by Nicola Bullard
Human rights is under threat. It is under threat from the globalisers who impose an economic model which is antithetical to the realisation of individual and collective rights yet, at the same time, use the language of human rights to justify a political project of intervention and moral superiority. Together, the political and economic forces of globalisation constitute a new imperialism that contradicts the essential meaning of human rights: that is, the universal value of the dignity of every person and the fundamental belief in human freedom and emancipation.
Yet, the very idea of freedom underpins neo-liberal thinking. Adam Smith, the great theorist of the free market, believed that the ability for each person to participate freely in the market was essential to liberate humanity from slavery and fear. Smith's thinking provides the moral justification for neo-liberalism, which is not so much an economic theory as an ideology, an ideology which simplistically equates human freedom with the free market while ignoring the morality and subtlety of Smith's own thinking.
Neo-liberal theorists argue that it is only in the conditions of an unfettered market that human creativity can be unleashed, that each person can fulfil his or her true potentials, and that, through the workings of the market, we can create the greatest good for the greatest number. In short, they believe that the market - left to its own free-wheeling ways -- is able to allocate public goods and maximise private freedom and choices. They see power and politics as a problem to be overcome by commerce and the free choice of actors in the market and with minimal intervention by the state.
The reality, of course, is something quite different.
The world in which we live is not an economic theory or a laboratory: it is an extraordinarily complex accumulation of pasts, presents and futures, characterised - at least in this era - by a collective consciousness of inequality and suffering as an unacceptable deviation from our moral aspirations for equality and respect for the dignity of each person. This consciousness, which is codified in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, is the basis for the post-World War 2 internationalism, albeit an internationalism which is strong on rhetoric and good intentions but extremely weak on political will and actual achievements.
Nonetheless, despite the poor record, human rights persists as a common framework of international political discourse, both as a source of potential liberation and a dangerous illusion cloaking the real workings of power.
It is this paradox that I would like to address.
First, I will look at the top-down and undemocratic forces of economic and political globalisation which undermine the genuine realisation of human rights. Second, I will examine the countervailing forces of "globalisation from below" which constitutes a genuine and sustainable force demanding rights and building political and economic practices and institutions to protect those rights.
The real enemy of rights
The criticisms of economic globalisation are well known, and most rest on a
common rejection of inequality as morally (and aesthetically) unacceptable.
We talk about the growing gap between rich and poor, the "unequal"
relations between South and North, between capital and labour, between the majority
and the minority. Neo-liberal globalisation is "unacceptable" not
so much because people reject the underlying values of competition and the market
but because it does not achieve acceptable outcomes (although for many, of course,
the debate is against capitalism itself). That is, the effects of neo-liberal
economics and global economic integration - if not the underlying values
-- go against our post-enlightenment values of progress and modernity linked
to equality and liberty.
The failures of the system are often translated into the language of human rights, and measured against the universal values of political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights.
Everywhere, poverty is growing, cultures are decimated, labour is cruelly exploited and livelihoods and human security destroyed by wars, mining, large-scale development, commercialisation of food production, environmental disasters, unequal trade rules, unbearable debts and so on. Political and economic choices are dominated by considerations of how the financial markets will respond rather than the achievement of human rights (even in the most entitlement such as the right to food, water, health, shelter, education and work are subordinated to the market). More and more, stability is seen as something which benefits investors rather than populations and it is not important whether that stability is guaranteed by a dictator or a democracy - so long, of course, as the dictator or the democracy is acceptable to the market and to the dominant powers. (Democratically elected Chavez is unacceptable yet the military dictator Mushareff is: better a neo-liberal dictator than a democratically elected populist.)
Radical democracy - which is both a precondition for, and a product of, the achievement of human rights - is under threat by the failure of political systems and political parties. In the North millions of people are simply not voting, or they are voting for extreme right and conservative parties. This is a sign that the "values" of human rights are not translated into common social values but rather, that people are feeling more and more isolated vulnerable and excluded. Hence, their instinct is to vote for reactionary politicians who understand and exploit their fears. In many developing countries, electoral politics has become an instrument for perpetuating elite power and increasingly removed from the demands of the society. And even when democratically elected governments do respond to populist demands they risk being punished by the market, the International Monetary Fund, the US, or all three.
The market cannot guarantee rights
Twenty years of liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation has shown that
the market is particularly bad a guaranteeing rights. The only rights that exist
in the market are held by those who have access to capital. Consumers have the
illusion of freedom, yet they are free only so long as they continue to consume.
Consumption has replaced freedom. Those who cannot consume do not exist, or
are seen as potential consumers to be brought into the market rather than as
individuals who have rights and aspirations.
Workers in the North and the South are under constant attack as capital seeks to maximise profits by "liberalising" the labour market and reducing benefits. Millions of workers are falling outside the system with no protection, no rights and no benefits. Unemployment is one of the greatest threats to development in the South and the market, as presently constructed, is unable to generate the kind of economic growth or the production systems needed to "mop up" those who are unemployed, let alone the millions of new workers entering the labour market every year.
As German sociologist Ulrich Beck says, the new rich don't need the new poor .
The critics of globalisation have been put many of these failings on the international political agenda and there is now a common agreement -- even among the global elite -- that liberalisation of trade and finance must be better managed. Hence, the emphasis on making globalisation "work for the poor." However, the measures they propose are insufficient to deal with the deep structural problems.
