tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-14985/articlesUniversal Declaration of Human Rights – The Conversation2024-01-08T16:43:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2202662024-01-08T16:43:08Z2024-01-08T16:43:08ZFreedom of thought is being threatened by states, big tech and even ourselves. Here’s what we can do to protect it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568035/original/file-20240105-27-gzzeml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C46%2C5184%2C3383&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/danang-vietnam-august-2019-photo-taken-2185304981">Beauty Is In The Eye Inc/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea of free speech sparked into life 2,500 years ago <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/reading-room/2022-08-17-review-free-speech-a-history-from-socrates-to-social-media-by-jacob-mchangama-basic-books-2022">in Ancient Greece</a> – in part because it served a politician’s interests. The ability to speak freely was seen as essential for the new Athenian democracy, which the politician <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Aspects-of-Greek-History-750-323BC-A-Source-Based-Approach/Buckley/p/book/9780415549776">Cleisthenes</a> both introduced and benefited from.</p>
<p>Today, we debate the boundaries of free speech around kitchen tables and watercoolers, in the media and in our courtrooms. The <a href="https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-act/article-9-freedom-thought-belief-and-religion">right to freedom of thought</a>, however, is more rarely discussed. But thanks to the growing influence of social media, big data and new technology, this “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3291586">forgotten freedom</a>” needs our urgent attention.</p>
<p>In democratic societies ruled by ballots not bullets, power is won through persuasion. Efforts at persuasion are ramping up: there will be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_national_electoral_calendar">more than 50 national elections</a> involving half the world’s population in 2024, including in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/01/03/2024-is-the-biggest-election-year-in-history-here-are-the-countries-going-to-the-polls-this-year/">seven of the ten most populous countries</a>. The results will <a href="https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/four-2024-elections-will-shape-second-half-decade">shape our century</a>, making it paramount that we protect people’s ability to think and vote freely. </p>
<p>But corporate and political actors know more about how our minds work than we do. They activate our biases rather than appeal to our reason, push us to share information without thinking, and control our attention to the point of addiction.</p>
<p>Advances in neuroscience may heighten this threat to free thought. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg are among those in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/5/4/23708162/neurotechnology-mind-reading-brain-neuralink-brain-computer-interface">race to read our minds</a> with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). In 2021, the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a76380-interim-report-special-rapporteur-freedom-religion-or-belief">UN warned of</a> the risks of neural technologies predicting, identifying and modifying our thoughts. Manhattan projects of the mind threaten to make lab rats of us all.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Suited man standing next to a brain imaging device." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567634/original/file-20240103-25-nqv1bk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink received regulatory approval to conduct the first clinical trial in humans in 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_and_the_Neuralink_Future.jpg">Steve Jurvetson/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>We could respond by calling on our right to freedom of thought. It’s there waiting for us, created in 1948 by the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> (Article 18) and later <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights">becoming international law</a>. But anyone reaching for this right may be horrified to find it hollow, bereft of any clear definition and unfit for purpose.</p>
<p>In recent years, the UN has sought to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2023.2227100">give this right more substance</a>. One of its special rapporteurs, Ahmed Shaheed, has made a <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a76380-interim-report-special-rapporteur-freedom-religion-or-belief">series of recommendations</a> (which I will outline) that should, eventually, lead to a better defined, more muscular right to free thought. This process has promise – it could help shield our thoughts from prying eyes and protect our minds from manipulation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-what-extent-are-you-truly-free-71188">To what extent are you truly free?</a>
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<p>But it also has the potential for harm. In international law, freedom of thought is an absolute right. This means it could run roughshod over other important concerns. Activists could, for example, use this right to silence their political opponents by claiming their opponents’ speech is manipulating thoughts.</p>
<p>This right could also go wrong by failing to protect all forms of thought. We must ask where “thinking” ends and “speaking” begins in today’s world: should performing an online search, writing a personal diary, or asking a question in a WhatsApp group be regarded as forms of thought, or outright speech?</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>History suggests the right to free thought will only become globally relevant if political factions <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674064348">or states</a> use it to serve their purposes. And this looks increasingly likely as accusations of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/04/cambridge-analytica-data-leak-global-election-manipulation">mental manipulation</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48065622">“thoughtcrime” creation</a> fly between the political right and left, and the US looks for new weapons in its <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/cold-war-ii-niall-ferguson-emerging-conflict-china">developing cold war with China</a>.</p>
<p>For both technological and (geo)political reasons, the right to freedom of thought’s time may have come. Whatever it is decided to mean, it will bind us all. As I argue in my new book <a href="https://oneworld-publications.com/work/freethinking/">Freethinking</a>, this makes it crucial that we can all have input into its design. </p>
<h2>Free thought past</h2>
<p>The term “freethinker” came into common use during the Enlightenment in late 17th-century Europe, describing people who questioned religious authorities. Today, freethinking typically refers to being <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203429488-94/value-free-thought-1944-kenneth-blackwell-harry-ruja-bernd-frohmann-john-slater-sheila-turcon">guided by evidence and reason, not authority</a> – although this hasn’t stopped people who play fast and loose with evidence appropriating the term too.</p>
<p>Up against the freethinkers are those who seek to control thought to achieve and cement power. George Orwell’s classic vision of this threat, Nineteen Eighty-Four, actually came out 20 years after <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/thought-crime">Japan’s Peace Preservation Law</a> had already termed many people on the political left as “thought criminals”.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T8BA7adK6XA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Nineteen Eighty-Four official trailer (1984)</span></figcaption>
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<p>In Orwell’s novel, the ruling party aims to “extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought”. Beginning in childhood, people are taught to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears. No one is to be left alone to think – yet nor are they able to think with others. People are encouraged to stop themselves on the threshold of dangerous thoughts, as the terrifying Thought Police find and punish those who commit “thoughtcrime”.</p>
<p>The ruling party also uses extensive surveillance, parallels to which can be seen today. Consider the effects of Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations that the US was heavily surveilling the internet. This led to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412564">a 10% drop</a> in internet searches that could have got Americans in trouble with their government, such as “domestic security”, “nuclear” and “organized crime”. Americans’ suspicion that they were being watched harmed their freedom of thought.</p>
<p>New technologies drive new laws. Just as photography spurred <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/mslr2008&div=7&g_sent=1&casa_token=kSy5i8DmOnMAAAAA:SOLEoYd1oW26YL0UiKKPWV9aKVd7KfdzUfLUOgUyAMRLC2FF8L3RVWY33iU9bZ8gNTkQX8tW6w&collection=journals">a right to privacy</a> in 1890, today <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-84494-3">scholars</a> want to develop the right to freedom of thought in response to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24756752">neurotechnology</a> and the <a href="https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/Rethinking%20Freedom%20of%20Thought%20for%20the%2021st.pdf">digital world</a>. This means confronting the gulf between the extensive lauding of this right and the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2023.2227100">bewildering neglect</a> of what it practically involves. Enter the UN.</p>
<h2>Free thought present</h2>
<p>In October 2021, special rapporteur Shaheed <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a76380-interim-report-special-rapporteur-freedom-religion-or-belief">presented a report</a> on the right to freedom of thought. To underpin this right, he proposed four pillars which I summarise as follows, including some questions I think we should consider about them:</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Universal Declaration of Human Rights document" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567687/original/file-20240103-510735-l12yif.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_universal_declaration_of_human_rights_10_December_1948.jpg">UN via Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p><strong>1. Mental privacy.</strong> People cannot be forced to reveal their thoughts. This means we must scrutinise technological developments that open new windows into our minds. But should our minds always be private?</p>
<p><strong>2. Mental immunity.</strong> People cannot be punished for their thoughts. This idea has existed since ancient Rome, though today we need to decide what exactly should count as a “thought”.</p>
<p><strong>3. Mental integrity.</strong> People and organisations cannot alter others’ thoughts without permission. We know subliminal advertising is wrong because it bypasses our conscious mind – but beyond this, we enter a grey zone. When does persuasion become impermissible manipulation?</p>
<p><strong>4. Mental fertility.</strong> This enshrines a government’s duty to create an enabling environment for free thought. But will governments really do this if free thought challenges their power? And even if they want to, how can they design a society that promotes free thought?</p>
<p>To build on these pillars, we need to answer basic questions about what thought is and what makes it free. Before we can protect thought, we must first define it.</p>
<h2>Free thought future</h2>
<p>Traditionally, the law views thoughts as happening inside our brains. Yet philosophers (and, increasingly, psychologists and technologists) have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3328150">long claimed that</a> thought “ain’t just in the head”, proposing that our minds extend into the world. </p>
<p>A notebook can be the functioning memory of someone with dementia. Writing in a diary, as Winston Smith did illegally in Nineteen Eighty-Four, can also represent thinking. Writing doesn’t only express thought; sometimes “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511583360">the thinking is the writing</a>”. Similarly, some internet searches can be a form of thinking as we use them to question, reason and reflect.</p>
<p>If the right to freedom of thought is deemed to cover our “extended minds”, this will have important consequences. Authorities <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2016/08/how-your-google-searches-can-be-used-against-you-court">often access the internet search histories</a> of people accused of crimes, using this as evidence. In homicide trials, searches such as “how to get rid of someone annoying” or “chloroform” have been <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2016/08/how-your-google-searches-can-be-used-against-you-court">cited in court</a>. But if such searches are deemed to constitute thinking, then accessing someone’s search history could become a violation of their mental privacy.</p>
<p>Speaking aloud can also be regarded as a form of thinking – we sometimes speak to find out what we think. As novelist <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1600910X.2019.1630846">E.M. Forster asked</a>: “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”</p>
<p>But we also speak aloud in order to think with other people – and we may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2009.09.003">think better with others</a> than we do alone. Thought can be at its most powerful when it is social, rather than the solitary act depicted by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker">Auguste Rodin</a>. So, for thought to be truly free, we require public as well as private thinking spaces.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rodin's statue The Thinker in a leafy garden." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567693/original/file-20240103-29-s0we6w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Thinking is not always best done alone, despite Rodin’s famous depiction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rodin%27s_The_Thinker_-_panoramio.jpg">Roman Suzuki/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To facilitate this, we may need a new legal concept of “<a href="https://oneworld-publications.com/work/freethinking/">thoughtspeech</a>”. This would represent the thinking aloud we do with others in the name of “good faith truth-seeking”. Thoughtspeech could be protected as absolutely as the thoughts inside our head: while one could (and should) still disagree with others, attempts to silence or punish thoughtspeech would be a human rights violation.</p>
<p>However, an obvious concern is that this concept could be misused to justify hate speech that <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/combatting-discrimination/racism-and-xenophobia/combating-hate-speech-and-hate-crime_en#:%7E:text=Hate%20motivated%20crime%20and%20speech,or%20national%20or%20ethnic%20origin.">Europe</a>, but <a href="https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/hate">not the US</a>, has deemed illegal. The protestation that “I’m just asking questions” can easily be employed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00207659.2021.1939946">as a cover to demonise people</a>. At the same time, a creeping prohibition of asking difficult or challenging questions is also potentially dangerous, not least to society’s minorities who seek to challenge the status quo. Where necessary, courts would have to decide whether the claimed thoughtspeech was genuine truth-seeking in good faith, or had darker motives.</p>
<p>To see these thorny questions in practice, consider how, in Ireland, both <a href="https://www.kildarestreet.com/debate/?id=2023-04-26a.380">the left</a> and right have argued that the proposed <a href="https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2022/105/eng/ver_b/b105b22d.pdf">criminal justice (incitement to violence or hatred and hate offences) bill</a> 2022 will create “thought crimes”. Section 10(3) of this bill states that if you possess hateful material that you haven’t shown anyone, and it is reasonable to assume this material is not just intended for personal use, then you are presumed to be breaking the law. The police could then seek a warrant to enter your premises and access this information.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/the-big-tech-show-irelands-new-hate-speech-law-will-create-thought-crimes/a978548546.html">politician claimed</a> this bill would not create thought crimes because it involved “production of material”, and that “nobody is ever going to be prosecuted for what they’re thinking inside their heads”. This illustrates the restricted view of thought that some politicians hold – and suggests that legislators could leave much of our thinking naked and vulnerable.</p>
<p>Once we have settled on what thought is, we must work out what makes it free. The <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32022R2065">EU’s Digital Services Act</a> forbids online platforms from deceiving or manipulating users, or impairing their ability to make “free and informed decisions”. But what counts as manipulation or impairing free decision-making?</p>
<p>Psychology suggests that free thinking requires us to control our attention, be able to reason and reflect, and to not need superhuman courage to think aloud with others. This makes platforms and products problematic that either capture our attention to the <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/14/2612">point of addiction</a>, or employ “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laaa006">dark patterns</a>” that undermine reflection and reasoning.</p>
<p>For instance, in the “false demand” dark pattern, a shopping website may falsely tell you that “Abby in London” has just bought a pillow. This could undermine your reasoning by triggering a panicky sense of scarcity in you, or setting a false norm of others buying the pillow, making you more likely to purchase.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three UK local election ballot papers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567710/original/file-20240103-19-2ta8k1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK local election ballot papers with candidates listed in alphabetical order.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot_papers_for_the_2021_United_Kingdom_local_elections.jpg">domdomegg/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The designers of systems need not even intentionally play on our mental biases for their products to be problematic. For instance, listing candidates in alphabetical order on a voting ballot paper may seem neutral, but the candidate named first gains a small <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2016.06.019">but measurable advantage</a>. This is partly because we have a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2016.09.002">mental bias to prefer</a> the first item on a list. </p>
<p>Some US states don’t use <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379414000584">alphabetical ordering on ballots</a> for this reason. Instead they randomly rotate the order of candidates’ names on ballots across districts. Yet, elsewhere, <a href="https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/guidance-acting-returning-officers-administering-a-uk-parliamentary-election-great-britain/voter-materials/production-ballot-papers/ballot-paper-design/candidate-details">including in the UK</a>, this alphabetical practice continues. Alphabetical ordering arguably violates voters’ right to freedom of thought.</p>
<p>I believe the right to freedom of thought should protect thinking wherever it occurs – in our heads, our diaries, on the internet, or when we’re engaged in good faith truth-seeking when thinking aloud with others. And crucially, to keep thoughts free, our environment must be designed and regulated to let us control our attention, think logically and reflectively, and not fear punishment for our thoughts. Unfortunately, new technologies threaten this ideal.</p>
<h2>The power to punish thought</h2>
<p>New technologies have the potential to undermine three of the UN’s pillars of free thought – mental privacy, immunity, and integrity. It is well known, for example, that social media can use knowledge of how our minds work to hijack our attention, discourage reflection, and facilitate the punishment of wrongthink, thereby <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-022-00567-7">harming our autonomy</a>. Less well known is how social media revives an old social pattern that threatens free thought.</p>
<p>Our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in egalitarian communities with no dominant individuals. This was due to a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/204166">reverse dominance hierarchy</a>” which meant that, if someone tried to rise above others, the group would work together to humble, exclude or even kill this would-be “tall poppy”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cave painting of hunter gatherers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567734/original/file-20240103-23-v2f60j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in egalitarian communities without dominant individuals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ancient-prehistoric-cave-painting-known-white-2005544015">R.M. Nunes/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My book <a href="https://oneworld-publications.com/work/spite/">Spite</a> (2020) explains how anthropologists believe this was possible due to humans’ ability to moralise, wield weapons and use language. Language in particular, especially gossip, helped coordinate actions against tall poppies. When agriculture was invented, larger groups, private property and recognised authority figures came on to the scene, enabling a <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/christopher-boehm/moral-origins/9780465020485/">more hierarchical form of life</a>.</p>
<p>Social media has bought back the reverse dominance hierarchy. People online can unite to moralise and gossip, sometimes with the effect of bringing down individuals. And while this can helpfully check people who abuse their power, it can also harm freethinkers who disturb the status quo and undermine what they see as society’s “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_lie">noble</a>” (or ignoble) lies.</p>
<p>And not only can new technologies facilitate the punishment of thought, they also have the potential to powerfully manipulate our thoughts. AI will soon know exactly what to say to us to maximise the chances of us performing a desired behaviour. As OpenAI’s CEO <a href="https://youtu.be/e1cf58VWzt8?feature=shared&t=526">Sam Altman has warned</a> in relation to the 2024 elections:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What if an AI reads everything you have ever written online – every tweet, every article, every everything – then right at the exact moment, sends you one message, customised just for you, that really changes how you think about the world?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The power disparity between us and AI means that courts could deem AI to have improper undue influence over our minds.</p>
<p>New technologies can also uncover our hidden thoughts. This goes beyond what Big Brother was capable of. As Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four, even the ruling party “had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking”. </p>
<p>Today, brain-reading technology that detects thoughts via brain scans or neural interfaces threatens to uncover this secret. Meta (Facebook’s owner) <a href="https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-image-decoding-meg-magnetoencephalography/">recently showed</a> it could determine what people were seeing by examining their brainwaves using magnetoencephalography (MEG) technology. Behaviour-reading techniques that use our actions, such as <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-00779-011">musical preferences</a> or what we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1218772110">“like” on Facebook</a>, can also be used to infer our internal states. </p>
<p>Now, imagine if a government had someone in custody suspected of having planted a nuclear bomb in a city. There would be a strong temptation to use mind-reading technology to identify the location of the bomb from that individual’s brain – but this would violate the suspect’s right to free thought. Some people, perhaps many, would argue that this right <em>should</em> be violated in such circumstances. </p>
<p>Perhaps the future could include places where free thought is legally limited. While this is a challenging idea, it would be ironic if we failed to think critically about free thought itself. Legal scholar Jan Christoph Bublitz has speculated on the idea of “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24756752">zones of restricted freedom of thought</a>” in places vulnerable to terrorism, such as airports. In these zones, our thoughts could be permissibly accessed by the state to prevent calamities. </p>
<p>Likewise, the philosopher <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Moral-Landscape/Sam-Harris/9781439171226">Sam Harris has suggested</a> that once mind reading technology can detect lies, it could be used to create “zones of obligatory candour”. These would be locations, such as courtrooms, where lies would be automatically detected from your brainwaves.</p>
<p>Yet, concerns about mind-reading technologies are frequently blighted by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2023.2227100">hyperbole, alarmism and exaggeration</a>. One does not simply fall into an MRI scanner; one must consent. Once inside, <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.29.509744v1">we must cooperate</a> with researchers for brain-reading to work. The extent to which our mental content can be accurately identified is often over-hyped, as it requires extremely specific conditions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-ai-have-a-right-to-free-speech-only-if-it-supports-our-right-to-free-thought-212555">Does AI have a right to free speech? Only if it supports our right to free thought</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s also important to recognise that the same technologies that threaten free thought can also benefit thought. Brain-computer interfaces, where we interact with computers simply by thinking, could <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/29/1080472/elon-musk-bandwidth-brains/">boost our mental bandwidth</a>. AI systems such as ChatGPT can stimulate new ideas. So, over-regulating these technologies could be seen as harming free thought.</p>
<p>Clearly, we need to protect free thought in response to new technologies. But in my view, overreacting with unnecessary laws won’t lead to freer minds – it will simply enable other people’s anxieties to rule our lives.</p>
<h2>Protecting employees’ and users’ thoughts</h2>
<p>Traditionally, governments were seen as the main threat to our freedoms. Today, corporations, particularly those involved in controlling flows of information such as media and technology companies, vie for this crown. </p>
<p>Such companies influence what information we do and don’t see. They can also overwhelm us with too much content, creating “<a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/poze19712-002/html">reverse censorship</a>” that harms our ability to think. Corporations also threaten free thought through their ability to fire employees for thoughtcrime, potentially in response to a public outcry. </p>
<p>The British philosopher Bertrand Russell warned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Thought_and_Official_Propaganda">a century ago</a> that “thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living”. Russell said this problem would grow unless the public insisted that employers controlled nothing in their employees’ lives except their work. Today, employers can influence their employees’ <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26842250">morality</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526488664">opinions</a>, and even <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/10/employers-increasingly-telling-employees-workers-how-to-vote.html">voting decisions</a>. As a starting point, we need laws that protect employees from being fired for their thinking.</p>
<p>To take another example, while the anti-discriminatory aims of implicit bias training are laudable, corporations could require employees to reveal their thoughts when doing it. The designers of a common element of this training, the implicit association test, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-02892-004">admit it is</a> “a method that gives the clearest window now available into a region of the mind that is inaccessible to question-asking methods”. Forcing someone into this training could therefore be a breach of mental privacy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/social-networking-sites-may-be-controlling-your-mind-heres-how-to-take-charge-88516">Social networking sites may be controlling your mind – here's how to take charge</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Turning from employees to users, perhaps big tech companies should be required to design their products to support, promote and protect their users’ free thoughts. For example, social media platforms could set their default options to those that minimise the risk of addiction.</p>
<p>Woodrow Wilson once noted that chewing tobacco “gave a man time to think between sentences”. Big tech could provide digital gum in the form of options that <a href="https://profilebooks.com/work/how-to-think/">give users time for thought</a>, like timeouts before responding to posts or making purchases. X (formerly Twitter) already <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/11/twitter-aims-to-limit-people-sharing-articles-they-have-not-read">asks users</a> if they want to share articles they have not yet read.</p>
<p>Similarly, search engines could offer options to show information that challenges users’ existing views rather than confirming their opinions. Websites <a href="https://ground.news/">such as Ground News</a> already highlight which stories are primarily featuring on left or right media, helping people see what is happening outside their own thought bubbles.</p>
<p>Big tech companies such as <a href="https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/our-ongoing-commitment-to-human-rights/">Google</a> and <a href="https://humanrights.fb.com/annual-human-rights-report/">Meta</a> assess their human rights impacts, including through <a href="https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Human-Rights-Due-Diligence-of-Metas-Impacts-in-Israel-and-Palestine-in-May-2021.pdf">independent assessments</a>. But freedom of thought is often overlooked. And while the UN has issued its Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, these have been described as “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/business.pdf">woefully inadequate</a>” by Human Rights Watch as they lack any enforcement mechanism.</p>
<h2>It’s not just ‘them’, it’s us</h2>
<p>It is not just governments and corporations that threaten free thought – we the people do too. Free thinking has often been risky. “Tell the truth and run,” an old Yugoslavian proverb counsels. </p>
<p>Throughout history, though, some societies have tried to protect free thought and truth-telling. The ancient Athenians had the concept of a “parrhesiast”, someone who spoke truth despite the risks. An example of this came when the aged statesman Solon challenged <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250009104/thecourageoftruth">politician Pisistratus’s</a> quest for power in Athens. After arriving at the Greek Assembly dressed in armour to highlight Pisistratus’s aim to use force, Solon declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am wiser than those who have failed to understand the designs of Pisistratus, and I am more courageous than those who have understood but remain silent out of fear.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To benefit from the parrhesiast, Athenians had to be willing to bear what philosopher Michel Foucault calls “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250009104/thecourageoftruth">the injuries of truth</a>”. In this parrhesiastic contract, the truth-teller risked speaking out and the listeners promised not to punish them. There again, Solon was not thanked for his contribution, being labelled mad by his colleagues.</p>
<p>Creating a safe space for truth requires a “<a href="https://oneworld-publications.com/work/freethinking/">deep enlightenment</a>” that goes beyond simply educating people to think critically. Designing a society that protects and promotes free thought among its population at all levels could even include city planning.</p>
<p>A Brazilian colleague once told me how the design of the country’s modern capital, Brasília, with its lack of street corners, was meant to prevent people assembling and thinking together – because such thinking could one day threaten the ruling powers. Indeed, the Portuguese for street corners can translate as “points of solidarity”. The <a href="https://politicalscience.yale.edu/publications/seeing-state-how-certain-schemes-improve-human-condition-have-failed">design of Brasília</a> is an offence against free thought.</p>
<p>Rather, we need to design physical and virtual spaces that protect, promote and support “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262581080/the-structural-transformation-of-the-public-sphere/">people’s public use of their reason</a>”. This function was partially performed by coffee houses during the Enlightenment. New spaces should allow a diverse range of voices to be brought together in debate – in order to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000968">help us best find truth</a>. Yet all of this hinges on simultaneously building <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Trust/Francis-Fukuyama/9780684825250">a culture of trust</a> that makes people feel safe to think.</p>
<h2>The oxygen of freethinking</h2>
<p>The principle of free thought is in trouble. Today, public thinking is difficult unless you are rich, reckless or anonymous. Online public spaces, such as much social media, typically prioritise engagement and profit over truth-seeking, and can exclude challenging views. A corporate-controlled mainstream news media routinely excludes or distorts important perspectives <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801488870/framed/">such as labour issues</a>. Some academics feel compelled to publish ideas anonymously in outlets such as the <a href="https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/">Journal of Controversial Ideas</a>. These are all warning lights of flashing failure on the dashboard of democracy.</p>
<p>The first freethinkers challenged religious authorities and were associated with egalitarianism and the political left. Yet they had their own “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/">faith of the Enlightenment</a>” – the belief that developing one’s own reason could create a better life. Today, as well as sharing this faith in reason, many of us have faith that <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/13399/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man-by-fukuyama-francis/9780241991039">liberal democracy creates the best form of life</a>.</p>
<p>However, some modern freethinkers are pushing back against these faiths. Such individuals tend to be pro-hierarchy and on the political right. The <a href="https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/A-Conservative-Manifesto.pdf">conservative</a> psychologist Jordan Peterson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEP5ubPMGDU">argues</a> that we’re at the start of a “counter enlightenment”, while legal scholar Adrian Vermeule maligns the “<a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/01/liturgy-of-liberalism">evidence-based freethinkers of the quiet car</a>” who won’t speak out about liberalism’s problems. Alternatively, so-called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12331">Dark Enlightenment</a>” thinkers such as <a href="https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/">Curtis Yarvin</a> and <a href="https://www.imperiumpress.org/shop/the-dark-enlightenment/">Nick Land</a> question the benefits of democracy. </p>
<p>Whatever you think of these views, an important question is: will the descendants of the egalitarian left, who used freethinking to challenge societal norms, support the hierarchical right’s freedom to do the same? Or do they regard the political right as <a href="https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-tolerance-fulltext.html">in need of silencing</a> rather than debating?</p>
<p>Of course, freethinking on the left is silenced too – including those who oppose the “religion” of capitalism. Consider what happened when a declared socialist, Jeremy Corbyn, ran for prime minister in the 2017 UK parliamentary elections. An academic report on his <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/research/research-projects/representations-of-jeremy-corbyn">coverage by the mainstream media</a> concluded by asking whether it was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>acceptable that the majority of British newspapers uses its mediated power to attack and delegitimise the leader of the largest opposition party against a rightwing government to such an extent and with such vigour?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whatever one’s views on democracy, liberalism, capitalism, or any other important topic, freethinking on these issues can prove profoundly valuable. If someone’s ideas have value, we may adopt them to live better lives. If we adjudge them mistaken, we will still emerge with a better understanding of precisely why our own ideas are valuable, having remade them as <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm">living truths rather than dead dogmas</a>.</p>
<p>Free thought is not merely about gaining more perspectives. It is about duelling perspectives. The left and right could find common ground not in a <a href="https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/campus-disinvitation-database">commitment to mutual cancellation</a>, but in a renewed dedication to debate. We must embrace the value of thinking. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, we often find thought a painful effort. Evolution has shaped us to make decisions using minimal energy, pressuring us to become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2018.1459314">cognitive misers</a> who are “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2018.1459314">as stupid as we can get away with</a>”, as psychologist Keith Stanovich argues. Many of us are not merely disinclined to think but actively prefer electrocution to being left alone with our thoughts, <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1250830">according to one 2014 study</a>.</p>
<p>The rise of generative AI threatens to make this situation worse. One vision of the future imagines <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/291221/the-singularity-is-near-by-ray-kurzweil/">a singularity</a> where we merge with machines by connecting our brains directly to AI. But what if we approach a bifurcation point rather than a singularity? Humans could become a mere source of animalistic appetites and desires, while machines do the thinking for us.</p>
<p>If we abandon free thought, homo sapiens will have been a brief candle between ape and AI. Humanity’s flame cannot continue to burn in an authoritarian vacuum – it requires the oxygen of freethinking. A right to free thought can give us this air, but we still have to breathe in.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
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<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ocd-is-so-much-more-than-handwashing-or-tidying-as-a-historian-with-the-disorder-heres-what-ive-learned-219281?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">OCD is so much more than handwashing or tidying. As a historian with the disorder, here’s what I’ve learned
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon McCarthy-Jones receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program via a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Innovative Training Network.</span></em></p>Corporate and political actors know more about how our minds work than we do. The right to free thought can no longer be our ‘forgotten freedom’Simon McCarthy-Jones, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2144512023-12-05T13:17:51Z2023-12-05T13:17:51ZScience is a human right − and its future is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563006/original/file-20231201-18-5swfti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1506%2C1127&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There was no opposition to designating science as a human right.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/Z8dpgi">United Nations Photo/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dec. 10 marks the anniversary of the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/get-involved/campaign/udhr-75">1948 signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>, adopted by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-un-declared-a-universal-human-right-to-a-healthy-sustainable-environment-heres-where-resolutions-like-this-can-lead-188060">United Nations</a> in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Though contested, imperfect and unfulfilled, the declaration remains a milestone in human civilization as one of the earliest times the world came together to distill and assert general principles key to peaceful living on this planet.</p>
<p>Nested in <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Article 27</a> of the declaration is a lesser-known right: the human right to science. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=P4wXu3IAAAAJ&hl=en">legal scholar</a>, I have immersed myself in the study of this human right for the past six years. This process has allowed me to uncover a <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=4054555">multifaceted right</a> containing many entitlements that, together, can reshape the current relationship between science, society and the state.</p>
<p>Even though the international community has paid little attention to this right, and many people may be unfamiliar with it, the human right to science is an important part of the declaration. I believe its dual potential to protect the value of science in society and ensure that science serves humanity is worth discovering and appreciating as a framework to govern scientific progress.</p>
<h2>Short history of the human right to science</h2>
<p>Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” </p>
<p>The drafters capitalized on the earlier work of the authors of the <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/565094?ln=en">American Declaration of Human Rights</a>, which had recognized science as a human right just a few months before. In that context, the Chilean delegation argued that culture, the arts and science are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108776301.004">crucial forms of human expression</a> deserving the highest recognition.</p>
<p>The transition from the American to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was almost seamless. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2023.2269091">No opposition was mounted</a> against its inclusion among the human rights. Rather, the debate focused on the legitimacy of governments, under human rights law, to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108776301.003">impose political aims on science</a>, an issue that could not be ignored after the <a href="https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/decision-drop-atomic-bomb">U.S. deployment of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki</a> in August 1945. Ultimately, the view that science should be pursued for the sake of truth and not be tied to any specific purpose prevailed.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5RR4VXNX3jA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The goal of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was to set a standard of human dignity and worth around the world.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The right to science was reaffirmed with the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights">International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights</a> in 1966 and by the <a href="https://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=4slQ6QSmlBEDzFEovLCuW1a0Szab0oXTdImnsJZZVQdxONLLLJiul8wRmVtR5Kxx73i0Uz0k13FeZiqChAWHKFuBqp%2B4RaxfUzqSAfyZYAR%2Fq7sqC7AHRa48PPRRALHB">United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights</a> in 2020.</p>
<h2>Science as a cultural right</h2>
<p>History is an important guide for the international community as it rediscovers the human right to science. The choice to include science among the cultural rights but distinguish it from other cultural expressions has important consequences for how the human right to science is valued and applied.</p>
<p>By including science among the cultural rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights pays tribute to science as an expression of human creativity. As part of culture, science embodies ingeniousness in managing the fragility of the human condition by attempting to know more about it.</p>
<p>The point is well developed in a 2012 report by the then-Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights Farida Shaheed. There she writes, “The right to participate in cultural life <a href="https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/20/26">entails ensuring conditions</a> that allow people to reconsider, create and contribute to cultural meanings and manifestations in a continuously developing manner.” The right to science “entails the same possibilities in the field of science, understood as knowledge that is testable and refutable, including revisiting and refuting existing theorems and understandings.”</p>
<p>Science is thus a meaning-making activity that emerges from the scientific community’s concerted effort to deploy human creativity to make sense of the world that people inhabit, including our own selves. This is possible only when human creativity is recognized and guarded. The drafters of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights did not fail to pick up on this cue and included <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2010.03.003">scientific freedom</a> as an element of the human right to science. It asks states to agree to “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights">respect the freedom indispensable</a> for scientific research and creative activity.”</p>
<p>The recognition of scientific freedom as a human right casts science and scientists with a special status in society. They possess the <a href="https://radar.gesda.global/trends/invited-contributions/responsible-anticipation">power and responsibility</a> to do good for humanity. These benefits, though, can materialize only if scientific creativity is unleashed and protected.</p>
<h2>Science’s unique contribution</h2>
<p>The Universal Declaration of Human Rights purposely distinguished “scientific advancement and its benefits” from “the cultural life of the community” and “the arts.” Textual analysis is at the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-interpretation/">core of legal interpretation</a>, making this choice of words consequential. Parsing cultural rights into three areas – the cultural life, the arts and scientific advancement – and connecting “benefits” to “scientific advancement” signal that what science offers to society is qualitatively different from other forms of culture.</p>
<p>People use a variety of knowledge systems along with science in their daily lives. These include religion, local traditions, indigenous knowledge and superstition. In this mix, science is assigned unique explanatory and practical powers that allow it “to provide the most <a href="https://policylabs.frontiersin.org/content/commentary-science-and-science-systems-beyond-semantics">reliable and inclusive way</a> to understand the universe and the world around and within us.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Profile view of scientist looking into a microscope" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563009/original/file-20231201-27-prtx2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Science offers a unique and indispensable way of seeing the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-mixed-race-university-student-using-royalty-free-image/1332763977">Azman Jaka/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The arts uniquely capture universal emotions and can mobilize action, but the artistic experience is inherently subjective and individual. Religion can also organize collective action but is based on conditions of faith rather than trust. By contrast, science stands out as a <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000263618">unique source of shared understanding</a> of what happens in the world around us and inside us. As a collective and concerted attempt to discover truths about the physical and social worlds, science offers reliable insights that can be used as a rational basis for collective action, including policy. Furthermore, science is uniquely positioned to produce benefits for humanity in the form of applied knowledge.</p>
<p>An example of the universal and beneficial character of science is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232561/">knowledge around cardiac pacing</a> that led to the development of pacemakers to treat arrhythmias. Emerging from the confluence of medicine, biology, physics, chemistry and engineering, the basic and applied knowledge behind pacemakers is universal because the principles used to develop them is consistent across the planet and can be replicated by any lab. Furthermore, the devices are incontrovertibly beneficial to any person suffering from <a href="https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/pacemakers/who-needs">certain heart conditions</a>, irrespective of their creed, identity or nationality. </p>
<p>If you are not persuaded, just think about how the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2147%2FOPTO.S257081">development of eye glasses</a> has improved visual impairment around the world.</p>
<h2>Cultivating science for the benefit of humankind</h2>
<p>In 1948, the international community agreed to elevate science as a protected human right. The drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights endowed the generations following them with the challenge of using international law to build a better, more peaceful world. </p>
<p>While not a panacea, reaffirming why science is valuable can help improve how it’s practiced and taught, as well as help scientists <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-americans-do-trust-scientists-and-science-based-policy-making-freaking-out-about-the-minority-who-dont-isnt-helpful-193085">build trust</a> among the public.</p>
<p>Bringing these principles to life requires the public to support science and demand that it serves humankind. The human right to science gives policymakers and the scientific community the tools to realize this agenda. It is up to everyone to make good use of this gift.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Boggio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Decades ago, the international community codified science as a cultural right and protected expression of human creativity. Reaffirming science’s value can help it better serve humanity.Andrea Boggio, Professor of Politics, Law and Society, Bryant UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880602022-08-05T12:13:47Z2022-08-05T12:13:47ZThe UN declared a universal human right to a healthy, sustainable environment – here’s where resolutions like this can lead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477771/original/file-20220805-25-eya5kz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4423%2C2979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A young protester in India makes a statement about dangerous levels of air pollution.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-indian-youth-wearing-a-pollution-mask-participates-in-a-news-photo/874336822">Prakash Singh/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is already affecting much of the world’s population, with startlingly <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/oppressive-heat-wave-persists-across-large-swath-of-northern-hemisphere">high</a> <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-change-made-india-and-pakistans-2022-early-heatwave-30-times-more-likely%EF%BF%BC/">temperatures</a> from the <a href="https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2022/record-smashing-heatwaves-are-hitting-antarctica-and-the-arctic-simultaneously.php">Arctic</a> to <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/01/australia-ties-southern-hemispheres-all-time-heat-record-of-123f-epic-heat-cooks-argentina/">Australia</a>. Air pollution from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.111872">wildfires</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-74524-9">vehicles</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2018.00131">industries</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00014">threatens human health</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145788">Bees and pollinators</a> are dying in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01534-9">unprecedented numbers</a> that may force changes in crop production and food availability.</p>
<p>What do these have in common? They represent the new frontier in human rights.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3982659?ln=en">United Nations General Assembly</a> voted overwhelmingly on July 28, 2022, to declare the ability to live in “<a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3982508?ln=en">a clean, healthy and sustainable environment</a>” a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40390000#metadata_info_tab_contents">universal human right</a>. It also called on countries, companies and international organizations to scale up efforts to turn that into reality.</p>
<p>The declaration is not legally binding – countries can vote to support a declaration of rights <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/Universal-Rights-Down-to-Earth/">while not actually supporting</a> those rights in practice. The <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3982508?ln=en">language</a> is also vague, leaving to interpretation just what a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is.</p>
<p>Still, it’s more than moral posturing. Resolutions like this have a history of laying the foundation for effective treaties and national laws.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Viewed from above, a person paddles a wide canoe down a river lined with plastic and other trash." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477772/original/file-20220805-1342-r9lahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477772/original/file-20220805-1342-r9lahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477772/original/file-20220805-1342-r9lahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477772/original/file-20220805-1342-r9lahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477772/original/file-20220805-1342-r9lahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477772/original/file-20220805-1342-r9lahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477772/original/file-20220805-1342-r9lahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Buriganga River in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is strewn with trash and contaminated by industries and waste. It’s one of several heavily polluted rivers around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-paddles-on-a-boat-as-plastic-bags-float-on-the-water-news-photo/1195130532">Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.latam.ufl.edu/people/center-based-faculty/joel-correia/">geographer</a> who focuses on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2040351">environmental justice</a>, and much of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dUKNamkAAAAJ&hl=en">my research</a> investigates relationships between development-driven environmental change, natural resource use and human rights. Here are some examples of how similar resolutions have opened doors to stronger actions.</p>
<h2>How the concept of human rights expanded</h2>
<p>In 1948, in the aftermath of World War II, the newly formed United Nations adopted the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> in response to the atrocities of the Holocaust. The declaration wasn’t legally binding, but it established a baseline of rights intended to ensure the conditions for basic human dignity.</p>
<p>That <a href="https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf">first set of rights included</a> the right to life, religious expression, freedom from slavery and a standard of living adequate for health and well-being.</p>
<p>Since then, the scope of human rights has been expanded, including several agreements that are legally binding on the countries that ratified them. The U.N. conventions <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-or-degrading">against torture</a> (1984) and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-elimination-all-forms-racial">racial discrimination</a> (1965) and on the rights <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child">of children</a> (1989) and <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html">persons with disabilities</a> (2006) are just a few examples. Today, the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/Compilation1.1en.pdf">International Bill of Human Rights</a> also includes binding agreements on <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights">economic, cultural</a>, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights">civil and political rights</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RBiA_7yU0nc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Eleanor Roosevelt and others read from the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Today’s triple planetary crisis</h2>
<p>The world has changed dramatically since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, perhaps most notably with regard to the scale of environmental crises people worldwide face.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a">experts argue</a> that the “<a href="https://youtu.be/oykGxLQaNXs">triple planetary crisis</a>” of <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FinalDraft_FullReport.pdf">human-driven climate change</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12816">widespread biodiversity loss</a> and unmitigated pollution now threaten to surpass the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012320-080337">planetary boundaries</a> necessary to live safely on Earth.</p>
<p>These threats <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/the-environment-as-freedom-a-decolonial-reimagining/">can undermine</a> the right to life, dignity and health, as can air pollution, contaminated water and pollution from plastics and chemicals. That is why <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123142">advocates argued</a> for the U.N. to declare a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three girls in white school uniforms walk down a smoggy street holding kerchiefs over their noses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477773/original/file-20220805-1334-rtzukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477773/original/file-20220805-1334-rtzukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477773/original/file-20220805-1334-rtzukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477773/original/file-20220805-1334-rtzukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477773/original/file-20220805-1334-rtzukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477773/original/file-20220805-1334-rtzukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477773/original/file-20220805-1334-rtzukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smog has gotten so bad in Delhi at times that the government has closed elementary schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indian-schoolchildren-cover-their-faces-as-they-walk-to-news-photo/871511920">Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The U.N. has been discussing the environment as a global concern for over <a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-of-un-environmental-diplomacy-whats-worked-and-the-trends-ahead-182207">50 years</a>, and several international treaties over that time have addressed specific environmental concerns, including binding agreements on <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/biological-diversity-day/convention">protecting biodiversity</a> and <a href="https://www.unep.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol">closing the ozone hole</a>. The 2015 <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris climate agreement</a> to limit global warming is a direct and legally binding outcome of the long struggles that follow initial declarations.</p>
<p>The resolution on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment was approved without dissent, though <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3982659?ln=en">eight countries abstained</a>: Belarus, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Syria. </p>
<h2>The human right to water</h2>
<p>Voluntary human rights declarations can also <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/cjil2&div=12&id=&page=">be instrumental</a> in changing state policy and providing people with <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1462/The-Elusive-Promise-of-Indigenous">new political tools</a> to demand better conditions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/human_right_to_water.shtml#:%7E:text=On%2028%20July%202010%2C%20through,realisation%20of%20all%20human%20rights.&text=It%20is%20a%20prerequisite%20for%20the%20realization%20of%20other%20human%20rights%22.">human right to water</a> is one of the strongest examples of how U.N. resolutions have been used to shape state policy. The resolution, adopted in 2010, recognizes that access to adequate quantities of clean drinking water and sanitation are necessary to realize all other rights. Diarrheal disease, largely from unsafe drinking water, <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diarrhoeal-disease">kills half a million children</a> under age 5 every year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A boy crouches next to a puddle where a woman is filling plastic water bottles with a hose." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477774/original/file-20220805-7849-o3ktyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477774/original/file-20220805-7849-o3ktyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477774/original/file-20220805-7849-o3ktyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477774/original/file-20220805-7849-o3ktyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477774/original/file-20220805-7849-o3ktyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477774/original/file-20220805-7849-o3ktyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477774/original/file-20220805-7849-o3ktyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman in Sudan fills a water bottle for a child during the 2017 drought.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sudanese-woman-fills-water-bottles-held-by-a-young-boy-news-photo/634410354">Ashraf Shazly/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Human rights advocates used the resolution to help pressure the Mexican government to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.06.014">reform its constitution</a> and adopt a human right to water in 2012. While the concept still <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00929.x">faces</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1405">challenges</a>, the idea of a right to water is also credited with <a href="https://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/volume-13/issue-1/562-a13-1-2/file">transforming water access</a> in marginalized communities in <a href="https://www.fao.org/faolex/results/details/en/c/LEX-FAOC202985/">Bangladesh</a>, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2020/07/10th-anniversary-recognition-water-and-sanitation-human-right-general-assembly">Costa Rica, Egypt</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1067">other countries</a>. </p>
<h2>The rights of Indigenous peoples</h2>
<p>The 2007 U.N. <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a> is another example. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305815288_Indigenous_Peoples%27_Land_Rights_under_International_Law_From_Victims_to_Actors">It recognizes</a> the specific histories of <a href="http://www.beacon.org/An-Indigenous-Peoples-History-of-the-United-States-P1164.aspx">marginalization, violence and exploitation</a> that many Indigenous peoples around the world have endured and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.10.013">contemporary human rights violations</a>.</p>
<p>The resolution outlines rights for Indigenous peoples but stops short of recognizing their sovereignty, something many critique as <a href="https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/318565/The_UNDRIP_and_the_Legal_Significance.pdf?sequence=1">limiting the scope of self-determination</a>. Within these limits, however, several countries have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2019.1568993">incorporated some of its recommendations</a>. In 2009, <a href="https://www.iwgia.org/en/bolivia/3389-iw2019-bolivia.html">Bolivia</a> integrated it <a href="https://social.un.org/unpfii/sowip-vol4-web.pdf">into its constitution</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People walk down a highway carrying banners demanding the state return their ancestral lands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477732/original/file-20220804-1334-khplij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477732/original/file-20220804-1334-khplij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477732/original/file-20220804-1334-khplij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477732/original/file-20220804-1334-khplij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477732/original/file-20220804-1334-khplij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477732/original/file-20220804-1334-khplij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477732/original/file-20220804-1334-khplij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enxet and Sanapaná Indigenous peoples of Paraguay protest in 2015 to demand land restitution and protection of their human rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel E. Correia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples discusses a right to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2017.1314648">free, prior and informed consent</a> about development and industrial projects that would affect Indigenous people. That has been a powerful tool for Indigenous peoples to <a href="https://environmentalpolicyandlaw.com/news-blog/indigenous-rights-and-resource-extraction-one-step-forward-two-steps-back">demand due process</a> through the legal system. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/15718115-02702009">Canada</a>, <a href="https://www.escr-net.org/caselaw/2014/case-indigenous-community-xakmok-kasek-v-paraguay">Paraguay</a> and <a href="https://minorityrights.org/publications/endorois-decision/">Kenya</a>, Indigenous peoples have used the resolution to help win important legal victories before human rights courts with rulings that have led to land restitution and other legal gains.</p>
<h2>Tools for change</h2>
<p>U.N. declarations of human rights are aspirational norms that seek to ensure a more just and equitable world. Even though declarations like this one are not legally binding, they can be vital tools people can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.11.014">use to pressure governments</a> and private companies to protect or improve human well-being.</p>
<p>Change can take time, but I believe this latest declaration of human rights will support climate and environmental justice across the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel E. Correia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s more than moral posturing. Resolutions like this have a history of laying the foundation for effective treaties and national laws.Joel E. Correia, Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1740202021-12-23T10:45:25Z2021-12-23T10:45:25Z2021: a grim year for journalists and free speech in an increasingly turbulent and authoritarian world<p>Hundreds of journalists killed or arrested, rising numbers of female media workers targeted, floods of misinformation and hate speech and ineffectual or hostile governments unable or unwilling to protect the public’s right to know. The 2021 <a href="https://rsf.org/en/ranking">press freedom index</a> released recently by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) makes for grim reading. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://rsf.org/en/news/number-journalists-arbitrary-detention-surges-20-488-including-60-women">report reveals</a> that 488 journalists were detained in 2021 – an increase of 20% compared to the previous year – while a total of 46 were killed and 65 held hostage. Of those detained, 60 were women (33% higher than 2020). As you might expect, it tends to be autocratic regimes with dismal records for freedom of speech and human rights which crop up once again as the worst offenders. </p>
<p>The latest report notes an upturn in repression against journalists in Belarus – where opposition politicians and commentators have been targeted in the government crackdown since the August 2020 election – as well in Myanmar, where the military coup of February has been followed by a crackdown on free expression. In China, where the Communist party continues to tighten its grip, and Hong Kong, where the Beijing-backed regime is using the draconian national security law to punish dissidents, it gets ever more perilous to oppose the increasingly authoritarian regime of Xi Jinping.</p>
<p>These findings linking authoritarian governments to human rights abuses are not surprising given the tendency of such governments to use local and global crises – such a COVID at present – to clamp down on press freedom under the guise of national interest and security.</p>
<h2>Bullying, hate speech and censorship</h2>
<p>Journalists are facing increasing threats for doing their jobs – whether that is physical intimidation, hate speech directed against them or online trolling. Some European countries have used the law to prevent the dissemination of information that political actors see as threatening their hold on power and legitimacy. We’ve seen that <a href="https://rsf.org/en/spain">in Spain</a>, for example, where parties on both sides of politics have gone out of their way to stigmatise the media and hamper the free flow of information, even banning some journalists from press conferences. </p>
<p>Such practices, which include interference in the daily work of media outlets, as well as implicit and explicit threats to journalists doing their job, are well documented in the 2021 report by the <a href="https://www.onefreepresscoalition.com/news">One Free Press Coalition</a> which mapped such acts in a variety of European countries since 2014. Elsewhere, including in Iran, Syria, Mexico, Sudan and Guatemala, intimidation is creating a climate of fear among media professionals. This prevents the free circulation of information, opinions and ideas. It also allows for the wider circulation of fake news and misinformation. </p>
<p>What is of concern is the risk that such acts of intimidation against journalists and the media can become normalised – even in western democracies. </p>
<p>In response to the alarming rise in attacks against journalists worldwide, the United Nations designated November 2 each year as the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-impunity-crimes-against-journalists">International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists</a>. The designation is symbolic – but a serious engagement with ending impunity for crimes against journalists can form the basis for a legal framework that can guarantee freedom of expression and access to information and ensure journalists carry out their jobs. </p>
<h2>Profession under threat</h2>
<p>Throughout history, people practising journalism have faced intimidation and attacks for a variety of reasons, whether it is governments worried about exposure or partisan and private interests worried about their profits. But what the increasing number of attacks suggests is that journalism is becoming more and more a contested domain and space for struggle over information, ideology and politics. </p>
<p>These attacks violate human rights: both of journalists and the societies they serve which are being deprived of their right to information – something that should be at the heart of all free public debate and the democratic process. They underscore the need for adequate legal protection for journalists that goes beyond rights to communicate and free speech recognised in particularly in Article 19 of the <a href="http://www.claiminghumanrights.org/udhr_article_19.html">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>. </p>
<p>Article 19 recognises everyone’s right to freedom of opinion and expression and provides the basis for the function of journalism, conducted by individuals, to be protected – independently of broader institutional press or media rights. In international law, freedom to express opinions and ideas is considered essential at both an individual level, insofar as it contributes to the full development of a person, and also as a foundation stone of democratic society. </p>
<p>International human rights law requires states to respect and protect the lives of all within their jurisdiction from attacks and threats of attacks and to provide an effective remedy where this has not been the case. But so far there is no international framework dedicated to the protection of journalists from physical attack or ending impunity for crimes against journalists. If journalists are deliberately targeted and threatened while those who attack them go unpunished, the media cannot be free and democracy will continue to be threatened.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dina Matar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Journalists and media workers around the world are increasingly being targeted, especially in countries where authoritarian regimes hold power.Dina Matar, Professor, Political Communication and Arab Media, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713922021-11-15T18:01:06Z2021-11-15T18:01:06ZVaccine mandates for NZ’s health and education workers are now in force – but has the law got the balance right?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431855/original/file-20211115-21-12tb8y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5941%2C3954&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For workers in the health and disability and education sectors, midnight last night was the deadline to receive at least their first vaccine dose under a <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-response-planning/covid-19-mandatory-vaccinations">government mandate</a> that now extends to about 40% of New Zealand’s workforce. </p>
<p>With the potential for this to mean “no jab, no job”, and with <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/455328/jacinda-ardern-on-vaccine-mandates-hard-to-know-how-long-they-will-be-used">no end date</a> set for the mandates, there have already been challenges in the streets and in the courts.</p>
<p>As well as border and MIQ workers, some <a href="https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases/2021/2021-NZHC-3012.pdf">aviation workers</a>, <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZHC/2021/3064.html">midwives</a> and <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZHC/2021/3071.html">teachers and doctors</a> have claimed the vaccine mandates are a breach of their legal rights.</p>
<p>So far, the focus of legal action has been the right to refuse medical treatment, with the courts consistently finding any such breaches were justifiable. </p>
<p>But the question of what breaches of which rights are justifiable in a public health emergency is not as clear cut as might first appear. And there is a case to be made for new and comprehensive legislation addressing these complex ethical and legal issues.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1459946122537889794"}"></div></p>
<h2>What are our existing protections?</h2>
<p>As it stands, vaccine mandates and exemptions are covered by the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2021/0094/latest/LMS487853.html">COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021</a>. The order allows an exemption for a <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2021/0094/latest/whole.html#LMS534056">very narrow category</a> of people, based on a medical professional determining an individual’s medical history and health status would make vaccination inappropriate. </p>
<p>This is consistent with the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304212.html">Human Rights Act 1993</a>’s prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of disability and illness. But, as noted in the aviation workers’ case, the order could raise questions around the right to be free from discrimination on the grounds of religious beliefs. </p>
<p>In a similar vein, the Human Rights Act also prohibits discrimination on the grounds of ethical beliefs and political opinions. As such, it could be argued some New Zealanders may face discrimination because of their beliefs or opinions. And this raises some very important questions around some of our wider fundamental freedoms. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-nzs-vaccinated-teachers-have-those-hard-conversations-with-their-anti-vax-colleagues-171474">How do NZ's vaccinated teachers have those hard conversations with their anti-vax colleagues?</a>
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<p>One of the arguments (unsuccessfully) raised in the aviation workers’ case was that the order limited the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the right to freedom of expression.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM224792.html#DLM225512">New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990</a> protects each of these rights as do the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966</a>.</p>
<p>The rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion are difficult to define. But because they go to the heart of who we are as individuals, they are considered absolute. This means the freedom to think or believe what we want cannot be restricted or suspended, <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/453883fb22.html">even in times of emergency</a>. </p>
<p>In particular, the United Nations takes the right to freedom of thought to be <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomReligion/Pages/freedom-of-thought.aspx">far-reaching and profound</a>, closely related to the absolute right to hold an opinion.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1459276324795654147"}"></div></p>
<h2>The difference between thinking and acting</h2>
<p>The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the right to hold an opinion, are closely related to the right to freedom of expression. Indeed, according to the <a href="https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/gc34.pdf">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression are indispensable to our full development as individuals, and are the foundation stone of every free and democratic society. </p>
<p>In turn, the right to freedom of expression is closely related to the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and all three freedoms form the basis of protest action. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/protesting-during-a-pandemic-new-zealands-balancing-act-between-a-long-tradition-of-protests-and-covid-rules-171104">Protesting during a pandemic: New Zealand's balancing act between a long tradition of protests and COVID rules</a>
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<p>Although we have the absolute freedom to think or believe what we like about a particular issue, our freedom to turn our thoughts into something tangible (by doing something or not doing something) may be restricted.</p>
<p>The external manifestations of our inner thoughts and beliefs <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/453883fb22.html">can be limited</a> – but only in a carefully controlled way. According to the UN Human Rights Committee, any restrictions must: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>be applied only for specified purposes</p></li>
<li><p>be directly related and proportionate to the specific needs on which they are based</p></li>
<li><p>match one of the grounds specified in the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</p></li>
<li><p>not be applied for discriminatory purposes or in a discriminatory manner.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The UN Human Rights Committee takes a similar approach to limits on the rights to freedom of opinion and expression.</p>
<p>Public health is a specified ground for restricting all of these rights, but such restrictions should only be permitted to allow a state to take measures specifically aimed at preventing disease. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Anti-lockdown and vaccine mandate protesters with signs and placards" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431858/original/file-20211115-15-gg601k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protest and public health: an anti-vaccine, lockdown and mandate protest outside parliament on November 9.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Time for a new law?</h2>
<p>Because of the profound nature of these rights and restrictions, perhaps it is time for new legislation to deal with how we strike the right balance between protecting the rights of New Zealanders and the government’s obligation to protect public health.</p>
<p>At a minimum it would address the vexed questions of compulsion and exemption.</p>
<p>There are a few historic examples to draw from. The <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/va186327v1863n33241/">Vaccination Act 1863</a> made the smallpox vaccination for children compulsory, although it was <a href="https://northandsouth.co.nz/2021/10/10/covid-vaccine-misinformation-antivax-new-zealand/">neither well received</a> nor very effective. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/spirit-of-resistance-why-destiny-church-and-other-new-zealand-pentecostalists-oppose-lockdowns-and-vaccination-170193">Spirit of resistance: why Destiny Church and other New Zealand Pentecostalists oppose lockdowns and vaccination</a>
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<p>During WWI and WWII, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/conscription-conscientious-objection-and-pacifism/page-2">conscientious objectors</a> were exempt from compulsory military service if they could demonstrate their objection stemmed from their religious beliefs. There were very few of them, however, and no exemptions were given on political or philosophical grounds. </p>
<p>Also during WWII, <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/num_reg/toadr1941569/">teachers</a> who were conscientious objectors were given one month’s salary and put on leave of absence for the duration of the war. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-mass-vaccination-event-lifts-uptake-but-highlights-dangerous-inequities-as-the-country-prepares-to-open-up-169717">New Zealand's mass vaccination event lifts uptake but highlights dangerous inequities as the country prepares to open up</a>
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<h2>The people need a voice</h2>
<p>Today, we need appropriately worded law to deal with matters such as equitable access to vaccines, whether vaccinations should be mandatory, the requirement for vaccine passports or certificates, potential restrictions on unvaccinated people, and the vaccination of children.</p>
<p>Such a law would also address time limits for all such restrictions and requirements, and provide for transparent processes governing their extension. </p>
<p>It would ensure any restrictions are justifiable and for specified purposes only, are not discriminatory, and are directly related and proportionate to the specific needs on which they are based.</p>
<p>The legislative process of making such a law would also allow New Zealanders to express their own thoughts and opinions (through select committee submissions, for example) on what are fundamental issues of citizenship. And it would oblige elected representatives to squarely confront their actions and accept any consequent political cost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Court challenges over vaccine mandate exemptions have so far failed. But with fundamental human rights at the centre of the government’s emergency powers, is it time for purpose-built new law?Claire Breen, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoAlexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1653172021-08-04T20:08:28Z2021-08-04T20:08:28ZHow far should compulsory proof of vaccination go — and what rights do New Zealanders have?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414224/original/file-20210802-26-gf5bdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C6281%2C3791&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With greater numbers of people being vaccinated and countries looking to reopen borders safely, the introduction of some form of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/travel/coronavirus-vaccine-passports.html">vaccine passport</a> seems increasingly likely.</p>
<p>For New Zealand, where the elimination strategy has been largely successful but which remains vulnerable to border breaches, proof of vaccination may well be a condition of entry. </p>
<p>Health Minister Chris Hipkins has said this would be “<a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/vaccination-status-may-factor-travellers-borders-open">almost an inevitability</a>” within the next year. <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/436921/air-nz-to-trial-digital-health-passport-app">Air New Zealand</a> is one of a number of airlines already trialling the <a href="https://www.iata.org/en/programs/passenger/travel-pass/">IATA travel pass initiative</a>. </p>
<p>Some countries are also requiring “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56522408">health passes</a>”, mandatory proof of vaccination or a negative test, including for indoor events (such as sports games and concerts) and hospitality — triggering <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/31/coronavirus-protests-france-vaccine/">anti-restriction protests</a> in the process.</p>
<p>In Britain, the <a href="https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/set-c/set-c-vaccine-passports.pdf?la=en-GB&hash=A3319C914245F73795AB163AD15E9021">Royal Society</a> has warned of the potential of vaccine passports to restrict the freedoms of some individuals, or to create a distinction between individuals based on health status. </p>
<p>Furthermore, vaccine passports use sensitive personal information, and recent <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/445735/waikato-dhb-ransomware-attack-documents-released-online">cyber attacks</a> on health sectors in New Zealand and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/hse-may-be-impacted-for-six-months-by-cyberattack-says-reid-1.4594901">overseas</a> are a reminder that data security is not always guaranteed.</p>
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<h2>Vaccine passports aren’t new</h2>
<p>We should remember, however, that freedom of movement across borders has been routinely regulated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/nov/17/travelnews">throughout history</a>. Modern passports for international travel have been in use for over 100 years. </p>
<p>Proof of vaccination is nothing new, either. Some countries have required certificates for <a href="https://www.who.int/ith/ith_country_list.pdf">yellow fever vaccination</a> for a number of decades, and the World Health Organization’s “yellow card” vaccination document is familiar to many international travellers.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/frances-covid-health-pass-raises-serious-ethical-questions-165116">France’s Covid health pass raises serious ethical questions</a>
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<p>In New Zealand, <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/preventative-health-wellness/immunisation/national-immunisation-register">immunisation registers</a> document vaccination records for public health purposes. And in Australia, a “<a href="https://www.ncirs.org.au/public/no-jab-no-play-no-jab-no-pay">No Jab No Play/No Jab No Pay</a>” policy governs eligibility for child welfare payments.</p>
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<h2>Rights and freedoms in a public health emergency</h2>
<p>The right to freedom of movement is recognised in the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Universal Declaration on Human Rights</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>, as well as in other core <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/peace-rights-and-security/human-rights/#bookmark1">UN human rights treaties</a> that New Zealand has accepted. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225517.html">New Zealand Bill of Rights Act</a> also includes the right to freedom of movement.</p>
<p>But border closures and lockdowns clearly demonstrate that this right can be limited, although this “must be necessary and have a legitimate aim, be proportionate and be based in law”. </p>
<p>In reality, any requirement that citizens use vaccine passports or passes will involve balancing various rights.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-we-introduce-vaccine-passports-we-need-to-know-how-theyll-be-used-156197">Before we introduce vaccine passports we need to know how they'll be used</a>
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<h2>Competing rights and duties</h2>
<p>Limiting the right to freedom of movement can be justified on the grounds of
<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">public health</a>. The <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx">International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights</a> actually requires states to prevent, treat and control epidemic diseases as one means of ensuring the right to the highest attainable standard of health.</p>
<p>Because the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225501.html">New Zealand Bill of Rights Act</a> also permits demonstrably justifiable restrictions on the right to freedom of movement, the various COVID-19 measures adopted by the government under the Health Act had to meet that requirement.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-would-digital-covid-vaccine-passports-work-and-whats-stopping-people-from-faking-them-156032">How would digital COVID vaccine passports work? And what's stopping people from faking them?</a>
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<p>And <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-brief">Te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> underpins the <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/populations/maori-health/he-korowai-oranga/strengthening-he-korowai-oranga/treaty-waitangi-principles">principle</a> of active protection that “requires the Crown to act, to the fullest extent practicable, to achieve equitable health outcomes for Māori”.</p>
<p>While the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act does not contain a right to privacy, one of aims of the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2020/0031/latest/LMS23227.html">Privacy Act</a> is to give effect to international obligations and standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. </p>
<h2>No grounds for discrimination</h2>
<p>Any initiatives to introduce vaccine passports or health passes must be underpinned by the right to be free from discrimination, as provided for in international human rights law, as well as the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304474.html">physical illness</a>. </p>
<p>These requirements extend to the private sector, with particular rules at play around the provision of <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304620.html">goods and services</a> and access by the public to <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304617.html">places, vehicles and facilities</a> — an exception to the latter being the risk of infecting others with an illness. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-covid-19-vaccine-passports-fair-163838">Are COVID-19 vaccine passports fair?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>But it’s not only a question of avoiding discrimination. Just as there have been questions about <a href="https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-articles/will-access-to-covid-19-vaccine-in-aotearoa-be-equitable-for-priority-populations-open-access">equitable access</a> to COVID-19 vaccines themselves, universal access to the digital technology underpinning passports or passes presents a challenge.</p>
<p>More generally, as a recent <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26101">UN report warned</a>, “big data and artificial intelligence are entrenching racial inequality, discrimination and intolerance”. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it will be a balancing act, not a case of absolutes. </p>
<p>Digital vaccination certificates will help in the effort to reopen borders and protect public health. But there are significant implications for our rights as individuals. Careful and transparent decisions will be crucial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165317/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Breen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With proof of vaccination likely to become mandatory for travel – and possibly other activities – a careful balancing of individual and collective rights will be essential.Claire Breen, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1629612021-06-24T14:46:37Z2021-06-24T14:46:37ZPunitive laws are failing to curb misinformation in Africa. Time for a rethink<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407682/original/file-20210622-20-seczce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many laws passed in recent times are not aimed at correcting false information, but punishing its publication.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Harish Tyagi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Misinformation, best understood as false or misleading information whether or not it was intended to mislead, <a href="https://www.icfj.org/news/short-guide-history-fake-news-and-disinformation-new-icfj-learning-module">has long been recognised as a problem worldwide</a>. Together with disinformation, which is spread deliberately to misinform or mislead, it constitutes a key part of the <a href="https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-researc/168076277c">information disorder</a> distorting public debate around the world.</p>
<p>Concern about the effects of misinformation on individuals and society has grown globally since 2016, when it was seen by many commentators as driving the political upheavals of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy">Brexit in the UK</a> and <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/11/donald-trump-won-because-of-facebook.html">the election of Donald Trump</a> in the US.</p>
<p>In Africa, interest in the subject grew in particular after news emerged of disinformation campaigns run by <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-pr-giant-bell-pottinger-made-itself-look-bad-83529">Bell Pottinger</a>, the British PR firm, on behalf of the Gupta family that stirred up racial tensions in South Africa in 2016 as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/business/bell-pottinger-guptas-zuma-south-africa.html">counter-narrative</a> to the growing public anger at the family’s central role in grand corruption and state capture.</p>
<p>In Nigeria, concern about disinformation rose after news emerged of the role that disinformation orchestrated by the UK political consultancy Cambridge Analytica played <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/cambridge-analyticas-ruthless-bid-to-sway-the-vote-in-nigeria">in its 2015 election</a>. Similarly in <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1233084/channel-4-news-films-cambridge-analytica-execs-saying-they-staged-kenya-uhuru-kenyatta-elections/">Kenya</a>, when the firm supported the campaign of President Uhuru Kenyatta in elections two years later. </p>
<p>With concern <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/blogs/african-governments-are-cracking-down-news-media-their-citizens-might-be-okay">rising among politicians and the public</a>, governments around the world have since 2016 passed a flurry of <a href="https://theconversation.com/governments-are-making-fake-news-a-crime-but-it-could-stifle-free-speech-117654">laws and regulations</a>
penalising the publication or broadcast of what is deemed to be “false information.” </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book53/">study</a> we examined the changes made to laws and regulations relating to the publication of “false information” in 11 sub-Saharan countries between 2016 and 2020. We also looked at how they correlate with misinformation, to understand the role they may play in reducing harm caused by misinformation. </p>
<p>We found that while these laws have a chilling effect on political and media debate, they do not reduce misinformation harm. This matters as the laws curtail public debate, yet fail to curb the harmful effects of misinformation. </p>
<h2>‘False information’ laws</h2>
<p>We first identified laws and regulations relating to “false information” in a sample of 11 countries laws – large and small, Anglophone and Francophone – from across sub-Saharan Africa. The countries studied between 2016 and 2020 were Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. </p>
<p>We then compared the terms of the laws passed with what is known about the types, drivers and effects of misinformation. This was based on studying 1,200 claims identified as false by one or more of 14 fact-checking organisations in Africa. Finally, we assessed the effects of the laws’ enforcement.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/chapters/m/10.16997/book53.b/">In our research report</a>, we found that in the 11 countries studied, the number of laws against “false information” almost doubled from 17 to 31 from 2016 to 2020.</p>
<p>The problem we identified is that these laws <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/05/east-africa-now-is-the-time-to-stand-up-for-media-freedom-1/">restrict freedom of speech</a>. And they don’t reduce the actual – or potential harm – that misinformation causes. </p>
<p>This tells us that the punitive approach does not appear to work. </p>
<p>By contrast, an approach favouring better access to accurate information and correction of false information may do so.</p>
<p>Describing the “chilling effect” that <a href="https://rsf.org/en/news/uganda-suspends-39-journalists-covering-politicians-arrest">the laws have had on public debate in Uganda</a>, an analyst in Uganda told us </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Self-censorship has increased in the recent past due to the state’s continued arbitrary application of the law.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Punitive approach</h2>
<p>First, we found, the majority of laws related to “false information” took a punitive approach. They were not seeking to correct the false information or facilitate improved access to accurate information. Their aim was to punish publication with fines and <a href="https://rsf.org/fr/actualites/burkina-faso-lamendement-du-code-penal-doit-etre-declare-inconstitutionnel-2">terms in prison of up to 10 years</a>. </p>
<p>Second, one third of the laws studied – from the <a href="https://rsf.org/fr/benin">Code du Numérique (2018) in Benin</a> to the <a href="https://www.nta.ng/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/1494416213-NBC-Code-6TH-EDITION.pdf">Broadcasting Code of Conduct in Nigeria (2016)</a> – require no evidence that the allegedly false information caused or risked any form of harm, for its publication to be declared an offence. Six other laws punished “crimes” not recognised under the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ Article 19 on Freedom of Expression</a>. An example is the “annoyance” of ministers. </p>
<p>Together, more than half the laws are thus not related to reducing harm as recognised by international law.</p>
<p>Third, we found that how law courts should determine what information is “false”, or what constitutes “harm”, is in general not defined. Decisions are, therefore, arbitrary and open to political abuse. </p>
<p>Our study found the majority of those punished under these laws are opposition politicians or journalists. Not one was a government official or a politician from the ruling party. This does not correlate with what we know of misinformation and the role of some politicians in contributing to the problem.</p>
<p>Fourth, we found the laws take effect on a tiny scale compared to the cases of misinformation in circulation. The <a href="https://www.disinformationtracker.org/">Disinformation Tracker</a> project, set up in 2020 to study the implementation of laws on misinformation and disinformation, found that just 12 “law enforcement actions” were taken in three months in the 11 countries. Only one quarter of these actions had an “objectively legitimate aim”. </p>
<p>This pales in comparison to the hundreds of cases of misinformation tackled by the growing number of <a href="https://africacheck.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/2021-05/041521_Africa%20Facts%20network_case%20study_v9%20%281%29.pdf">fact-checking organisations in Africa</a>, and the millions of <a href="https://unherd.com/2021/02/how-facebook-won-the-internet/">content moderation decisions made worldwide</a> by tech platforms daily, many of which made to counter misinformation.</p>
<p>Where laws or regulations are used to prevent the continuing spread of genuinely harmful misinformation, as in cases we examined in <a href="https://www.pmldaily.com/news/2018/03/ucc-switches-off-23-radio-stations-over-airing-witchcraft-content.html">Uganda</a> and <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-04-07-steven-birch-appears-in-court-over-fake-news-video-on-covid-19-tests/">South Africa</a>, it’s plausible they may directly reduce harm.</p>
<p>But, our study suggests these cases are the exception, not the rule.</p>
<h2>What works against misinformation</h2>
<p>Our study shows that the punitive legislative approach is not working, and suggests alternative approaches can be more effective. </p>
<p>This includes efforts seen across the continent to improve <a href="https://www.africafex.org/access-to-information/22-african-countries-that-have-passed-access-to-information-laws">access to accurate information</a>. Examples include setting up an independent watchdog of the quality of official statistics, <a href="https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/">as exists in the UK</a>, and an independent body to ensure public access to that data, <a href="https://www.informationcommissioners.org/south-africa">as in South Africa</a>. </p>
<p>This is essential to counter misinformation. </p>
<p>It can be seen in the <a href="https://www.macra.org.mw/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/COMMUNICATIONS-ACT-2016.pdf">“right of reply”</a> written into legislation in Malawi, that obliges broadcasters to air “counter-versions” from “entities affected by an assertion of fact” if the “fact” can be shown to be false.</p>
<p>It can also be seen in a <a href="https://lequotidien.sn/conseil-pour-lobservation-des-regles-dethique-et-de-deontologie-mamadou-thior-porte-a-la-tete-du-cored/">new and improved press code in Senegal</a>. Introduced in 2017, it requires all news operations to observe a code of professional ethics. This includes a focus on verification, with work overseen by an independent regulatory body. </p>
<p>Another approach is enabling the growth of independent fact-checking organisations seen across the continent in recent years. These alternative approaches can reduce the harm that misinformation causes, without reducing free speech. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/assane-diagne-445576111/?originalSubdomain=sn">Assane Diagne</a>, director of Reporters Without Borders for West Africa and lecturer at the L’Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme, des Métiers de l’Internet et de la Communication in Dakar, Senegal, was part of the research team.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Funding used to support the research was provided by the Facebook Journalism Project, the Google News Initiative and Luminate. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Finlay and Anya Schiffrin do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The majority of those punished under the laws to combat false information are opposition politicians or journalists.Peter Cunliffe-Jones, Visiting Researcher & Co-Director Chevening African Media Freedom Fellowship, University of WestminsterAlan Finlay, Lecturer: Journalism and Media Studies, University of the WitwatersrandAnya Schiffrin, Director, Technology, Media, and Communications specialization, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1539622021-01-26T20:40:40Z2021-01-26T20:40:40ZIf border restrictions increase to combat new COVID-19 strains, what rights do returning New Zealanders have?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380592/original/file-20210126-19-1uj6v8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4272%2C2839&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we know, getting into New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. There are practicalities, such as high airfare and managed isolation costs. And there are legal requirements, including pre-flight testing, mandatory quarantine and visa restrictions.</p>
<p>Even so, concern about new strains of the virus have led to calls to “<a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/turn-down-tap-michael-baker-says-cut-number-returning-kiwis-border-after-northland-covid-19-case">turn down the tap</a>”, particularly for those coming from places such as Britain, where spectacular political incompetence has created the conditions for these new COVID variants to evolve.</p>
<p>Such a move would make an already difficult process even more so. Since quarantine has to be pre-booked and there are limits on availability, there have been inevitable delays and disappointment. This has led to complaints about it being <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/123898995/it-shouldnt-be-this-hard-to-come-home-kiwi-stuck-in-uk-criticises-miq-booking-system">too difficult</a> to “come home”. </p>
<p>Also inevitably, there has been much talk of the “right” to return. While the government has granted special visas for entertainers, sportspeople, essential workers and students, those with <a href="https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/covid-19/border-closures-and-exceptions#travel-eligibility">citizenship or residency status</a> expect to be allowed home.</p>
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<h2>Rights aren’t always absolute</h2>
<p>However, rights are rarely a trump card. With very few exceptions — most obviously the right not to be tortured or treated in an inhuman or degrading way — rights are not absolute. </p>
<p>Rather, they represent an important value that must be weighed in the balance and respected unless there are good countervailing arguments. Depending on the strength of those arguments, a right may be delayed, only partly respected, or outweighed completely. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-covid-19-variants-are-so-dangerous-and-how-to-stop-them-spreading-153535">Why the COVID-19 variants are so dangerous and how to stop them spreading</a>
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<p>For example, there is a right to privacy, but a criminal conviction cannot be kept private from people who need to know about it. There is a right to freedom of expression, but not to the extent of defamation or inciting discrimination. </p>
<p>So it is with the right of New Zealanders to come into New Zealand when they have exercised another right, namely the right to leave the country.</p>
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<h2>No arbitrary denial of rights</h2>
<p>The modern human rights regime begins with the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> (1948), which New Zealand had an important role in drafting. Its article 13 sets out a right to move within state borders, to leave any country and to return to one’s home country. </p>
<p>But article 29 notes there are duties to the community and that rights can be limited for good reasons. </p>
<p>The declaration was put into a binding treaty, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx">ICCPR</a>), which New Zealand ratified in 1978. Article 12 of this significant treaty refers to people not being “arbitrarily” prevented from entering their own country. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-big-barriers-to-global-vaccination-patent-rights-national-self-interest-and-the-wealth-gap-153443">The big barriers to global vaccination: patent rights, national self-interest and the wealth gap</a>
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<p>The ICCPR is part of the reason we have the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM224792.html">New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990</a>. Under its section 18, all citizens have the right to enter New Zealand. However, under section 5, limitations are allowed if they are clearly justified in a democratic society. </p>
<p>This goes to the heart of what “arbitrarily” means in practice. Basically, limits on the right to return have to be based on a competing interest. Those limits have to support the competing interest, and the balance has to make sense.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1349243470024568832"}"></div></p>
<h2>The government’s duty</h2>
<p>There are many competing interests, most fairly obvious, starting with protecting people’s lives, particularly those most vulnerable. </p>
<p>COVID-19 is objectively dangerous and protecting people in New Zealand is a government’s duty. In short, we have a right to life. Protecting this is rationally connected to an effective quarantine process. In turn, this can justify all manner of conditions, including limits on numbers.</p>
<p>Secondly, there is the more general health of people, which will be compromised if healthcare systems are overwhelmed, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/12/overwhelmed-nhs-covid-britain-hospitals">has happened</a> in other parts of the world. This undermines the right to health. </p>
<p>Thirdly, there are rights that flow from having a robust economy, including the right to an adequate standard of living. The government’s approach of protecting these interests by cutting off international tourism and limiting some other sectors to protect the rest of the economy is certainly not arbitrary.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-covid-19-mutating-and-surging-nz-urgently-needs-to-tighten-border-controls-153078">With COVID-19 mutating and surging, NZ urgently needs to tighten border controls</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Whose rights should prevail?</h2>
<p>There is another side to this, of course. All these rights also belong to New Zealanders abroad. Their right to return includes the right to be in a safer and better environment. This is not lost by being overseas when a pandemic strikes. </p>
<p>However, the government can give extra weight to protecting people already here, particularly as fair notice was given that significant restrictions were being imposed to <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-response-planning/covid-19-elimination-strategy-aotearoa-new-zealand">eliminate COVID-19</a> in the community, rather than merely manage it. </p>
<p>As the overseas experience suggests, the latter approach would have led to more deaths, compromised health care, and might well have undermined the economy to a greater degree.</p>
<p>So, yes, there is a right to return — but it is a right that can be delayed to protect those already here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153962/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kris Gledhill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The right to return is real but not absolute, and must be balanced with the rights of those already in New Zealand.Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1183522019-06-10T13:27:47Z2019-06-10T13:27:47ZMore countries need to give peaceful protest the chance it deserves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278286/original/file-20190606-98010-9lc4lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Sudanese protester waves the Sudanese and Algerian flags. Peaceful protestors in both countries eventually toppled their long term presidents.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Amel Pain</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The right of peaceful protest is enshrined in the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>, adopted by the United Nations in December 1948. Today, this right is recognised in the constitutions of 182 countries. However, we are still far away from universal acceptance of this right in practice. </p>
<p>There is, of course, nothing inherently good or bad about the causes pursued through peaceful protest. It has been used, for example, to foster acceptance for many fundamental human rights. It’s also been used to call for the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brussels-anti-immigration-far-right-protest-riot-police-eu-un-global-migration-a8685876.html">rejection of foreigners</a>, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anti-trans-protest-london-pride-parade-lgbt-gay-2018-march-lesbian-gay-rights-a8436506.html">LGBTQ)</a> people. It has also been used for and against <a href="https://elombah.com/anti-abortion-pro-life-protest-rocks-nairobi-kenya/">abortion</a>. And in some cases assemblies deteriorate into riots. </p>
<p>But when a society permits people to air their grievances in the streets in a peaceful way, it allows public engagement with the matter, and creates a powerful tool for tensions to be resolved in an inclusive and peaceful manner. This is an integral part of a democratic and pluralistic society.</p>
<p>Yet, in spite of noble promises in their constitutions, a significant number of countries worldwide have a very restrictive approach to demonstrations. </p>
<p>At the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria we did a comprehensive survey of the <a href="https://www.policinglaw.info/">use of force laws</a> of every country in the world. Many countries allow the use of force by the police to disperse assemblies, without regard to the principles of necessity and proportionality, as is required under international law. Or they ominously provide that the police may use <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/useofforceandfirearms.aspx">“all means necessary”</a>. </p>
<p>Such an approach very easily results in an escalation of force on all sides - or in the long term suppression of the population, which can only be sustained with more repression.</p>
<p>The national laws of a country are the first line of defence of the population’s freedoms. The international human rights system can help to set universal standards. But it can provide only limited protection if this is not done in the country itself. Moreover, uncertainty about the applicable laws leads to dangerous “surprises”. The <a href="http://www.icla.up.ac.za/images/un/hrc/A_HRC.26.36.pdf">reform of national laws</a> to reflect internationally accepted and clear “rules of engagement” during peaceful protest is a matter of greatest importance.</p>
<p>International law reflects the experience of many years and societies. It requires accommodation of those who want to take their protests to the streets but also provides that the legitimate interest of the State in maintaining law and order and protecting the rights of the rest of society should be recognised. For example, such assemblies have to be peaceful, hate crimes must be prohibited, and advance notification of large gatherings may be required to allow the State time to prepare. </p>
<h2>Use of force laws</h2>
<p>But, there are still some unanswered questions concerning the international standards. It is in this context that those of us who serve on the United Nations Human Rights Committee are in the process of <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CCPR/Pages/GC37.aspx">drafting a document</a> aimed at helping to bring more clarity on the standards applicable to peaceful assemblies.</p>
<p>For example, may demonstrations be held on privately owned property? If the marketplace where people used to assemble has been replaced by shopping malls, can people no longer demonstrate there? Can assemblies occur online, or do they require physical presence? What are the standards for the <a href="https://www.geneva-academy.ch/news/detail/131-leading-academics-will-address-the-use-of-less-lethal-weapons-for-law-enforcement-purpose">use of less lethal weapons</a> for law enforcement?</p>
<p>In the wake of the killing of 34 striking miners by police in <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-shining-the-light-on-police-militarisation-and-brutality-in-south-africa-44162">Marikana</a>, South Africa, in August 2012, a local company has started marketing <a href="https://www.desert-wolf.com/dw/products/unmanned-aerial-systems/skunk-riot-control-copter.html">drones</a> which can be used to dispense weapons such as teargas and rubber bullets. </p>
<p>The selling point is that this will prevent situations where the police may feel compelled to use lethal force to defend themselves. However, the remote use of force raises the risk of treating people like animals, and adding insult to injury. Should this be allowed?</p>
<p>There are also questions where the African context may matter. The approach in Europe and elsewhere has largely been that organisers of demonstrations cannot be <a href="https://www.osce.org/odihr/73405?download=true">held responsible for riot damage</a>. </p>
<p>Do the same considerations apply in Africa, where vendors who bear the brunt may not not have insurance and are without recourse? The South African Constitutional Court has <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2012/13.html">held</a> that organisers can, under certain circumstances, be held responsible.</p>
<h2>Need for reform</h2>
<p>While it is necessary to find answers to these questions on the international level, the real protection of people’s rights lies in their countries’ legal systems. The test for the new UN guidelines will be whether they help to ensure greater compliance with international standards, and the realisation of the promises of nations’ constitutions.</p>
<p>It is in the interest not only of the people concerned, but of democracy itself, in Africa and elsewhere, that internationally accepted ground rules are set for peaceful assembly as a tool of change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christof Heyns is a member of the UN Human Rights Committee.</span></em></p>In spite of noble promises in their constitutions, many countries have a very restrictive approach to demonstrations.Christof Heyns, Professor of human rights law, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1146992019-04-02T14:34:28Z2019-04-02T14:34:28ZSmacking children: countries that refuse to ban practice are breaching international law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267127/original/file-20190402-177196-1oy7vi0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Safe and sound?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-asian-girl-close-her-face-445490305">all_about_people</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Should smacking a child be against the law? That’s the fierce debate reaching a vital stage in Scotland at present, where the parliament’s equalities commitee will announce on April 4 whether it will back legislation to make smacking a criminal offence. This follows a public consultation and will have a bearing on whether the <a href="https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/Bills/104602.aspx">Children (Equal Protection from Assault) Bill</a> becomes law, which would make Scotland the first jurisdiction in the UK to take this step. </p>
<p>The government-backed bill, which would remove the existing defence of “justifiable assault”, has divided the country in the past couple of years. The media <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/poll-only-30-of-scots-back-smacking-ban-1-4814839">reports that</a> around two in three Scots are against the change, with protesters <a href="https://stv.tv/news/scotland/1436631-campaigners-against-smacking-ban-to-protest-at-parliament/">lining up</a> outside parliament for the committee’s final evidence-gathering session. While the likes of the Scottish Police Federation, Barnardo’s and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-46069656">are backing</a> the bill, other institutions are against – <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/church-leaders-cite-bible-in-opposition-to-scotland-s-smacking-ban-1-4887662">notably</a> the Free Church of Scotland and some civil liberties groups. </p>
<p>Despite this opposition, the committee can only reach one conclusion. The bill, originally proposed by Green MSP Jim Finnie after he was petitioned by children’s rights groups, simply implements human rights obligations set out in international law. Countries like England are out of step and therefore in danger of being found in breach. </p>
<h2>Universal human rights</h2>
<p>Much of the controversy around the Scottish bill concerns the perceived criminalisation of parents and the infringement of their right to punish their child as they see fit. I’m afraid that there is no such right under human rights law. The relevant legal right is to not be assaulted – and as the Scottish bill spells out in its name, it would extend to children the same basic right that adults enjoy. </p>
<p>This right to equal treatment has been outlined in several human rights documents over the last 70 years. The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html">Universal Declaration on Human Rights</a>, adopted in 1948, sets out rights aimed at recognising “the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”. This is reinforced within the <a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights</a> and the <a href="https://downloads.unicef.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/UNCRC_united_nations_convention_on_the_rights_of_the_child.pdf?_ga=2.260917893.942988292.1553685890-199158491.1553685890">United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>, which recognises that “by reasons of physical and mental immaturity”, children require “special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection” while under the age of 18. </p>
<p>The UN convention, which the UK <a href="http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/research/ratification-greatbritain.html">has ratified</a>, does recognise that parents have a right to ensure that the rights of their children can be realised. But this does not mean they can punish them with violence: article 19 clearly states that children should be protected from all forms of physical or mental violence. Meanwhile, the <a href="https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/general-comment-no-8-2006-right-child-protection-corporal-punishment-and-other-cruel-or">UN General Comment</a> on the rights of children to freedom from all forms of violence states that “legislative as well as other measures are required to fulfil states’ obligations to protect children from all forms of violence”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267106/original/file-20190402-177175-ug5exf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">On a beach in north-east Scotland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aberdeen-scotland-may-21-2018-child-1335955379">Viktoska</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scotland’s current “justifiable assault” defence therefore contravenes children’s human rights. Quite frankly the law must be changed to ensure compliance, both in Scotland but also across the UK. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/joint-committees/human-rights/CAU%21_submission_to_JCHR.pdf">has consistently</a> criticised the UK government for its failure here. In England, the equivalent defence is known as “reasonable chastisement”. </p>
<p>For the avoidance of doubt, human rights do not depend on public opinion; they exist to help shape opinion. This is why there is no basis for arguing that the proposed change in law should not be made until there is a change in public attitudes. </p>
<h2>The international picture</h2>
<p>The UK is of course lagging behind many other countries over smacking. Sweden banned it first in 1979, over ten years before the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted in 1990. It is <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vMoneM57gUoJ:https://wgntv.com/2018/03/13/these-are-the-countries-where-spanking-is-illegal/+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=safari">now banned</a> in 58 countries, <a href="http://endcorporalpunishment.org/wp-content/uploads/global/Global-report-2018-spreads.pdf">rising steadily</a> from 11 in 2000 and 34 in 2012. These include Germany, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil and, very recently, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-smacking-ban-parents-children-corporal-punishment-a8661191.html">France</a>, as well as all the Scandinavian countries. Other major countries which have not followed suit include the US, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Australia and Japan. </p>
<p>The Scottish government <a href="https://www.snp.org/nicola-sturgeons-speech-to-the-snp-conference-2017/">frequently refers</a> to its desire for Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up, though this will seem like empty rhetoric if the country does not ban smacking. It would also mean that Wales would have a better claim here: not only has the Welsh assembly been making moves to incorporate the UN convention into domestic legislation, it has <a href="http://senedd.assembly.wales/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=24674">just published</a> the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267107/original/file-20190402-177171-1uxd8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The former first lady.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/milan-italy-july-19-2016-eleanor-1019163514">spatuletail</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the Scottish parliament’s equalities committee is largely supportive of children’s rights, and led by the ruling SNP’s Ruth Maguire, so it is hoped that Scotland will make domestic law comply with the law on human rights. To be clear, the focus here is not on criminalising parents so much as protecting children. Sending a consistent message to children that the rights that they are taught in school can actually be realised wherever they are in society is simple but vital. In the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/76455-where-after-all-do-universal-human-rights-begin-in-small">famous words of</a> Eleanor Roosevelt, who led the drafting of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home … where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination … unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tracy Kirk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scotland is in the late stages of deciding whether to become the first country in UK to outlaw all corporal punishment against children.Tracy Kirk, Law Lecturer, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1084462018-12-11T00:06:35Z2018-12-11T00:06:35ZSeventy years of international human rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249776/original/file-20181210-76983-vxd7i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eleanor Roosevelt, Chairman of Human Rights Commission, and Charles Malik, Chairman of the General Assembly's Third Committee (second from right), during a press conference after the completion of the Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s the 70th anniversary of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html">Universal Declaration of Human Rights,</a> which was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1948. Since then an enormous body of international human rights law has been developed.</p>
<p>Some people think that human rights should not be universal. And some critics believe that <a href="http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509513536&subject_id=8">human rights are an example of Western cultural imperialism</a>. They claim that non-Western countries did not participate in drafting the Universal Declaration. Yet non-Western countries have been involved since the earliest stages in drawing up human rights documents.</p>
<p>However, all countries can be quite hypocritical when it comes to applying the laws they agree to.</p>
<p>Other critics argue that human rights promote selfish individualism. Instead of caring for the family or community, people only care for their own rights. But in countries like Canada where human rights are, <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-genocide-the-case-of-the-ahiarmiut-107272">for the most part, legally respected</a>, citizens follow these laws because they do have a sense of community and care for each other. Housing advocates, food bank workers and millions of volunteers help make human rights “work” on the ground.</p>
<p>Yet others claim that as China and other non-democratic countries become more powerful, human rights will be less important internationally. It is true that such countries do work to undermine many human rights, at home and at the UN. But that makes human rights more relevant, not less. We all need protection against abusive governments.</p>
<p>Human rights are still relevant and new rights are evolving.</p>
<h2>Signs of progress</h2>
<p>One sign of progress is in LGBTQ rights. This topic is difficult to discuss internationally, because some places, especially but not only Russia and countries in Africa and the Middle East, still have laws that prohibit homosexuality. Some religious groups, in the Western world as elsewhere, are also homophobic. We don’t yet have an international declaration on LGBTQ rights, but the UN is paying more attention to them.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249452/original/file-20181207-128208-1mybkjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249452/original/file-20181207-128208-1mybkjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249452/original/file-20181207-128208-1mybkjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249452/original/file-20181207-128208-1mybkjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249452/original/file-20181207-128208-1mybkjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249452/original/file-20181207-128208-1mybkjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249452/original/file-20181207-128208-1mybkjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A visitor feels the raised lettering of a white marble mosaic featuring text from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at the WTC Cortlandt train station, in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the last 20 years, <a href="http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509513536&subject_id=8">much attention has been paid to “collective” human rights</a>. These are rights than belong to groups of people and that one individual can’t exercise if others can’t also exercise them.</p>
<p>Indigenous rights are collective rights. Indigenous ways of life, languages, religions, cultures and land bases are threatened. In 2007 the UN passed UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada voted against the Declaration, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-genocide-the-case-of-the-ahiarmiut-107272">later reversed its position</a>. By 2016 the government declared its full support for UNDRIP.</p>
<h2>Clean environment is a right</h2>
<p>A collective right that affects everyone everywhere is the right to a clean and healthy environment. This includes the right to protection against climate changes that undermine our livelihoods and well-being.</p>
<p>Another collective right is the right to peace. Viewed narrowly, this is the right not to live in a state of war. In 2018, many people still live in war-torn countries, especially countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa. Others, in the Ukraine, live in fear of war. And we all live in fear of nuclear war.</p>
<p>Both climate change and war create huge refugee populations. By 2050, it’s thought, there will be 200 million “climate refugees” fleeing rising sea levels. Add to that the refugees who are fleeing large-scale crime, like the migrant “caravan” currently trying to enter the United States.</p>
<h2>Economic human rights</h2>
<p>The UN recently agreed on a Global Compact for Migration, setting out voluntary principles meant to save lives and ensure successful migrant integration into new countries without unduly burdening social infrastructure such as health care. But the real challenge is to ensure people don’t have to leave home at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249771/original/file-20181210-76986-1qy3qrl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249771/original/file-20181210-76986-1qy3qrl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249771/original/file-20181210-76986-1qy3qrl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249771/original/file-20181210-76986-1qy3qrl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249771/original/file-20181210-76986-1qy3qrl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249771/original/file-20181210-76986-1qy3qrl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249771/original/file-20181210-76986-1qy3qrl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Commission Chairman, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt (right) with Mrs. Hansa Mehta of India, the only two female delegates to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1947-48.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN Photo/Marvin Bolotsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One way to ensure more people can live in their homes is to develop economies. The right to economic development is a collective right. Development activists usually try to reduce both poverty and inequality. There’s been an enormous reduction in world poverty over the last 25 years, even as inequality has been growing in most countries. </p>
<p>This means it’s easier to fulfil what is known as economic human rights, such as rights to health, education and housing. Very little of this change results from foreign aid; most is a result of the spread of market economies.</p>
<p>Many people in many countries have benefited from globalization, though others, such as industrial workers in Canada and the U.S., have lost their jobs. This is one of the reasons for the spread of anti-immigrant, xenophobic sentiments in the Western world. </p>
<p>Unless we can figure out a way to control these sentiments and reduce the need for people to flee their own countries because of war, crime, economic challenges and climate change, we are facing an uneasy human rights future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108446/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dec. 10, 2018 is the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1082762018-12-07T08:03:52Z2018-12-07T08:03:52ZHuman rights 70 years on: important victories as well as major misses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249208/original/file-20181206-128193-1qgo5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">International outrage led to Aung San Suu Kyi falling from grace after Myanmar unleashed violence against the Rohingya.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Hein Htet</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/report-world-human-rights-2017">Amnesty International</a>, human rights continue to deteriorate. CIVICUS – an umbrella body for a global alliance of civil society organisations – <a href="https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/united-nations/geneva/3091-statement-at-human-rights-council-threats-to-civic-space">observes</a> that the civil society space is shrinking. Human rights activists and social justice movements face an uphill battle.</p>
<p>Seventy years ago, the then 58 members of the United Nations (UN) adopted its first two fundamental frameworks at the General Assembly in Paris:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crimeofgenocide.aspx">Convention </a> on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948; and</p></li>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/UDHRIndex.aspx">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> on 10 December.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Nowadays, this achievement is recognised as <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/">Human Rights Day</a>. In a few countries, among them South Africa, Namibia and Cambodia, it’s celebrated at some point during the year as a public holiday.</p>
<p>Often, the Universal Declaration is criticised as an attempt to establish Western values to maintain a global dominance. Its eight main drafters came from Australia, Chile, China, France, Lebanon, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the US. Article 1 starts with the words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and human rights.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674064348">Critics</a> have <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/292997/governing-the-world-by-mark-mazower/9780143123941/">questioned</a> the relevance of these frameworks. But as I argue in a <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/dag-hammarskjold-the-united-nations-and-the-decolonisation-of-africa/">forthcoming book</a>, the Universal Declaration in combination with the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/">Charter of the United Nations</a> served as a relevant compass in the campaigns for decolonisation during the 1950s. But, as a detailed historical study by <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14717.html">Roland Burke</a> documents, once in power anti-colonial movements often turned their backs on the very same rights they used for the mobilisation and recognition of their struggle.</p>
<p>So where is the world 70 years on? </p>
<p>The second Secretary-General of the UN <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1961/hammarskjold/biographical/">Dag Hammarskjöld</a> popularised the <a href="http://ask.un.org/faq/14623">saying</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the UN was not created to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sadly for many people life on earth has remained close to hell. But their numbers would not be less without the UN frameworks. Numerous human rights principles adopted during the last 70 years might not have the effects we would like to see. But they have not been in vain.</p>
<h2>Setbacks</h2>
<p>The anchoring of genocide and crimes against humanity as part of international law after the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nuremberg-trials">Nuremberg trials</a> has been brilliantly documented by historian and author <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227917/east-west-street-by-philippe-sands/9780525433729/">Phillippe Sands</a>. But institutionalised prosecution only followed the adoption of the Rome Statute in 1998 and the establishment of the <a href="https://www.globalpolicy.org/international-justice/the-international-criminal-court.html">International Criminal Court</a> in 2002. Even so, most war crimes remained outside of the Court’s jurisdiction because big powers such as China, Russia and the US, as well as a host of <a href="https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/08/29/countries-arent-part-of-icc/">other states</a>, refused to ratify it.</p>
<p>The Court has suffered other setbacks too. A number of African states have withdrawn from it on the grounds that they feel the continent is being selectively targeted. This despite <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/sources/wsg-news/2018/the-international-criminal-court-and-accountability-in-africa.html">urgent pleas</a> by civil society not to evade accountability but rather to influence international law. </p>
<p>Other areas of progress have similarly been marred by setbacks. This has been mainly due to the fact that human rights issues in the global governance sphere are often the victim of strategic or opportunistic motives and reasoning. </p>
<h2>Selective application</h2>
<p>These contradictions <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/pages/home.aspx">are mirrored</a> in the composition and voting patterns of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR). Established in 2006, its 47 members proportionally represent the world regions. They are elected for a three-year period by the UN General Assembly.</p>
<p>The Obama administration <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033102782.html?noredirect=on">joined the UNHRC in 2009</a>. In mid-2018 the Trump administration declared the US’s <a href="https://www.apnews.com/9c5b1005f064474f9a0825ab84a16e91">withdrawal</a>. </p>
<p>Other countries have fewer problems with the Council. In October 2018, 18 newly elected members <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/ga12077.doc.htm">for 2019</a> included Bahrain, Cameroon, Eritrea, and the Philippines. Among <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/pages/currentmembers.aspx">the current members</a> are China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.</p>
<p>Governments are guided by a preference to act within a collective alliance. The issue of <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/issues/lgbti-rights">LGBTI rights</a> is an example of block voting. In mid-2016 Muslim and African countries – with only one exception – <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/RES/32/2">voted</a> against, or abstained from supporting, a resolution on the protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.</p>
<p>But this didn’t prevent the adoption of a pioneering recognition and obligation for the protection of <a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbti-vote-at-the-un-shows-battle-for-human-rights-is-far-from-won-62307">these communities</a>. </p>
<p>There are other successes. They suggest that the role of the UNHRC – and of human rights campaigns – is anything but obsolete. Take the investigations on behalf of the UNHRC <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/MyanmarFFM/Pages/ReportoftheMyanmarFFM.aspx">that resulted in a report</a> documenting the violence <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=23575&LangID=E">unleashed</a> in Myanmar by the military against the Rohingya. It also <a href="https://www.who2.com/bio/aung-san-suu-kyi/">implicated</a> the Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and culminated in the outgoing UNHRC chief demanding <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45351000">her resignation</a>. Her extraordinary <a href="https://theconversation.com/aung-san-suu-kyis-extraordinary-fall-from-grace-104250">fall from grace</a> shows that moral-political postulates do matter, and have consequences when being ignored.</p>
<p>Despite such occasional successes failures to live up to the standards codified (and ratified) continue to characterise the track record in global governance. More often the abuse of human rights remains without such condemnation. </p>
<h2>The struggle continues</h2>
<p>The dilemma is structurally embedded. Asymmetric power structures in global governance have not been solved. The most influential states control decision making in the UN Security Council. With their veto power they remain gatekeepers and put their own interests over those of humanity. </p>
<p>As a result, the conventions are still selectively applied. Double standards by those who close eyes and ears if it suits their economic and geostrategic interests remain firmly in place. The barbaric assassination of the journalist <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399">Jamal Khashoggi</a> – and US President Donald Trump’s response – is a sobering reminder.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the frameworks have introduced reference points against which such hypocrisy can be measured, named and shamed. Without such conventions, campaigns – and campaigners – would have been even less successful. </p>
<p>Despite all shortcomings and flaws, the world would not be a better place without the UN and its accepted (though not practised by many) minimum standards of good governance.</p>
<p>Human Rights Day might not be a reason for celebrations. But it is a helpful reminder that a great deal is already anchored in frameworks that recognise human dignity and well-being. </p>
<p>We have to live up to it – and continue to fight for them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Human Rights Day might not be a reason for celebrations. But it’s a useful reminder of what’s been achieved over 70 years.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/984792018-07-20T05:49:59Z2018-07-20T05:49:59ZWhy moot courts can play a valuable role in teaching kids about human rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227136/original/file-20180711-27039-14a2zt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Moot courts give pupils the chance to argue different scenarios.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> turns 70 this year. It was adopted by global leaders after World War II to try and avoid future conflict on that scale. The declaration ushered in what we know and understand about human rights today. It calls for nations to “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”.</p>
<p>But some think that the human rights project has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights">had its innings</a>. They believe the notion of human rights for all is too idealistic. And populist leaders push the idea that the most powerful should prevail. </p>
<p>They’re wrong. Many <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2015/03/25/revealing-the-real-world-benefits-of-the-uks-human-rights-act/">people</a> <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15374&LangID=E">have benefited</a> since the declaration was adopted. </p>
<p>But there’s little hope that people will understand the importance of a common normative framework like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights if it’s taught to them in the abstract. They need to see how it works in practice, through experience. </p>
<p>One especially powerful way to do this is through moot courts, or moots. At these events, school or university students play the role of lawyers in a hypothetical court case involving real-life legal and human right questions. The students appear in a simulated court in front of real judges and engage in a very real debate about the questions. The student “lawyers” must make the best case for whatever side they represent. </p>
<p>Moots are used around the world to help participants understand many aspects of varying <a href="https://www.ilsa.org/jessuphome">fields of law</a>. They’ve also proved to be a powerful tool in the field of human rights in a number of countries, including the <a href="https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/hracademy/moot/">Americas</a>, <a href="http://www.europeanlawmootcourt.eu/home">Europe</a> and <a href="http://www.chr.up.ac.za/index.php/moot-archives/moot-2017.html">Africa</a>. There is now also an <a href="http://www.chr.up.ac.za/index.php/world-moot-court.html">annual world human rights moot competition</a>, held at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva.</p>
<p>One of most of the attractive features of moots as a tool for human rights education is that participants must argue both sides of the case. This helps them appreciate the multiplicity of perspectives and differences of opinion.</p>
<h2>School moots</h2>
<p>School moots are becoming an increasingly popular way to teach young people about the value of human rights. South Africa is one of the leaders in this field: the country’s <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/national-schools-moot-court-competitions-nsmcc/">National Schools Moot Court Competition</a> has grown dramatically since it started eight years ago. In 2018 it is expected to reach up to 2 million learners across the country, out of <a href="http://www.childrencount.uct.ac.za/domain.php?domain=6">around 11 million</a>. </p>
<p>The competition is co-organised by the country’s <a href="https://www.sahrc.org.za/">Human Rights Commission</a>, which investigates and seeks redress for human rights violations, and teaches people about the value of human rights; the government; and universities. The learners are required to prepare written and oral arguments for both sides of a typical dispute involving human rights questions, using the South African <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">Constitution</a> as their point of reference. </p>
<p>The hypothetical cases they have to argue resonate with everyone. For example, should learners be allowed to come to school with nose rings or dreadlocks when the school rules forbid them? What’s to be done when a learner challenges the school’s language policy, or says things that offend some people?</p>
<p>The best performers then participate in the oral provincial rounds. The provincial winners in turn get the opportunity to participate in the <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/national-schools-moot-court-competitions-nsmcc">final round at the Constitutional Court</a>, in front of real judges from that court. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227139/original/file-20180711-27021-vihqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A moot in South Africa’s Constitutional Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other countries in Africa, such as <a href="https://www.modernghana.com/news/806333/moot-court-competition-for-senior-high-schools-launched.html">Ghana</a>, have started replicating the model of cooperation between National Human Rights Commissions, universities and governments. And preparations are under way in Mozambique for their very own national schools moot project modelled on the South African experience.</p>
<p>There are good reasons to think these moots can take root in all parts of the world. There are schools in even the most remote parts of the world. And almost all the countries of the world now have constitutions with a bills of rights. There are <a href="https://nhri.ohchr.org/EN/Pages/default.aspx">national human rights commissions</a> in most countries. If even half of those commissions were to team up with their countries’ departments of education and the judiciary to stage moots based on the countries’ constitutions in all its schools the impact would be enormous.</p>
<h2>Common understanding</h2>
<p>The school moots are extremely valuable learning experiences. One 16-year-old participant in South Africa, Shandre Smith, told us the moot had taught her “about human rights and the change it can bring in our lives”. Smith said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think I am becoming a more responsible and tolerant global citizen. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a world rife with uncertainty, experiences like this can help to renew people’s faith in and commitment to the idea of human rights. That’s a significant step towards ensuring a common understanding of the basic terms of our shared existence.</p>
<p><em>Bongani Majola, the current Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission and former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Gift Kgomosotho, Research Advisor at the South African Human Rights Commission, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christof Heyns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>School moots are becoming an increasingly popular way to teach young people about the value of human rights.Christof Heyns, Professor of human rights law, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/939422018-04-06T05:48:14Z2018-04-06T05:48:14ZNew data tool scores Australia and other countries on their human rights performance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212576/original/file-20180329-189827-17jfcp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it remains difficult to monitor governments' performance because there are no comprehensive human rights measures. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year, the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> will mark its 70th anniversary, but despite progress in some areas, it remains difficult to measure or compare governments’ performance. We have yet to develop comprehensive human rights measures that are accepted by researchers, policymakers and advocates alike. </p>
<p>With this in mind, <a href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/about-hrmi/the-team/">my colleagues and I</a> have started the <a href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/">Human Rights Measurement Initiative</a> (HRMI), the first global project to develop a comprehensive suite of metrics covering international human rights. </p>
<p>We have now released our beta dataset and data visualisation tools, publishing 12 metrics that cover five economic and social rights and seven civil and political rights.</p>
<h2>Lack of human rights data</h2>
<p>People often assume the UN already produces comprehensive data on nations’ human rights performance, but it does not, and likely never will. The members of the UN are governments, and governments are the very actors that are obligated by international human rights law. It would be naïve to hope for governments to effectively monitor and measure their own performance without political bias. There has to be a role for non-state measurement.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-human-rights-council-election-comes-with-a-challenge-to-improve-its-domestic-record-80953">Australia's Human Rights Council election comes with a challenge to improve its domestic record</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We hope that the data and visualisations provided by HRMI will empower practitioners, advocates, researchers, journalists and others to speak clearly about human rights outcomes worldwide and hold governments accountable when they fail to meet their obligations under international law.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212065/original/file-20180326-188622-1ba0rwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212065/original/file-20180326-188622-1ba0rwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212065/original/file-20180326-188622-1ba0rwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212065/original/file-20180326-188622-1ba0rwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212065/original/file-20180326-188622-1ba0rwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212065/original/file-20180326-188622-1ba0rwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212065/original/file-20180326-188622-1ba0rwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These are the 12 human rights measured by the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) project during its pilot stage. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines 30 human rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/methodology/overview/">Human Rights Measurement Initiative</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The HRMI pilot</h2>
<p>At HRMI, <a href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/methodology/measuring-economic-social-rights/">alongside our existing methodology for economic and social rights</a>, we are developing a new way of measuring civil and political human rights. In our pilot, we sent an expert survey directly to human rights practitioners who are actively monitoring each country’s human rights situation. </p>
<p>That survey asked respondents about their country’s performance on the rights to assembly and association, opinion and expression, political participation, freedom from torture, freedom from disappearance, freedom from execution, and freedom from arbitrary or political arrest and imprisonment.</p>
<p>Based on those survey responses, we develop data on the overall level of respect for each of the rights. These data are calculated using a statistical method that ensures responses are comparable across experts and countries, and with an uncertainty band to provide transparency about how confident we are in each country’s placement. We also provide information on who our respondents believed were especially at risk for each type of human rights violation. </p>
<h2>Human rights in Australia</h2>
<p>One way to visualise data on our website is to look at a country’s performance across all 12 human rights for which we have released data at this time. For example, the graph below shows Australia’s performance across all HRMI metrics.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212306/original/file-20180327-109204-186w650.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212306/original/file-20180327-109204-186w650.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212306/original/file-20180327-109204-186w650.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212306/original/file-20180327-109204-186w650.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212306/original/file-20180327-109204-186w650.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212306/original/file-20180327-109204-186w650.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212306/original/file-20180327-109204-186w650.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human rights performance in Australia. Data necessary to calculate a metric for the right to housing at a high-income OECD assessment standard is currently unavailable for Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As shown here, Australia performs quite well on some indicators, but quite poorly on others. Looking at civil and political rights (in blue), Australia demonstrates high respect for the right to be free from execution, but does much worse on the rights to be free from torture and arbitrary arrest. </p>
<p>Our respondents often attributed this poor performance on torture and imprisonment to the treatment of refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers, as well as Indigenous peoples, by the Australian government. </p>
<p>Looking across the economic and social rights (in green), Australia shows a range of performance, doing quite well on the right to food, but performing far worse on the right to work. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-things-australia-can-do-to-be-a-human-rights-hero-88238">Ten things Australia can do to be a human rights hero</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Freedom from torture across countries</h2>
<p>Another way to visualise our data is to look at respect for a single right across several countries. The graph below shows, for example, overall government respect for the right to be free from torture and ill treatment in all 13 of HRMI’s pilot countries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212298/original/file-20180327-109185-157exmt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Government respect for the right to be free from torture, January to June 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here, the middle of each blue bar (marked by the small white lines) represents the average estimated level of respect for freedom from torture, while the length of the blue bars demonstrate our certainty in our estimates. For instance, we are much more certain regarding Mexico’s (MEX) low score than Brazil’s (BRA) higher score. Due to this uncertainty and the resulting overlap between the bars, there is only about a 92% chance that Brazil’s score is better than Mexico’s.</p>
<p>In addition to being able to say that torture is probably more prevalent in Mexico than in Brazil, and how certain we are in that comparison, we can also compare the groups of people that our respondents said were at greatest risk of torture. This information is summarised in the two word clouds below; larger words indicate that that group was selected by more survey respondents as being at risk.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212608/original/file-20180329-189807-sycwmv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212608/original/file-20180329-189807-sycwmv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212608/original/file-20180329-189807-sycwmv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212608/original/file-20180329-189807-sycwmv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212608/original/file-20180329-189807-sycwmv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212608/original/file-20180329-189807-sycwmv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212608/original/file-20180329-189807-sycwmv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These word clouds show, on the left, the attributes that place a person at risk of torture in Brazil, and on the right, attributes that place one at risk for torture in Mexico, January to June 2017, respectively.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are both similarities and differences between the groups that were at highest risk in Brazil and Mexico. Based on the <a href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Qualitative-responses-HRMI-2017-pilot.pdf">survey responses our human rights experts in Brazil gave us</a>, we know that black people, those who live in favelas or quilombolas, those who live in rural or remote areas, landless rural workers, and prison inmates are largely the groups referred to by the terms “race,” “low social or economic status,” or “detainees or suspected criminals”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, in Mexico, imprisoned women and those suspected of involvement with organised crime are the detainees or suspected criminals that our respondents stated were at high risk of torture. Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers travelling through Mexico on the way to the United States are also at risk.</p>
<p>There is much more to be learned from <a href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/">the visualisations and data on our website</a>. After you have had the opportunity to explore, we would love to hear your feedback <a href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/about-hrmi/contact-hrmi/">here</a> about any aspect of our work so far. We are just getting started, and we thrive on collaboration with the wider human rights community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>HRMI has received funding from the Open Society Foundations and the Namaste Foundation, among others. For more information, see: <a href="https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/get-involved/support/">https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/get-involved/support/</a>.</span></em></p>Despite the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it remains difficult to measure governments’ performance. A new data tool gives countries a scorecard on how well, or badly, they are doing.K. Chad Clay, Assistant Professor of International Affairs, University of GeorgiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/936852018-03-21T13:34:24Z2018-03-21T13:34:24ZMedics should not be forced to do procedures they object to on ethical grounds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211319/original/file-20180321-165577-1s792my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/156007337?src=5fqlxhVxZpLt701r4cHEEQ-1-57&size=medium_jpg">Andy Dean Photography/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most people, the term “conscientious objection” evokes images of Quakers and pacifists registering to avoid military service. Many countries have a long and honourable tradition of accommodating such conscientious objectors. It might not be about bombs and bullets, but healthcare professionals often find themselves fighting a conscience battle of their own.</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5373943/Catholic-midwife-ousted-refusing-oversee-abortions.html">UK</a>, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/obliged-to-kill/article/2011798">Canada</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38756567">Sweden</a> and other countries, conscientious objectors in healthcare have found themselves discriminated against in various ways – whether through dismissal, lack of promotion, or more subtle forms of coercion. Most cases involve doctors, nurses or midwives refusing to perform abortion or euthanasia (or to assist with either). Yet these happen, through historical accident, to be the flashpoint of current controversy.</p>
<p>Whatever your personal views on the morality of this or that medical activity or treatment, what is primarily at issue is whether healthcare workers should have their freedom of conscience enshrined in law. You might ask: isn’t it already? Well, there are a number of international treaties and conventions, such as the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>, to which the UK and many other countries are party, and in which freedom of conscience (and freedom of religion, to which it is related but not identical) is explicitly recognised. </p>
<p>Yet few countries give citizens – including health workers – the explicit protection to match the warm words of international conventions. In the UK, you would need a microscope to find protection for conscientious objectors in medicine. There are a few piecemeal provisions, such as in the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/section/4">Abortion Act 1967</a> and the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/37/section/38">Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990</a>, but nothing close to the broad-based protection to which healthcare workers, both as citizens and as professionals, are entitled.</p>
<p>The issue is pressing both in theory and practice, which is why I have just launched a <a href="https://shrtm.nu/voKC">Declaration in Support of Conscientious Protection in Health Care</a>, which I hope many healthcare workers will sign. As a matter of moral principle, healthcare professionals should not be treated as mere functionaries of the state, doing the state’s bidding – that way lies <a href="http://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/lifton/contents.shtml">disaster</a>. Nor should they act as mere healthcare valets for their patients, doing whatever they request. Patient-centred care does not mean that. </p>
<p>The question is one of moral and professional integrity. Sometimes a doctor, for example, will consider that a certain treatment violates their sincere, deeply held moral (or religious) convictions. The reason might be, quite simply, that they believe the treatment to be against their patient’s interests. Or they might think that in acting a certain way they would be doing a serious wrong – violating their religious or ethical code. </p>
<h2>Rapid advances in medical technology</h2>
<p>Practically speaking, the urgency of putting comprehensive conscience protection on the books for healthcare workers lies in the rapid advance of medical technology. As new treatments and services become possible, it is a certainty that more and more healthcare workers will find themselves confronted by problems of conscientious objection. </p>
<p>Whatever you might think about abortion, or euthanasia, or this or that treatment, consider what is now available or coming down the pike. Today we have transgender surgery, extreme body modification and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroenhancement#Deep_brain_stimulation">transcranial direct current stimulation</a> to make us smarter. On the horizon, we have body implants for interacting with technology, such as <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3221287/Would-microchipped-Kaspersky-implants-chip-man-s-hand-one-day-used-pay-goods-unlock-home.html">implantable microchips</a> for opening doors or buying goods. And it is not inconceivable that in the future we will have human cloning and gene editing for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics">eugenic</a> purposes. The list is only limited by the imagination.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211324/original/file-20180321-165571-1vdqoxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211324/original/file-20180321-165571-1vdqoxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211324/original/file-20180321-165571-1vdqoxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211324/original/file-20180321-165571-1vdqoxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211324/original/file-20180321-165571-1vdqoxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211324/original/file-20180321-165571-1vdqoxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211324/original/file-20180321-165571-1vdqoxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, are raising ethical concerns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/774492757?src=tEN9Zpt2xJkomfk9r9d28Q-1-12&size=medium_jpg">vrx/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Imagine you are a doctor asked to be involved in one of these treatments – might there be a conscience issue for you? Or is it a case of anything goes? Must doctors and nurses do whatever they are asked to do? If the treatment or service is legal, does that mean freedom of conscience goes out the window?</p>
<p>For my part – and that of the many people who agree – freedom of conscience does not mean <em>denying</em> legal treatment to anyone. But the legal right to a certain treatment does not equate to the right to have that treatment from any <em>particular</em> person. A general opt-out for healthcare workers, where their very moral integrity and ethical principles are at stake, can co-exist with full and fair access to all legal services.</p>
<p>On March 23, 2018, the House of Lords will enter the committee stage to debate further the <a href="https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/conscientiousobjectionmedicalactivities.html">Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill</a>, sponsored by <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/baroness-o'loan/3902">Baroness O'Loan</a>. The Bill’s scope is limited to current ethical flashpoints regarding the beginning and end of life. It is not broad based – and one could hope for more – but it is an important step in redressing the imbalance and injustice facing healthcare workers with conscientious objections. It deserves our support. Perhaps the UK might lead the way in developing legislation protecting freedom of conscience in healthcare. If we do not act now, then when is the right time?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David S. Oderberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Healthcare professionals should have their freedom of conscience protected by law.David S. Oderberg, Professor of Philosophy, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882382017-12-05T19:16:10Z2017-12-05T19:16:10ZTen things Australia can do to be a human rights hero<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196846/original/file-20171129-28913-14q42ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1946%2C3591%2C1639&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Effective leadership requires leading by example, but Australia’s human rights record has drawn increasing criticism at home and abroad. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/froge/24865242966/in/album-72157664247376242/">Andrew Hill/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> project, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Sunday is Human Rights Day. December 10 marks 69 years since the United Nations General Assembly adopted the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> on December 10, 1948. With the 70th anniversary coming up in 2018, the UN has launched <a href="http://www.standup4humanrights.org/en/">Stand Up 4 Human Rights</a>, a year-long campaign to bring the ideals of the declaration closer to reality. </p>
