Reframing Human Rights in the Global Era: A tribute to Sergio Vieira de Mello

Reframing Human Rights in the Global Era: A tribute to Sergio Vieira de Mello

Posted by Chea Sophal

This speech made by the former President of Brazil at St Antony's College, Oxford in November 2008 is part of the Annual Sérgio Vieira de Mello Lectures, and, as such, a tribute to the life's work of the distinguished UN special representative killed in Baghdad in August, 2003. It outlines five major challenges confronting universal human rights today.

I am grateful for the invitation to speak about the challenges facing human rights in the global era at the annual Sérgio Vieira de Mello lecture.

Sergio's entire life was dedicated to the ideals of human rights and humanitarian work. For him freedom and human dignity were the foundation of peace and justice. Sergio was courageous and compassionate. Bold but also pragmatic. Often at the frontlines but always taking the side of the weak, the vulnerable, the powerless. Uncompromising in his principles but with a gift for listening to and learning from those he worked with. He had the capacity to combine a maximum flexibility in dealing with the complexities of real life situations with a strong commitment to basic values. This allowed him to stand unequivocally on the side of the victims while talking to all the parties involved. Perhaps this is as close as one can get to being a practitioner of what I would call the art of politics: this combination of vision and pragmatism, flexibility in the means and consistency on the goals.

From Cambodia to Bosnia, Rwanda to Kosovo, East Timor to Iraq, Sergio came to grips with some of the most dreadful conflicts of the last decades. Time and again he was confronted with life and death questions for which there were no easy answers. How to balance the obligation to protect the victims with the denunciation of human rights violations? What kinds of compromise are or are not acceptable to minimize human suffering? At what point pragmatism becomes complacency in the face of the unacceptable? When is dialogue no longer an option and the aggressor has to be engaged despite the risk that, in the short term, the level of violence may increase? How to define this moment in which, faced with massive human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, it is legitimate to use force in the pursuit of peace?

Sergio felt that the way forward was always to invent, on the spot, the most appropriate set of ground rules. He urged the international community to acknowledge that flagrant and systematic violations of human rights are frequently the main cause of global insecurity. He was also convinced that top down approaches are bound to fail. Outsiders can help. Money, technical expertise, political pressure are important tools. But no lasting outcome can be attained without the empowerment of local leaders and the building of local capacities.

Human rights - as democracy - are a human invention. It is not a given but a construction, rooted in the history and culture of each society. They are never defined once and for all. As an expression of human needs and as a result of human action, their framing is a work in progress, an unfinished journey. New questions and demands arise out of an ever evolving political and social landscape.

That is why I believe that addressing some of the key challenges to human rights in today's world is a fruitful way to pay tribute to the ideals that inspired Sergio Vieira de Mello's life. I will focus on five critical challenges.

Diversity and universality

The first one - and perhaps the most complex of all - is the tension between universal human rights and respect for cultural and religious diversity. Human rights are universal, interrelated and indivisible. But the world is more than ever multipolar and multicultural. Hence the paradox we are confronted with: how to ensure that respect for diversity does not lead to the uncritical acceptance of religious fundamentalism? How far can the tolerance of intolerance go without negating itself? What are the precious core values that must be safeguarded in any situation?

It is true that there is no straight answer to these questions. But it is also true that the international community, through dialogue and debate, has been forging a minimum set of standards. I think we can safely say at this point that this emerging consensus about what is clearly unacceptable encompasses:

crimes against humanity like ethnic cleansing or the use of famine as a weapon of war
atrocities like the systematic use of torture against political opponents
indiscriminate violence against the civilian population in situations of armed conflicts
The point I would like to stress is that global public opinion today plays a critical role in this debate. It is no longer up only to states and international organizations to set the standards. The voices influencing the process of deliberation are many and diverse.

Non-state actors

This leads me to the second challenge facing human rights in the global era. Today both state and non-state actors are increasingly responsible for the violation and the promotion of human rights.

This is a challenge and an opportunity for the cause of human rights. A challenge because it is much more difficult for the international community to protect the victims of atrocities perpetrated by loosely organized networks such as Al Qaeda. This problem is compounded by the proliferation of failed states incapable or unwilling to control the actions not only of terrorist organizations but also to curb the growing power of global organized crime. In today's Latin America, for example, drug-related crime is no longer a problem for police and courts. It is a direct challenge to governments and societies. The rising power of the drug mafias and cartels is destroying not only the lives of our young people. They are also tearing apart the social fabric and undermining through violence and corruption the most basic institutions of democracy.

But this growing role of non-state actors is also an opportunity insofar as so many more voices are being heard in the defense of human rights. They range from organizations with great legitimacy, such as Amnesty International, to the rising role played by a wide variety of new actors: spiritual and civic leaders, citizens groups and public opinion. Forty years ago, reports denouncing torture against political prisoners in Brazil had to be physically carried by messengers to Europe and the US often at considerable risk. One of the most effective actions promoted by Amnesty International was the sending by ordinary people of freedom letters to authorities responsible for the mistreatment of political prisoners.

Information today is a common public good. A click in the Internet and it will flow all over the web. Power is shifting from states to societies and from vertical organizations to flexible networks. Informed and empowered individuals also participate in this great free flowing conversation about what is admissible and what is not.

