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... ...Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948 -- "A Cause for Celebration" ... 'Demands of Dignity' 'Demands of Dignity' <DEVELOPING THE DISCOURSE ON OUR DECEMBER 1Oth DECLARATION>
On-Line Edition of the Book by Ed Aurelio C. Reyes Chapter 1-- UDHR '48: A Cause for Celebration |
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CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK: The International Criminal Court Human Rights & Peace: Intertwined Human Rights Work Spans Centuries Celebrating While Working Harder Response
to the Spanish Response Response to the American Non-Response Demands of Dignity
EXCERPTS: -o0o- "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed Dec. 10, 1948, has been a cause of celebration, and the Treaty of Paris, signed Dec. 10, 1898, has been a cause for indignation... on the part of ALL HUMANS." -o0o- "The HUMANITY of ALL is ONE! Assaults on the Rights of a human anywhere are assaults on the rights of all humans everywhere." -o0o- "The current Human Evolutionary Imperative is attaining Synergy in Conscious Oneness." -o0o- "We demand apologies not to uphold our national dignity, but to give the offenders the opportunity to uphold theirs." -o0o- "Demands for Human Dignity come from within Human Dignity itself." -o0o- "We seek redress, closure and healing... Since the governments involved and the international organizations that depend on the consent of governments cannot be expected to support these calls or accord them any serious attention, we are calling upon the citizens of these and other nations, on the citizenry of the world." -o0o- "One of the factors underpinning the habit of trying to hide or mangle the truth is the illusion that facts hidden well enough as secrets can stay as such forever. Another is the illusion that you can harm your fellow-humans without harming yourself." -o0o- "Inevitably, eventually and ultimately, all wrongs cry out to be fully acknowledged, regretted, and set aright. Your peace of mind now and in the future demands it. Your very dignity demands it." -o0o- "Smile for Synergy! Seek One Humanity!"
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LINKS TO THE MAIN PARTS OF THE Demands of Dignity BOOK:
GENERAL FEEDBACK SPECIFIC FEEDBACK FEEDBACK BOX
Chapter One --------------------- UDHR 1948: A Cause for Celebration IT WAS IN THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT of the end of the Second World War that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights1 was born. This War had also accelerated into fruition the continuation of earlier attempts to build a world body after the failed League of Nations.2 On the same year of formal cessation of hostilities between the Allied Forces and the Axis Powers, specifically on October 24, 1945, the United Nations was born. One
of the immediate mandates for the world body was to draw up measures
that would prevent any recurrence of the torturous atrocities, including
genocide, committed by the Axis Powers, especially by Nazi Germany,
during that War. And so the
UN member-nations, led by the United States, the wealthiest and most
unscathed member of the Allied Powers, set in motion the long process to
draft a universally recognized bill of rights for international
promulgation. Three
years later, specifically on December 10, 1948, the 183rd meeting of the
UN General Assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland voted to promulgate the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights or UDHR.
The
UDHR’s prefatory paragraphs (the “whereas” clauses)
set the tone: “Whereas recognition of the inherent
dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the
human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the
world, “Whereas disregard and
contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have
outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which
human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from
fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the
common people, “Whereas it is essential, if
man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to
rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be
protected by the rule of law, “Whereas it is essential to
promote the development of friendly relations between nations, “Whereas the peoples of the United
Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human
rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal
rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress
and better standards of life in larger freedom, “Whereas Member States have
pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations,
the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights
and fundamental freedoms, and “Whereas a common
understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance
for the full realization of this pledge…” The summary of the resolutory
paragraphs defines the scope of the UDHR coverage: “Now, therefore, The General Assembly Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.” Branching Out into Other Instruments The
promulgation of UDHR was instantly a cause for
celebration. To be sure, it
had to start as a set of motherhood statements with hardly any teeth for
preventing or even just redressing cases or even patterns of human
rights violations even in specific member-states.
But over the years, the document even became the basis for the
crafting and promulgation of various other international instruments to
break down the UDHR to very enforceable specifics. Foremost
among these have been the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR)3 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR).4
Later, there were more specific instruments, like those
pertaining to torture, racial discrimination, women, and children.
Social legislation for worldwide agreement on recognizing and
protecting the innate, inalienable and indivisible rights of all humans
later came to build such a momentum. Formal recognition, even if
reluctant in certain countries at one time or another, has been
generally universal. Erstwhile
allies during the Second World War, namely the United States (US) and
the Soviet Union (SU) became rival superpowers in the post-war period,
and their “Cold War” became part of the context where the UN did its
job in all fields, including the universal promotion and protection of
human rights. Due
to perceptions of what their respective rivals supposedly disliked or
generally violated, the US-led group gave emphasis on individual human
rights and liberties, as well as on the provisions of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, while the SU-led group
put premium on the collective rights and on the provisions of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Still, it
could plainly be seen that they were promoting just their own choices
between two daughter documents of the same UDHR. Not to be ignored has been the
role played by nations who chose not to align themselves formally with
any which block and instead chose to adopt positions on human rights and
other matters according to their view of their comprehensive national
interests, and the broader interests of Humanity. They were the
Non-Aligned Movement (proper noun) and the broader non-aligned movement
(common noun). China, starting as a Soviet ally but growing increasingly estranged from the Soviet bloc, was able to rally the small newly-independent states of Asia, Africa and Latin America to begin seeing power in their own growing number and synergy and refused to go strictly along the block rivalries when they voted on issues in the UN General Assembly, leading one US ambassador to the UN, specifically Ambassador Andrew Young, to complain that “There is a tyranny of the majority in the United Nations!”5 If that majority had remained an echo chamber of US policies and positions, Ambassador Young would have praised the assertion of the will of that majority as the workings of healthy global democracy. Eventually,
the Soviet block disintegrated and the “Cold War” itself ended, with
the only remaining superpower seeing an immediate need to develop a new
global adversary just to maintain the logic of its own lucrative
military industry. It was
then that U.S. President George W. Bush raised the call for all to rally
behind the very new flag of “international anti-terrorism.” All these decades, however, the UDHR stood the test of time and of various crises and grew in influence, especially through various international human rights instruments that were premised on it. UN Complaints Procedures Dr. Ilka Bailey-Wiebecke of PhilRights
acknowledges in an article in the Human Rights Forum that
studying complaint procedures instituted by the United Nations system
“has intrigued people in the academe, especially the international
lawyers among them.”6 Still
she asserts in the same article that “the subject area is suited for
the general public,” and invited especially the members of the
grassroots movements to read this particular special issue of the
semi-annual publication. After
making themselves familiar with the six procedures introduced in the
compilation, with focus on Philippine experience, human rights workers
may consider to assist the victims whom they know of to file a proper
complaint under the appropriate procedure. As
editor, Dr. Bailey-Wiebecke put together six articles in that issue,
making up two general parts. Part
1 has four articles on complaints procedures under the UN treaty bodies,
and Part 2 carries two articles on universal complaints procedures. The
contributors of the articles, Bailey assures, are “almost exclusively
supervising the UN mechanisms and therefore in a unique position to
report to us how these mechanisms function.” Specifically, these are
the following: Part
1-- Complaints Procedures Under UN Treaty Bodies: (a) procedures on
individual complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee, from an Asian
perspective (written by Paul Oertly); (b) UN convention against torture
(Cecilia Jimenez); (c) optional protocol to the convention on the
elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (Helga Klein);
and (d) committee on racial discrimination (Michael O'Flaherty). Part
2-- Universal Complaints Procedures: (a) 1503 Procedure and the case of
the Philippines (Ugo Cedrangolo); and (b) supervisory mechanisms of the
International Labor Organization. Bailey-Wiebecke summarizes a general
rule: “In
principle, the victim of a human rights violation, before bringing a
communication, (is supposed to) use all procedural means that are at his
or her disposal within the legal system of the violating state to obtain
relief. This includes
exhaustion of all available judicial remedies (including appeal to the
highest court) and, in addition, of any non-judicial procedures made
available (e.g. a national Human Rights Commission).
The requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies may be
satisfied, however, if it is shown that such remedies are ineffective,
unavailable, or unreasonably prolonged.”7 Further, she explains: “A
complaints procedure is a formal process by which an individual or, in
some cases, a group of individuals, make a complaint to the UN body
associated with a treaty, or, as in the case of the International Labor
Organization, under the ILO Constitution. The 1503 procedures named
after the date of its origin in 1970 under Economic and Social Council
Resolution 1325, allows for the UN Commission on Human Rights to look
into complaints about violations of human rights. The latter is a truly
universal procedure. “The individual would claim that a state would violate his or her individual human rights after that individual has not received any satisfaction under the domestic procedures of that country. Complaints of human rights violations are also referred to as ‘communications’ or ‘petitions’.” 8 Predecessor Documents The UDHR was the first classic document seeking to establish a universal code of recognition of human rights, albeit one promulgated by the newly established legislature of one nation that had then just overthrown the monarchy. July 4, 1776 marked the day the revolutionary union of 13 colonies of the kingdom of Great Britain in the North American continent proclaimed their independence from the crown. The American Declaration of Independence, penned mainly by Thomas Jefferson, as inspired by philosopher John Locke, carries the following Preamble: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”9 On August 26, 1789, close at the heels of the victory of the French Revolution, the National Assembly of France passed The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen with the following preamble: “The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:” 10 On
the basis of the foregoing, the French Declaration enumerates 17
articles, each declaring an aspect or dimension of human rights, claimed
in this document as “sacred,” “natural and imprescriptible”
rights of man. (In those days long before the advent of gender
sensitivity, the term “man” was being made to refer to both the male
and the female of the human species.) The
first three of these articles are as basic as the foundation of the
successor document of the United Nations promulgated by the latter’s
General Assembly a little more than a century and a half later. These
articles are the following: 1.
Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions
may be founded only upon the general good. 2.
The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural
and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property,
security, and resistance to oppression. 3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. The
International Criminal Court This presentation of the universal
consequentiality of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
cannot be complete without devoting some significant space to the
establishment of the International Criminal Court, which was established
to exercise universal jurisdiction on war crimes, crimes against
humanity, genocide and aggression.
The ICC was a response to the need for
a mechanism that would be independent of vested national interests and
transient political considerations, and with the capability to
cross-geographic and political boundaries.
This was established by the United Nations through the Rome
Statute, a treaty signed by 120 countries on July 17, 1898. An
article in the July-December 2000 issue of Human Rights Forum,
the semestral journal of the Philippine Human Rights Information Center
(PhilRights), the research and information arm of PAHRA in the
Philippines, called the establishment of the ICC “a leap in the
struggle for human rights.”11
The article, written by contributor Atty. Neri Colmenares, explains the
cause for celebration: “For
the first time in mankind’s history, the international community
proposes to create a permanent court armed with universal jurisdiction
to go after individuals and try them for crimes against humanity, war
crimes, genocide and aggression. The
Roman Statute—which established the ICC—codified the laws and
principles of human rights and humanitarian law painstakingly developed
in international law through the years.
Today, it is the sharpest expression of these principles.” Unlike
earlier tribunals, like those in Nuremberg after World War II, and, more
recently in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the ICC was established to
be a permanent independent judicial body based in The Hague. And unlike
the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a UN specialized court which
deals only with states that consent to be placed under its jurisdiction
on specific cases, the ICC has the power to investigate, prosecute and
convict individuals whether as part of, or in relation to, the
government in power or groups fighting that government.
Atty.
Colmenares adds: “Unlike domestic or national courts, the ICC, though
with certain limitations, exercises international jurisdiction. This
solves the problem of prosecuting dictators and other criminals who may
have escaped the national jurisdiction in which they committed war
crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression. With the ICC,
the strategy of human rights violators of amassing wealth and seeking
refuge in friendly countries is no longer possible.” Such
celebratory mood expressed in the article was not intended to foster an
illusion that it would be smooth sailing from that time on. For
example, the Rome Statute, which requires that 75 states
ratify this treaty before the ICC could be operational, took almost four
full years before the 75th ratification was achieved on July 1, 2002.
