"Human Rights: Seattle, Washington, the IMF, WB, WTO & Beyond"

- By Grahame Russell
June 2000

• Human Rights Gap
• "Poverty" as a violation of numerous rights
• "Other actors" violate rights
• Impunity of international "economic actors"
• Human Rights Watch: "Use WTO Process to Push China on rights"
• Entitlement & Accountability

The "Battle in Seattle" and the "Mobilization in Washington" are over, for now. The issues addressed and challenged in Seattle and Washington are far from settled. One positive step forward, emanating from the hard and creative work and activism in Seattle and Washington was to put international commerce and finance on the front page as issues that impact directly on the environment and human rights across the planet.

For far too long, a host of national and international economic and development actors - supported by governments, and bolstered by 'academics' and much of the corporate press-have claimed that there are no links between economics, on the one hand, and human rights and political issues, on the other.

This is not so. The truth is there is no separation between commercial and financial issues, both nationally and internationally, and the protection and well being of the environment and protection and guarantee of all human rights.

The recent spate of global activism is successfully challenging the reigning economic development model, favored by international economic development actors (such as banks, companies, mutual funds, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and obviously the World Trade Organization (WTO). It is also challenging the international human rights movement dominated by a number of organizations based predominantly in the northern countries.

Human Rights Gap

Since World War Two, the international human rights community has played an important role in popularizing the concept that all individuals have rights. Yet, if this human rights community does not broaden its analysis and advocacy work to employ an 'all rights guaranteed-all actors accountable' framework, it may contribute to the perpetuation of poverty and other injustices on a global scale. The impunity with which many "inter-state," "non-state" and "other state" actors violate the rights of individuals and peoples worldwide may continue unabated.

Since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and subsequent human rights treaties and covenants, the human rights movement has made important contributions to efforts to address and remedy profound injustices, both within and between nations. Yet, there is a large gap between the way that tens of thousands of community human rights groups around the world interpret human rights, and its interpretation by the traditional human rights community.

For the most part, inter-governmental institutions such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States, as well as better-known non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have focused on certain political and civil rights.

Moreover, they have usually maintained that the government of a particular country is the only actor that can be held accountable for rights violations that take place in that country.

The problem lies not so much in the actual work that this traditional human rights community has undertaken. Indeed they have established important investigative and reporting standards and their efforts have been very important in many different struggles. Rather, the problem lies in which rights violations they have chosen to investigate and which actors they have chosen to identify as responsible for violations.

"Poverty" as a violation of numerous rights

Assassinations by death squads, illegal detentions or detentions in abusive conditions are matters of human rights concern, possible legal remedy and worthy of attention from the "international community". Death by malnutrition or preventable diseases, or subsisting in conditions of imposed poverty are deemed not to be matters of human rights concern, possible legal remedy and therefore do not receive sustained attention from the "international community".

This is wrong and unacceptable. Annually, more people worldwide are killed because of systemic and systematic violations of overlapping political, social, civil, cultural and economic rights -- "poverty" -- than by civil and political rights violations brought by wars, repressive governments and armed movements, i.e., those violations that have traditionally received most attention.

"Other actors" violate rights

In the 1980s, certain human rights groups identified the Nicaraguan government as the only actor responsible for civil and political rights violations during the war with the "Contras." These groups only belatedly named the Contras (and never named the United States) as an actor that was violating civil and political rights in Nicaragua.

While the Nicaraguan government was guilty of rights violations, those committed by the United States government-both on its own and via the US-funded, trained and armed Contras-were greater in number and more brutal in nature. By focusing attention almost solely on the Nicaraguan government, the international human rights community (US State Department Human Rights Reports were particularly manipulative in this regard) contributed directly to the impunity of another major actor, the United States.

Impunity of international "economic actors"

Structural adjustment programs, that many countries have been forcibly "encouraged" to implement since the early 1980s by the IMF, the WB, large commercial banks and northern government "aid" programs, have delegitimized and reduced the role of governments with respect to guaranteeing and protecting the rights to health, education, housing, a healthy environment, basic work standards, etc.

While often maintaining or increasing the numbers of people subsisting in poverty in many countries, these policies and programs have strengthened a northern, bank- and corporate-dominated economic model (misleadingly referred to as a "free" trade market system) that, in many cases, has concentrated more wealth in the hands of minority sectors.

Today, international companies, banks and investment funds are working with certain governments to use the WTO to guarantee and protect a bank, investment fund or corporation's "right" to engage in any type of economic activity, anywhere. At the same time, these governments and economic actors are working to ensure that they not be held accountable-nationally or internationally - for failing to meet established environmental and human rights standards.

Human Rights Watch: "Use WTO Process to Push China on rights"

In a press release, dated November 15, 1999, Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that "we welcome the deal between the US and China on WTO entry. This agreement is good for … human rights and the rule of law." On November 24th, Mike Jenrzejczyk, Washington director for the Asia Division of HRW, argued (see: hrw-news@igc.topica.com, "Use WTO Process to Push China on rights", 99-11-24) that "China must go beyond opening its markets … ". In the same release, HRW stated that the "closing of thousands of state-run enterprises could push workers to insist on greater collective decision-making on workplace issues and the need for a social safety net, … . China might seek to build the rule of law in the economic sphere while continuing to pervert and undermine the rule of law elsewhere."

While the work of HRW is laudable with respect to drawing attention to the oftentimes atrocious violations of political and civil rights in China (including Tibet), HRW is making problematic statements to the effect that the reigning "free" trade market model, promoted by the WTO et al., is unquestionably good for human rights. Equally problematic, HRW directly associates "rule of law" with the "free" trade economic system that the WTO et al. endorse and defend.

These positions expose serious problems inherent to a narrow notion of which rights are to be guaranteed, and which actors are to be held accountable.

Firstly, HRW misunderstands the oftentimes direct relationship between economic-development policies implemented by governments and powerful economic actors and the perpetuation or worsening of systemic violations of overlapping political, economic, cultural, social and civil rights.

Secondly, HRW misunderstands the oftentimes direct relationship between poverty and repression. Daily, people and communities worldwide face the reality that if they quietly live in poverty, accepting exploitation and misery, their living conditions will never be seen as a human rights issue. But when they organize and advocate for the wide range of their rights, and demand accountability from the national and international actors that directly or indirectly violate their rights, governments and private actors often use repression (political and civil rights violations) against them and their organizations. It is this repression that is then often investigated and reported on by the international human rights community, such as HRW.

Thirdly, HRW is improperly associating "rule of law" with the "free" trade economic-development model. The notion of "rule of law" is not and should not be linked exclusively with any particular political economic model.

Entitlement & Accountability

It is long overdue for solidarity and community human rights organizations worldwide to take back and appropriate the broad concept of human rights entitlement and accountability. Both as a concept which helps us to understand human beings and communities, and as a set of ethical values and legal norms rooted in the rule of law, human rights can be an important tool for analyzing and remedying abuses of power, whether these rights violations are committed at a local, national or international level, and whether they are committed by governments, intergovernmental institutions or private actors.

The international human rights community should follow the lead of urban and rural community human rights groups, in the North and South, that are working to promote and defend the idea that all people are entitled to respect for all their rights, and that all actors-private or governmental; local, national or international-are to be held accountable for all actions that directly or indirectly violate rights.

Feel free to publish and distribute this article, citing and providing contact information for the author.

Grahame Russell, an international human rights lawyer and development expert, is director of Rights Action based in Washington DC, USA & Toronto, Canada. (info@rightsaction.org)