I realize that my posting has been somewhat hit or miss lately, but it should definately pick up after the 9th (when my finals are finished). Until then, I felt I would combine both my posting obligations and final work (to the benefit of all, of course).
This last semester, I took a course on International Human Rights. The class was about the evolution of the concept of human rights, and the United Nations. For our take-home final, I was presented with this prompt:
Describe a world where human rights have improved significantly over the present. In responding, state (1) what you mean by a “significant” improvement (2) what factors in international and domestic realms would be different and (3) the likelihood of such a world unfolding in your lifetime.
Under the fold was my answer, but I would like to hear what everyone else thinks. What would a world with better human rights look like?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the United Nations represents more than just respect for human rights: they represent hope for humanity. They represent hope for a world where some of the most persistent problems of our collective history have been significantly reduced. But what does this better world look like? What would be a significant improvement in the world look like? What would be different in this world? When would the world see this?
It is not a new to try and imagine a more perfect world, or a better way to run things. Utopian fiction, from Sir Thomas Moore’s novel Utopia to Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek television and movie series describe worlds very much like our own, but in which the world is better. The United State’s own inception was based on the idea of creating “A more perfect union” a better way of running things. The vision of the United Nations was that we start to realize, possibly slowly, that the world extended beyond our own borders and our own people. There is a constant in all these imaginings though; in the better world, there are still problems. Utopia still has to find some way to deal with crime and war. In Star Trek there is still disease, war, and cultural issues to worry about. When imagining a better world, we are still not imagining a perfect world; there shall always be problems and conflicts, and there always needs to be ways to resolve those.
In the more perfect world where human rights have seen significant gains, valuing life would truly be thought of as imperative. It would be unheard of to kill a country’s citizens, either for the death penalty or as a policy of extermination. Policy makers in countries would not make distinctions between their own citizens and those of foreign countries: each life would be truly equal. When talking about lives lost in a war, for instance, it would not just be the lives of our own soldiers and citizens, but policy makers and leaders would talk about the casualty ratings of civilians and even the soldiers of the other side. Including in this, the idea of going to war would always be a hesitant last resort; one to only be used to defend oneself, or as an act of the international community to protect against an aggressor. When determining what a person or a company could put into the water or the air, the cost-benefit analysis would be heavily weighed in favor of human life. In this new world, private property and the ability to own it would be important, but not enough to trump human life. If taxes needed to be raised to eliminate poverty, then they would be. No person would be allowed to die because they did not have a house to live in, clean water to drink, and food to eat.
In this more perfect world, a person would be free to choose what ever cultural, religious, and social traditions that he or she felt was best for him or herself, as long as said traditions did not interfere with someone else’s choice. One would follow which ever faith gave him or her peace, whether that would be worshiping Jesus, Joseph Smith or Muhammad, or no one at all. It would be equally acceptable to wanderer around in a nijab or hijab as it was to wear a bikini, as it was to wear a three-piece suit, as it was to wear a ball gown. No government would dictate to its populace what they need to think, short of insuring that no one group was forcing another to do its will. These choices, however, would not be free from criticism, only harassment. No person would be free from someone saying that a belief in Lord Xenu was silly, or an examination of why you would wear a nijab, but no person would be penalized by not being allowed to attend school, or get a job because of these beliefs or practices.
In this more perfect world, it would not matter if you were born male or female, or with gender dysphoria, or attracted to your same gender. The government would not care one way or the other, short of protecting those citizens from violence, like every other citizen. There would be no imprisonment for any of these reasons, there would be no barring of public societies because of these traits. The government would not think it was acceptable to kill any of these people for existing in the wrong place, and would punish those who did kill them.
In order for this more perfect world, there needs to be a major shift in the mindsets of leaders and citizens. Currently, there is a great deal of paranoid, zero-sum thinking in policy making, coupled with a jealous pride. In order for the world to change, there needs to be more trust, more desire for everyone’s life to improve, and more humility. Governments, and we as people, need to make that leap of faith, or else we are going to be stuck in a current situation. We need to rejoice in our neighbor’s successes, instead of worrying that we are in decline. And we need to sometimes realize that another country might actually know something we do not. International cooperation is about offering help when it is needed, but also about accepting it when you need it.