The same-day dispatch of the Associated Press
opened with a happy paragraph: “More than 100 nations hailed the birth
of the world’s first International Criminal Court on Monday as a
landmark for global justice, vowing that its mission to prosecute and
deter future war criminals will not be sabotaged by US opposition.” Elsewhere in the same dispatch, AP
reported: “The Rome treaty received the 75th
ratification Monday morning from Australia.
It has 139 signatures, including (that of) the United States.
Former US President Bill Clinton signed the treaty, but the Bush
administration announced in May it wants nothing to do with the court,
and at Monday’s meeting, the US seat was empty. “Standing alone, and against its
closest allies, the United States is demanding immunity from the court
for American peacekeepers – and is threatening to end the 1,500-strong
UN police training mission in Bosnia at midnight Wednesday if it
doesn’t get it.12 In his article in the Forum, Atty. Colmenares reveals that “(Most of the) countries opposing the ICC are in Asia. This distrust of the ICC is (due to the fact that) many Asian countries are ruled by ‘strongmen’ who adhere to the philosophy of ‘Asian values’ which is anathema to the intervention of a foreign court in a country’s “intellectual conflicts.” The Rights of Peoples The rights of humans are supposed to be
enjoyed individually and collectively.
But where UDHR and its mechanisms may, under
various internal and external circumstances, be deemed as falling short
of their general and specific purposes as the rights are to be enjoyed
together especially as ethno-linguistic groupings, there is another set
of proclaimed rights specifically for human collectivities.
This is the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples.
The UDRP13
was drafted and approved in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria, on
July 4, 1976, and is now being actively promoted by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organization
(UNPO, no relation to the United Nations) and its Institute of Human
Rights. Challenging the idea that governments,
their institutions, and multilateral partnerships and organizations
(like the United Nations) enjoy a monopoly over law-making, the UDRP
provides a framework for understanding and asserting the inalienable
rights to be enjoyed by all small and large groups of peoples as
ethno-linguistic and culture-based groups, like indigenous peoples,
whether or not they are claimed to be represented by member-states of
the United Nations in the various UN bodies. Without the official adoption of
national state governments, whether or not deemed legitimate and
effective, the UDHR stands upon the essential merits of
its preamble and articles. As
stated in various chapters and sections of this book, human rights
derive only their official recognition from governmental and
inter-governmental entities, and never their universal validity that is
inseparably rooted in the essence of the human being. And UDRP does add the
recognition of concepts and principles necessary to complete the
recognition and full enjoyment of the innate rights of all members of
the human species, fully considering the simultaneity of human
individuality and human collectivity. Such recognition that could have
been delimited from inclusion in the UDHR by pressures
coming from such powerful UN member-countries as the United States, a
country with much reason to be very defensive of its own historical
record when it comes to respecting the rights of peoples, that is, of other
peoples.14 Common sense tells us that the
collective rights of all peoples against foreign colonization, effective
subjugation or interference are rights that can only be enshrined by
channels and forums of earnest human discourse that are not at all
dominated by spokespersons of the foreign interventionist praxis.
UN systems and processes still have to
follow the twists and turns in the complicated path of getting rid of
such counter-productive but powerful influences that impede the work of
the UN in many fields. In
1976 the Lelio Basso International Foundation for the Rights and
Liberation of Peoples was formed to conduct historical and juridical
studies based on the UDRP.15
Three years later, under the auspices of this foundation, law
experts, writers and other intellectuals (including Jean Paul Sartre,
Naom Chomsky and Gabriel Kolko) established in Italy a Permanent
People’s Tribunal,
a tribunal of international opinion independent of any state authority.
