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World leaders gather to chart future of human rights
Conference marks 50th year of U.N. declaration
December 6, 1998
In this story:
'A Magna Carta for mankind'
World's most ignored document
Little to celebrate
Pinochet arrest 'an anniversary present'
'First we must have economic change'
'A distant ideal'
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PARIS (CNN) -- Global fundamental rights come under scrutiny this week at an international
gathering in Paris to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
Joining U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary
Robinson will be activists from around the world, including Nobel Peace Prize winners and
grass-roots campaigners.
They will spend four days reviewing the past and considering the prospects for justice in
an increasingly multicultural world brimming with tension and confusion.
French President Jacques Chirac will open the ceremonies on Monday with a colloquium on
human rights in the 21st century.
On Thursday, the anniversary day itself, participants will gather in the Chaillot Palace
-- better known as the Trocadero museum across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower -- to
commemorate the original signing of the declaration there.
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," announced the
declaration, adopted on December 10, 1948.
Enlightened philosophers, priests and politicians had shared this view for ages, but it
was not until this century brought two world wars and the Holocaust that leaders came
together to declare certain basic rights inalienable.
'A Magna Carta for mankind'
Guided by such personalities as Mahatma Gandhi and Eleanor
Roosevelt, the United Nations approved the text stating that every human had the right to
life, liberty, justice and property in what Roosevelt called "a Magna Carta for
mankind."
The declaration, much of which has been translated into national laws around the world,
shuns discrimination, slavery, torture, arbitrary arrest or exile.
That solemn declaration signed in Paris in1948 did not immediately make human rights a
focal point of world politics. Dictatorships persisted, some into the present decade, and
full justice was sometimes elusive even in democratic societies.
World's most ignored document
The declaration has become both the most quoted and most ignored international document of
modern times.
Since its inauguration, millions of people have been denied their most basic right -- that
of life -- as a result of massacres such as those in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia. In many
other countries, inhabitants can only dream of basic civil liberties.
And the world is far from fulfilling the declaration's pronouncements on economic rights.
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
well-being of himself and his family," states Article 25.
According to U.N. figures, 1.5 billion people must get by on less than $1 a day. In South
Asia, half of all children under the age of 5 are malnourished. Only a third of the people
in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to live past 40.
Little to celebrate
"I do not see this as an occasion for celebration," Robinson said of the 50th
anniversary.
"Count up the results of 50 years of human rights mechanisms, 30 years of
multibillion-dollar development programs and endless high-level rhetoric, and the global
impact is quite underwhelming," Robinson said. "This is a failure of
implementation on a scale which shames us all."
But, as participants at this week's ceremonies will emphasize, the patient lobbying of
rights groups such as Amnesty International, landmark agreements such as the Helsinki
Final Act and the recurrent outbreaks of "people's power" around the world have
made human rights an accepted part of politics.
Many activists say that despite blatant violations of the declaration's principles, it
still carries weight and influence.
"Even if it's not implemented, it's THE point of reference for governments and people
around the world," said Isabelle Scherer of Amnesty International.
It also has paved the way for what progress has been made in human rights.
Pinochet arrest 'an anniversary present'
Advocates cited Britain's arrest and possible extradition of former Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet to Spain on charges of genocide and torture as evidence of a changing
international mood.
"Pinochet's arrest makes a very nice 50th anniversary present," said Kenneth
Roth, president of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
"Twenty years ago, dictators, when deposed, could look forward to a happy,
comfortable retirement. International human rights law has caught up with them," said
Peter Thomas Burns, chairman of the U.N. committee on torture.
U.N. organizations set up to monitor compliance with the declaration and related treaties
meet frequently in Geneva. Although the bodies have little power other than to cajole or
rebuke, rights advocates say their pressure makes a difference.
Many Asian nations have long argued that human rights are a purely internal matter, but
there are signs of changing attitudes. Both Indonesia and the Philippines criticized
Malaysia's government this year over the detention of a former deputy prime minister,
Anwar Ibrahim .
'First we must have economic change'
Yet, while China recently signed a U.N. treaty on civil and political rights and maintains
it respects the Universal Declaration, it still punishes anyone who doesn't follow the
official line.
Many Chinese echo the government's position that national prosperity takes precedence over
individual rights.
"First, we must have economic change. As the economy has developed over the past 20
years, people have more rights," a Chinese businessman told a reporter.
"Twenty years ago, I could not be standing here talking to you," he added, but
to have his name published pointed to the distance China still needs to go to achieve
basic human rights.
'A distant ideal'
Although U.N. documents have increasingly focused on women's rights, they have made little
impact on the plight of millions of women in developing countries.
In Kenya, for instance, growing economic hardship is blamed for a marked increase in
physical abuse of women. Women's groups there plan to mark the declaration's anniversary
by putting husbands of battered women "on trial" to highlight the problem.
Alexander Podrabinek, 46, who spent five years in Siberian exile during communist rule in
the Soviet Union, said the declaration was long a touchstone for dissidents. He recalled
how the KGB routinely confiscated copies of the document as "anti-Soviet
literature."
Conditions are better now in Russia, but widespread violations of human rights persist, he
said, citing religious discrimination and appalling conditions in prisons.
"The broad public is largely unaware of the declaration," he added. "But it
remains some kind of a distant ideal."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
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Human Rights 50years