Thomas Probert2013-05-22T04:50:20-04:00Thomas Proberthttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=thomas-probertCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Thomas ProbertGood old fashioned elbow grease.The UK Human Rights Debate in Global Perspectivetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19281482012-10-01T05:12:37-04:002012-12-01T05:12:01-05:00Thomas Proberthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-probert/
The last few weeks of the Bill of Rights consultation produced a flurry of final commentary, especially after one of the Commissioners wrote an alarmist article about "the wrongs of human rights" in the Jewish Chronicle. The Commissioners will now retire to consider their verdict, which is promised by the end of the year. This is not the place to consider again the details of the consultation; it is widely appreciated that the Commission is a response to the increasingly vexed relationship between the UK Government and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
But a little further south, in Geneva, another session of the UN Human Rights Council drew to a close on Friday. The mainstream media in the UK tend to report on this Council only as a venue for ongoing discussion of high-profile foreign crises such as Syria. Its work is in fact much broader than that, and its mandate extends beyond the human rights of those in far-flung places. In her opening survey of human-rights concerns around the world the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, included the disturbing attitudes toward minorities in France and Greece. She also expressed concern about the impact of "austerity" on vulnerable groups across Europe.
After its three week session the 21st Human Rights Council had adopted 33 resolutions on a wide range of issues. But its immediate relevance to the UK is that this session also adopted the outcome of the UK's second Universal Periodic Review. The UPR process was conceived seven years ago as part of the reform of UN human rights mechanisms, and involves individual review of the human rights records of all 192 UN member states over a four-year cycle. It has now completed its first cycle, and the UK's review comes early in the second cycle.
The UK has been an active supporter of UPR, highlighting its importance among UN human rights mechanisms and emphasising the benefits of both its universality and its constructive spirit. But last month it was the turn of the UK Government to take to the podium and make clear its response to the 130 recommendations it had received about bringing the protection of human rights in the UK more closely in line with international standards.
The process was not covered by any of the UK media. Consequently very few people in the UK will be aware that their Government rejected nearly a third of the recommendations it received.
They refused, for example, to consider changing the law in the UK to accord to the standards of the human rights of children with regard to corporal punishment, or the minimum age of enlistment in the army. They refused to accede to international conventions on the rights of migrant workers or on enforced disappearances. And they refused to abandon the policy of deporting people to countries where they might be tortured, based only on "diplomatic assurances".
How is this relevant to the Bill of Rights Commission?
Partly because several UPR recommendations were directly relevant to the questions of the consultation. For example, recommendation 32: "Continue to ensure that human rights principles are integrated in domestic laws"; and recommendation 48: "On the basis of the UK's commitment to the rule of law, comply with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights on the cases concerning the United Kingdom". Interestingly both of these recommendations were accepted by the UK.
Partly because during the discussion of its report, speaking in the time allocated for contribution by the UK's National Human Rights Institutions, Prof. Alan Miller described the ongoing debate about human rights (and especially the calls to repeal the Human Rights Act) as one of the most pressing human rights challenges faced in the UK.
But more generally because both the Bill of Rights consultation and the recent UPR are symptomatic of a broader UK attitude towards international human rights law. It has long been the policy of the Foreign Office that it will only accede to international standards with which it can guarantee conformity immediately. At first glance this represents a laudable scrupulousness about international commitments. But it is also a reflection of a legislative arrogance in the UK concerning matters of human rights. Any internationally-agreed norm which coincides with what the UK already does is fine; any which doesn't is to be regarded with great suspicion.
Thus the Foreign Office can be "deeply concerned" about the trial of Pussy Riot in Russia; but after a Strasbourg ruling on indefinite detention without opportunity to demonstrate rehabilitation the new Justice Secretary states that this is "not an area where I welcome the Court seeking to make rulings."
The UK did at least commit to keeping all UPR recommendations received under constant review. But if the Foreign Office is truly committed to promoting human rights around the world, it is hopefully giving serious consideration to the impression conveyed globally by the Government's rather superior attitude towards international human rights standards at home.]]>Balancing Human Rights and Superpower Politicstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14693272012-05-02T18:18:26-04:002012-07-02T05:12:13-04:00Thomas Proberthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-probert/
On Monday Obama defended his administration's record, stating that "every time we meet with China, the issue of human rights comes up. It is our belief that it is the right thing to do." To anybody who remembers the fraught debates of détente in the 1970s, Obama's remarks will sound very familiar. For this was the frequent refrain of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Like his fellow Nobel laureate Obama, Kissinger was accused of not prioritizing human rights during his attempt to normalize relations with the abusive super-power of the day, the Soviet Union. Congress even went so far as to legislate that the U.S. should make Most-Favored-Nation status with the Soviet Union contingent on an improvement in emigration figures for the embattled Soviet Jewish minority. This week's events will doubtless revive long-term debates about China's MFN status.
Nixon and Ford were constantly asked to make louder reproaches regarding Soviet abuses, and they persistently defended their tempered statements by claiming that "quiet diplomacy" was more effective. Like Obama, they would claim that every time they met with the Soviets they would discuss human rights, but that they would not publicly grandstand, because the Soviets could not afford to lose face over the issue.
Meanwhile the period of détente is replete with examples of the U.S. administration favoring a low-profile, ad hoc approach to individual "hardship cases" with the Soviet government. Kissinger tried to convince Congress and the American people that "quiet diplomacy" would get more people out of the Soviet Union than restrictive legislation; and the immediate impact of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment rather proved his point. A pertinent comparison is that of Simas Kurdika, a Lithuanian seaman who attempted to claim asylum aboard a U.S. Coast Guard vessel. In the confusion he was returned to Soviet authorities, tried and convicted of treason to great outcry in the West. But after Gerald Ford made a private intercession with Moscow, Kurdika was allowed to emigrate to the U.S.
It is true that Kissinger had fundamental reservations about the legitimacy of interventions in the sovereign affairs of other states, and that when he broached the issue of human rights with the Soviets he generally did so in an unproductively apologetic tone. But there were many other proponents of quiet diplomacy, who genuinely saw it as the best way to effect human-rights change. For example the measured opinion of the Moscow Embassy in 1975 was that:
"Direct government to government approaches will not work very often ... Nor will official public recrimination and accusations be effective; they are in many cases counterproductive for they tend to evoke petulant, defensive reactions from the regime ... The U.S. government's position, therefore, should be one of consistent public defence and promotion of human rights around the world, but without singling out the Soviet Union for inconsistent criticism."
Indeed today's arguments that human rights in China would be best protected by the gradual opening up of the Chinese system to contact with the West have strong resonances of another 1970s policy, one on which Kissinger was less keen than his own State Department: the Helsinki Process. That agreement would eventually lead to the building of a human rights monitoring community holding regimes behind the Iron Curtain to account for their actions, and many scholars now attribute it a significant role in ending the Cold War.
The hawks in the Republican Party howl for greater (by which they mean louder) attention to human rights in a manner reminiscent of Reagan's bid for the nomination in 1976. Though Ford survived that challenge he was eventually defeated by Jimmy Carter, who had made human rights a strong plank of his campaign.
Of course the comparison should not be taken too far: Obama decided to meet with the Dalai Lama last year, whereas Gerald Ford famously declined to entertain Solzhenitsyn at the White House in 1975. And Obama is comfortable asserting that human rights improvement would be "good for China," rather than making vague claims about it being good for the development of international relations (which was the U.S. line about Helsinki).
Furthermore, the international politics of human rights has come a long way since the 1970s. But the problem of changing the domestic behavior of a superpower persists. The difficult lesson for the modern human rights lobby is that in the end both sides of the détente debate turned out to be right: Kissinger's policy of opening contact with the Soviet regime was crucial to creating the space in which activists could exert pressure. Meanwhile the pressure exerted on the White House by the Congress and NGOs was crucial in convincing the Soviets that there was a real problem.
