Michael Ignatieff on the Global “Rights Revolution”
The reference to ‘an impressive array of international declarations, treaties and institutions that gave life to the concept of human rights’ sheds little light on the gross amounts of measures that have occurred since the Second World War. The early years on the 21st century were geared towards moving on in the aftermath and recouping from the the past years of injustice. While Michael Ignatieff wrote of a global rights revolution, the extent can be determined on various fronts. This began with the vast array of monumental intervals on the governmental scale and not; the UDHR, the ICCPR, the ICESR, NGO’s, regional human rights regimes and international humanitarian law. Continuing from those, as modern social and cultural customs have adapted, people have been pushing for more legal representations of equity and equality. With solutions in place, there has still been lack of success even with the amount of action that has been taken in hopes of sustaining them.
Revolution can be defined as ‘an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.’ The ‘revolution’ that occurred was more of a realization, the rights and institutions were created for the wellbeing of people. They were created because of past injustices that mutilated any idea of equality. This was the realization of how prevalent human rights have been, are and always going to be. The construction of the UN marked the beginning of the promotion of peace and international cooperation. This truly gave way for the rest of the 21st century.
The first measure taken was the UDHR immediately preceding the Second World War. Without summarizing each of the articles outlined within the UDHR, they all come down to basic points. Article 1 explains that all are born free and equal in dignity and rights. The following articles then give various sub rules that support the first. It was created in agreement that human rights are essential to not only ensuring peace but also in implementing justice. With this, no agreement on how to implement the articles was ever settled upon as well as no agreement on the accountability of respecting and not respecting them. Though the UDHR created a revolutionary ‘idea,’ the extent to which it has been affective is debatable.
The ICCPR (international covenant on civil and political rights) was created to ensure that states do not have the ability to limit citizens in terms of their political rights. This covenant was negotiated through the UN and implemented after the UDHR. Through the articles it explains that there are rights to all and that rights are to be respected (article 2), allows limits to specific rights such as mobility, religion and expression when interfering with the law (articles 12, 18 and 19), and that states are to report on their own committees (article 40). Several more between those exist but initially they represent a universalist idea.
The ICESR (the international covenant on economic and social and cultural rights) was created to ensure rights specific to cultural and social needs. Article 2 of the ICESR differs from the ICCPR. Here it is explained that “to take steps…with a view to achieving progressively the full realization” of rights, “to the maximum of available resources.” Rather than explaining that there are rights and they are there for everyone and that they need to be respected, they explain that they will use all of their resources to fully realize problems that are occurring. Underneath all of this, there is no explanation that they will take any action to solve problems that fall under the ICESR.
International humanitarian law provides examples for how the 21st century has exceled at providing improvements for even the worst circumstances you can find within human rights problems but also proves that current problems exist. Though treaties outlining this purpose have existed for longer than the 21st century, finally they were being enforced. Humanitarian law serves the purpose of having war fought the ‘right’ way, which is preserving human rights and dignity in the poorest of circumstances. This emphasises the turn we took globally from governing our own problems to governing our own problems, as well as aiding people in governing theirs.
Regional International Human Rights Systems are the international systems from the UN to the collection of treaties and organizations that support human rights. Because of how far we have come, we now have the ability to criticise these systems themselves which gave us the ability to find deficiencies within them. Though the UN has no authority and can only act as a representation for human rights, it can issue sanctions to aid in convincing states to abide by their given laws. With this there are many shortcomings. Mainly these include the ‘minimal commitment to respect economic/social human rights,’ ‘Slow progress re respect for civil/political human rights,’ ‘Lots of committees, lots of reports, not so much accountability.’ Even with international covenants such as the ICESR and the ICCPR, the lack of outcome from them is a real issue.
Ignatieff explains how the international declarations, treaties and institutions made protection effective for most of the people of the world. I disagree with this statement. Though improvements have been displayed various places and implemented in some, saying ‘most of the people of the world’ is inaccurate. Despite the efforts that have been made, the majority of countries do not have sustaining human rights efforts, or at least affective ones. Countries with established multitudes of treaties and agreements whom make the effort to focus on human rights still fail. Canada being a prime example of this with our lack of acceptance due to our treatment of aboriginal peoples. This is an issue of the past that still has prevalence today which makes me believe that a ‘revolution’ is not exactly what occurred.
