Dr Christopher Sabatini
Wow, it’s a full house. Thank you for coming. Who says people don’t care about human rights anymore? Thank you. The point of this is the launch of a book that we started roughly 2½ years ago, on human rights, that just came out. The – you have it in your hands, those of you who could get it before the copies ran out, the first run print addition. There’s going to be a fuller run in November, just in time for the holidays and nothing says I love you like giving the gift of human rights for those of you who want to give it to a loved one. But it’s also free, actually, as an eBook, on our website.
This book grew out of a OpEd I wrote for The Washington Post about 2½/almost three years ago. It talked about the curious situation where the Donald Trump administration was implicitly, perhaps unexpectedly, siding and allying itself with two countries that its own National Security Advisor, John Bolton, had called the “Troika of Tyranny.” It was stiff-arming the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and refusing to co-operate, just like Nicaragua was doing and just like Venezuela was doing. And it raised a question, how, when the US is not all that co-operative, often, on matters of human rights, on international organisations, but why, suddenly, is a populist government, one of the, if you will, Founders of the international liberal orders, now suddenly deciding to, sort of, ally itself and for international human rights?
And it got me thinking that suddenly, it did just seem that unlike the past 70 years, when human rights has never been an easy sell, it’s always been pushed back against by questions of national sovereignty, questions of ideology and questions of state collapse, in many cases, now, suddenly, it seemed that the challenges were different, the challenges were new.
Whether it was the rise of national populist movements, not just to government, places like Turkey, places like the US, places like Poland and Hungary, but also national populist movements in, say, the Netherlands or France, or Sweden, now, that were changing, very much, their dynamics about human rights. Pushing and pulling, if you will, the party systems, to become much less tolerant of migrants’ rights, for example, and in many ways, violating the very foundations and very norms that they, themselves, had signed. By the same token, even in, of course, the UK, we’re talking about sending migrants to Rwanda. And suddenly, this doesn’t seem to provoke the level of indignation that one would’ve thought, say, ten/20 years ago. Maybe I’m being romantic in thinking about that.
But the truth is it did seem that something was very different. By the same token, you had China and Russia make – and Turkey, making common cause with other autocrats, and Venezuela in the Philippines. And suddenly – and even justifying, for example, the coup d’état in Myanmar. But it did just seem that, not just this alliance and not just the cases of individual countries pushing back, either domestically or internationally, that the basic notions of human rights norms and international institutions to defend them were becoming much more contested.
So, with that idea, based on the OpEd, I pulled together an amazing group of Authors, we’ll hear from some of them today, to look at these different dimensions. I won’t go through the entire book, but basically, what we look at are the rise of China and how geopolitical competition and China’s efforts to rebuild, if you will, sort of, the international order, more to its liking and more to its interest. The rise of Russia, by two Authors at McGill University in Canada. We talk about the rise of what Alex Cooley at Columbia, an Author, talks the counter-norms, the efforts by Russia and China to create, sort of, parallel organisations, parallel NGOs, governmental NGOs, to contest human rights norms within institutions. We talk about the rise of national populism. Gerald Neuman, a Professor at Harvard University Law School, talks about the rise of populi – its effects not just on domestic politics, in fact, more on international norms and support for human rights.
We talk about the rise of Evangelicals and how, oddly, Evangelicals are making common cause, often with, in the US, an effort to rewrite progressive human rights under the Trump administration, under Mike Pompeo, but also making common cause with the Government of Uganda to roll back LGBTQI rights or rule back women’s rights. Or even making an alliance with Putin and the World Council of Churches, again, something very different than what we saw before.
We also talk about the rise of technology. Kate Jones is here, along with Emily Taylor and Carolina Caeiro, talk about China’s efforts to rewrite the international protocols for the internet and the effects that will have on privacy and monitoring. We also talk about, then, regional human rights issues, the issue of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and its, sort of, challenges within Latin America. The problems within the European human rights system, the problems presented by Poland and Hungary. We even see this now, for example, with the UK, saying it’s going to write its own Bill of Rights on Human Rights.
We talk about the human rights system in the Middle East, which isn’t really a system so much, but it is, obviously, caught within this dynamic of geopolitics and the rise of extremism. And then, last, we talk about the problems within the African human rights system. So, it’s a comprehensive book, it’s a thick book, I will say. The – I hope you enjoy it. I like to think it’s well written and readable, but we also end with recommendations. We are a think tank. We’re not here just to think, actually, we’re actually here to recommend policy stuff. And so, each of the chapters concludes with recommendations and then, the final chapter was the result of a series of conversations we had with young leaders, through our Next Generation projects and Academy Fellows and so on and then, also, with human rights activists, and those reflect those recommendations.
So, there we have it, human rights. It’s definitely a challenge today, but as we’ll hear, from the Authors and from Ambassador Villegas, we shouldn’t lose faith. One of the things that happened in the course of planning and writing this and editing this project was, obviously, we were just reminded constantly of how relevant it was, whether it’s human rights violations, crimes against humanity in Ukraine by Russia. Whether it’s the rise of national populism, again, in Sweden or in the Netherlands and, of course, also with the, you know, the challenges that we’re seeing in Poland and Hungary and the removal of Russia from the European system. So, in all these cases, we’re, kind of, reminded this is relevant. Luckily, it didn’t outstrip the project. You know, we have this rip fear that suddenly, like, what you’re writing is – by the time it gets published, it’s going to be, sort of, passé or anachronistic, I don’t think it is. I think the problems that we’ve identified are still real, I hope the recommendations are valid.
So, what we’ll do is I’m going – Ambassador Villegas is going to speak and then, we’ll have a panel. The bios of the people are up there. Since this is a book launch, I’ll assume a certain amount of literacy, so I don’t need to read them for you. But Ambassador Villegas is the President of the UNHRC. Obviously, he’s also served in – at the Organization of American States and worked with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He’s a friend of the human rights community. And then, we’ll hear from Rosemary Foot, who’s – unfortunately, has COVID, so couldn’t be here in person, so – but she’s a real trooper and is actually here virtually, from Oxford. She is a Professor Emeritus at Oxford University. And Rana Mostafa, who’s also here virtually because she couldn’t get her visa to come to the United Kingdom, unfortunately. She’s a Professor of Law at Alexandria Law School. And then, we have Kate Jones, who did – was able to make it from Oxford, didn’t need a visa, and was healthy. And Chanu, who’s a friend, but also the Deputy Director of the International Law Programme, who’s going to provide comment. So, Ambassador Villegas, please take it away.
Ambassador Federico Villegas
Thank you. Thanks, Chris, thanks to Chatham House for the opportunity, of course, of being with you today. I will try, in ten minutes, to give you ten ideas, or thoughts, or maybe information. First of all, this has been one of the most challenging years in the history of the Human Rights Council, by far, since it was created. But at the same time, this year was the year that the Human Rights Council became the intergovernmental body of the whole UN system with the highest presence in social media. So, the whole UN system, General Assembly, Security Council, we have highest presence and followers than any other body.
