israel and Israel alone.
Three years later Annan’s dream lies shattered, and the Human Rights Council stands exposed as incapable of fulfilling its central role: the promotion and protection of human rights. The Council died yesterday in Geneva, and with it the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose 60th anniversary we were actually celebrating this year.
There has been a seismic shift in the balance of power in the UN system. For over a decade the Islamic States have been flexing their muscles. Yesterday they struck. There can no longer be any pretence that the Human Rights Council can defend human rights. The moral leadership of the UN system has moved from the States who created the UN in the aftermath of the Second World War, committed to the concepts of equality, individual freedom and the rule of law, to the Islamic States, whose allegiance is to a narrow, medieval worldview defined exclusively in terms of man’s duties towards Allah, and to their fellow-travellers, the States who see their future economic and political interests as being best served by their alliances with the Islamic States.
Yesterday’s attack by the Islamists, led by Pakistan, had the subtlety of a thin-bladed knife slipped silently under the ribs of the Human Rights Council. At first reading the amendment to the resolution to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression might seem reasonable. It requires the Special Rapporteur:
“To report on instances in which the abuse of the right of freedom of expression constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination …”
For Canada, who had fought long and hard as main sponsor of this resolution to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, this was too much. The internationally agreed limits to Freedom of Expression are detailed in article 19 of the legally binding International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and are already referred to in the preamble to the resolution. If abuse of freedom of expression infringed anyone’s freedom of religion, for example, it would fall within the scope of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion. To add it here was unnecessary duplication, and “Requesting the Special Rapporteur to report on abuses of [this right] would turn the mandate on its head. Instead of promoting freedom of expression the Special Rapporteur would be policing its exercise … If this amendment is adopted, Canada will withdraw its sponsorship from the main resolution.”
Canada’s position was echoed by several delegations including India, who objected to the change of focus from protecting to limiting freedom of expression. The European Union, the United Kingdom (speaking for Australia and the United States), India, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala and Switzerland all withdrew their sponsorship of the main resolution when the amendment was passed. In total, more than 20 of the original 53 co-sponsors of the resolution withdrew their support.
On the vote, the amendment was adopted by 27 votes to 15 against, with three abstentions.
The Sri Lankan delegate explained clearly his reasons for supporting the amendment:
“.. if we regulate certain things ‘minimally’ we may be able to prevent them from being enacted violently on the streets of our towns and cities.”
In other words: Don’t exercise your right to freedom of expression because your opponents may become violent. For the first time in the 60 year history of UN Human Rights bodies, a fundamental human right has been limited simply because of the possible violent reaction by the enemies of human rights.
The violence we have seen played out in reaction to the Danish cartoons is thus excused by the Council – it was the cartoonists whose freedom of expression needed to be regulated. And Theo van Gogh can be deemed responsible for his own death.
Freedom of expression is that right which – uniquely – enables us to expose, communicate and condemn abuse of all our other rights. Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press we give the green light to tyranny and make it impossible to expose corruption, incompetence, injustice and oppression.
But however important freedom of expression may be for us who live in the West, its overwhelming importance for those who live under the tyranny of Islamic law was highlighted by a courageous group of 21 NGOs from the Islamic States who issued a statement yesterday appealing to delegations to oppose the amendment. See http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/petition-hrc.pdf
Incredibly, following the vote on the amendment, the Council descended even further into chaos. At the very last moment, Cuba introduced an oral amendment – clearly against the rules of procedure. When Canada objected they were overruled by the President. When Slovenia – on behalf of the European Union – tried to intervene on a point of order and ask for a ten-minute adjournment, they were ignored. When they tried to protest in another point of order their right to do so was challenged by Egypt, and the Egyptian objection was upheld.
The main resolution was then put to the vote and was adopted by 32 votes in favour, none against, with 15 abstentions.
The NGO community now needs to think carefully about what purpose can any longer be served by continuing our engagement with the Human Rights Council, and by fighting for values that are no longer accepted within the UN system. I have personally been involved with the Human Rights Commission and Council for the past five years and can see little benefit in continuing.
Our well-argued position papers are ignored, our speeches are interrupted with repeated and irrelevant points of order, and we are not even supported in our efforts by the western delegations who, shockingly, did not even vote against today’s travesty, but abstained.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights died yesterday. Who knows when, or if, it can ever be revived.
I used to wonder what States who felt it necessary to kill people because they change their religion thought they were doing in the Human Rights Council. Now I know.
The wafer-thin sham of an international consensus on the promotion and protection of human rights has finally been exposed for what it was – a sham. The fragmentation of human rights now appears inevitable. The proposed Islamic Charter on Human Rights (read “Duties towards Allah”) will certainly go ahead, as will the creation of a parallel Islamic Council on Human Rights. But the OIC will nevertheless continue to attend and dominate the UN Human Rights Council, thereby ensuring its continuing emasculation and descent into total irrelevance.