<p>As a leader in the <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/australia-and-universal-declaration-human-rights">framing of the UN declaration</a> and one of the world’s oldest democracies, Australia prides itself on its commitment to democracy and human rights. The Australian government has an excellent opportunity to show leadership in promoting these values at home and abroad when it takes up a seat on the UN Human Rights Council from 2018. </p>
<p>In this role, Australia has <a href="http://dfat.gov.au/international-relations/international-organisations/Pages/australias-membership-unhrc-2018-2020.aspx">pledged</a> to be “an international human rights leader” and to advance human rights with “active, practical advocacy, sensitivity and fairness, and a willingness to speak out against human rights violations and abuses”.</p>
<p>However, effective leadership requires leading by example, and Australia’s human rights record has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/nov/10/un-countries-line-up-to-criticise-australias-human-rights-record">drawn increasing criticism in recent years</a>. </p>
<h2>What can we do to strengthen our human rights framework?</h2>
<p>We recently brought together Australian human rights scholars to answer this question. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjhu20/23/2?nav=tocList&">Our collection</a> of articles in the Australian Journal of Human Rights, entitled <em>Vanguard or laggard? Democracy and human rights in Australia</em>, details the relationship between democracy and human rights, and provides a roadmap for improving Australia’s democratic and human rights record.</p>
<p>Democracy should generate protection for human rights through accountability mechanisms that work across three axes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>horizontal accountability</strong> refers to the role of the judiciary and integrity institutions such as the ombudsman and human rights commission</p></li>
<li><p><strong>vertical accountability</strong> refers to elections and the participatory role of citizens</p></li>
<li><p><strong>diagonal accountability</strong> denotes the role of free speech, media and civil society organisations in holding governments to account.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There is no clear-cut nexus between Australian democracy and human rights across these areas of accountability. And the conditions necessary for each form of accountability to operate successfully are not as strong as is generally assumed. </p>
<p>Accountability mechanisms are often overshadowed by parliamentary supremacy in our version of Westminster democracy. This leaves many citizens vulnerable to rights infringements.</p>
<p>A core weakness in Australia’s vertical accountability is the lack of an entrenched or statutory bill of rights. This leaves the executive and legislature with primary control over human rights determinations. </p>
<p>Voters decide who these legislators are and can change them at elections if they are unhappy with their decisions on rights issues. History suggests voters have indeed punished governments that fail to act on majority rights concerns. </p>
<p>However, protection for minority rights, and the rights of <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-just-black-matter-australias-indifference-to-aboriginal-lives-and-land-85168">Indigenous Australians</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-trump-ups-the-ante-executive-powers-should-worry-australians-too-78763">refugees</a> in particular, do not attract sufficient support at the ballot box. Not surprisingly, government policies reflect this electoral reality.</p>
<p>Without a bill of rights, minorities and others whose rights are threatened also have limited capacity to trigger horizontal accountability mechanisms for protection. Aside from some exceptional rulings, such as the High Court’s <a href="http://lawgovpol.com/implied-rights-constitution/">implied rights determinations</a>, Australian judges have generally been reluctant to read the law broadly to incorporate rights. </p>
<p>Further, the Australian Human Rights Commission has a limited mandate. It is also <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/revealed-abbott-government-tried-to-remove-gillian-triggs-as-head-of-the-australian-human-rights-commission-20150213-13du7s.html">vulnerable</a> to <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/australian-human-rights-commission-president-gillian-triggs-criticises-federal-government-cuts-to-her-budget/news-story/d8b102a9467516415cf62e20aa4afb80">funding cuts</a> and <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/section-18c-attorney-general-george-brandis-slams-human-rights-commission/news-story/0fffc094d7d444809d27bb1dffd71cc8">political attacks</a> when government perceives the commission to have overstepped its mark. These deficiencies have become more obvious in recent years with the rise of the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/07/how-australia-just-became-a-national-security-state/?utm_term=.d663c3376feb">security state</a>”.</p>
<p>Diagonal accountability mechanisms, including a free press and civil society, have been able to flourish in Australia. Even so, there are major limitations to their ability to pursue rights concerns. We have seen increasing media concentration, funding cuts to public broadcasters and the extension of <a href="https://www.hrlc.org.au/opinion/2017/2/3/we-must-protest-restrictions-on-our-right-to-protest">legislative restrictions</a> on civil society.</p>
<p>Such developments reduce the potential for these democratic actors to bring problems to light and inform governments and voters about rights issues.</p>
<p>Unless or until Australians decide to support greater rights protections, whether through constitutional or legislative action, these problems are likely to remain. </p>
<p>Fixing these problems is important. This is not only because human rights are important in themselves, but also because democracy requires a basic level of respect for human rights to function properly.</p>
<h2>Ten things Australia can do to protect rights</h2>
<p>With Australia becoming a member of the UN Human Rights Council, it is more important than ever that we get our own house in order, if we want to be a model for good democratic practice underpinned by a strong human rights framework.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196854/original/file-20171129-28862-fi5miy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196854/original/file-20171129-28862-fi5miy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196854/original/file-20171129-28862-fi5miy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196854/original/file-20171129-28862-fi5miy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196854/original/file-20171129-28862-fi5miy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196854/original/file-20171129-28862-fi5miy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196854/original/file-20171129-28862-fi5miy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Having secured a seat at the UN Human Rights Council, Australia needs to get its own house in order.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN Geneva/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here’s a start: these ten broad steps are eminently doable. While not covering all the gaps, these will get us a long way toward more robust human rights protection in Australia.</p>
<p><strong>1. Adopt a bill of rights</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>A bill of rights will increase the capacity of minorities and others whose rights are threatened to seek protection from the courts, if and when parliament fails to do so.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>2. Protect freedom of speech</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Reverse funding cuts to public media outlets.</p></li>
<li><p>Achieve a better balance between security laws and freedom of speech by adding public interest disclosure protections to national security laws.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>3. Protect the rule of law and integrity institutions</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Strengthen the independence of integrity institutions such as statutory officeholders (information commissioners, human rights commissioners). This includes mandating transparent, arm’s length and merit-based selection criteria for appointments to these offices. Stronger statutory guarantees of adequate funding are also needed.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>4. Protect the right to vote</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Strengthen our compulsory voting laws because of their beneficial (yet generally unrecognised) effects on human rights protection, particularly their demonstrated capacity to protect rights such as equality before the law, freedom from discrimination and equal voting power.</p></li>
<li><p>Continue to support electoral commissions in their efforts to achieve universal or near-universal electoral participation.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>5. Protect freedom of association</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Support the flourishing of civil society organisations by removing restrictive protest laws.</p></li>
<li><p>Ensure a fair and nonpartisan regulatory framework for funding civil society organisations.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>6. Strengthen rights protections for Indigenous Australians</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Dismantle the intellectual and legal framework that creates barriers to recognising and respecting Indigenous Australians.</p></li>
<li><p>Be open to Indigenous perspectives and realities and make a genuine effort to right historical wrongs.</p></li>
<li><p>Strengthen racial discrimination laws to prevent the abuse of the special measures provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act to the detriment of Indigenous Australians.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196856/original/file-20171129-28866-1sjqw92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196856/original/file-20171129-28866-1sjqw92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196856/original/file-20171129-28866-1sjqw92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196856/original/file-20171129-28866-1sjqw92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196856/original/file-20171129-28866-1sjqw92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196856/original/file-20171129-28866-1sjqw92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196856/original/file-20171129-28866-1sjqw92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia must not forget that seeking asylum is a human right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Takver/flick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>7. Strengthen rights protections for asylum seekers</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Uphold human right obligations that are owed to asylum seekers on the presumption that they may well be genuine refugees (as the 1951 Convention on Refugees that Australia has signed requires). This includes closing all offshore processing and detention centres.</p></li>
<li><p>Promote the human rights of all migrants and their families as Australia’s representatives have promised at UN meetings such as the <a href="http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/refugees-compact">Global Compact for Refugees and Migrants</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>8. Strengthen rights protections for women</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Improve women’s social and economic rights to enable them to participate fully and equally in Australian society. This includes closing the gender pay gap, increasing access to affordable child care and tackling the poverty facing disadvantaged women including single mothers, Indigenous women, older women, women and girls with disabilities, and women facing domestic violence and sexual harassment in the workplace and community.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>9. Strengthen rights protections for poor Australians</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Implement a policy framework to better uphold our international commitments to protect the economic and social rights of vulnerable Australians. This includes acting on housing affordability and homelessness, protecting vulnerable workers, reducing unemployment and underemployment, and increasing support for the poorest households.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>10. Implement marriage equality</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Honour the outcome of the Marriage Law Postal Survey by legalising marriage equality.</li>
</ul>
<p>Happy Human Rights Day everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolien van Ham receives funding from the Australian Research Council's DECRA funding scheme (project number RG142911, project name DE150101692). The views expressed in this article are the views of the author, based on the author's research, and in no way represent the views of the ARC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Hill receives funding from the Australian Research Council. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and in no way represent the views of the ARC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Chappell receives funding from the Australian Research Council and from the European Researcg Council. The views expressed in this article belong to the authors and no way represent the views of the ARC. </span></em></p>On Human Rights Day, and with Australia set to take up a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, here’s a must-do list for this country to become a credible advocate for human rights.Carolien van Ham, Lecturer in Comparative Politics, UNSW SydneyLisa Hill, Professor of Politics, University of AdelaideLouise Chappell, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute, Professor Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/781682017-05-23T20:54:36Z2017-05-23T20:54:36ZTrump’s Saudi Arabia speech confirms massive shift in US foreign policy<p>President Donald Trump studiously avoided the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” in his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/21/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit">speech</a> at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Saudi Arabia on May 21.</p>
<p>He instead accentuated the positive, calling the meeting a “historic and unprecedented gathering of leaders – unique in the history of nations” and stressing mutual respect and a desire to “form closer bonds of friendship, security, culture and commerce.”</p>
<p>He went on to say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“America is a sovereign nation and our first priority is always the safety and security of our citizens. We are not here to lecture – we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership – based on shared interests and values – to pursue a better future for us all.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This elaboration of Trump’s “America First” approach to the world must have been welcomed by foreign policy realists. Realists would like it because it marks a turn away from the emphasis, or at least lip service, that <a href="http://www.nationalmemo.com/saudi-women-disappointed-trump-no-obama-human-rights/">the Barack Obama</a> and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/06/bush.china.olympics/index.html">George W. Bush administrations</a> paid to things like human rights and democracy.</p>
<p>In my experience as a foreign policy expert and former U.S. ambassador, I have found that realists believe nationalism is still as much the driving force as it has been since the signing of the <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/treaty-westphalia">Treaty of Westphalia</a> in 1648, which ended the 30 Years War and established a system of international relations based on nation-states. </p>
<p>Under realist theory, every country tries to maximize its power in a zero-sum game because the international system lacks any supervision from any supranational entity. For realists, it’s always anarchy out there. Putting America first is just a recognition that every country puts itself first.</p>
<h2>What the Trump doctrine leaves out</h2>
<p>Trump’s declaration of his America First approach was mirrored by Secretary of State Tillerson’s <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/05/270620.htm">recent remarks</a> to employees of the State Department. Tillerson stressed that the job of State Department employees is to promote American prosperity and security with little regard for the internal issues of other countries that are not related to those two goals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170662/original/file-20170523-5749-1qbcb1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaking to State Department employees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From these two speeches, it’s clear that our “shared interests and values” do not include things that could be divisive, like respect for human rights and democracy.</p>
<p>The assembled leaders would likely have been pleased to hear that – most of them are autocrats, if not outright dictators. No official list of attendees was readily available, but a careful review of photos from the summit showed that about 55 nations were represented. Looking at where those countries fall on the rankings that the NGO Freedom House every year indicates why the audience was so receptive. </p>
<p>In its annual report, Freedom House assigns a numerical grade to 195 countries and 14 territories based on their score on 25 indicators derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Their total grade, which ranges between zero and 100, puts them into one of three broad categories – free, partially free or not free. Nearly half of the countries represented at the summit are rated not free, 40 percent as partially free and only 9 percent free, <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FH_FIW_2017_Report_Final.pdf">based on rankings</a> from Freedom House. </p>
<p>Besides the United States, the only other nations at the summit categorized as free were Benin, Guyana, Senegal, Tunisia and Suriname. The U.S. was the most democratic country in the room, according to its Freedom House score of 89. None of the 27 countries in the world that rank higher than that were present.</p>
<p>While considerable progress has been made in recent decades in terms of increasing respect for these rights and liberties, 2016 was not a good year to the Freedom House Report. It registered net declines in these values in 67 countries and improvement in only 36. With the policy Trump described, in my opinion, chances for a better year in 2017 are greatly diminished.</p>
<h2>A receptive audience</h2>
<p>Many in the crowd must have been enthusiastic about Trump’s speech because governments that have little respect for human rights don’t like democracy. In addition, autocrats prefer decision-making to be confined to a small elite since it improves the economic opportunities <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hung-En_Sung/publication/226036499_Democracy_and_Political_Corruption_A_Cross-National_Comparison/links/09e4150bc9b10ce238000000/Democracy-and-Political-Corruption-A-Cross-National-Comparison.pdf">provided by corruption</a>.</p>
<p>They won’t have to worry about American criticism under the Trump doctrine, since all that matters to America now is jobs and fighting terrorism. The fact that democracy and respect for political rights and civil liberties is the <a href="https://psmag.com/news/respect-human-rights-reduce-terrorism-14208">best way to combat terrorism</a> is something that doctrine fails to take into account. </p>
<p>There was one other thing Trump has said repeatedly in the past that he did not say at the summit. He did not call the press “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/26/world/europe/trump-enemy-of-the-people-stalin.html?_r=0">the enemy of the people</a>.” But that was unnecessary, as nearly everyone in the audience probably already believes that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Jett received funding from a Fulbright senior scholars grant in 2016 to do research and teaching in Israel.</span></em></p>For Trump, putting America first means that being a global leader on human rights may take a back seat.Dennis Jett, Professor of International Relations, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/702392016-12-15T15:42:45Z2016-12-15T15:42:45ZAfter 50 years, it’s time to close the gap between different human rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150157/original/image-20161214-7295-13vhesz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanorwood/13992575750/sizes/l">Lisa Norwood via flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was the moment the UN General Assembly changed the face of international human rights law. Fifty years ago, on December 16 1966, the assembly passed a single resolution containing two new treaties: the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CESCR.aspx">International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights</a> (ICESCR), covering rights to housing, social security and adequate standards of living, and the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a> (ICCPR), regarding rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and physical integrity.</p>
<p>Together, these two treaties constitute the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CoreInstruments.aspx">core</a> of the international system that protects human rights. Both treaties entered into force a decade later in 1976, only a few weeks apart. And both of them have received approximately the same number of ratifications to this day: 168 for the ICCPR and 164 for the ICESCR. Like all other European countries, the UK is a party to both of them.</p>
<h2>Degrees of separation</h2>
<p>But there are significant differences between these two treaties. The intention of those who drafted them was to flesh out the 1948 <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> by making the protection of rights legally binding for states. But considering that the 1948 Universal Declaration contained civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights in a single text, by creating two separate documents it was clear that the drafters wanted to introduce differences between these rights.</p>
<p>While all this happened during the political context of the Cold War, <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14758.html">this was not the main reason</a> why different types of human rights were treated differently. Rather, the decision had to do with states’ general preference for a weaker duty to protect their citizens’ economic, social and cultural rights. Countries were willing to proclaim these rights as long as this proclamation did not entail strong accountability mechanisms.</p>
<p>The second difference between the two treaties refers to the clarity and burden of words. Article 2(1) of the ICCPR talks about states’ obligations “to respect and to ensure [civil and political rights] without distinction of any kind”. Yet the same article in the ICESCR uses much more cryptic language about how the compliance of states to the treaty on economic, social and cultural rights will be monitored. It <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CESCR.aspx">states</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Each state party to the present covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realisation of the rights recognised in the present covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s difficult to assess compliance if rights are meant to be “achieved progressively”, or to decide the “appropriateness” of the “means” authorities are making use of. And can we blame governments if they promise “to take steps”, but not just yet?</p>
<p>There are also differences in the ways states who violate these two sets of rights are held to account. When the ICCPR was adopted, it brought with it an independent monitoring body known as the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/ccpr/pages/ccprindex.aspx">Human Rights Committee</a>. </p>
<p>This had three responsibilities: examining states’ abidance by the treaty approximately every five years; dealing with interstate complaints (although to date this has never been used); and receiving complaints from individuals who consider themselves to be victims of a violation of any of the political and civil rights contained in the ICCPR. A complaint can lead to detailed recommendations on the specific case which countries are expected to implement. To date, 115 countries have let their citizens <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OPCCPR1.aspx">complain to the UN</a> like this, but the UK is not one of them. </p>
<p>But when it came to economic, social and cultural rights, the ICESCR did not contain anything similar, and this was only <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/cescr/pages/cescrindex.aspx">partly corrected</a> in 1985 when the UN created a body to periodically assess the general level of enjoyment of these rights in those countries which have ratified the treaty.</p>
<p>All this means that there are three degrees of separation between the two sets of rights: different treaties that states could pick and choose from, different legal wording, and different accountability mechanisms.</p>
<h2>An unfortunate hierarchy</h2>
<p>Something similar happened in the European context. In 1950, the <a href="http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights</a> was set up with a relatively resourceful European Court of Human Rights devoted essentially to civil and political rights. Then, in 1961, the <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/turin-european-social-charter">European Social Charter</a> was established (and then <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/163/signatures?p_auth=kpuvEhyD">revised</a> in 1996). This is monitored by the much weaker European Committee of Social Rights. </p>
<p>The impact of this hierarchy in which civil and political rights are given more weight than economic, social and cultural rights is visible at the domestic level, too. In the UK, for example, the very important <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/issues/Human-Rights-Act">Human Rights Act 1998</a> gives judges the means to apply the European Convention on Human Rights, but not the European Social Charter or the ICESCR, although the UK has ratified both treaties.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150158/original/image-20161214-2496-1rpaqof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150158/original/image-20161214-2496-1rpaqof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150158/original/image-20161214-2496-1rpaqof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150158/original/image-20161214-2496-1rpaqof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150158/original/image-20161214-2496-1rpaqof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150158/original/image-20161214-2496-1rpaqof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150158/original/image-20161214-2496-1rpaqof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not to pick and choose from.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">StepanPopov/shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Half a century since the adoption of <em>the</em> two landmark human rights treaties, it is time to close the gap between <em>human</em> rights.</p>
<p>Independent human rights <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/PublicationsResources/Pages/FactSheets.aspx">bodies</a>, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/debating-economic-and-social-rights">scholars</a> and a growing number of <a href="https://www.escr-net.org/caselaw">practitioners</a> have worked to define the meaning of economic, social and cultural rights and the contours of states’ obligations to uphold them. </p>
<p>Since 2013, individuals in 22 countries, ranging from Argentina to France and Mongolia, can also <a href="http://www.cesr.org/section.php?id=175">complain directly</a> to the UN if their economic, social and cultural rights have been violated. This only applies to countries that have ratified the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OPCESCR.aspx">2008 Optional Protocol to the ICESCR</a>. Unfortunately, the UK is not one of them. </p>
<p>Yet, even in the UK, a minority of the judges in the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2014-0079-judgment.pdf">has accepted that</a> given their nature, some human rights treaties (although not the ICESCR for now) should be “directly enforceable in UK domestic law”, even without an act of parliament.</p>
<p>Half a century ago, human rights were internationalised with some degrees of separation. Luckily, we now have some tools that we lacked at that time – but we need to <a href="http://www.just-fair.co.uk/take-action">tell the government to make use of them</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Koldo Casla is Policy, Research and Training Officer in Just Fair, an organisation that monitors and advocates economic and social rights in the UK.</span></em></p>In December 1966, international law created several degrees of separation between different sets of human rights. Today, we must fix this.Koldo Casla, PhD candidate: human rights, international politics and law, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667052016-10-13T06:11:13Z2016-10-13T06:11:13ZWhy is Mexico lagging so badly on human rights?<p>The international community began creating a <a href="http://www.ijrcenter.org/ihr-reading-room/overview-of-the-human-rights-framework/#THE_INTERNATIONAL_HUMAN_RIGHTSFRAMEWORK">framework for promoting and protecting human rights</a> 70 years ago. It’s efforts included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and declarations or binding treaties specific to both Europe and the Americas. </p>
<p>In principle, this international human rights regime and the intense global activism around it <em>should</em> have had a positive and significant effect on the levels of respect for human rights around the world. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case.</p>
<h2>The case of Mexico</h2>
<p>The difference between a commitment to human rights and practical compliance is evident in the case of Mexico. Since the early 1990s, the human rights situation in the country has been closely scrutinised from abroad. </p>
<p>In 1994, the human rights situation in the country began to deteriorate in the context of the government’s response to the indigenous rebellion of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-25550654"><em>Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional</em></a> (EZLN) in the southern state of Chiapas. The rebellion was characterised by the militarisation of indigenous territory, forced displacement and severe violations of human rights. Among the most significant was the execution of 45 civilians (mostly women and children) in the <a href="http://acteal.blogspot.mx/p/english.html">Acteal massacre</a>, perpetrated by a paramilitary group in the winter of 1997. </p>
<p>Ever since, human rights organs and regional bodies have produced many critical reports on the human rights situation in Mexico. And they have made more than <a href="http://recomendacionesdh.mx/inicio">2,000 concrete recommendations</a> about how to address it.</p>
<p>The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has decided against Mexico in many <a href="http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/merits.asp">individual cases</a> and has issued two reports <a href="http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/country.asp">dealing especially with the country</a>. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has adopted <a href="http://www.corteidh.or.cr/cf/Jurisprudencia2/busqueda_casos_contenciosos.cfm?lang=en">seven condemnatory rulings</a>. </p>
<p>Along with other expert groups, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights <a href="http://media.wix.com/ugd/3a9f6f_e1df5a84680a4a8a969bd45453da1e31.pdf">investigated</a> the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa teacher training college in Guerrero state in 2014. It found the government had not performed due diligence in its handling of the case. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/mexico/report-mexico/">Amnesty International</a>, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/mexico">Human Rights Watch</a> and the <a href="https://www.wola.org/format/publication/?filter=true&s=&year=0&people=0&regions=mexico">Washington Office on Latin America</a>, among others, have persistently exerted pressure through campaigns, letters, and press releases. Then there are the many highly critical reports on rights violations from police torture to enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/10/stop-torture-mexico/">Amnesty International has reported</a> that there were more than 2,400 torture complaints in the country in 2014, but no data to indicate that anyone was charged.</p>
<p>Despite the adoption of binding international legal commitments (Mexico has ratified all international human rights treaties) and enduring international pressure, the country has <a href="http://www.libreriacide.com/?P=producto&PRODfamily=libros&PRODclassification=82&PRODproduct=30#.V_0QHGdFCUk">not progressed</a> in its compliance with human rights norms.</p>
<h2>The compliance gap</h2>
<p>Why has this happened? Since the 1990s, <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100369430">international relations scholars</a> have paid close attention to the influence of international norms and transnational activism on the human rights practices of individual countries. </p>
<p>Their <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/international-relations-and-international-organisations/power-human-rights-international-norms-and-domestic-change">basic argument</a> used to be that through the effective distribution of reliable (and often shocking) information about human rights violations, advocates could persuade rights-violating governments to change their behaviour. </p>
<p>But as research has accumulated and evolved, we have come to a <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14319.html">different conclusion</a>. While transnational activism has had an influence on the adoption of commitments to human rights by all kinds of governments, the levels of compliance have <a href="http://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/28937/copyright/9781107028937_copyright_info.pdf">remained mostly unchanged</a>.</p>
<p>The gap between what nations sign up to with regard to human rights, and what they actually do in practice, is called the “compliance gap”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141278/original/image-20161011-12017-ov8qca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141278/original/image-20161011-12017-ov8qca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141278/original/image-20161011-12017-ov8qca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141278/original/image-20161011-12017-ov8qca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141278/original/image-20161011-12017-ov8qca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141278/original/image-20161011-12017-ov8qca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141278/original/image-20161011-12017-ov8qca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: worth the paper it’s written on?</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Researchers have <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/428442">found</a> that compliance with international human rights norms <a href="http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/protecting-human-rights">does not depend</a> on the ratification of treaties, but on domestic institutional and social factors. These include regime type, the independence of the judiciary and <a href="http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/49/6/925.full.pdf+html">the strength of civil society</a>. </p>
<p>So now, we are interested in the desired but difficult transition from commitment to compliance, and on the conditions that might make this more likely.</p>
<h2>What makes a difference?</h2>
<p>Mexico is a highly globalised country, with aspirations of being part of the club of modern, democratic states.</p>
<p>It is a transitioning democracy with highly active civil society groups that have been mobilising and litigating in favour of human rights for a long time. All of these are conditions associated with a <a href="http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/85102/copyright/9780521885102_copyright_info.pdf">higher likelihood of compliance</a> with international norms.</p>
<p>What, then, is causing the gap? Researchers are <a href="http://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/28937/copyright/9781107028937_copyright_info.pdf">now exploring</a> whether some domestic factors – including poor institutional capacities, such as insufficient, poorly trained and under-resourced police forces, criminal investigators, prosecutors or judges – have “blocked” the effects of otherwise positive human rights influences and conditions.</p>
<p>Another reason might be that international commitments and pressure have not worked the way they should, and have failed to generate the necessary will to change behaviour. </p>
<p>I am working on this precise area of research right now, and the results remain to be seen. But the most likely answer lies in the combination of both factors.</p>
<p>Mexican authorities have not tried very hard to alter the patterns that result in the systematic violation of human rights, and when they have, they’ve lacked the means necessary to achieve significant change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alejandro Anaya Muñoz receives funding from Mexico's National Council on Science and Technology, CONACYT. He is a member of the board of the Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos. </span></em></p>Mexico has signed every international human rights treaty, but abuses are still rife.Alejandro Anaya Muñoz, Professor, Centro de Investigación y Docencia EconómicasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/591252016-06-01T15:00:46Z2016-06-01T15:00:46ZInternet freedom: why access is becoming a human right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124766/original/image-20160601-3253-azci7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most South Africans are dependent on unaffordable mobile data to access the Internet</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://networksocietylab.org">Indra de Lanerolle</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When most people think or speak about internet freedom, they are often concerned with the right, for example, to say what you want online without censorship and without being subject to the chilling effects of surveillance. </p>
<p>These kind of freedoms are sometimes called “negative freedoms” or “freedoms from…”. They address the right not to be interfered with or obstructed in living your life. But there are also “positive freedoms” — <a href="https://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/wiso_vwl/johannes/Ankuendigungen/Berlin_twoconceptsofliberty.pdf">“freedoms to…”</a></p>
<p>Some constitutions – notably the US Constitution – only protect negative rights. But South Africa’s includes both negative and positive rights. Positive rights include, for example, the <a href="https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/12785996">socio-economic rights</a> to food and shelter. </p>
<p>In its <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2015">Internet Freedom Index</a> Freedom House ranks South Africa as “free” alongside the UK, Argentina and Kenya. The ranking is largely because Freedom House weighs negative freedoms above positive ones. But how “free” is the internet in South Africa? For most, it is positive internet freedoms that may be more urgent.</p>
<h2>Freedom is access</h2>
<p>The South African Constitution in the Bill of Rights does not explicitly protect internet freedom but <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights#16">section 16(1)</a> states that everyone has the right to “freedom to receive or impart information or ideas”. This is a right for everyone and it is not just a freedom from interference – a “freedom from” – but also a “freedom to”: a right to be able to reach others and be reached by others. In this it follows Article 19 of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>. </p>
<p>In his book <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=NQs75PEa618C&redir_esc=y"><em>Development as Freedom</em></a>, Amartya Sen describes freedom as “our capability to lead the kind of lives we have reason to value”. In many ways, the internet is extending such capabilities. </p>
<p>More people now go online daily than read a newspaper. They are able to read a much greater variety of voices than are seen in print or on television. And <a href="https://twitter.com/CityPowerJhb/with_replies">public services</a> are offering improved responsiveness on social media.</p>
<p>But we are also seeing a new development – instances where internet access is now a requirement. Examples include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.cipc.co.za/index.php/Access/how-2/">registering a company</a>,</p></li>
<li><p>The Gauteng Education Department now requires parents with children entering primary or high school to apply <a href="https://www.gdeadmissions.gov.za">online</a>. Previously they could apply at the local school, and</p></li>
<li><p>The South African Broadcasting Corporation has announced that it will no longer advertise its jobs in newspapers, directing job seekers to its own website.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Indications from government are that we are likely to see <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-jeff-radebe-gauteng-e-government-and-ict-summit-2015-2-nov-2015-0000">more such initiatives</a>. The result will be that South Africans’ ability to lead the kind of lives they value will become increasingly dependent on the physical, procedural, economic and social networks that we call “the internet”.</p>
<h2>The question of cost</h2>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.mediaupdate.co.za/marketing/82875/new-amps-data-shows-relative-stability">All Media Products Survey (AMPS)</a> of June 2015 fewer than half of South African adults had used the internet in the previous four weeks. More than half did not. </p>
<p>When <a href="http://networksocietylab.org/the-new-wave-report-doc/">we asked</a> a representative sample of non-users in South Africa in 2012 why they hadn’t gone online, the main reason was that they had no device to connect with (87%). The second reason was that they didn’t know how to use it (76%) and the third was that it was too expensive (60%).</p>
<p>According to the survey, <a href="http://www.mediaupdate.co.za/marketing/82875/new-amps-data-shows-relative-stability">nine out of ten South Africans</a> now use a mobile phone but only half of those now have access to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone">smartphones</a>. The most popular phone brand in South Africa is still Nokia. Most of the models in use have limited or no ability to connect to the net. And because only the better off have access to fixed lines at home or at work, the majority of South Africans, when they do get online, are dependent on mobile networks.</p>
<p>Mobile data is costly.</p>
<p>The International Telecommunications Union and the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation have set a goal for <a href="http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/Broadband_Targets.pdf">affordable broadband internet access</a>. It is that entry level broadband should not cost more than 5% of average monthly income. Because of a flawed methodology they state in a <a href="http://www.broadbandcommission.org/publications/Pages/SOB-2015.aspx">2015 annual report</a> that South Africa falls well within that target. But digging into the figures shows how unaffordable the internet is for most South Africans.</p>
<p>Statistics SA sets an upper bound poverty line of <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-10-06/Report-03-10-06March2014.pdf">R779 per month per person</a> (in 2011 prices). Most – about 53% – of the South African population live on income below this, according to the last census. So this poverty line is more or less the average income in the country. The poverty line adjusted for inflation to 2016 would be R1 031.</p>
<p>Taking the international 5% of income goal gives a maximum budget of about R52 per month. On three major networks (which account for more than 95% of all mobile customers) 500MB – the amount of data they set as a minimum – of data costs between R85 and R105. So for the average South African 500MB per month is unaffordable. In fact mobile data prices would have to fall by about half to be affordable.</p>
<p>And is 500MB per month enough? It is enough for a lot of instant messaging, or say about half an hour a day of browsing the web or using Facebook. But it is not enough to participate in otherwise free online courses such as <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org">Kahn Academy</a> that often rely heavily on video.</p>
<p>This is affecting usage. The most popular online activity is instant messaging using applications like whatsapp. But only one in five people download music online.</p>
<p>Could mobile data be much cheaper in South Africa? Evidence suggests that the answer is yes. <a href="http://www.researchictafrica.net/presentations/Presentations/2015_Gillwald_ICT_Access_and_Affordability_AfriSIG.pdf">Research ICT Africa’s price index</a> shows that South Africa’s data prices are over 20% more expensive than Nigeria, Uganda and Mozambique and three times as expensive as Kenya. </p>
<p>It is also worth noting that the poor in South Africa pay much more for data than the better-off. If you have a fixed line in your home you can buy pre-paid data bundles for R7 per GB or even less, a small fraction of what mobile network users pay.</p>
<h2>Free internet?</h2>
<p>We could go further and ask if the internet could and should not only be cheaper but free? In some places and for some people it already is. That includes university students thanks to <a href="http://www.tenet.ac.za">a network for tertiary institutions</a> funded by the government. It also includes many residents in the metropole of Tshwane – including townships – where <a href="http://www.tshwane.gov.za/Pages/WIFI.aspx">there are over 600 wifi hotspots</a> offering 500MB of data per day at fast speeds for free.</p>
<p>Just as South African municipalities give poor households a minimum amount of 600 litres of water and 50kwh of electricity for free, they could extend this model to the internet.</p>
<p>As lawyers sometimes say, the right to freedom of expression is an ‘enabling right’ —- a right that enables people to access or defend other rights. In the same way the internet itself is now an enabling technology that is increasingly required to participate in social, political and economic life.</p>
<p>For many or most South Africans whether or not the <a href="https://pmg.org.za/call-for-comment/420/">Films and Publications Board</a> interferes with their right to view video material online does not affect ‘their capability to lead the lives they value’ because they cannot afford to access video or audio content online. At present, defending ‘negative’ internet rights is protecting the rights of the few. We need to move to demanding the ‘positive right’ of affordable access if we want internet freedom for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Indra de Lanerolle receives funding from Making All Voices Count for his research on mobile Internet use . He runs the Network Society Lab in the Journalism and Media programme at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The Lab conducts research on the social, economic and political effects of the Internet. Indra is a board member of the Freedom of Expression Institute. The views in this article are his own. </span></em></p>It is time to demand the ‘positive right’ of affordable access if we want internet freedom for all.Indra de Lanerolle, Visiting Researcher, Network Society Lab, Journalism and Media Programme, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/377252015-02-17T16:44:44Z2015-02-17T16:44:44ZHuman rights are nice, but they shouldn’t be enshrined in law<p>North Korea <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/north-korea-slams-us-human-rights-meeting-calls-it-hostile-act-1818436">is outraged</a> over an upcoming conference in Washington DC about its human rights abuses, to which it has not been invited. Pyongyang strongly denies that it has been alienating the human rights of the North Korean people and is threatening to “respond very strongly” to the fact that it is being attacked in this way. </p>
<p>It is a reminder that even international pariahs usually strongly deny human rights accusations. Human rights are almost universally accepted not only as a yardstick for judging our actions, but as a sort of all-conquering legal code whose transgression often attracts the heaviest of penalties. In the latter regard at least, I’m afraid we are deeply misguided. </p>
<h2>Whose rights anyway?</h2>
<p>It is worth reminding ourselves what a human right is: a category of moral rights that we all have as human beings by virtue of our shared humanity, which exist prior to and independent of the deeds and decisions of politicians and parliaments. Such rights are distinct from other sorts of moral rights that people have by virtue of the particular times, places and contexts in which they happen to be. </p>
<p>They are recognised by a long and noble <a href="http://www.diametros.iphils.uj.edu.pl/index.php/diametros/article/view/415">philosophical tradition</a>, but not everyone agreed with them. The very idea was “nonsense upon stilts” <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/275840/human-rights/219322/Nonsense-upon-stilts-the-critics-of-natural-rights">according to</a> the utilitarian reformer Jeremy Bentham, who feared they risked becoming a substitute for effective legislation. In the <a href="http://www.academia.edu/3815310/On_the_Marxist_Critique_of_Human_Rights">view of Karl Marx</a>, rights are held by people as citizens in particular social and economic circumstances rather than by human beings as such. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72266/original/image-20150217-19472-utkqa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hobbes: totalitarian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#mediaviewer/File:Thomas_Hobbes_(portrait).jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even among those who do believe there are human rights in a moral sense, in which I would include myself, there is disagreement about what they are. <a href="http://science.jrank.org/pages/9663/Human-Rights-Classic-Theories-Hobbes-Locke.html">For instance</a> Thomas Hobbes thought that we had a range of human rights in our natural state, but abandoned most of them when we submitted to the rule of a sovereign or government. From that point on, our only right was to self-preservation, meaning that the state could not deliberately take our life. </p>
<p>Contrast this with John Locke, who thought we had a right to life, liberty and property – which formed the basis of the American Declaration of Independence. In his view these were inalienable rights that the state could not take from us, in a radical departure from Hobbes’ vision. </p>
<h2>Human rights in practice</h2>
<p>The relevance of this discussion becomes apparent when you look at the human rights codes to which the UK is a party, such as the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)</a> and the <a href="http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)</a>, which binds the UK parliament by virtue of the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents">Human Rights Act</a>.</p>
<p>When you look down the list of rights that are enshrined in these conventions, you realise that they are mere political wish lists – as are the ones by which we judge North Korea. Those who draw up the lists are not infallible. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.diametros.iphils.uj.edu.pl/index.php/diametros/article/view/415">In my view</a>, it only makes sense to think of human rights when there is a moral duty on everyone or on all states. So you might say that we have a moral duty not to slander others by deliberately telling lies about them. It makes far less sense to talk about a “right to work”, which is in the UDHR for example. It begs the question, who has a duty to provide you with work?</p>
<p>Another example comes from the <a href="https://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/cloning1.html">resolution on cloning</a>, which was passed by the European parliament in 1997. It says that human reproductive cloning is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A serious violation of fundamental human rights … each individual has a right to his or her own genetic identity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether or not human cloning is acceptable, this is an extraordinary claim. Are we to suppose that the very existence of each identical twin is a violation of the fundamental human rights of the other? This goes to the heart of the wider problem: if a human right is merely what politicians say that it is, why should we give them any particular ethical status?</p>
<p>There is also a second major issue. Even if we could agree on what constitutes a moral human right, it doesn’t mean that they should override the law-making powers of our parliaments. To say that we have a moral right to something is not necessarily to say that we should be given a legal right to it. </p>
<p>To lead a worthwhile life, we need among other things food, shelter, clothing, sex, entertainment, friendship and agreeable physical exercise. We do not need a right to such things. We need them. We can have the things without the rights and vice versa. </p>
<p>When it comes to making and enforcing new legislation, it is important to realise that human rights laws mean that we are being constrained by the views of politicians of previous generations and from other countries, as well as what judges from international courts interpret these views to mean. Why should we do this to ourselves?</p>
<h2>The current debate</h2>
<p>David Cameron <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/01/cameron-pledge-scrap-human-rights-act-civil-rights-groups">wants the</a> Human Rights Act repealed and replaced by a British bill of rights. Geraldine Van Bueren <a href="http://theconversation.com/in-defence-of-the-european-convention-on-human-rights-37140">recently criticised</a> this view on The Conversation. </p>
<p>I would absolutely agree with Cameron’s proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act, but I certainly wouldn’t introduce a British bill of rights in its place. The problem is not European interference with British sovereignty as such – rather, it is binding parliament with inalienable rights that are nothing more than political rhetoric. </p>
<p>Professor van Beuren argued that the ECHR has been responsible for numerous positive developments in our country of which any democracy should be proud. Maybe so, but these are political matters, not human rights matters. We should see them for what they are. </p>
<p>To suggest that we should repeal the Human Rights Act is not to say that people should be deprived of any particular legal rights. Rather, it is to question the rationale for passing particular laws. </p>
<p>If, say, there is a stronger case for granting than denying prisoners the vote, contrary to what <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/01/cameron-pledge-scrap-human-rights-act-civil-rights-groups">David Cameron believes</a>, they should be permitted to vote regardless of what international politicians have agreed or international judges have interpreted. If there is a very strong case for saying that the state should never be legally entitled to use torture, which I certainly believe, the same should hold. </p>
<p>It comes down to this: a weak case for giving people a particular legal right will not be transformed into a strong one merely because international politicians have signed a treaty which declares that there is a human right to such a thing. If ever Pyongyang took this point of view, I would have no choice but to agree with them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh McLachlan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>North Korea is outraged over an upcoming conference in Washington DC about its human rights abuses, to which it has not been invited. Pyongyang strongly denies that it has been alienating the human rights…Hugh McLachlan, Professor of Applied Philosophy, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.