So, why is that? For some reason, people, common people like you in the tube, relate in some way to what we do, because we address, basically, the human rights of everybody, everywhere, all the time, 24/7. But it has been a very challenging year, I have to say, because as Captain of the boat, I’m – I Chair a body of 47 states that are very different, one from each other, with different views, cultures, religions, geopolitics.
The P5 were members of the council for the first time, altogether, at the beginning, but during the whole year, I had countries trying for me to put all the weight in the boat in the front or in the back. And until the last day, I’m doing, on a daily basis, trying to keep the boat floating, because if you put all the weight in the front or in the back, it will sink.
So, we became this very present body because for – we do some things that, for some reason, work. First of all, social media showed that people are going back to the basic notion of human rights. You know, the basic notion, from the human point of view, is this idea to have empathy for other people’s suffering without having a personal interest in that other person. One thing is to suffer because your son or your friend is suffering. There you have a personal take. But what shows the social media and the interest in the council, is that we deal with people suffering everywhere and this – the power of social media has shown that they’re following the Human Rights Council, they are following whoever is being killed or tortured or persecuted in any part of the world.
We do other things, which is a Universal Periodic Review. That’s a very important tool that I think we have to see in perspective for the future. For 50 years, the Commission of Human Rights, which was before the council, didn’t address – only addressed the human rights situation of some countries, between five and seven. Over 185 countries never had to put their human rights situation on the table and especially not to listen to other countries tell them what to – should be – should do better or NGOs. And so, this tool that was created with the council is a revolutionary tool, because we do have every single country of the – member of the UN putting, every three/four years, their human rights situation on the table and getting an average of 200 recommendations by all other states. Developed and underdeveloped countries all get an average of 200 recommendations. So, that powerful tool is changing dramatically now in the field, because if you look at those recommendations, they’re, basically, a road to development in a country with a human rights perspective and that’s what we are doing now.
Second role is to address human rights situations, serious human rights situations, as of course, it’s obvious that here, on serious human rights situation, if you look at the headlines in the last weeks, you might think that the only important thing has been the council not deciding to have a debate on the report of Xinjiang, of the Office of the High Commission. But let me tell you that in dealing with addressing human rights situation, four days after the invasion of Ukraine, while the Security Council was paralysed, without acting, a whole collective security system that we created for this not to happen, or to react if it happened, was absolutely paralysed, with a veto by the same country that breach the charter.
Four days after that, in Geneva, in the Council of Human Rights, we approved a historic urgent debate on the situation, and we approve a Commission of Inquiry to investigate violations of human rights in the conflict. Never happen before in the history to approve a Commission of Inquiry on a permanent member of the Security Council. And then in June, in the session, that Commission of Inquiry presented a report, which clearly states all the violations that are being committed on the ground, which will be basic – one of the most important elements for any accountability on these atrocities. And guess how we finished last session on Friday? Approving a Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Russian Federation. Again, historic, never in P5 had a Special Rapporteur on human rights created on them. And at the same time, we address accountability mechanisms on Ethiopia, Barundi, Venezuela, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Afghanistan, only in this session.
And then, the other role, which is very important is, we are the hub of progressive development of human rights, norms and the standards. What we do in our sessions is create new standards that will protect you and future generations to have more and better protected rights. And just to name a few, last year, after 20 years of having discussions on environment from the environmental point of view, from the socioeconomical point of view, we approve that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right. And that was the council and now the General Assembly adopted that as a human right. So, imagine how much is going to be change the attitude towards the environment with a human rights perspective.
And only in this session, just to mention a few, four new issues were adopted by consensus: neurotechnology and human rights, cyberbullying, the human rights implication of new military technologies, like the killer robots, and the impact on human rights of the legacy of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. So, unfortunately, those new mandates are, at the same time, altogether with old mandates, because gross violations, like enforced disappearance, torture, persecution, arbitrary hesitations, continue to occur everywhere.
So, which is the future? If I’m in Chatham House, let me quote Winston Churchill, and my favourite quote of Churchill is always – he has many, but the one I like, because I like history perspective, is, “The further backward you look, the further forward you can see.” And definitely, to understand what’s the future of human rights, we have to see where we come from, and so, if we go back to Westphalia, from 1648 to 1948, for 300 years, international law as such didn’t care much about people, cared about the interest of states, and that was how our international law was created. We had attempts of caring about people, minorities. We were able to have a social contract to abolish slavery. But international law, as such, didn’t care of people, and this revolutionary idea that a person has rights beyond being a national of a state or another, beyond religion, beyond culture, and that they collective – the international community collectively, has to protect that right, is absolutely a revolutionary idea, and it’s a revolution of only 74-years-old. In matters of history, in historical perspective, it’s nothing.
So, what – the first thing to understand what’s the future of human rights is that we are in the middle of the revolution. We are leaving the revolution, because if you look at the 193 countries, there are still 77 countries that criminalise same-sex relations, 27 with death penalty and five that apply death penalty. And on women’s rights, that we have so much – many gains, we are witnessing, this year, how many regressions on women’s rights, not only on developing countries, on developed countries, or on migrants or on basic refugee law standards.
But at the same time, there’s hope, because in the last month, the same way that we had bad news, I will say from the Global North, we had good news from the Global South. Let’s look at the last month. Cuba, by a referendum, over – almost 70% of the population decided to accept same-sex marriage, including adoption of children. Singapore decided to eliminate the criminalisation of same-sex relations in their code. Sierra Leone decided to abolish the death penalty. Malaysia changed their same-sex law, also. So, you see, those countries did not do those things because of the Western values imposing. It was their own societies that were able, for some reason that every society has a dynamic, that we don’t – no understand why Europe is going backwards in basic rights, that the whole European project was based on. We don’t know that.
It’s a dynamic within the European societies, why the Far Right is back after such a progressive way of doing a European project. Each country is a different laboratory, but what we are seeing is that the future of human rights should not have – should overcome this idea of the good and the bad. We will not have a future of human rights law continue and developing if we don’t get this idea out of the table, of that some countries do well and others don’t, and the ones that do well should teach the others how to do it. That is from the past. It’s a discourse that is not efficient and it doesn’t work.
And at the end, I will like to also emphasise two things. First, it’s time for us to put our money and our institutions where our mouth is. You know, in 2000, we approve that there are three pillars in the UN: peace and security, development and human rights, that the three are mutually reinforcing. And even Kofi Annan said, “The most important of the three is human rights.” There’s no peace and security without human rights, there’s no sustainability without – but you know what? Human rights system in the UN has 4% of the budget, four, not 14, four, and if you add the human rights peacekeeping component in peacekeeping operations, it’s only 7%.
So, definitely, you cannot have one pillar that is so essential with so – and sometimes, the problem is that people think that human rights are cheaper, but let’s be honest, it’s cheaper to have strong human rights institutions set in order to prevent a conflict and not to have a peacekeeping operation. What could have happen if we had had an efficient system for Russia to address the problem of Russian minorities in Ukraine? A system that was put forward in a way that everybody felt their ownership of the system and be able to say, “I want a Special Rapporteur on Russian minorities in Ukraine, because I’m worried about Russian minorities. I want to have a special session on this, on that.” And all the elements were at the disposal to address those issues and to use the R2P concept as an excuse to invade a country to protect a minority, with a – in human rights system that we have, is something that shows that our system doesn’t work for everybody. What we need in the future of the – our system is that everybody feels that owns the system and use the system for good.
And last point is the socioeconomical right. One of the big things that we should do in the future, I think, is to realise that we have the fundamentalism in the post-Cold War era, that we need to acknowledge and change in order to, you know, bring closer the Global North and the Global South, and that is social economic advice. In the post-Cold War era, we all read history in one way. One side won over the other because they had a better way of organising themselves politically, socially and economic. But that extreme vision that that was the only reality with the end of history, Fukuyama, etc., was that the absence of the state was something good and that the private sector was the Panacea to solve everything and look what happened after that extreme vision. We destroyed the planet and inequality raise at obscene levels, like we are having.
So, now we need human rights as the way to put that pendulum in the middle and if we are able, all countries, to look seriously at socioeconomical rights the same way we do with civil and political rights, I think next year the Vienna – 30 years of the Vienna Declaration, is the great opportunity to look at the future of human rights, with this pendulum bringing everybody together with a vision of interdependency, universality of our rights. So, I prefer to stop here and any questions. I have more things to say, but I prefer just to wait for the questions. Thank you.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you, Ambassador. He will answer questions when we – after we – go ahead and plug. I’m all for that, go on [pause]. What we’re going to do is, I’m going to ask the Authors a few questions based on the book and then, Chanu is going to provide a sort of, review of the book, hopefully not a critical one, but that’s allowed, as well. Yeah, yeah, actually, there’s a lot to say. I want to say, before I do, though, I want to thank Caroline Soper and Amanda Moss for their – this is an Insights book. It’s published by Chatham House and by Brookings Institution. They helped shepherd this entire thing along. It is not always a smooth ride. Perhaps even working with me was not always a smooth ride, so I want to thank them both for their persistence, perfectionism and commitment to it. So, thank you very much for this.
Let me go – start, first, with you, Rosemary. How is China, and you talk about this in the chapter, how is China beginning to shape the discourse in human rights, not just, obviously, around its own prerogatives with national sovereignty, but in other countries, as well? I mentioned Myanmar. Obviously, it embraced the coup d’état in Myanmar when that occurred. What are your thoughts on China’s role in this writ large?
Professor Emeritus Rosemary Foot
Yeah, thanks very much, Chris, for inviting me to be part of this project and this evening, and my apologies for not being able to be there. But obviously, you wouldn’t want to be standing next to me, with COVID symptoms. So – and thanks, too, to the Ambassador, actually, for very insightful remarks.
I’d like to say something about the Chinese position on rights, because I think it actually responds to some of the points that the Ambassador has raised already, and as you rightly say, they make the argument that – the normative argument that legal sovereign equality of states, non-interference in international affairs – in internal affairs, excuse me, are the most important norms governing state-to-state relations and actually in creating global order. And they argue that the state is the best guarantor of human rights and they have actually, sort of, attacked the idea of the universality of rights, arguing that “All countries must proceed from prevailing realities and go their own way.”
And they argue that “Attention to subsistence and development is – has driven the human rights progress” in their own country and by implication, they are putting this forward as a solution for other developing countries, as shown in Beijing’s introduction of resolutions at the Human Rights Council, actually emphasising this point. And actually, China has been able to garner support within the Human Rights Council, not only for these resolutions, but also for other arguments that it’s been putting forward.
There is a likeminded group that operates within the Human Rights Council and sometimes they work together with China to promote the idea of development as a foundational right or the idea that countries need to go their own way, rather than emphasising universality of rights. Sometimes they support China, in part, because of the important economic relationship that they might have with China, sometimes because states fear that their own records are actually going to be the subject of criticism and sanctions and so on. And, also, a number of states are impressed, of course, by China’s successes in transitioning from one of the poorest developing countries…
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Oh, she froze. Uh-oh, that’s not the COVID, uh-uh.
Professor Emeritus Rosemary Foot
I say, the built coalitions of support and perhaps one of the best examples that I’d like to bring up is that we’ve just witnessed, last week, when the Human Rights Council handed China a closely fought victory, by rejecting a proposal to hold a debate on the findings of the report that came out of the UN High Commission for Office of the High Commission of Human Rights, detailing abuses against mainly Muslim leaders in Xinjiang.
Now, there were 19 votes against holding the debate, 17 for holding it – the debate and 11 abstentions, and importantly, only one African country out of 13 African states actually voted for having the debate on the UN Report. So, I think we can say that China has been influential in shaping understandings of human rights at the Human Rights Council, and I would say, actually, shaping the institution itself.
So, for example, the Universal Periodic Review process, which I agree with the Ambassador, is extraordinarily important process, nevertheless, has been turned into an opportunity to praise states for the progress that they have made in human rights protection and less emphasis put on the idea of accountability. And similarly, within the Human Rights Council, again, it’s been difficult for NGOs, independent NGOs, to make their points, to make their voices heard.
So, I think that within the Human Rights Council itself, China has been able to shape it in ways that are worrying for the progress of human rights, and that would be true of other international organisations of which China is a part, something like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, for example. Again, that – the SCO emphasises state sovereignty non-interference in internal affairs as the most important norm.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has adopted Chinese language in respect of security, put that language into treaty form and security treaties developed within that body of the SCO have had direct and negative human rights consequences, especially, again, affecting those Uyghurs that have fled to the Central Asian States and sought sanctuary there. So, their particular struggle has been described as coming under the heading of the three evils: “separatism, terrorism, extremism.”
So, I think there are real challenges for human rights within international organisations, international institutions and that China has been leading the charge to influence both the way we think about human rights normatively and how we deal with it within institutional structures.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
What Rosemary says about the SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which was created by China and Russia, fields fake election monitors. It’s written about in detail by Rosemary, but also Alex Cooley, but there’s an equivalent in the – in Latin America, the CELAC, the community of Latin American Caribbean states that also is, sort of, emphasising notions of national sovereignty over issues of popular sovereignty.
Kate, this is a good time to turn to you a little bit about your sense. I mean, you’re a Human Rights Lawyer, generally, but then you combined forces with Emily and Carolina to talk about the threats on internet security. What are your thoughts on, sort of, China’s role in this and the like?
Kate Jones
Yes, thank you, Chris, and it’s a pleasure to be here and to be involved with the book. I give it – will turn the lens a little bit, I think, to technology and will come back to China in just a moment and to challenges that the emergence of new technology poses for human rights. And I’ll draw two examples of this, which illustrate two different points. The first is that emerging technologies can offer authoritarian states new ways of bypassing human rights and even the international human rights system.
So, in my chapter, which I co-wrote with two fantastic experts on tech governance, Carolina Caeiro and Emily Taylor, we looked at Chinese proposals to bring forward a new type of internet, called “New IP,” which they did not in a human rights body, but in a technical standards body in the International Telecommunications Union, another organisation in Geneva, a couple of years ago. And they were concerned that this would have created a new internet, different from the internet that we have and, potentially, not interoperable with it, so you, essentially, end up with two different internets.
And I was very concerned that this new model of internet that they were proposing would have ridden roughshod over human rights, because it would, essentially, have embedded surveillance deep into the internet stack. So not just at the application layer of the internet, but much deeper, so that those operating the internet would be able to see precisely who is doing what and the content of what they’re saying. So, immediately, you see a lot more surveillance online, you see limitations on freedom of expression, on freedom of assembly, potentially risks to economic and social, cultural rights, a great range of potential human rights implications.
And had these proposals gone through at the ITU, they would’ve done so, without the awareness of the Human Rights Council and the human rights institutions and that was the concern, that suddenly, this would’ve been created and agreed internationally in a technical body, where – staffed mostly by Engineers, where human rights hasn’t traditionally been prominent and without the involvement of these human rights bodies.
Now, that proposal was defeated. There are still bits of it being proposed in standards bodies and I know that the Human Rights Council has since passed a resolution to encourage work to look much – at how the human rights bodies in Geneva can work much more closely with standards bodies in order to make sure that human rights is actually given its proper place. But still, the episode is an example of how technologies offer opportunities to bypass human rights in new and unexpected ways.
And then, the second thing that I’d like to touch on briefly in relation to technology, which actually comes slightly out of what the Ambassador was saying, is that it’s mostly being developed in the private sector. It’s the small state taken to an extreme. Most tech development is in the private sector and governance by states is a long way behind. So, I’ve been involved in other research for Chatham House, working with Chanu and others, on artificial intelligence and human rights, where what we see is that the private sector developing AI which is going – and is already, and will much more effect, all of our lives, they’re working very hard on AI ethics. And that’s great, that’s very noble, but for the most part, AI ethics doesn’t take account of human rights.
And it’s a little bit like the 1940s. I’m so glad you mentioned history and Winston Churchill, because at the moment, everybody supports AI ethics, without exactly knowing what it is. There are about 170 different sets of AI ethics principles and it’s a bit like in the 1940s, everybody supported human rights, but it then took several years of very hard work to come up with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that actually encapsulated what was meant by human rights.
And so, the risk here is that human rights gets bypassed as AI is developed. Governments are quite far behind the technology and similarly, the international system tries to play catch-up and to, sort of, be imposing norms, but you have the technology moving forward very, very fast. And what we need is for the tech community and the human rights community to be talking to each other much, much more, so that you actually get human rights in at the ground level in emerging technology, in as technology is being developed, so that we preserve those human rights and maintain them as we move to a more AI-defined age. I’ll stop there, Chris.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Let me ask you a follow-up question.
Kate Jones
Hmmm.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
What are other forums in which this is being pursued? ‘Cause obviously, you mentioned one, but in the – you know, the – tech standards, generally, are, sort of – they touch many different areas. So, are there other forums that we should be looking out for, as human rights activists, or human rights scholars and practitioners?
Kate Jones
So, there are a great range of human rights standard – sorry, technical standards bodies, each of which have their own acronyms, that I can – I could start listing out acronyms.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Simple, yeah.
Kate Jones
Yeah, exactly. But – and they operate in slightly different ways and so – but this issue can potentially arise in any of them. But some of them are much more linked into, sort of, multistakeholder environments, where there is much more of a focus on keeping the one global open internet that we have today, than others. So, without getting too much into, kind of, the technical specifics, it’s a range of standards organisations, but we need to focus, primarily actually, on the UN bodies, like the ITU and one aspect of this is making sure that all the different parts of the UN are speaking in the same language and speaking to the same tune, which I’m sure is something that the Secretary-General would be supporting.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Good. Thank you very much. Rana, you wrote about COVID and the effects of COVID on human rights and the ways in which some multilateral organisations weren’t quite fit for purpose to address issues of human rights in the midst of the pandemic. Which is, by the way, when we were writing and editing the book, so it was very much on our minds. But of course, now there are other issues, too, environmental crises, future pandemics. What are your thoughts on, so, what we learned from the use and abuse of COVID or an emergency and its effects on human rights?
Rana Mostafa Essawy
Yes, thank you so much, Chris, for the invitation, first. It has been an honourable and enriching experience to be involved in this book. So, speaking about threats, whether they are pandemics, public health emergencies, environmental crisis, threats to human rights are not only specific to COVID-19, but have been long acknowledged in the international human rights instruments, as they allow states to limit human rights or temporarily suspend their enjoyment, only if certain conditions are there. But despite the – these limitations and derogations framework, states, they tend not to comply with this framework, and they tend to adopt excessive, unnecessary and even measures that pursue illegitimate purposes under the pretext of responding to those threats.
But COVID-19, it came with its – with a few challenges, because it had an unprecedented geographical threat. It nearly affected all states, so it led to restrictions on human rights on the global scale, which had unprecedented implications on human rights. So, just wanted, just mention there has been an unprecedented decline in human development worldwide.
Not only this, but COVID-19 also came about in a context of rising populism, of rising authoritarianism, of growing tensions between the powerful states, so notably United States and China. So, this has not only hindered co-operation, which was mostly that during the pandemic, but it has also created an imminent risk that violations on human rights will start be normalised.
So, again, this is background. Just to move quickly to what lessons can we learn from COVID-19 in order for a better protection of human rights during future crises, whether they are health or climate crisis or global food insecurity? I would just like to, first, say that these lessons, they were there before COVID-19, but COVID-19 brought them to the forefront as indispensable lessons for a better protection of human rights. So, COVID-19 has emphasised that adopting a human rights based approach to responses to human crises is very – is indispensable for a better protection of human rights. COVID-19 has stressed on the interdependency of all human rights, as Mr Ambassador has just mentioned, that neither civil and political rights prevail over social and economic rights, nor the other way around.