Governments also need to realize that they have a responsibility to people living in their country. People are not an obstacle to prosperity and security, therefore are never deserving of marginalization, oppression, or in extreme examples, genocide. When a country is doing this to their population, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene, but not the responsibility of one individual country.
The odds of this better world happening in this generation are slim. Paranoia is self-supporting system; if Canickistan is constantly suspicious of neighboring Germainiam, Germainia is going to be suspicious back, and a security dilemma will eventually happen. Someone needs to be the one to stop, and trust that the neighbor will follow through on promises and not try to stab one in the back. By building transparency into the process, it is even easier to trust your neighbor. Yet trust is slow to come, and even slower to come where you have to convince multiple millions of people to do it, and overcome years of ingrained suspicion. Growing up, citizens are taught that it is hopelessly naïve to trust someone, particularly if they are different than you. Anyone who takes a chance on someone else and gets hurt by it is treated as the stupid one. On a government policy, the leaders are not willing to risk their own citizens to save someone else’s: there is very little sense of collective or global responsibility. Short of a global catastrophe that cause a major shift to that of collective responsibility (instead of an even more extreme xenophobia), it will be a very slow process to build up that trust, that requires people in our generation, the next generation, and the generation after that to build it up. And every time someone does renege on their part of a bargin, the process of building trust is set back that much further back. Yet, just because the process is long, and sometimes unsatisfying, it does not mean it is not important. Perhaps in this generation we will not be able to eliminate poverty entirely. But every body who gets pulled out of poverty is someone who can help pull someone else out of poverty. Every step we make towards the better world is a step in the right direction.
So when do we move??
I gotta say, Antigone, I’m really glad to be seeing a bit more big picture politics stuff on this site. I’m always a little frustrated when I see a great post by, say, Sabotabby, get one measly comment just because it’s about something “serious” that makes people a little bit uncomfortable to think about too hard. But I’ve usually been too silent too. Well, I’ll do my part. You asked for our input, here’s mine. Hope it’s not more than you really wanted!
Describe a world where human rights have improved significantly over the present.
A world with better human rights? That’s one in which the downtrodden can step out from under the boot every once in a while, and the powerful aren’t allowed to wear boots to begin with. You know, lowering the gap between rich and poor, education and healthcare for all, free speech, body rights, industry regulation, robust and fair legal system, brave free press to call out the baddies, etc etc etc etc etc etc. You named most of ‘em yourself already. We all know the drill, I’m sure.
Anyway, that. On a world-wide scale. There. Next!
In responding, state (1) what you mean by a “significant” improvement
Um… one where things are “way” better, rather than just “kinda” better? Sheesh, I’m sure glad it’s not me who has to write serious answers to these kind of stupid questions.
Oh wait, here’s one novel idea for a “significant” improvement to human rights! How about, when a certain Star-Spangled Government actively engineers, say, the worst human rights catastrophe on Earth, that its citizens actually hear anything about it? Like, at all? Just a thought.
(2) what factors in international and domestic realms would be different
Internationally, there best way to improve human rights is to improve living conditions worldwide for the most people. Now, there’s lots of ways to go about this– infrastructure support, access to water, fair trade, and so on.
But I think the number one difference, which would positively affect EVERYTHING, is to just stop killing people in other countries so much. Trust me, there will be enough humitarian crises to go around anyway. But you don’t defeat the hydra by chopping off its head.
So let’s say that enough countries got together and could all just agree not to go killing people in other countries; nor to attempt to secretly pull the strings; no funding armed resistances, no overthrowing leaders behind the scenes. So, killing people in order to defend against a real national EXISTENTIAL threat would be fine; helping your buddies with their self-defence would also be fine. That’s more or less about it.
I think I’ll have to disagree with you a little bit on one point. International consensus is not enough for me to accept armed intervention, even in the case of genocide. Note I said *armed* intervention. Now I’ll be a little bit radical here and suggest that “interventions”, even to stop genocide, are generally a bad idea. At the very least, before running half-cocked into every country with a humanitarian crisis, why not require a simple checklist first, for instance:
1. clearly defined, and limited, mission objectives, with DEADLINES and willingness to declare failure if objectives/deadlines are not met
2. yes, the support of the majority of the international community
3. the country that initiates the effort has no obvious thing to directly gain from it (*cough*oil)
4. no military presence left afterward at all (Peace Corps type stuff is ok, though)
5. willingless to accept huge amounts of refugees into your own country
6. money set aside from the get-go to aid in reconstruction
7-100. feel free to add any other arbitrary impediments to war that you can think of– the whole point is that initiating military action should be incredibly unattractive, and absolutely a last, last, last resort. Or else you just end up causing MORE humanitarian crises. And that’s no way to improve human rights around the world!
Domestically: see above about lowering the gap between rich and poor, education and healthcare for all, etc etc etc etc etc etc.
and (3) the likelihood of such a world unfolding in your lifetime.
Hey, the history of humanity is the struggle of the samaritans versus the vested interests. Neither side will ever completely “win”. Marx had it right in this respect– whenever the ruling classes reach too far, the underclasses will rise in discontent. And we’ve sure as hell got a ruling class ruling over an underclass, and that ruling class is consolidating power on a global level in an unprecedented way. Which just means that when they fall, they’re gonna fall harder than ever.
How well we pick up the pieces, well, I guess we’d best be planning for how to do that now.
I don’t know, have any free planets available for colonization? Seriously, I think I need to include something about education…..
Quin,
Why thank you.
I was right there with you at the beginning of the semester. Then I learned about Rwanda. It was a textbook example of military intervention being enough to stop a genocide. Hell, all the UN forces needed to do was STAY THERE with their machine guns pointed at people with machetes and feed some people, until the crisis could be resolved. So why I tend to agree with your points, I have found that military intervention can be effective.
Rwanda is an interesting case, precisely because there would have been no obvious ulterior motives, like oil, to get involved. (Hence we didn’t. Funny how that works.)
Now, it’s easy to say “woulda coulda shoulda” about military force in Rwanda because we never opened that can of worms and watched them spill all over us. But if you’re going to lament the roads not taken in Rwanda, I say lament the ones which didn’t seem likely to spiral into a military quagmire first. For instance, the U.S. never used its available technology to jam the radio broadcasts which were the main source of the incitement to the roving packs of knife-wielding Hutu teenagers who caused so much devastation so quickly. Heck, even personal phone calls from Clinton et al to local leaders, threatening military intervention if they didn’t cool things down could have made a big difference– backstage top-level diplomatic negotiations that I am led to understand did not happen.
Supposing we did try those kinds of things, and nothing was working. Would anything short of a full occupation have really made a difference?
I’m certainly no expert, but I’m not convinced that standing there with guns but not actually using them would have been enough. The UN tried that for a while at the beginning of the civil war in Somalia, but the local factions soon just ignored them and kept on killing each other anyway. To actually get people to stop killing each other, I’m not sure there’s any way for international forces to do that — militarily, at least — without flat-out occupying the country. Which involves killing many of the same people you’re intending to save to get in there. And if you bite the bullet and plunge in there, impose curfews and all that– exactly when will it be okay to leave?
It is true enough that if the peacekeeping forces would have actually been, you know, peacekeeping, before the massacre happened, military intervention would have been unnecessary. That is very probable. But stepping down on that, military intervention, and probably limited military intervention at that, would have stopped a tragedy. In a few cases, I think we may have to allow for a bad solution (military invention) because of a bad situation (legacy of colonialism).
Any time a group of Europeans start killing Africans, even in a so-called “limited military intervention”, I don’t imagine it will do good things to improve on the legacy of colonialism.
I’m not very well versed in the details of the Rwandan genocide– please correct me if I’ve got it wrong– but my understanding was that it was being committed on a country-wide level, by loosely-knit Hutu militia groups and spontaneous bands of overexcited young Hutu men. So there was no enemy to fight in one convenient place. If so, then I don’t understand how the UN could have possibly gone in with an objective of protecting a million-plus people without turning it into a wide-scale occupation. I don’t see any way the military intervention could possibly have stayed limited in scope if it was to be effective at all.