Basso was a former member of the Russell Tribunal, presided upon by
internationally respected British philosopher and human rights advocate
Bertrand Russell to judge the crimes committed by the U.S. government in
its war against Vietnam. Among the prominent personalities involved in
the work of the PPT is Sean MacBride, a Nobel Peace Prize awardee;
founding member and former chairman of Amnesty International; former
Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, and chairman of the
UN Commission on Human Rights.16 The
purpose, according to the foundation’s website, has
been “to contribute to the elaboration of principles to regulate a new
order of relations which aim to promote peace, in that they are no
longer based on hegemony but on interdependence.”17
One
of the first cases handled by the PPT was the one filed against the
“US government and the Marcos regime” in 1980, where the respondents
who did not recognize the authority of the PPT were found guilty,
anyway, of wide-scale human rights violations in the Philippines. The
jurors were headed by Nobel laureate George Wald, former professor of
Harvard University in the US, and included Archbishop Sergio Mendez
Arceo of Guenevaca, Mexico.18
In 2006, a similar case was lodged against the United States and
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the present-day equivalent of the
deposed dictator in the Philippines. But the more prominent cases ruled on by the PPT were about the US war crimes in Vietnam and those perpetrated by US-sponsored regimes in Latin America. Human
Rights and Peace19 Human
dignity is the underpinning of all advocacies for human rights, and all
human rights advocates deserving of this honorable title would see in
this the very essence of human rights being inherent, inalienable,
indivisible and universal. Human harmony has to be the underpinning of all advocacies for peace, not “the absence of war,” or “peaceful coexistence.” Addressing the root causes of war and, on this basis, promoting a culture of peace is therefore crucially important in the peace advocacy. According
to one of the 15 empowering paradigms being developed by the
Lambat-Liwanag Network of academe-based research centers, human
dignity can only be upheld and exalted in the context of human harmony,
and human harmony can only be fully attained in the context and on the
basis of exalting and actualizing human dignity. Because of
this complementarity,20
human rights advocates and peace advocates would do well to work very
closely together. Why
does the UDHR enshrine all these rights as inherent and
inalienable? Because, as
the late nationalist civil libertarian and former Sen. Jose Wright
Diokno said, recognition of these rights is corollary to recognizing the
very dignity of all humans. Diokno said: “Man’s second basic right — his right to human dignity is the source of our rights to recognition everywhere as a person, to honor and reputation, to freedom of thought, of conscience, of religion, of opinion and expression, and to seek, receive and impart information, to peaceful assembly with our fellows, to equal treatment before the law, to privacy in our family, our home, and our correspondence…and so forth.”21 And,
if we may add, these apply to all humans throughout the world throughout
the entire period of human existence. To violate these rights,
therefore, by commission or by omission is to negate this dignity, and
to assault not only the direct victims but all of humanity. Equality and
collectivity are inherent parts of human dignity, because, to borrow a
cliché, the human is a social animal.
To
put it in the words of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel
peace laureate, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be
human together.” 22 It
should therefore be deemed and felt dehumanizing for all humans that
billions of people making up the majority of the world’s population
live or half-live in conditions of systemic oppression, exploitation,
deprivation and even destitution. It should also be deemed and felt dehumanizing for all humans
that some of us consistently behave like pigs, wolves, and snakes, with
due apologies to these animals. Adherence
to the universality of human rights requires that we fully recognize all
humans to be of equal dignity. American
human rights advocates must consider it equally abhorrent that civilians
in two buildings and four commercial airplanes were killed by those who
sought to deliver a sharp and symbolic message to the rest of the world
and that their own government has been bombing millions of civilians
around the world all these past decades.
The
Bandung (Indonesia) Declaration of 1955, signed for the Philippines by
the late Carlos P. Romulo and for China by Premier Chou En Lai,
enumerated such principles as mutual non-aggression, mutual
non-interference in one another’s internal affairs, and peaceful
coexistence. By
adherence to these principles, the signatory countries were not supposed
to find themselves at war with any other signatory. Well and good. The
aim has been to attain the absence of war or of tensions that can lead
to it. But this is of course wanting in the context of innate human
capability to unite dynamically and productively than merely co-existing
and tolerating one another. Instead of creating a world atmosphere of
mere polite tolerance, peace advocates can emphasize the themes of
teamwork and harmony in our efforts to help build a culture of peace. Mutually-beneficial dynamic
interactions, diversity appreciated as wealth instead of as obstacles to
be surmounted or as liabilities to be suffered, indefatigable pursuit of
earnest dialogues for win-win resolutions – these are all very
important components of a culture of peace that needs to be built up in
families, neighborhoods, formal and informal associations, local
communities, nations and ultimately in the whole wide world.