So, this interdependency between the human rights, they need a holistic co-ordinated protection of human rights from the international and regional human rights institutions. And besides that, a timely protection of human rights is very important in order to – not to lose the hard-won gains in the fields of human rights, in order to be able build back better. Indeed, our international and regional human rights institutions are not fit to provide timely responses, but maybe I will come to that, back, later, but a timely and a holistic response during pandemics, during future crises, is a vital component for a protection of human rights in the future.
So, COVID-19, as well, invites us to review the measures in the toolbox for the protection of human rights during human crises, because whilst some measures may work during normal times, they may not be effective enough during the crisis. But instead, they may cause a double harm, being counterproductive to the protection of human rights and at the same time, they are going to be – increase the tensions between states, re-incentivising states to co-operation, which is the vital component for responding to a crisis. So, I think COVID-19 called us to revisit this toolbox for the protection of human rights.
And maybe I can conclude the – just a little bit quick, by a very important lesson from COV – for – from COVID-19 to future crises, which is that multilateralism has been, and should still be, the foundation for the protection of human rights in normal times and in the cri – and future crises and the international community should just work on strengthening it. And maybe I’ll stop here, Chris, and return back to you.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you very much, Rana. I actually want to go – before we go to Chanu and I’m going to ask Rosemary for some recommendations, but Ambassador Villegas, these issues that we just talked about. Obviously, COVID-19, you were there. Some advances were made in being able to bring people in virtually to participate, but what are your – I mean, both China and technology and, you know, COVID, what are your reflections on that, sitting where you were sitting through all of this process, let’s say?
Ambassador Federico Villegas
Well, COVID-19 definitely is – it’s a world shaping event for multilateralism, but also an impact on all these institutions, for example, the discussion on internet, the – what type of internet. We all discovered now that we took for granted the type of internet that we’ve been doing and enjoying for the last 20 years, and the discussion on the elections of the ITU, there was a Russian candidate against an American candidate and, basically, it was two types of looking at the internet, one closer to the Chinese version.
So, in the COVID-19, when we talk about social economical rights, for example, it’s interesting that you mention multilateralism. One of the first discussions was the intellectual property on vaccines, and that was a very technical discussion and, in a week, became a geopolitical discussion. And the WTO, the World Trade Organization, that is the one administering the treaties on intellectual property, realised there was a social function of intellectual property in a crisis like this, the same way we did with HIV.
In Africa, today, we were able to get the drugs to everybody at a cheap price, at an accessible price, because of a dramatic change in the way to look at intellectual property on those drugs. And we tried to bring that discussion from a human rights perspective, but it’s very difficult.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you for…
Ambassador Federico Villegas
You know, tho – each organisation is a whole world in itself.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Yeah. Rosemary, I want to go back to you quickly. You – great synthesis of the challenges and activities and of impacts of China, mostly in the UNHRC. What are your recommendations? Can give you a – synthesise some more of the recommendations you have in the chapter on this, ‘cause it’s delicate, obviously…
Professor Emeritus Rosemary Foot
Yeah, it…
Dr Christopher Sabatini
…given its rise.
Professor Emeritus Rosemary Foot
Yeah, I mean, I think that all states and including China, need to be reminded that the requirements of the human rights treaties they’ve signed are that we accept that our human rights behaviour is subject to international scrutiny. There is – the idea that non-interference in internal affairs is the overriding norm in international relations, is belied by the fact that we have international human rights treaties that require us to be concerned, as the Ambassador put it, “to have empathy” for individuals, wherever they may be. As human beings, we should be concerned. So, the – as I say, non-interference in internal affairs needs to be challenged.
I think, also, the undermining by China of the idea of the universality and the indivisibility of rights also needs to be challenged, and it’s an idea, obviously, that’s reflected in the two covenants. China has signed and ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, but has only signed, never ratified, the Covenant on International Civil and Political Rights.
I think, also, that we need to be aware and to think about, as scholars and as practitioners, of China’s establishment of a South-South Forum on Human Rights, that has met on three occasions. It meets every two years, and it has established a Beijing Declaration on Rights, which again, is very reflective of the Chinese perspective as I’ve outlined it. And the implications of that is that there could well be spill over form this body, a South-South Forum body, affecting the work of the Human Rights Council.
But I’d like to add something, Chris, if I may, just about the US side of things, because if the – so much of this is, sort of, debated through a kind of, US-China lens in various international bodies, at the UN and elsewhere. And I think the United States itself, if it’s going to be persuasive in the kinds of arguments that it’s making with respect to human rights and democracy promotion and so on, it needs, definitely, to retain humility about the country’s own human rights failings. It needs to continue to attack ideas about distributional unfairness in the United States and outside of the United States, unfairness about discrimination, again, inside the US and outside of the US. And I think Biden and Blinken had tried to send that message and I would encourage them to continue to do so.
So, what I’m saying is that in order for the United States and other countries to build a wide consistency of support for positions on human rights, they need to recognise the source of inequities within their own societies, but also those – that source of inequity around the globe. And again, referring to the Ambassador’s remarks about the importance of paying attention to social and economic and cultural rights.
Now, we should be working with others to provide investment, to provide in – aid. This doesn’t have to be seen only through a competitive lens with respect to the Chinese approach and infrastructure projects, Belt and Road Initiatives and so on. Again, health and education, important, as Rana has said, important sectors where the developed democratic world can better compete and can do far more.
So, those are some of my recommendations and I hope they make some sense.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Chanu, before I go to you, no, it was very strong and very powerful and obviously, yeah, the moral authority of to speak out on human rights depends on a certain amount of honesty, integrity, one’s own human rights failings. I think it’s absolutely right. Before I get to you, Chanu, I just want to ask, Kate, you – we were talking before about, you know, renewing and refreshing the discourse on human rights, tell me a little bit. I think it’s an important point.
Kate Jones
Absolutely. I mean, it was very refreshing to hear from the Ambassador that on social media it’s the Human Rights Council that receives the most interest of all of the UN institutions, because I think that in some parts of the world, including for an example, in this country and parts of the West, human rights currently has a bit of an image problem. It’s seen as old-fashioned, or it’s seen as clunky, or it’s seen as getting in the way of innovation, or it’s seen as something that stops governments from enacting their policies and too often, it is a bit of a stalking horse of governments or of the media, “Oh, we can’t do what we want to do because this human rights gets in the way.”
And I think that is really problematic because of exactly what the Ambassador said at the beginning, about how human rights is about universal empathy and about how human rights is really a mantle that clothes each of us and allows us to live our lives free from discrimination. And being able to say what we wish and to meet with whom we wish, and all those other wonderful freedoms, and of course, the economic, social and cultural rights, as well. And so, I think we need to be thinking carefully about how we redress that and show that actually, human rights is a very, very sophisticated system that has really careful checks and balances and balancing of rights and interests that are engaged in a particular situation. So, that whether you’re talking about, kind of, traditional scenarios, or whether you’re talking about artificial intelligence, actually, human rights has scope to develop and to provide answers about ways that you can have innovation and you can have tech development, while at the same time, looking after the rights of everybody. And I feel that everybody who cares about human rights needs to be thinking about what we can do to refresh its image for the – this 21st Century we’re in.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you, yes, very good. Well, there’ll be questions that’ll – so, prepare your questions, but first, Chanu, your reflections on the book and I also think your ongoing work on your topic.