(I am certainly no military specialist, so somebody please feel free to educate me as to why I’m wrong about that if they can.)
But I will continue to distrust any military interventions abroad — even with the nicest of intentions– until such time as I learn of one that actually worked. And if I ever do, I’ll certainly want to study that case to try to figure out what the hell went right there when it goes wrong nearly everywhere else.
When the Hutu’s started to slaughter the Tutsi, there were already UN peacekeeping troops there. Tutsi’s began to go to the UN peacekeeping forces for protection, and UN set up “safe areas”; defensible positions for the Tutsi to stay at (mostly at churches, schools, et cetera). The UN troops were not allowed to intercede between the Hutu and the Tutsi, but they were allowed to protect the Hutu that made it to these safe camps. When the UN were ordered to evacuate, and not take the Hutu with them, the Tutsi were literally waiting for the UN trucks to pull away and went and did wholesale slaughter. The UN safe areas had limited military might: they did kill some Tutsi that managed to sneak into the camp, but mostly it was like I said: they pointed machine guns at Hutu waving machettes, and the Hutu did not come in. Had the UN forces stayed, they would have EASILY saved thousands.
Even barring that, if the international community had just stepped in and did things like jamming the radio stations (Hutu extremist did things like broadcast where “known Tutsi” lived) and if they would have evacuated refugees with them it would have helped save lives.
I’m a little bit confused by your description– did you by any chance mix up your “Hutus” with “Tutsis” a couple of times? But regardless, you’re right, once there were UN Troops already successfully protecting civilians there, OF COURSE they had a moral obligation to stay, especially with Tutsi killers waiting right around the corner. If thousands of lives could have been saved, simply by continuing a purely defensive military action they had already begun, then I absolutely agree that the UN withdrawal was an enormous tragedy.
But the kind of purely defensive military action you just described is not what I’m talking about when I say I’m against “military interventionism”. I’m all for defense that is really just defensive. It’s the “The best defence is a good offence” kind of thinking that I’m against.
The tricky part is keeping the peacekeeping non-euphimistic, if you get my meaning. The UN’s intervention in Somalia started out as a purely humanitarian effort as well– but within two years, it had turned into Blackhawk Down, with international forces complicit in hundred of innocent civilian deaths.
Anyway, I understand your point of view that Rwanda would have been a justified case of military intervention. But it still can’t be used as a good argument for military interventionism, because the fact is, the UN *didn’t* stick around long enough for us to tell if it really would have worked. They may well have come to discover that the true scale of the effort was more than they bargained for. Certainly this has been the case in many other places.
Once again, I ask: Show me the case of an actually successful military-based humanitarian intervention, and then I’ll think about being a little bit less dogmatic on the issue. (It may not be hard to do — I’m certainly painfully aware of my lack of knowledge of world affairs.) But Rwanda is not it.
Whoops, you were you right about switching the Hutu and Tutsi. My mistake. The Hutu, in this case, were the agressors, and the Tutsi were the victims of the slaughter.
I’ll get back to you on the sucessful example. I’m by no means an expert myself.
Hey, looks like I just mixed ‘em up myself. Following your lead, perhaps… Maybe what we both just need is a little bit more schooling.
Good luck with finding a successful military intervention (from a human rights standpoint, at least). I’m dubious, but open to the possibility, I guess.
In the meantime, rather than searching for the rare exceptions to the rule, might I suggest it would currently make a lot more sense to look into the completely awful interventions which the U.S. is already involved in or ones that they are pushing to engage in.
And neither of those links is even about Iraq!
Antigone, I’m very glad you wrote this post, even if it’s just you, me, and the crickets in here. It’s very good sometimes to think about how to make a better tomorrow. But it’s good to remember, too, that tomorrow begins today.
I just noticed how patronizing that last sentence came off. Didn’t mean it that way, I swear!