[wanabidii] Are We Still Committed to Human Rights for All?

By Paul Seils

The United Nations has proclaimed December 10 as International Human
Rights Day. The date commemorates the signing of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which represented the reaction of
the international community to the horrors of the Second World War.

Today is a day for reflection more than celebration. A cursory scan of
events from the last few weeks has thrown up examples that demonstrate
that the belief in human rights for all - in treating all states the
same - is more of a tissue-thin membrane than a robust bulwark.

The Universal Declaration was a prudent recognition that states are
obliged to ensure protection of fundamental rights that guarantee
freedom and dignity of individuals and groups. Perhaps even more
importantly, it represents the realization that the international
community is duty bound to assist in the protection of such rights.

While it would be tempting to believe that we are on a permanent road
of progress towards ever greater rights-respecting societies, with an
effective and consistent support from the international community,
there is rather serious cause for concern.

In the context of the UN General Assembly vote on the Palestine's
observer status in the UN, we had the profoundly distasteful
exhibition of double standards by France and the UK in trying to
extract promises from the Palestinian leaders that they would never
seek to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This
cynical effort was led by the same parties who call daily for
accountability for the Assad regime in Syria.

The issue here is not whether Israel has committed war crimes and
crimes against humanity but rather that two powerful States Parties of
the Rome Statute for the ICC think it appropriate to impede even the
prospect of an independent and impartial investigation by the court
that they helped to create.

This is grist to the mill for all those who claim that the ICC is
nothing but an instrument of western political interests and it
relegates the people of Palestine to second class citizens in terms of
the possible protection they can expect from the court.

If the integrity of the ICC has been tarnished by France and the UK,
two key member states, the flagship of accountability set up by the UN
- the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) -
has been damaged by the Appeal Chamber's decision to acquit Croatian
generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac. The majority of the Appeals
Chamber stands accused by the minority and independent observers of
distorting the findings of the Trial Chamber and of significantly
reducing the degree of protection civilians can expect from attacks by
combatants.

As a result, the Appeal Chamber has significantly re-written the
history of the Balkan conflict, indicating that there was nothing
criminal in the execution of the Croatian operation "Storm" directed
against Croatian Serbs. The unreasonably inaccurate reinterpretation
of expert opinions used to muddy the definition of excessive
bombardment stands as a serious weakening of the very purpose of the
laws of war to protect civilians from unnecessary harm.

Lastly, the recent violence in Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC), is an indictment of both president Joseph Kabila and
the international community at large. In 2004, the Office of the
Prosecutor of the ICC, led by Luis Moreno Ocampo, had identified Bosco
Ntaganda as one of those most responsible for the commission of war
crimes in the province of Ituri and to seek a warrant for his arrest.

In the years that followed, president Kabila allowed Ntaganda to
freely strut around the towns of the eastern provinces, claiming it
would be too destabilizing to arrest him. The international community
was unwilling or unable to persuade him otherwise.

As a result there was the frequently ignominious sight of Ntaganda
enjoying nightly dinners in the same restaurants where UN officials
would meet. Several days ago, the "M23" militia connected to Ntaganda
took Goma and demonstrated the truly feeble nature of the Congolese
Army and Kabila's government. At the same time, it undid in one
violent week years of painstaking efforts to rebuild local capacities
and infrastructure, as well as causing a humanitarian crisis by
forcing out hundreds of thousands - again.

Developments around Gaza, Goma and Gotovina can be interpreted in a
number of ways. It would be easy to say that human rights protection
is really just a cynical manipulation of politics as usual. And that
is not a criticism without at least some merit. These three examples
show however that there has been progress.

Fifty years ago we did not have an ICC whose States Parties could act
as shamefully as the UK and France have recently. We did not have an
appetite to create an institution such as the ICTY to try the crimes
of the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. These examples show that while
there has been progress, it will be neither inevitable nor seamless.
The institutions and processes are filled, for better or worse, by
human beings.

The enjoyment of fundamental human rights rests on more than
accountability, but without accountability for the violations of human
rights, we will see more and more cynical abuse of the very ideas that
were born out of the horrors of the Second World War.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It is not enough to create
the institutions that will guarantee the protection of fundamental
human rights: we must, with renewed vigour, ensure that those
institutions, and the states that support them, act honestly,
honorably, and effectively.

Paul Seils is Vice President of ICTJ

Originally published on Al Jazeera English

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