Chanu Peiris
Happy to, but I’ll start, Chris, by offering my congratulations for – to you and to the Authors and everyone involved in producing this book. To have written on human rights, in recent years, is like dealing with both moving goalposts, as well as changing goalkeepers and really, to belabour the analogy, sometimes shifting teammates. So, well done, and I have similar experiences doing the Human Rights Pathways project in the International Law Programme.
If I understand correctly, I’m supposed to give a live book review.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Live book review in five minutes. Can you do it?
Chanu Peiris
Great.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Oh, right.
Chanu Peiris
So, I’ll perhaps borrow from the structure of book, which talks about the international mechanisms, it talks about regional, national and one key cross-cutting theme. What I’ll attempt to do is talk about some of the key – the common threads, as well as where the conversation can perhaps go, moving forward, beyond this book. So, starting with human rights diplomacy, as we’ve heard, the international sphere is very much characterised by a disruptive Russia, an ever ambitious China and a more reticent Anglo-American bloc. And China’s particular approach being incredibly attractive, particularly to developing states, with the focus on development first and non-intervention in sovereign affairs.
But the Xinjiang resolution, although disappointing, I think suggests that China’s success and normative powers isn’t as wholesale as we could perhaps instinctively guess, and this is illustrated by the fact that the resolution failed by a margin of two votes. Other indicators that the bubble is perhaps bursting can be seen in the example of Sri Lanka, which very much espoused China’s approach to development and non-intervention, but is currently facing economic collapse. And what we’re seeing in Sri Lanka is, at the very grassroots level, a call for accountability for the first time and a recognition of the interdependence of human rights and their universality.
And the other indication, again emerging out of the 51st Session of the Human Rights Council, is just the distribution of votes. Not only has the council voted in favour of a UN Special Rapporteur for the first time, investigating the human rights conditions of the P5 states, but the countries who voted in favour of that and other resolutions, didn’t vote, necessarily, as ideological blocs. So, for example, Muslim states – Muslim majority states were divided on the Russia resolution, whereas they have been unified on other resolutions.
At the national level, we’ve heard a little bit about the issue of populism and what is perhaps most – you know, the tools of populists aren’t particularly novel. But what we’re starting to see in the current era, post-the 1990s, is a real decoupling between democracy and populism, which is something that presents particularly fresh challenges for human rights proponents. Also complicating the picture for human rights activists and scholars is the outsized power of corporates and investors, the increasingly securitised global and national agendas and the difficulties caused by issues like disinformation and new technologies in capturing public imaginations and the marketplace of ideas. So, against this backdrop, Melani McAlister, for example, talks about how human rights activists need to be a little bit more creative in the search for allies. And she speaks a little bit about religious groups and how they’re not monoliths and there’s an opportunity there to forge more broad-brush alliances.
The book also goes into systemic issues, particularly focusing on tech. We’ve already heard from Kate about the, sort of, geopolitical race and the opportunities that technology presents to create a particular vision of the world. Also discussed in the book is how technology exposes gaps within the framework and how there’s work to be done in filling those gaps with norms that have been tried and tested, as Kate has said, for decades, and carefully calibrated. But the book is not comprehensive, in terms of its approach to cross-cutting challenges. There are other regions, as well, to focus on, and some of the more existential threats to human rights will have to address, going forward, include the climate emergency. People have already spoken about gross inequality. There will also be, increasingly, migration and demographic pressures to contend with.
So, the work at Chatham House very much continues on all of those fronts, including through the Human Rights Pathways initiative, led by the International Law Programme. And I would argue that in an increasingly fragmented world, there is a greater role to be played by parties like Chatham House, who offer a neutral and therefore, dispassionate assessment of where the road could be, going forward, and the kind of adaptations that the human rights system will have to make.
We heard a little bit from Rana about how authoritarian regimes exploit emergency responses and the pandemic, as well as the war in Ukraine, will further exacerbate the kind of vulnerabilities that individuals face, including through ever accelerating inequality, creating added stresses on the multilateral system on which human rights depends. So, the questions and the investigations are urgent ones.
But to end on a slightly more positive note, the issues as Rana has also pointed to are longstanding ones. They are issues and risks of high probability, as well as high impact, and what the recent years have demonstrated is simply where the weaknesses are and precipitated the pace at which we need to come up with solutions. But fragmentation has also created space for smaller states. The Ambassador spoke about emerging rights to the environment. These were very much led by small island states in some quarters and through alliances within the Global South.
Another example, and this is by no means exhaustive, is the example of leadership from African states on issues of discrimination and the postcolonial legacies following the, sort of, political opening that was created by the murder of George Floyd. And as a consequence, the UN has established a Commission of Inquiry into systemic racism in law enforcement contexts, not only in the US, but beyond. I’ll leave it there, Chris.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Right, so thumbs up, thumbs down, on the book?
Chanu Peiris
Thumbs up.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Alright, okay.
Chanu Peiris
But more – but maybe a part two.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
She has an ongoing project, too, that’s exploring many of these themes and others, as well. So, questions; there’s a roving microphone. I’m going to take a bunch of them. So, we’ll start here and then, we’ll go there and then, we’ll go there and we’ll – okay, take four first. Yes, go ahead, please, and introduce yourself, please, and I wou – there are a few online, too.
Nikki Sun
Oh, hi, my name is Nikki. I’m a Fellow at Chatham House’s International – sorry, Digital Society Initiative, and my question about the impact of emerging technologies on human rights. So, my first question is about, how do you see the impact of emerging technologies, like AI and the big data on the future of work, especially the labour rights? ‘Cause we have read a lot of, you know, reports about how, you know, employers, kind of, manipulate those technologies over, you know, workers’ rights. And the second question, and as you mentioned, we needed to, kind of, integrate human rights in the design of algorithm and also the, you know, early development of technologies, how do we do that? From an international law’s perspective, is there any way to, you know, regulate it from very beginning, rather than, you know, later on? Thank you.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you, Nikki. There’s another hand here. Who – someone else had – there we are, right here, and then we’ll go over there, I think.
Lenkovac Kosova
Hi, my name is Lenkovac Kosova and I have a question for Kate, because she mentioned ITU. So, my question is whether you think that the right to have encrypted conversations through WhatsApp and the others should be a fundamental right, given that in China they are reading the encrypted conversations, in the UK they are discussing right now to open people’s conversations and read them in the name of, you know, looking for terrorist content and so on? So, I would like to get your view on that.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you very much. We’ll take two more questions. Go ahead.