One of the central structural problems is that we live in a quasi-global state where the main actors - transnational corporations, financial markets, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, are not subject to any kind of democratic control or legal accountability. They are not juridical entities in any meaningful way and are not the subjects of international human rights law.
The major economies dominate the international institutions. They are also the main beneficiaries of their policies and rules and they too are beyond the democratic control of the people and communities most harshly effected by the downside of globalisation. That is, there is no legal or political system for managing the global system.
Many optimists believe that it is possible to impose a "human rights framework" on the global system so that the market, the institutions and the major economies are brought under the control of a larger vision of the common good. However, there is little cause to be optimistic about the results. As Yash Ghai, professor of public law at the Hong Kong University has noted, the human rights regime provides no redress against the violations of non-state institutions and the rhetoric of human rights is less powerful than the material forces of capitalism.
The "New Imperialism"
The risk is that the "human rights" approach to globalisation will
become another tool in the new imperialism, another justification for the mega-project
of global capitalism.
This "new imperialism" was described in an unusually honest article by Robert Cooper, a British diplomat and a senior foreign policy adviser to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
His vision of the world is one of "post-modern" states (like Europe), traditional "modern" states (such as India or China) and "pre-modern" states, such as Somalia and Afghanistan. This is a world of chaos and insecurity where the "post-modern" states have a "moral duty" to intervene in the failed or "pre-modern" states.
"What is needed then is a new kind of imperialism, one acceptable to the world of human rights and cosmopolitan values. We can already discern its outline: an imperialism which, like all imperialism, aims to bring order and organisation but which rests today on the voluntary principle". (1)
There are many dangerous elements here: first, the idea that the "failure" of Afghanistan is somehow unrelated to the historical facts of imperialism, second that it is a "voluntary" order which ignores the coercive power of the market, economics and realpolitik, and third - and what is important for us-that this new imperialism would be justified in terms of human rights.
Cooper describes the "voluntary imperialism" of the global economy, which is operated by an international consortium of agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF. These institutions, he says, "provide help to states wishing to find their way back into the global economy and into the virtuous circle of investment and prosperity." In return, they (the institutions) make "demands" on the state which will address the "political and economic failures" of the past. But, to benefit, they must open themselves up to the "demands" of the international organisations and foreign states.
This is an amazingly accurate description of what actually happens. What is even more extraordinary, though, is that this intervention is justified in terms of "human rights." Countries are required to cede sovereignty to undemocratic and unaccountable institutions, institutions which themselves are beyond the reach of human rights law. What's more, in the current human rights framework, the state is the signatory to human rights conventions and for citizens, their first and only site for making claims and seeking redress. This weakening of the state by external actors inevitably reduces the capacity and the willingness of the state to guarantee and protect rights.
This "new imperialism" is antithetical to the very notion of human rights, which are meant to guarantee the rights of all peoples to self-determination and sovereignty. This regression into the colonial past, where the values of the Empire are seen as superior and overriding the rights of peoples, is odious in the extreme yet it is the basis of foreign policy for the US and its main backer and intellectual spokesperson, the UK.
The Human Rights "Mission"
David Chandler, a noted British scholar and commentator, believes this approach
to international relations resembles the "might is right" approach
of the pre-war era. However, unlike the earlier era when it was legitimised
in terms of racial superiority and imperial mission, today's "new
imperialism" of intervention is couched in terms of ethical superiority
and a human rights mission.
How then should we respond, when the global elite adopts and co-opts the language of human rights as further justification for global capitalism? Before jumping to the defence of human rights, though, we should look at the record of the human rights system of the past fifty years to assess how far we have moved from rhetoric to reality. We have been guilty of naivete in believing that the UN human rights institutions and declarations can bring change. Our whole approach to human rights has been characterised by a top-down and legalistic approach where, as Honk Kong professor of international law Yash Gahi says, the "people in whose name the legitimacy of rights is claimed are for the most part isolated from participation in the human rights movement".
Human rights NGOs must assume much of the responsibility for this. As interlocutors between the oppressed and the oppressors, we have perpetuated an approach to human rights which is sanitised and de-politicised (or, in notable cases, highly politicised and linked to the political ambitions of their own governments). The struggle for human rights is, at the core, a struggle about power: who has power over whom, whether it's political, economic or social (and here we must include gender, religion, ethnicity).
The international "anti-globalisation" movement is an important break with this top-down approach. In all its diverse political and ideological manifestations, the movement is a movement for democracy and justice. It is a movement which sees that there are powerful structural forces which militate against the realisation of human rights and hence the realisation of human freedom.
The fact that the movement targets institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank is an important element of this new approach. Further, the rejection of the war and intervention is also a transformative factor. More important, however, is the commitment within the movement to diversity, pluralism, openness and to ensuring that trade unions and social movements and those effected by human rights violations and the negative effects of globalisation - unemployed, farmers, workers, women and indigenous -- can speak for themselves.
We are at the beginning of an important moment of political and social change which presents real threats to the system. The attempts by the elite to dress globalisation in the language of poverty and rights is a sign that they are threatened.
There are, of course, no easy or permanent solutions, but to believe that globalisation can be tamed by imposing a human rights framework on the globalisers is no solution at all.
Note
(1) The New Imperialism, Robert Cooper, Observer,
Sunday April 7. (torna su)