We know our human rights but what about our human duties?
At this DPI/NGO conference celebrating 60 years of the UN Human Rights Declaration, there was much praise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; of its “universality” and continuing relevance in the 21st Century. Yet there were also dissenting and critical voices, participants such as Lee Swepston of the International Labour Organisation, who called for a revision of the Declaration to include not only human rights but also ‘human duties’ to ensure that we truly commit to tackling human rights violations. This criticism seems more apt than ever now, and 60 years after the Declaration of Human Rights was negotiated here in Paris, parties to the conference explored the tension between sovereignty and human rights in order to address our continuing failure to act.
In the session on “Addressing Gross Human Rights Violations” William Pace, a human rights activist, noted that a lack of respect for sovereignty has led to “militarism and unilateral policies” in the international community such as the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Unbridled intervention is certainly undesirable, yet Jan Eliasson, former President of the UN General Assembly, pointed to the fact that the international community often “arrives at the house when it has already burnt down”, able only to pull out some bodies, and assess the damage. “We must act when we see the smoke and grab the arsonist when he strikes the match”, added William Pace, picking up on the analogy.
Serge Kamuhinda, survivor of the Rwanda Genocide and now a lawyer working on international arbitration, is sceptical of the ability of NGO’s or the UN to put an end to gross human rights violations. He cites the situation in Rwanda in 1994, when peacekeepers were “the first to leave”, and argues that UN presence in 1994 created a “false sense of security”, that was soon shattered when they left millions of Rwandans to die at the hands of the genocidaires. He also notes that the same NGO’s were present in 1994 that had been present in 1959 in Rwanda, and they had still not been able to prevent the tragedy of the genocide. For Serge Kamuhinda, the Declaration of Human Rights is a “statement of intent”, and if we do not follow-up on our intentions, we risk causing more harm than good.
Things have changed since 1994. The ‘responsibility to protect’, which was formally adopted by the UN in 2006 under Resolution 1674, puts individual member states at the forefront as the authority responsible for the human rights of its citizens. Advocates of this Resolution point out that it is complementary to sovereignty, for in the context of gross human rights violations the institutions of the UN can act only when a state fails to protect its population, or bring justice to bear upon those responsible.
Yet at the end of the session, a young journalist asked Jan Eliasson perhaps what every activist outside the UN is really thinking: If we have the ‘responsibility to protect’ why are genocides still happening 60 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? His reply: “The UN is just a mirror, a reflection of how the world is. If you want to get to the root of things you must look behind the mirror”. If there is one achievement of this conference it is that it has exposed the individuals behind the mirror, not only of the UN, but also of civil society. It is the responsibility of actors at all levels to make sure that the picture is brighter in the future.
By: Tanyella Allison
