British Institute of Human Rights Lunchtime Lecture: “Development and Human Rights”

Courtauld Institute of Art, London
12 October 2004

What I would like to discuss today is human rights in relation to foreign policy development.

I am as you may know feeling deeply worried about the UK’s support for the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq.  I have devoted most of my adult life to building the Labour Party as an instrument of social justice at home and abroad.  I am therefore very disappointed that in the current world situation the Labour Government has become part of the problem.

So the question is what should be done about it?  My own depression about this situation has tempted me to resign from politics altogether, but I have concluded that I must stand up for my values and commitments. If the UK is part of the problem, then we all have a responsibility to put things right. Therefore we should have more discussions, more groups of people coming together and producing ideas, about how the world could be a more just, safe and sustainable place. Ideas are very powerful.  Anger at injustice alone will not transform - we need to believe that justice is possible.

Thinking back to the late Barbara Castle, she said that at the time of the Beveridge report there were not many people who believed in the Welfare State. But small groups of people got together and discussed the possibilities, arranged meetings and spread their message, and it became a reality. This is what I hope can happen again now. We are now in an era of change, which makes ideas potentially all the more powerful.

There is so much pre-packaged spin in politics these days. I have just returned from a trip to the US, where I took part in a debate over how the upcoming Presidential Election would affect the world. The Neo-Conservatives present were coming up with the same old phrases, not saying anything new. Similarly from the House of Commons nowadays there come so many stock phrases which arise from honed briefings which add nothing new to the debate and are recognised after constant repetition by everybody. The media are partly responsible for this – the dumbing down of political discourse. There is a great need for people to get together in smaller groups like this, to discuss the issues properly and intelligently.

We are currently in an era of very deep historical change, with the end of the Cold War, increasing globalisation and the consequences of the in new information technology. This era has the potential for enormous advances for humanity.

I see the present era as comparable with the Industrial Revolution. During that time massive new wealth was created, while at the same time there was massive poverty. This led to a political battle to create a way of sharing the new wealth equitably. This meant a long struggle for the right to organise trade unions, for democracy and for political arrangements that would provide a decent standard of living for all citizens.  Currently there is an abundance of resources – capital, technology and knowledge - which has the same potential globally. We could apply what we know to bring about an uplift for humanity and an end to abject poverty.

However, what we have now is a big lag in leadership which is driving the world backwards rather than forwards.  The US War on Terror is conceptually inane.  It is causing bitter division and increasing the problem of terrorism.  This shows a failure to understand the crisis facing the world and to grasp the potential for advance. Therefore it is the people that need to come up with ideas, and find a way to shape globalisation more equitably.

Looking at the effects of globalisation, on the one side there is the example of China, which in the past few years has had huge economic growth and a massive decrease in poverty. However, while there may be some signs of improvement, its human rights record is imperfect, and there is no democracy. On the opposite side, Africa is getting poorer.  But globalisation is a consequence of the end of the Cold War creating one global economy and the integration of the world economy that flows from the new information technologies.  It makes no sense to be for or against globalisation – it is as inevitable as the sun rising in the morning.  The challenge is to shape the process of change so that it brings benefit, not try and reverse it.

The new global community brings many positive effects. The way the media portrayed one world at the millennium really gave the feeling of all of humanity being on one planet. Media images such as the boy on the bicycle during the Tiananmen Square massacre or the little girl born in the tree during the Mozambique floods bring a sense of immediacy and make the human rights of people living far away come alive for people emotionally. People now really care about and identify with other people from all across the globe.

But the change also brings negative effects.

A major change is the increase in religious fundamentalism. And it is not just Islamic fundamentalism. There is Christian fundamentalism in the US which supports the establishment of a Jewish state in the whole of historical Palestine so that the Messiah will return , and there is also Hindu fundamentalism in India which was responsible for terrible suffering and loss of life in Gujerat.. There are also Jewish fundamentalists who believe that they have a God-given right to live in the occupied territories although this is a breach of international law.

This is the opposite of the new sense of global equality, and the reasons for it have not been properly discussed. This is something that we really need to understand more about.
It is not just a result of poverty, as can be seen from the Christian and Jewish examples. It may be partly a result of the speed of change that is occurring – people are feeling uncertain and want to cling on to their identity.

The end of the Cold War brought great expectations of a new era to be characterised by the sharing of the world’s resources. Initially there were positive developments such as the end of Apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela as president in South Africa, and the Velvet Revolution in Eastern Europe.

But the hope was short-lived. A million people were slaughtered in 100 days in Rwanda in 1994, and the Security Council refused to take action, and evaded the obligations of the Genocide Convention by refusing to use the word genocide. In the Balkans there was ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, but only a very weak international response. There was a withdrawal from Africa, and many states collapsed into civil war.

When we all felt so positive, we did not understand the extent of the challenge for a new order. There were no new ideas and structures, so what we really had was a new world disorder.  During the Cold War many tensions were contained. When the Cold War receded, many of these tensions erupted, such as in Nepal, Kashmir, Chechnya and many parts of Africa.

Post Cold War, the world is increasingly facing massive challenges on a global scale:
 
The world’s population has increased dramatically. Not only are more people being born, but as life gets better, people have a longer life expectancy. In 1900 there were approx 1.2 billion people; soon there will be 9 billion. This is a phenomenal change in a period of 150 years, and puts a large strain on the resources of the planet.