It is fairly easy to rant against war or chant for peace. It is also somewhat easy to initiate and undertake dialogues to resolve disputes to prevent or to end wars. The hard part is building a deeply rooted culture of peace within the heart and mind of each peace advocate, among the hearts and minds of the majority of human persons. Human
Rights Work Spans Centuries An article this author had written for the same issue of the Forum, as then chairperson of the PhilRights, celebrated the UDHR as a milestone achievement of the development of human civilization in the millennium that was then in transition to a new one, and speaks of decades, even centuries still up ahead, “the long period of the continuing quest of progressive collective praxis in the field of acknowledging and asserting human rights” as tasks to be undertaken as a matter of right. The article says in part: “It took the human being millions of years to evolve from the level of its closest primate cousins and more millions of years to realize what had happened, and to start relating accordingly with one another and the rest of Nature. It is not at all surprising that it would take centuries of hard work for human rights to move from the inspired contemplation of a few philosophers to the living policy and practice of the entire human global family. The work requires not only a firm discernment about how human beings are supposed to be treated, but a common will much more difficult to achieve among ruling royal families and ruling military juntas to relinquish their very convenient and lucrative prerogatives to live off the backs of their peoples and herd the latter around like many heads of cattle. “Indeed, time has come for modern-day kings and pharaohs to consign the whips and gallows to the garbage dumps of history and to really start treating all their laborers, conscripts, tribute-payers and “wards,” indeed all their modern-day slaves, as really their full co-equals as humans. “A leap was made in Europe when the French Revolution proclaimed The Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789, and a giant leap was attained when the United Nations General Assembly promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 159 years later. But a lot of work has had to be done the world over since then. The member-countries of the UN have had to be persuaded to sign and ratify the UDHR and incorporate its spirit in their own respective supreme bodies of laws. If that were not difficult enough, the UDHR-based International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), both promulgated in 1966, have had to go through the same process with even much more “rough sailing” in the policy-making chambers of the member-countries’ respective governments. “And after all those heads of state and their respective legislatures had ceremoniously signed all the papers and smiled for flashing cameras of history, there has been the very challenging work of determining whether their acts are even remotely faithful to their signatures and smiles. State leaders and forces have consistently made efforts to conceal their acts that ICCPR prohibits them to do, and have consistently claimed to be “substantially” doing what the ICESCR requires them to do. “The citizenry in all the states should, logically, demand progressively better treatment from their governments, especially those that claim to be democratic, and especially those that collect higher and higher direct and indirect taxes. But they, in the first place have to rediscover human dignity in contrast to the experience of their peoples from the time of their ancestors. They have yet to know the innate rights as human persons, they have yet to have a firm handle on what these translate into in real and measurable terms, and they have yet to synergize in their teeming numbers to muster the collective power to make their governments enact – and actually put to practice – the recognition and promotion of these rights. All this is an awful lot of work to do, requiring an awful lot of people efficiently spending an awful lot of time! “But
of course, any victory in the citizen rights’ education and every
single victory in the citizens rights’ assertion, in any country, is a
step forward in the long and arduous journey, one that can indeed take
up the rest of this century, perhaps even well beyond half this new
millennium. And each step
joins up with others and leads up to a leap, and each leap would make
all the small succeeding steps at least just a little bit easier and
faster to accomplish. “Human
rights workers the world over have to grow in number, in collective
wisdom and in individual capability, all through the coming decades,
centuries, and even millennia, to be able to eventually transform all
human beings into effective human rights defenders. As a matter of right!” 23 Such, not any less, is demanded by the cause of upholding and exalting human dignity itself. And dynamic human harmony, the desired real and lasting peace in the world, can not be possible without such comprehensive and ever-determined advocacy and defense of all the innate, indivisible and inviolable rights of all humans on this planet. Celebrating While Working Harder The dignity of humanity as a whole and
of every human person is served well and can even be served better,
whenever the international human community, after adequate moral and
intellectual discourse, hammers out and promulgates collective items of
common understanding on what such dignity entails in the way we agree to
behave among one another and in the treatment of each human being.
