Since 1948, human rights have entered the
mainstream of international discourse. Even the harshest tyrants use
the language of human rights, if only to distort its universal meaning.
Three years after the Second World War — a war of unparalleled savagery
— the fledging United Nations gave an eloquent expression to the very
loftiest of human aspirations — the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. It was well past midnight on December 10, 1948, exactly 60
years ago today, in the elegantly curved Palais de Chaillot in Paris
when the Declaration was presented to the UN General Assembly.
Trumpeting hope over experience, the language echoed the American
Declaration of Independence to affirm: “All human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and
conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood.”
Is there to be justice or impunity for crimes against humanity? How
much do rights matter? What progress has been made in this direction in
the last 60 years? Scan the globe for examples of genocides,
repression, torture, war and rape, terrorism, starvation deaths and
environmental degradation, the answer will be well be a hollow laugh.
But since 1948, human rights have entered the mainstream of
international discourse. Even the harshest tyrants use the language of
human rights, if only to distort its universal meaning. Countries
bleeding the nightmare of civil wars boast of government-backed human
rights commissions that catalogue the atrocities of their enemies and
ignore their own abuses. This is being done to deflect criticism rather
than create accountability. The most recalcitrant countries are urged
to respect human rights by the World Bank and IMF as condition for
offering financial aid.
By the time Cold War ended in 1991, international conventions had set
standards for civil and political rights, and women’s and children’s
rights, and benchmarks defining torture and racial discrimination. Even
in the face of horrors in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, advances have
been made.
The 1998 agreement, establishing the International Criminal Court was a
landmark for international humanitarian law. So was the campaign to ban
anti-personnel mines, though both highlighted the US opposition to any
commitment that might restrict its freedom of action.
But human rights need a broader definition if they are to become
universally respected. In regions where millions live in abject
poverty, western concept of civil and political rights can mean little
if basic economic and social rights are to be guaranteed. This is
difficult terrain. Torture is torture in any language, but in a
globalised, though still fragmented world, advanced industrialised
societies cannot assume the primacy of their humanist values. There is
the need for vigilance about the western democratic countries’ own
human rights records, as well as others’ — and of the yawning gap
between goals and achievements.
The kernel of human rights is concern for the human condition, however
high or humble be the person. The vulgar sector affluently placed asks:
“Why should I, if the going is good for me, bother about my neighbour
and his misery? Why should Cain care to sustain Abel and not kill him
for gain? Why should robbery be crime and why not grab as much as you
may with unconcern for the lacerated lot?” The answer is compassion,
love, fellowship and identity with the wretched of the earth.
The struggle for human deliverance and the battle for universal
brotherhood and sisterhood are the pith and substance of the Magna
Carta of humanity enshrined in the San Francisco Charter (1945), the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the two International
Covenants (1966) which spell out material projections of human rights.
The time has come for the human rights movement itself to give equal
priority to economic, social and cultural rights. It should search for
ways to play as prominent a role in the future in the monitoring and
implementation of economic, social and cultural rights as it has in the
past in the monitoring and implementation of civil and political rights.
Nelson Mandela’s words, way back in 1992, are a fitting finale to my
thoughts on this Human Rights Day. “Our common humanity transcends the
oceans and all national boundaries. It binds us together in a common
cause against tyranny, to act together in defence of our very humanity.
Let it never be asked of any one of us: what did we do when we knew
that another was oppressed?”
What the originators of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
drafted 60 years ago was a blueprint for a better future. But the job
was not finished that December. It is a work still in progress.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Dec102008/panorama20081209105744.asp