Just five months before he and more than 20 of his colleagues were killed by a terrorist bomb in Baghdad, the then High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, wrote:
“Membership of the Commission on Human Rights must carry responsibilities. I therefore wonder whether the time has not come for the Commission itself to develop a code of guidelines for access to membership of the Commission and a code of conduct for members while they serve on the Commission. After all the Commission on Human Rights has a duty to humanity and the members of the Commission must themselves set the example of adherence to the international human rights norms – in practice as well as in law…”
States who are genuinely concerned with human rights should immediately withdraw from the Council until such time as all member states as well as those offering themselves for election agree to honour their pledges, and undertake to expel any member state which, having been put on notice regarding its human rights record, fails to put its house in order within a reasonable timescale. Failing this, what better tribute to Sergio de Mello could there be than to create an alternative organisation – Kofi Annan’s organisation of the willing - whose members agree to adopt Sergio de Mello’s guidelines and code of conduct – and are actually held to account.
Roy W Brown
Geneva, 29 March 2008
WOW, definitely a lot of frightening, closed-minded thinking going on in many parts of the world today (not that this is anything "new" in human history, --- just that you'd think we might have made more progress than this)...
To all the people who live their lives boldly in defiance of unfair laws, especially in countries that try to do everything they can in order to suppress human rights and individual freedoms, these rebels have my infinite respect and admiration. Makes me realize how lucky I am, living in such an open-minded and socially tolerant part of the world.
Thanks for sharing this, Validus!
- Ken in San Francisco, California (a small slice of "Heaven on Earth", --- although we have our problems, too.... minor as they may be - lol!!)
As I've said before (elsewhere), the UN has never succeeded in pushing through any real defence of human rights or freedom of speech. If anything, it is a vehicle for their eventual destruction. Which is why replacing it with something new seems fairly naive to me. It's like the old story of the population in an oppressed country rebelling against their tyrant, only to replace him with a new one.
Since the UN has failed to do anything of real benefit, and since it has been a vehicle for political manipulation and corruption, I'd say that all decent countries should withdraw from the UN and stop taking its word for law. I don’t see why the US for example, should in any way bend to the will of supra-national organisations that may wish to limit freedom of speech and rights. After all, in the last few years the US government has done this job itself well enough...
But seriously, for those interested, read up on the difference between the bill of rights in the American constitution, and what is said in the UN constitution. In fact, I’ll even quote the UN one:
Article four of the UN covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural rights.
"The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that, in the enjoyment of those rights provided by the State in conformity with the present Covenant, the State may subject such rights only to such limitations as are determined by law only in so far as this may be compatible with the nature of these rights and solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society."
First of all, it talks of rights "provided" by the state, as opposed to rights protected by the state. Clearly then, any state that is able to grant rights, may also take them away.
Secondly, we can see that these rights are subjected "to such limitations as are determined by law". What goes on after that is subjective drivel. Saying that a state can determine the rights of its citizens by decree and law, as long as it adheres to some sort of "general welfare" is precisely what allows the majority to take away the rights of a minority. Then we simply have the tyranny of the majority.
We can see that there is a big difference between rights granted by the state to please the majority, and inalienable rights that individuals inherently have as described by the US constitution. Another way to see the US bill of rights is a denomination of things that the government cannot do. The purpose of the bill of rights was to limit the government’s ability to interfere with out lives. Thus the UN itself, and its charter on human rights, and all that stems from them, is from the very start a failed attempt. Or to put it more simply, the US constitution is based on individualism, while the UN constitution is based on collectivism. The latter being incompatible with individual inalienable rights.
P.S. Hope this post doesn't upset anyone. If you want to do good around the world, start patronising charities, and not supra-national political behemoths.
Clearly articulated, Derf26.
'Rights', clearly defined, are not privileges granted by the government or state or religion. Concept-stealing of a cherished concept like "human rights" is easier than being honest and convincing others to adopt a 'Universal Declaration of "Obligatory Duty, Limitations on Freedom, and Unenforceable Suggestions about how one could treat others well (once the first duties and limitations are conformed to)".
Shawn (Mr.Crow)
The West has been interfering with Islamic countries for a thousand years. As such they've have gotten more extreme. For instance before the last round of colonialism over 200 years ago, Muslims were pretty tolerant of the west.
Also you must remember Islamic law has been in place for 1500 years and changing it is no picnic. I think if change in Islamic law does take place, it will not come from the west bu the middle east.
This is the first I have seen of this; thanks.
George
Greetings Val, thanks so much for sharing this...I'm going to copy this for my future reference. I just read through it very quickly so I need to go over it much more slowly but wow!!! This all get's me crazy. It never ceases to amaze me that when religion is concerned somehow all sense of rationality and reason goes flying out the window. Religious belief always gets a free pass no matter how twisted it's dogmas are...what a shame. Will this world ever evolve in a rational direction??? You are correct, more people need to know about this situation. Thanks for educating us about this item.
Let's hope for a sane and rational world someday...
Cheers,
Max