Sudac Shen
So, this is Sudac Shen, I’m a MPS student at the LSE.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
He’s a student of mine, so feel sorry for him. He’s been…
Sudac Shen
So…
Dr Christopher Sabatini
…to LSE.
Sudac Shen
…my question is to you, sir. First question, when you mentioned that UNHRC has a budget problem, so are there any provisions relating to working with regional and subregional organisations on human rights issue, for example, ECOWAS, in relation to Tuaregs and ASEAN with respect to Rohingyas? That’s first question and the second question is that when we are considering issues of institutions in today’s time, when they are facing entropy, and when we have a situation that policy entrepreneurs are becoming a thing, is the UN working on something to develop these policy entrepreneurs to work on human rights in their respective countries? So, these are the two.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you, that’s good. You talked more now than you did in class. The – and then, there’s a question right here and then, we’ll get – I’ll get to you in a second, yeah.
Alina Kabran
Hi, my name’s Alina Kabran. I’m a politics and IR student at Queen Mary. My question is for the Ambassador. Well, firstly, thank you all for being here today. I read some of the book on the website and I can’t wait to read the rest. If you don’t mind, my question starts with a couple examples. Firstly, in 2018, the British airstrikes in Syria were not legal, as neither the UN Charter nor international law permitted that military action on the basis of humanitarian intervention. No-one was held accountable. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the Universal Periodic Review process has been more about praising states than holding states accountable. What – so, now, my question is, what can the United Nations, particularly the United Nations Human Rights Council, do to be more effective as an institution in holding states accountable?
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you. I’m going to add one question from – an online question, ‘cause it relates to that and it – which is from Robert Parr. And it’s, “To what extent, if at all, are human rights taken into account in the development of new weaponry systems by the private sector defence industry, particularly in the development of click warfare capacity aimed at information disruption, etc.? Are there any international bodies regulating this or maintaining some form of oversight?” I’ll answer this partially first, because it’s – we have a chapter on this. Thompson Chengeta wrote specifically on the issue of automatic – automated weapon system, autonomous weapon systems and AI. Are used – but in fact, and it goes to your point in part two, is that there’s no accountability over how these weapons systems are used and often have racist implications.
His argument, and this goes to you, Robert, I’m looking at you as if you’re there – the – is that – is, basically, the issue of, you know, there is a need for the UN and other bodies to develop the accountability mechanisms and he calls for, actually, a broader, sort of, movement to demand greater accountability on this and to demand that the private sector actually be more accountable for the sale and use of these weapons and how they’re applied. So, it is partially answered here. It’s a good – but I want to let the actual panellists answer these questions. Let’s go in reverse order. Well, actually, Rana, did you have any comments on any of this, did – you wanted to add?
Rana Mostafa Essawy
Well, Chris, I don’t think I have, because when Kate Jones is here, I cannot answer on technology, so I’ll leave it.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Okay, free ride if you like. Oh, yeah, we’ve – Rosemary, did you have any comments?
Professor Emeritus Rosemary Foot
Just one quick one, Chris, and that…
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Very quick.
Professor Emeritus Rosemary Foot
…is, I mean, on the weapons systems, the only things I know about, and it’s not a topic that I work on, but I know that there has been a lot of discussion within the UN and Secretary-General Guterres, among others, has been very concerned about the use of explosive weapons within civilian areas in armed conflict and so on. And again, there is a body that has been looking at that and trying to impose, obviously, restrictions on that. But as for the wider thing, I – the wider question, I think this, again, has become a question, or a debate, about ethics, rather than a debate about rights, actually, about the way in which certainly these weaponries are used.
On the question about the Universal Periodic Review and how to make it stronger and a source of accountability, again, I think one of the things to do at this – in this first step is to expose, actually, what has been happening with it. I mean, again, it is a very good procedure. It’s a very good addition to a human rights body, but actually, to be aware of the way in which it’s being misused, I think is an important first step to uncover before we start thinking about ways of bringing it back to the original intention of that process.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Thank you. Kate?
Kate Jones
Yes, thank you. A couple of questions that were for me, first from Nikki over there. AI and the future of work and human rights, this is such an important issue and it’s an issue that, in my view, governments ought to be leading the way on. It’s part of strategic planning, but AI is going to change the way that people are in the workplace and the employment opportunities that are available. Governments need to be thinking ahead about how to deal with that issue and if need be, talking to the developers of technology on it, absolutely, really, really important.
Secondly, how to integrate human rights in the development of AI, hugely important. I mean, I mentioned before that there are now at least 170 sets of AI ethics principles. Attention has now moved from what you do with those principles, so what processes companies should actually follow to get ethics into their work, and people are looking at processes of algorithmic audits and impact assessment. And from our point of view, in the human rights side, what we would say is that in developing those processes, they should, again, take account of the extensive expertise in human rights impact assessment that there is, thanks to the Ruggie Principles, which say that “All companies have a responsibility to respect human rights.”
The Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in Geneva, through their B-Tech Project, has been doing fantastic work on this, saying, “This is what companies need to do in order to take account of human rights in algorithmic development.” But what I would say is that quite a few of the algorithmic assessment processes I’ve looked at are deficient in a couple of ways. One of them is that they tend to think about ethics, usually, right at the beginning of the process, rather than on a continuing basis. And what we see often with AI is that it – how it manifests itself can change over time, right, because it’s self-learning, so therefore, you need to be continually looking for risks, rather than just at the outset.
The second thing I would say about this is that actually implementing these processes is turning out to be really complex. So, it is still an iterative process trying to look for a way that Tech Designers can properly have these human rights impact assessments, while at the same time, moving on in a relatively efficient manner with the rollout of new technology. And we – that’s something we need to think about a bit more, again, so that it doesn’t wipe smaller players out of the market. So, it’s a big growth area at the moment and really, really important.
Thirdly, there was a question for me specifically about WhatsApp and end-to-end encryption. Now, it’s a really, really tricky issue and the way that we have seen it play out in the UK and the debate on the Online Safety Bill is that on the one hand, you have a lot of the human rights community saying, “Well, freedom of expression and privacy are absolutely key. You need to preserve end-to-end encryption. For human rights defenders and many others around the world, this is absolutely vital.”
On the other hand, you’ve had the child rights community saying that “It is end-to-end encrypted messages, which are responsible for an awful lot of the spreading of child pornography and therefore, it’s fuelling some of this industry, which is having a terrible impact on children.” So, you’ve got these two imperatives.
Now, what the Online Safety Bill tries to do is to say, “Okay, we’re going to try and look for ways to enable both of those and so, what it talks about is the possibility of future technology, that doesn’t yet exist, that would allow you to do some sort of scanning for material, which is this awful abuse of children, yeah, only that, but doesn’t actually lead to the contents of the message, unless there is actually a problem with it.
Now, a lot of people are saying, “Well, that’s actually not possible and if you open the door to that, then the risk is that you are opening the door to much wider reading of messages and so on.” And that’s the debate that’s going on.
Personally, I feel that if you can genuinely find a way of squaring the circle, then that’s okay. If you can’t, then clearly, you shouldn’t break up the encryption. It’s a bit like going through airport security, right? Yeah, I know that when I put my bags through airport security, they’re being scanned for weapons and other dangerous things, that’s fine. If they were being scanned and the computer was finding out, you know, what clothes – what brands of clothing I have and what cosmetics I use, so then it can then sell me adverts and it could start to profile me and it could start to decide on my political and my religious persuasion and so on, I would have a real problem with airport scanning, as well. So, it’s a – I see it as a kind of, an analogous situation to that.
Finally, just quickly on the development of warfare. I’m sorry, Chris, for taking so long.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
No, no, no, no, I’m just looking at him, ‘cause, like, he had a question…
Kate Jones
Okay.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
…but I don’t think we’re…
Kate Jones
Okay, okay.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
…going to have enough time for – to add him.
Kate Jones
Firstly, IHL applies just as it does in any other situation and there are lots of debates about that in the UN, but we have to get to the bottom of that. Secondly, if you like, it’s the sharp end of what we were talking about before, of the development of AI taking account of human rights right from the beginning. Yeah, okay, that’s enough from me.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
That’s excellent, though, really. Chanu, you’ve worked – and before I turn to the Ambassador to wrap – and wrap up, you’ve worked on AI in the role of the private sector and the obligation of the private sector. Do you want to just add a few notes from your work on this?
Chanu Peiris
Kate’s the Author of that paper, so, like Rana…
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Oh.
Chanu Peiris
…I’ll defer to Kate.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
Just you, you’re chairing the whole, entire panel. You want to [inaudible – 75:27] and ask me too? Ambassador Villegas, the final words and on reflection. A lot of good questions your way and…
Ambassador Federico Villegas
Yeah, very good.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
…also, just your thoughts on…
Ambassador Federico Villegas
Very good.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
…the overall issue.
Ambassador Federico Villegas
Okay, thanks a lot for the questions and the budget problem, you know, the Office of the High Commissioner is the heart that pumps the blood of human rights in the whole human rights. It has $140 million, that’s the 4% I’m talking, and it has 240 millionaires of dollars, of bilateral co-operation to the office. So, that’s something that needs to change, and I think the private sector should – we should go from corporate social responsibility, where we’re able to go to business and human rights. But essentially, I think we have to go to the next stage.
And the next stage is the ownership of the private sector of the human rights idea, because what we need is that private companies realise that invest in human rights is a smart investment decision. Is not philanthropy, is not to have a safe face for stock, it’s something that is – so, if we can get these weapons system factories to realise from the beginning that to invest in human rights – if you are able to develop a drone and refrain yourself from putting a software for that drone to identify colour of our skins before they drop the bomb, which is actually what they are doing now. Today we are having drones being developed in robots, with the possibility of identifying colour of our skin before they’ll drop the bomb. So, if we can put the human rights chip since the beginning with the private sector, so that’s – and we are doing things.
And I will invite, here, to listen to the speech of the UK and other developed countries, that develop weapons, by the way, when the resolution was presented last Friday to approve the dimension on the impact of human rights, of new military technologies. And the first thing they said, countries that build the weapons, is, “We should don’t mix – this is not a human rights issue and we should continue to deal with in the laws discussion on disarmament.” So, first thing is to get a leap of faith by the developed countries that are so much behind the human rights idea, to put the human rights idea in the development of weapons.
Then, on accountability and the UPR, I understand the point and I think Rosemary also made the point, the UPR was never thought for accountability. Let’s be – let’s go back to the idea. The UPR was created, why? Because for 50 years we didn’t address, ever, the human rights situation of 187 countries, never. Saudi Arabia had to be before a table saying why women could not drive a car. That didn’t exist for 50 years. So, the UPR was never thought for accountability. That’s why, in the same resolution we created the UPR, it was thought for having every single country of the world putting their human rights situation on the table, you know, every other – and you know what? We are starting the fourth cycle in November. That means for three times 193 states had to put their human rights situation on this exercise.
But the addressing human rights situation and accountability was another tool, which the Special Sessions, the urgent debates, the Special Rapporteurs – we have 13 Special Rapporteur on accountability mechanisms on countries and 40 Special Rapporteurs on thematic issues. Thematic issues that are not fashionable, but they exist, like the Special Rapporteur on albinism, and I was in Africa and albinism countries – yeah, albine [means albino] people suffer a lot of violations of human rights, for many reasons. So, there’s another way of looking at accountability and unfortunately, it’s not the UPR. It was not thought for that.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
We’ll stop there, unfortunately.
Ambassador Federico Villegas
Yes.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
‘Cause we – I don’t want to run too far. We’ve…
Ambassador Federico Villegas
That’s it.
Dr Christopher Sabatini
…gone one – five minutes over. You will all – there’s a reception, so you’ll have a chance to ask your questions in person. So, I apologise if you didn’t get a chance to. So, first of all, again, I want to thank the Ford Foundation for supporting this project. They are the ones who believed in it. I want to, again, repeat my support for – my appreciation to Amanda and Caroline for their work on this throughout and the Brookings Institution and Chatham House generally. I want to thank you all for coming.
Just one quick anecdote. When we were preparing this, halfway through we had a meeting with – so, that, actually, the South African Institute for International Affairs and others, with their, sort of, youth network. So, one of the things that really stuck with me, and I talk about this in the foreword, is I, sort of, thought that there would be a moment when we got, you know, 20 something students and young professionals to talk about their perspectives on human rights. We’d hear, sort of, dismissiveness about it or, “What’s it relevant to me?” or “Why not economic?” And one person among all of them, but one person said it very eloquently, she said, “We’re the generation that grew up in human rights.” And so, we can lament the challenges and the tensions over human rights right now, but it’s been 75 years/74 years, there’s been real progress, and it’s difficult to turn – to imagine that progress being turned all the way back.
And there are challenges and I think, again, your attendance here, I appreciate you coming and listening, your enthusiasm, your questions, demonstrates that this is – we’re moving forward. It’s not a time to despair, it’s a time to take stock and to refresh that language, our commitments and so on, and ways. Luckily, we have a great President of the UNHRC, who’s willing to be here. So, please join me in thanking not just the panellists here, but all the Authors who contributed, who couldn’t be here but are going to contribute. So, thank you very much for coming. Please enjoy the reception.