Such dignity demands an adequate measure of determination to
assert these agreements, and develop additional ones, despite the many
big and small obstacles laid in the path by entities that opposed or
very reluctantly signed such agreements. Observations to the effect that the
rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights serve
more the richer and middle strata of societies in the world may have
basis in experience, especially in the matter of the lack of opportunity
among the impoverished masses to avail themselves of UN mechanisms to
assert and defend their individual and collective human rights.
But these are best answered in the
processes of genuine dialogue within the national and international
channels of discourse to call attention to necessities for improvement
whether on the formulation of the instruments or in the determined
forcefulness for effective implementation, instead of simply giving up
on all these instruments. The promulgation of the UDHR in
1948, as independently augmented by the UDRP since 1976,
is undoubtedly a very important milestone in the evolution of human
civilization, and is therefore a real cause for celebration.
But lest we lose its power in the slackening of its optimization,
let us celebrate while working ever harder to achieve greater human
development founded on recognizing basic human dignity and all the
rights of all humans flowing logically from this innate dignity. Indeed,
time has come for modern-day kings and pharaohs to start consigning
their equivalents of whips and gallows to the garbage dumps of history
and to really start treating all their laborers, conscripts,
tribute-payers and “wards,” their modern-day slaves, as really their
full co-equals as humans. The human race will not forever allow them to use armies —
hiding behind technical legalese, aid and loan bribes, media
manipulations, firepower, or combinations of these – in blocking the
inevitable march of human evolution to complete harmony and peace, to
conscious oneness. back to top suggested next
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APPENDICES:
'FOOTNOTES': 1Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), see Appendix 1-A 2The League of Nations was established after the First World War to prevent a second one. 3International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966. Entry into force: 23 March 1976, in accordance with Article 49. Source: Office of UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. Full text on web page, <http://www.unhchr.ch/html/ menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm>. 4International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966. Entry into force: 3 January 1976, in accordance with Article 27. Source: Office of UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. Full text on <http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3 /b/a_cescr.htm>. 5Toby
Trister Gati, “The UN Rediscovered: Soviet and American Policy in the
United Nations of the 1990s”, Soviet-American Relations After
the Cold War (Edited by Robert Jervis and Seweryn Bialer), p.
208 6Dr.
Ilka Bailey-Wiebecke, “Introduction Into UN Complaints Procedures,” Human
Rights Forum, 2003 Special Issue, p. v. 7Ibid. 8Ibid. 9Michael
Palumbo, Human Rights: Meaning and History (Florida:
Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company, 1982), p. 145. 10Source:
Palumbo, Ibid. 11Atty.
Neri Javier Colmenares, “Justice Without Borders,” Human
Rights Forum, PhilRights, Vol. X, No. 1, July-December 2000, pp.
173-190. 12Associated
Press dispatch, July 1, 2002, datelined Sydney, Australia. 13The
Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples was first
drafted and elaborated on during three round-table conferences that were
organized by the UNPO (no connection to the United Nations) Tartu
Coordination Office on 29 August–30 August 1998; 31 October–1
November 1998, and 16 April–17 April 1999 in Tartu and Otepää,
Estonia. Over forty people participated in the discussions and hundreds
of formulations of statements were considered. As a result, the draft of
the document was adopted simultaneously in three languages (English,
Russian, and Estonian) at the last session on 17 April 1999 in Tartu.
