Ledarbloggen
Ivar Arpi
Ivar Arpi
I söndags skrev jag en ledare om inflationen av mänskliga rättigheter som till stor del byggde på en rapport av Jacob Mchangama, grundare av Freedom Rights Project. Nu har han skrivit en artikel i tidskriften Foreign Affairs, tillsammans med Gugielmo Verdirame som också var med och grundade Freedom Rights Project, där de inskärper faran av att antalet mänskliga rättigheter hela tiden ökar. Ett utdrag:
”The expanded and diluted notion of human rights allows illiberal states to change the focus from core freedoms to vague and conceptually unclear rights that place no concrete obligations on states. Enabled by such rhetoric, no human rights violation can stand scrutiny on its own merits. Instead, human rights violations are relativized — intellectually dismembered and discarded when it is politically expedient. In this world, cuts in development aid can be labeled human rights violations just like torture in North Korea. Crucially, this unprincipled politics of human rights helps authoritarian states deflect criticism. In 2007, Cuba, which has one of the worst human rights records in the Western Hemisphere, succeeded in persuading a majority of HRC members to axe the specific mandate for monitoring its own human rights record. The praise authoritarian states shower on one another for supposedly upholding new, vague and abstract rights are therefore not just empty rhetoric but can produce real political gains.”
Och avslutningen är värd att citera den också:
”Instead of rushing to respond to the human rights flavor of the month — be it protecting the elderly or defending the peasants — liberal democracies should support institutions and treaties that embody the ideals that inspired the human rights movement in the first place.”