Finger-pointing is no help for human rights
China Daily  Updated: 2005-12-10 06:45

There's a sad truth about human rights in the world today. Fifty-seven years after the United Nations General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, countries' gauges of and approaches to those rights appear far from universal.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour saw the gap.

The world's top human rights monitor warned on Wednesday that the absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice, is becoming a casualty of the so-called "war on terror."

But her remarks ran into an immediate rebuttal by John Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, whose government is putting on an all-out defence against allegations of torture at ghost prisons on alien soils.

Calling her comment "inappropriate," the US ambassador said the UN human rights watchdog should instead focus on countries he termed as real rights abusers.

Such disagreement again raises the question as to whether the ideal of all human rights for all can claim validity in a present-day context. Or shall we subscribe to different standards for different people in the discourse about human rights?

In real life, such standards are more often than not bent to serve political and economic ends that are anything but universal.

There is no dearth of talk about human rights on the world political stage. But it would be naive to believe all of it is out of genuine concern for advancing the public good.

The disturbing reality is human rights usually do not become an issue until they fit into countries' private agendas.

A country's alleged poor human rights record can be employed to justify not only economic sanctions, but also outright armed intrusions.

But the whistle-blowers never bother to look into the mirror and examine their own records.

One thought-provoking instance is our neighbour Japan's sudden interest in human rights.

Tokyo on Tuesday installed a special envoy on human rights.

Do not mistake it for an outcome of the country's overnight awareness of human rights.

Japanese politicians remain recalcitrant as ever in retaining an unrepentant stance over the country's heinous crimes against humanity during World War II.

The new arrangement, mimicking a recent Washington invention, is but an additional Japanese bargaining chip in dealing with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The first assignment for the Japanese human rights ambassador is to enlist international pressure on DPRK for its alleged abduction of Japanese citizens.

The Japanese even had an eye on China in that move, according to Japanese media. Japanese Foreign Affair Ministry sources were quoted as saying their government is determined to play the human rights advocate in East Asia. And the goal, as it was said, was to offset China's influence in the region.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine constantly anger victim countries of Japanese wartime atrocities, had advised China and Republic of Korea against playing a "Yasukuni card."

Now he is picking up human rights as a trump card against China. But neither he, nor his country, is qualified for the moral high ground. They lack the moral authority to lecture others about human rights without undergoing a moral rebirth.

No country can claim perfection in terms of human rights. But constructive communication and partnership can generate benefits far beyond the reach of any single country or government in improving people's livelihoods.

Hypocritical concern for other countries' human rights records, however, poisons international dialogue and co-operation in human rights.

Endless finger-pointing has effectively marginalized development - an essential guarantee for human rights in the broad developing world - at UN venues.

It is a shame that the venue for development-oriented UN reforms has degraded into a jockey ground for power and influence at the world body.

It is time the UN showed effective leadership in promoting development and thus human rights the world over.

(China Daily 12/10/2005 page4)

Close