For full text, see Appendix 1-B on p. 25. 14Howard Zinn gives partial list of early victims of US colonization, subjugation and intervention/interference. (See http://www.historyisaweapon.com /defcon1/zinnempire12.html,
citing US State Department sources): Argentina
— 1852-53 — Marines were landed and maintained in Buenos Aires to
protect American interests during a revolution. Nicaragua
— 1853 — to protect American lives and interests during political
disturbances. Japan
— 1853-54 — The “Opening of Japan” and the Perry Expedition.
[The State Department does not give more details, but this involved the
use of warships to force Japan to open its ports to the United States] Ryukyu
and Bonin Islands — 1853-54 — Commodore Perry on three visits before
going to Japan and while waiting for a reply from Japan made a naval
demonstration, landing marines twice, and secured a coaling concession
from the ruler of Naha on Okinawa. He also demonstrated in the Bonin
Islands. All to secure facilities for commerce. Nicaragua
— 1854 — San Juan del Norte [Greytown was destroyed to avenge an
insult to the American Minister to Nicaragua.] Uruguay
— 1855 — U.S. and European naval forces landed to protect American
interests during an attempted revolution in Montevideo. China
— 1859 — For the protection of American interests in Shanghai. Angola,
Portuguese West Africa — 1860 — To protect American lives and
property at Kissembo when the natives became troublesome.1893 — Hawaii
— Ostensibly to protect American lives and property; actually to
promote a provisional government under Sanford B. Dole This action was
disavowed by the United States. Nicaragua
— 1894 — To protect American interests at Bluefields following a
revolution. We
may now add some more (and still have a very incomplete listing):
Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, Korea, Japan, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Laos, Palestine, Lebanon, Haiti, Nicaragua (again), El
Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq… 15Source: Bulatlat.com webpage on the Permanent Peoples Tribunal, http://www.bulatlat.com/news /6-38/6-38-ppt.htm 16See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell Tribunal http://www.socialjusticejournal.org /SJEdits/35Edit.htmlhttp://www. socialjusticejournal.org/SJEdits/35Edit.html; and http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache: bHTLQmm3ZRAJ:www.lse.ac.uk /Depts/global/Publications/Yearbooks /2001/2001chapter7.pdf+permanent +tribunal+of+peoples+Basso+Mac Bride&hl=tl&ct= clnk&cd=7&gl=ph 17Bulatlat.com,
Ibid. 18The others were: Richard Baumlin, Swiss legal scholar and parliamentarian; Harvey Cox, professor of theology at Harvard University and author of the book Secular City; Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton University and noted environmentalist; Andrea Giardina, professor of international law at the University of Naples; Francois Houtart, professor of sociology at the University of Louvain; Ajit Roy, Indian writer; Makoto Oda; Ernst Utrecht, professor at Sidney University and a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Source: Bulatlat.com webpage on the Permanent Peoples Tribunal, http://www.bulatlat.com/news /6-38/6-38-ppt.htm 19The
entire material under this sub-heading is excerpted from Ed Aurelio C.
Reyes, “Peace and Human Rights: Intertwined Advocacies,” A
Gathering of Light for Empowerment (Manila: University of Sto.
Tomas – Social Research Center and the SanibLakas ng Taongbayan
Foundation, 2002), pp. 135-144), and first published in Human
Rights Forum, PhilRights, Vol. XI, No. 1, July-December 2001,
pp. 1-23. 20Ed
Aurelio C. Reyes, “Freedom to Grow and Flow,” (monograph written for
the Lambat-Liwanag Network for Empowering Paradigms) 21Jose
W. Diokno, A Nation for Our Children (Manila: JWD
Foundation and Claretian Publications, 1987), p.4.
According to Diokno, the first basic right is the Right to Life. 22Archbishop
Desmond Tutu said these words and a lot more in a speech he delivered
before the World Council of Churches Ninth Assembly, held in Porto
Alegre, Brazil, on February 14-23, 2006. 23Ed Aurelio C. Reyes, “Small Steps, Giant Leaps for Humankind,” Human Rights Forum, PhilRights, Vol. X, No. 1, July-December 2000, pp. 5-6.
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