Urbanisation has also increased. Currently for the first time in history approximately half the world’s population lives in urban areas, and in the next 15-20 years that figure is expected to rise to 60-65%. Despite the poverty and squalor in cities, for many urban life seems to be preferable to the poverty of the countryside. Improvements in communication technology have meant that people in the developing world are more aware of how others live, which makes them increasingly frustrated and conscious of injustice.

There is also a growing strain on environmental resources. There is massive decline in fish stocks, and in forestation. Water is becoming harder to access in many areas, with desertification increasing. Global warming is beginning to have an effect, as we can see with recent weather patterns. While these changes affect the whole world, they hurt the poorest the most.

To take just one example as an illustration of the challenges the world is now facing, Bangladesh is one of the largest developing countries in the world, with a young and growing population. In the next 30 years it stands to increase its population by 50 per cent and lose one third of its territory However, as the seas rise, it is losing its territory. Where will its people go? Will they move into India? Will this produce tensions and wars, and will there be worse poverty?

The only way to manage all of this is a stronger commitment to human rights and justice for all. However, these words come easily and are often used insincerely, without a real commitment to abiding by the duties the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) imposes on each of us.

Progress is possible, the future need not be bleak - what is needed is to make a reality of the UDHR. The UDHR came about as a response to the desire for a new world order after the experience of the brutality of the Second World War. It is an inspiring document - a beautiful piece of thinking and writing which deserves to be read and re-read by people across the world.

However, after it was written it was never fully embraced. Immediately there was division between the West and the East over ‘blue’ and ‘red’ rights – with the West proclaiming itself as the champion of ‘blue’ civil and political rights, and the East in favour of the ‘red’ economic and social rights, arguing that freedom is of no use when you have an empty belly.

But the UDHR is meant to be an all-embracing document, emphasising all rights for all people. Socio-economic rights are just as important as civil and political rights, but they have been too often marginalized in the human rights discourse in the West. We all have rights, and we all have a duty both within our countries and internationally to bring about an order that fulfils all the values in the UDHR for everybody.

The new technology and resources could potentially bring about development and justice for all. Of course, every generation preaches the need to reach out to the poor and needy, but I believe that currently we have a greater capacity than ever to reduce poverty and create a just international order and therefore a bigger obligation. And if we don’t do something now, the world will become utterly unmanageable, and may descend into increasing turmoil and catastrophe.

A few years ago, with the Kyoto Protocol and the Millennium Development Goals, I thought that real progress was possible. There was total global agreement that the reduction of poverty was the absolute priority. There was also a move away from previous development models which saw those in poverty as recipients of benefits, not as actors in their own right, towards a rights-based approach to development, regarding people as the central purpose of development, allowing them to articulate their own interests and needs.

All of these factors appeared to indicate that the world was moving forward. However, after September 11 2001everything changed.

I would like to remind you that in the immediate aftermath of September 11,there was immense world solidarity in denouncing this terrible crime, with the Security Council passing a Resolution requiring every country to share information and tighten up on money laundering in order to constrain and arrest those responsible. The General Assembly also expressed support and Le Monde produced its headline – in English – ‘We are all American now’. The US’s initial response was to seek a multilateral response leading to agreement to increase development assistance and address environmental concerns. Even over Afghanistan, there was a strong international consensus.

However, the rush to war in Iraq left that consensus completely shattered and broken. It also distracted attention from poverty and other crises outside the Middle East. For example how did the displacement of over a million people in Darfur go unnoticed so that there was a failure to take action until the emergency had become an enormous crisis?

Iraq has also increased Al-Qaeda’s membership. Al Qaeda’s actions are clearly deeply morally wrong in targeting mass civilian casualties. However, we need to recognise that there is justified anger in the Middle East and there is a need to promote justice and human rights in the Middle East as part of the solution. This is not nearly as difficult as it may at first seem. The majority of people in Israel and Palestine want a peaceful two state solution. We also need a genuine handover of power in Iraq and an agreement to remove all WMD from the region. There is also a great need for real respect for international law and the principles of human rights.  The handling of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Guantanamo Bay and also in Belmarsh Prison is an absolute shame to our country. Countries that claim to uphold human rights need to really do so in practice and not just pay lip service to these standards.

The world is at a pivotal point. Either we are going for decades of bloodshed, bitterness and division, or we can turn to implementing the values of the UDHR.

The UK I think could play a central role here. If the UK can change its strategy in the Middle East, the chances of the US changing will increase. There is therefore a massive responsibility on us. In our foreign policy we should move away from the special relationship as its central focus. That doesn’t mean being unfriendly to the US, but it does mean not acting as a fig leaf. The UK should work for a more just multilateralism, a focus on poverty reduction and a real respect for international law. We should uphold human rights for all as in the UDHR, and promote these values through the EU and in all other international forums – the Security Council, the IMF, the World Bank and the Commonwealth.

A real respect for all, human rights for all people is the way forward. It will be an enormous struggle, but I believe positive outcomes could be achieved. In the last 50 years more human beings have pulled themselves out of poverty than in the last 500 years. More people are surviving, more people are literate, more people have access to clean water. But this has to be understood in the context of there being more people than ever. Therefore we need to scale the progress up. 90% of the new population will be born in the developing world. The world is environmentally, politically and morally unsustainable unless we create a more just world order.

In the immediate short term I am pessimistic about the possibility for change. But in the long term I believe that there is real potential for a new era.

Clare Short MP, 12 October 2004