History suggests that human rights activists will never believe executives are exerting non-public pressure for human-rights change; executives will always complain the activists do not weigh the issues within the wide context of relations. The politics of human rights requires both sides in order to balance fully (for activism without power would achieve little). While Obama will doubtless be wary of appearing too Kissingerian, he is astute enough a statesman to know that the best outcome for Chen Guangcheng may well be achieved by allowing others to make most of the noise.]]>The Story is Bigger Than War Correspondentstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13342092012-03-11T19:00:00-04:002012-05-11T05:12:03-04:00Thomas Proberthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-probert/
The world has rightly mourned the death of Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik in Syria two weeks ago and has avidly followed the plight of other journalists trapped within what has become the deadliest targeting of civilians since the siege of Sarajevo. These brave correspondents have endured great dangers in pursuit of truth and kept the plight of the people of Homs in international headlines.
However, we should remember that the day before the shelling that killed Colvin and Ochlik, a Syrian journalist, activist and videographer, Rami al-Sayed, was killed in Homs. Al-Sayed had been among the first to record the attacks on civilians that were taking place, and to stream these recordings to the internet, where they made headlines around the world, and were partly responsible for drawing foreign correspondents to Homs.
While the deaths of those foreign correspondents grab headlines, the Committee to Protect Journalists has demonstrated that nine of every ten journalists who are killed worldwide are local reporters.
Over the past six months the Cambridge University's Centre of Governance and Human Rights has been researching the right to life of journalists. The research was in support of Christof Heyns, the UN's Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial Killings, whose next report to the Human Rights Council will concern this subject. Last week he convened a meeting of experts in Cambridge to discuss the many thorny issues surrounding it.
One of the key findings of this research was the importance of emphasising the diversity of the threats faced.
Far away from conflict zones, those reporting day-to-day on political corruption or malfeasance find themselves quietly targeted. When they courageously speak out, governments find diverse means of silencing their criticism. Last January, a Spanish journalist was brutally attacked in response to a newspaper article on the misuse of public funds. A reporter for the BBC's Uzbek-language service, arrested in Tajikistan last June claims he was tortured while in detention. In Cambodia, three journalists received death threats after attempting to investigate a report accusing the prime minister of involvement in large-scale illegal logging.
In addition to threats or harassment, the most straight-forward way to silence journalists critical of governments is to imprison them. In 2011 it was estimated that 179 journalists were in jail: 42 of them in Iran, 28 in Eritrea, 27 in China, and 12 in Burma. Many states have all-encompassing laws on terrorism, treason, criminal defamation or 'false news' that allow governments to infringe the rights of journalists whilst acting within the law. For example in South Africa, the new Secrecy Bill could mean that journalists can no longer claim public interest in publishing sensitive information about the government. They could face 25 years in prison for publishing information which state officials want to keep secret.
But the state is not the only villain. Journalists who report on organised crime also find themselves targeted. Last September Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro, a Mexican journalist reporting on the criminal gangs of Nuevo Laredo, was found dead with a note placed on her body identifying the website for which she wrote and the pseudonym she had used on Twitter.
A keyboard and set of headphones were also placed next to the body. Such very public and direct attacks can very quickly lead to a culture of self-censorship, such as exists, for example, around reporting on drug-trafficking in northern Pakistan, or on the powerful cartels of Latin America.
The expansion of social media and the proliferation of those reporting to both national and international audiences have doubtlessly increased access to information worldwide. But it has also created a new vulnerable group of 'netizens'. Some countries, including Iran, China and Burma have specific laws against "cyber criminals" which are used to target citizen journalists; others, such as the UAE and Vietnam, disguise such arrests behind other offenses.
In nearly 90% of instances of journalists being murdered there is no prosecution. Impunity is widespread. This is often because of state complicity in the act, but even when that is not the case, there is insufficient public pressure to ensure investigation. The vast majority of these killings are of local or citizen journalists who are beyond the oversight of an interested, international public.
It is for these reasons that prominent figures such as Frank La Rue, the UN's Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, who was in Cambridge last week, have called for international recognition of high-risk contexts for journalists extending beyond war zones.
Meanwhile it is incumbent on us - the interested consumers of journalism - to remember that the dangers faced by those who bring us our news extend beyond the conventional battlefield.
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