Global economic crisis

The third challenge I wish to address is the threat posed to the world's poor by the global economic crisis that is upon us. With his concept of development as an expansion of freedom, Amartya Sen called our attention to the interconnection between political freedom, economic empowerment, social opportunities, transparency and security. This vision contributed to the growing perception of extreme poverty and expanding global asymmetries as a violation of basic human rights.This question gains a new urgency in face of the growing impact of the current financial meltdown.

It is essential to prevent the corrosion of the great progress achieved in the last decade in terms of getting millions out of poverty. In an article published two weeks ago in the Financial Times, Kofi Annan, Michel Camdessus and Robert Rubin, warned against the threat of a response to the crisis that does not take into account the needs of the world's poor - or, worse, that results in more poverty hunger, disease and illiteracy. Indeed, what a tremendous setback for the cause of human rights if poor people and poor countries were to pay the price for a crisis that they had no role in creating.

Here again we are confronted with risk and opportunity. Market fundamentalism has self-destructed in the same sudden and irrevocable way that the Soviet Union melted in the air. The reckless pursuit of profit at any cost has brought us to a dead-end. It is time to ask ourselves what are the real foundations of our societies? What is quality of life and what are the needs and values that should orient our collective behavior?

Unusual circumstances tend to create rare opportunities. Conditions are ripe for the emergence of a new global contract driven by a different mindset with freedom, dignity and human rights at its core.

Unexpected threat to civil liberties

The other two challenges I want to mention are more specific. One is linked to the questions of the transitional justice affecting societies where the rule of law was restored after long periods of authoritarianism. The other has to do with the threats to civil liberties raised by the war on terror.

Let me deal first with this question that has deeply affected some of the most advanced democracies since the events of Nine-Eleven. Reflecting on the growing restrictions imposed on the rule of law in the name of security needs, Sergio Vieira de Mello sounded the alarm: "We live in fearful times and fear is a bad adviser".

Who would have imagined ten years ago that the world was about to witness a resurgence in the use of torture as a State policy? And yet the steady erosion of basic civil rights in the name of the war on terror is one of the saddest developments in the field of human rights.

Indeed the discussion in countries with the legal tradition of the United States and the United Kingdom about the exact definition of torture is a telling example of how fast human progress can be stopped and reversed.

In my view democracy will not lose the war against global terrorism unless it sacrifices in the process its most precious and constituent values. This question is a powerful reminder of how fragile are the conquests in the field of human rights and how exposed is any country, in times of crisis, to authoritarian relapses.

Hopefully one of the first acts of Barack Obama as president of the United States will be to close down Guantanamo and treat torture as a crime against humanity.

When peace and justice conflict...

My last point has to do with the conflicting demands between peace and justice, truth and reconciliation in transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule.

In recent history we have some examples of the sudden collapse of authoritarian regimes, usually in the aftermath of failed military adventures. This has been the case of Portugal, Greece and Argentina. In most cases, however, the transition to democracy was a long process driven by many factors combining pressure from civil society and the international community with power fatigue and economic hardship. In both situations the question of how to deal with past atrocities has been a thorny issue for newly-restored democracies.

Different countries have chosen different paths. Some who had opted for a policy of retribution were unwillingly forced to make concessions to safeguard their fragile democracy. Others who tried to negate the wounds of the past proved incapable of healing their societies. Gradually, the notion of truth as the pre-condition for peace and reconciliation has emerged as an alternative to either outright impunity or the punishment of the many guilty of human rights abuses.

Some measure of reparation for the victims is an indispensable component of the healing process. This requires at the very least that the State takes the lead in conducting a full investigation that sheds lights on the violations committed by its agents. This is also the best way to prevent the repetition of these atrocities

The process of reconciliation is further enhanced when perpetrators or members of warring factions acknowledge their deeds and ask for some kind of forgiveness from their victims.

Thus the power of the old Biblical saying - "Truth shall set you free" - was put to the test and proved more accurate than ever.

Listening to each other

It is time to conclude.

The common thread running through this inventory of challenges is that for each and every issue there is not an easy, simple or definitive answer to be found. Argument and debate are the means to build a consensus. What is new and promising, let me stress again, is the enlargement of the actors participating in the process of deliberation.

The best safeguard for human rights is the strengthening of a global culture of participation and responsibility. This belief was the foundation of Sergio Vieira de Mello's life. Elie Wiesel was once asked whether, as a survivor of Auschwitz, he spoke for those who died in the concentration camps. His answer was: "Nobody speaks for the dead. They speak by themselves. The question is: are we capable of listening?"

In this spirit, let us be inspired by Sergio's ultimate sacrifice and that of the brave men and women fallen in the attack against the UN compound in Baghdad.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, sociologist, professor and politician was President of the Federative Republic of Brazil for two terms from January 1,1995 to January 1, 2003. Born in Rio de Janeiro, he became Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Universidade de São Paulo and was elected President of the International Sociological Association from 1982 to 1986. He hás lectured extensively in French and American universities, written several books, received many awards including in 2000 the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation.



This article is published by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, , and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence