June 12, 2008 9:24 AM

In Human Rights, the Cup Is Two-Thirds Full

Posted by Michael D. Goldhaber

Perhaps the only professionals who love a meaningless anniversary more than journalists are fund-raisers. Last night Columbia Law School (itself celebrating a sesquicentennial) marked the tenth year of its Human Rights Institute with a good-news-bad-news panel discussion by Columbia University alumni in the field of human rights, held at New York's Morgan Library.

Peter Rosenblum, who codirects the Human Rights Institute, framed the discussion with a nostalgic lament. In 1998, he said, human rights defenders felt euphoric about the arrest of former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet, the recent signature of the land mine ban convention, and the negotiation of the International Criminal Court. Ten years later, accountability for crimes against humanity remains a dream, and advocates are weary from having the Bush policies on torture, detention, and rendition thrown back in their faces by spokesmen for abusive regimes.

The experience of a bitter Bush aftertaste is widely shared. And a sense of dreams unattained rang true with alumni such as Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch in Brussels, and Eduardo Bertoni, who directs the Due Process of Law Foundation in Washington, D.C. But the declinist account of human rights omits some important milestones: the ongoing trial of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, last month's entry into force of the U.N. Disability Convention, and the imminent launch (admittedly delayed) of the first ICC trial, based on the recruitment of child soldiers by a Congolese militia.

As the evening wore on, a strong message emerged that the decade in human rights looked brighter if you focused on either the private sector or the nonprofit sector.

"Ten years ago, the field of business human rights didn't exist," began Chris Avery, the founding director of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in London. Yet the approach has been rapidly embraced by human rights NGOs, the United Nations, and national human rights commissions. Most importantly, Avery said, the private sector is more susceptible to pressure than the public sector, with a majority of the top 100 London-listed companies already having adopted policies of corporate social responsibility.

The past decade also saw human rights for the first time permeate domestic civil rights NGOs. At least that's the view of two panelists who ought to know: Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. Northrup hailed the development of a broad global jurisprudence in reproductive rights. Shapiro said that the move to "bring rights home" was both a natural outgrowth of globalization and a tactical response to the narrowing of U.S. constitutional law.

While Chief Justice John Roberts has resisted efforts to import progressive law from overseas, Shapiro voiced optimism:"The use of international law in domestic litigation is inevitable. [Roberts] can slow it but he can't stop it." If so, then the public sector will again produce news to cheer activists, and the twentieth anniversary of the Human Rights Institute will see a clinking of cups more than two-thirds full.

Make a comment

Comments (0)
Save & Share: Facebook | Del.ic.ious | | Email |

Reprints & Permissions

Post a comment

If you have a TypeKey or TypePad account, please Sign In

You are currently signed in as (nobody). Sign Out

Name:

Email Address:(Not displayed with comment.)

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: