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Human Rights and the Rule of law
In spite of worldwide condemnation, murder, execution and brutality remain commonplace. Giles Crosse examines how the perpetrators get away with it.
Western countries are skilled at dealing out parking tickets or speeding fines. Yet these very same democracies often seem powerless to intervene when faced with dictatorships, tribal conflicts or other scenarios where the needy seek protection.
Equally, these very same democracies should themselves be held to account surrounding captivity without trial, where, how and why the West chooses to intervene in planetary crises, and urgent questions over legality of conflicts and deliberate deception of voters.
There are individuals behind the headlines. According to Reprieve, Ayman Mohammed Al Shurafa has been held in US custody since 2001. From the viewpoint of the US military officers who have held him in Guantánamo Bay for nearly seven years, Ayman could be released tomorrow, yet in prison he sits.
Elsewhere, Reprieve has identified eight prisoners held beyond the rule of law at Eagle Base in Tuzla, Bosnia since 2001, including Nihad Karsic and Almin Hardaus. Reprieve also describes suffering in the ‘Palestine Branch’, run by Syrian Military Intelligence.
There, it says, Maher Arar was beaten on his back, buttock and feet with a two inch thick electric cable, and heard the screams of other prisoners night and day. Ahmed Abou el Maati was forced to strip down to his shorts and lie blindfold with his hands cuffed to his legs behind his back. Ice water was then poured on him, while he was beaten with thick electric cables on his feet, legs, knees and back.
Reprieve also identifies sites such as Afghanistan’s so called ‘Dark Prison’, believed to have shut down in 2004, or Szymany Airport, described as ‘the main base for CIA interrogations in Europe’, where waterboarding and sleep deprivation were practiced between 2003/05.
Outside the law
Executions continue worldwide. Recently, Akmal Shaikh was executed at 10.30am local time on December 29 in Urumqi, China. According to The Guardian, ‘China accounts for seven out of every 10 executions in the world.’
Elsewhere, says Reprieve, Joshua French, 27, together with Norwegian Tjostolv Moland, 28, has been sentenced to death by firing squad by a military tribunal in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Why are such atrocities so often ignored, and how can we prevent this from happening?
“The problem today is that the current system of international law is as much about power, as it is about human rights or the law,” says Aimee Griffin, who works as a volunteer for Reprieve.
“The truth of the matter is that the world’s human rights problems are infinite and that human rights law and organisations are, by comparison, not very strong particularly within the United Nations. Countries with the worst human rights records often do not participate wholeheartedly in the UN system.”
“There is a glimmer of hope,” she continues. “Human rights are more widely accepted than they have ever been. Human rights have become central to the doctrine of international relations, and most countries participate in the human rights system. A stronger commitment by nation states is required to ensure that international law is respected and abided by.”
Such a commitment might one day do much to alleviate suffering, but the problem remains not only widespread but complex, both politically and ethically. Whether a Western government condoning torture in Gulf warzones has any right to impose moral views on worldwide countries following their internal legal systems is a question indeed.
Furthermore, modern law and its complexities remain beyond the understanding of the vast majority of people ever prosecuted. Perhaps the intricacies of a legal system, whose true details are privy to only a select paid few, illustrate how distorted global justice has become.
Legal loopholes
“Our work involves constantly reminding governments and other powerful bodies of the need to live up to their own international obligations, in essence to follow the law,” says Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen.
“Sometimes human rights campaigning is a question of shaming governments and others into action, publicising the fact that they’re failing to meet their own promises over guaranteeing rights to their populations and constituencies.”
“On other occasions it’s a matter of seeking international agreement over a necessary course of action where a government or other powerful player is defiant and unwilling to act or perhaps unable to address a critical human rights situation.”
Allen points to Sudan. She says after years of appalling human rights abuses in the Darfur region and years of pressure on the Khartoum government to address Darfur, intransigence from the Sudanese authorities has led to an indictment from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“If the ICC hadn’t acted, then the Sudanese government’s defiance would have paid off and thousands of people in Darfur would have been left with little or no legal redress.” she argues.
“However, cases reaching international courts like the ICC are always going to be relatively few and far between. What we really need to see is prompt action from governments well before this stage.”
So what’s preventing more rapid progress? “The realpolitik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik of international relations is frequently, and sometimes absolutely scandalously, on the wrong side of the human rights issue.” reckons Allen.
“For example, with Burma regional bodies like ASEAN have often been too muted over human rights abuses from the generals; with the economic rise of China the world’s strongest nations like the US have held back from forthright criticism of Beijing’s record; and with Zimbabwe other African countries have been unwilling to speak out firmly when their voices could have made a big difference.”
It appears that in such cases, money and politics shout more loudly than other concerns. Allen also believes businesses have a role to play in the debate:
”On top of this, an increasingly important factor is the behaviour of businesses, particularly the big multinationals. Shell’s oil extraction in Nigeria, for example, has been extremely damaging in terms of the pollution of local people’s land and fishing resources in the Niger Delta.”
“The combined power of Shell and the Abuja government has meant that aggrieved Nigerians have faced an uphill battle to realise their rights.” she continues. “Similarly, until very recently, Google’s activities in China also meant that Chinese human rights defenders felt that not only was the government against them but also one of the world’s biggest corporations. Google’s 13 January u-turn could, and should, have a major impact in terms of ending these cosy business government arrangements.”
Hope for justice
“International laws such as those prohibiting torture, anti personnel landmines and, soon, the unregulated flow of weaponry around the world, stand as concrete achievements of the last few decades.” explains Allen.
“But in the final analysis international law is only as good as those who are supposedly bound by it and obligated to live up to it. The challenge facing Amnesty and countless grassroots human rights defenders is to get governments functioning in a way that means Amnesty’s role is almost superfluous. We’re not there yet.”
Perhaps this is the greatest irony of law, that signing up to an agreement means little without the real will to carry it out. Environmental law offences against EU Member States lie bound up amid red tape in Brussels, while the pollution continues to blight shores or forests long ago ‘protected’ by legislation.
The answers are complex, and will be slow to find. Perhaps they lie in addressing the fundamental competitive attitudes we have cultivated between individuals, societies, cultures, nations and doctrines, fighting for resources and beliefs.
It may be down to more than governments to invoke newer, more sustainable, considered ways of settling differences and creating a meaningful fabric for global society.
What are your views? Not sure? Read the resources below for more information. Add your comment below. We welcome your thoughts and proposals. Not a Planetary Citizen? Sign up and start making a difference!
Resources:
United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines
United Nations: Millennium Declaration
United Nations Security Council: The rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies
United Nations General Assembly: In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all post-conflict societies
International Court of Justice: Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation)
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