Amnesty International has released it’s 2004 report reflecting on human rights worldwide in 2003:
Huge challenges confronted the international human rights movement in 2003. The UN faced a crisis of legitimacy and credibility because of the US-led war on Iraq and the organization’s inability to hold states to account for gross human rights violations. International human rights standards continued to be flouted in the name of the “war on terror”, resulting in thousands of women and men suffering unlawful detention, unfair trial and torture – often solely because of their ethnic or religious background. Around the world, more than a billion people’s lives were ruined by extreme poverty and social injustice while governments continued to spend freely on arms.
From the section on Australia, which makes interesting, if sobering, reading:
National security was invoked to justify the erosion of human rights safeguards in draft laws on “antiterrorism” measures and refugee rights. Domestic violence against Aboriginal women and children and indefinite detention of child asylum-seekers were prominent themes in the domestic human rights debate.
Graeme, the UN’s “crisis of legitimacy and credibility” long preceded the war on terror; stemming in part from its unwillingness to deal with the various world crises and also from a frightening level of corruption within its ranks. Similarly, the flouting of international human rights standards also preceded the war on terror. Arguably, the war of terror was partially a response to the torture and abuse of human rights which went on unchecked in Iraq and Afghanistan (amongst many others). Amnesty International was once a fine organisation (of which I was a hard-working member), but it has been hijacked in recent times, I’m afraid.
John,
Would you disagree that we’ve become more a part of the problem on human rights and less a part of the solution regardless of our stated ends. Is indefinate detention an improvement? How have the Geneva Conventions been looking of late? Also, your criticism of Amnesty stands as ad hominem unless you can tell us how and by whom it was hijacked and how this undermines the report.
John
Sorry Graeme if we’re taking over your blog.
Thanks for taking the time for the detailed answer – I hope I can do it justice. I can see where you’re coming from and we probably differ in a few perspectives. If we oppose the death penalty we have to oppose it for everybody – this may or may not be Amnesty’s “proper” brief but I would see no problem with expansivity of their brief to “human rights” whereas yours is more restrictive. I see your point on prisoners of conscience but not that going beyond this diminishes AI. Also regarding democracies – many of the problems are with their treatment of non-citizens at home and abroad rather than citizens. That “Amnesty International [is] exclusively criticising western democracies” (and I’ve re-read it a few times), is just plain wrong and you may want to rephrase that.
Really though, we return to the same ad hominem point, ultimately it wouldn’t make any difference if this report was by the West Australian Law Bowls Association – the abuses are there and the tragic thing is, many of them have occurred under the sanction of the war on terror. We agree on this, no?
As for the UN, we’ll have to save that for another time.
PS Graeme – can you get a fatter comment box – my thumbs worn to the bone from scrolling.
Anthony,
No probs. Keep those comments coming…
And to encourage you, I’ve extended the comment box to fifteen lines. Thanks for the idea… It is sure easier to work with….
Who’s Andrew?
BTW Graeme – cheers for the big box.
Ahhh no worries -not the first by a long shot. If I ever get around to a Linguistics Masters it’ll be on primary phonemes and the unconscious interchangability of Anthony and Andrew.