Human Rights and Rights of Peoples

II. The Concepts: an Evolutionary Process

A. The UN Charter

In the history of the United Nations human rights have always been projected as an essential ingredient of a vision for a new world order. In the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations the `Peoples of the United Nations' expressed their determination `to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small'. In the same spirit, the Purposes of the United Nations list the promotion and encouragement of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms alongside other major goals of the Organization, notably the maintenance of international peace and security, the development of friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, as well as the attainment of international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character.³

The framers of the UN Charter, in their efforts to devise a blueprint for a new world order, were keenly aware that the maintenance of international peace and security, the creation of conditions for economic and social progress and development, and the promotion and encouragement of respect for human rights are closely inter-linked and are equally important objectives. No true and genuine peace can be achieved without respect for human rights; economic progress and development which is not directed at respect for human rights in the sense of political freedom and social justice does not constitute true and genuine development. The same perspective transpired in the `Four Freedoms' message of 6 January 1941 in which President Roosevelt conveyed to the US Congress, and to the world at large, his vision for a global order based on justice and peace. He outlined freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom from want and freedom from fear as a `definite basis for a kind of a world attainable in our time and generation'.⁴ In his vision, Roosevelt combined individual rights with collective freedoms and he situated human rights in the context of economic and social security and as a political safeguard against aggressive policies and practices. The same vision and the same philosophy found an echo in the preambles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the International Covenants on Human Rights.

B. The International Bill of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted respectively in 1948 and 1966 by the UN General Assembly and forming together the International Bill of Human Rights, are meant to serve as the comprehensive normative framework for human dignity in the world at large and in national societies. Supervisory mechanisms promote compliance by States of the standards enunciated by these instruments, on the basis of the premise that States can be held accountable for the manner in which they implement these instruments.

C. Review and Appraisal Operations

There is an obvious need to assess periodically progress made, difficulties encountered and to orient, and possibly, re-orient the United Nations human rights programme. Two major review and appraisal operations have taken place, involving the whole membership of the United Nations, with the aim of taking stock and setting out guidelines for the future. The first such operation was held in 1968 in Teheran, some 20 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at a time when the character and composition of the membership had drastically changed as a result of the new independence of a large number of African, Asian and Caribbean States. This first International Conference on Human Rights at Teheran was followed 25 years later by the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in 1993 after the years of the Cold War had come to an end and new approaches and strategies commended themselves. Both international conferences offered human rights perspectives which deserve some further attention.

D. Proclamation of Teheran

At Teheran, in 1968, Western nations which had initially a predominant influence on the framing of the International Bill of Human Rights, began to realize that the initiative had shifted from the classical `individual rights' focus to a more structural and political approach which was favoured and pursued by the new majority in the United Nations. The main product of the conference, the `Proclamation of Teheran',⁵ differed markedly from its forebears - the texts constituting the International Bill of Human Rights. The Proclamation of Teheran was innovative in relating human rights to global concerns which reflected in particular the realities of the developing countries and their postulates for change. Thus, the prevailing perspective of the Proclamation of Teheran related to racism and racial discrimination, apartheid, denial of the right of self-determination, armed conflicts, the gap between the rich and the poor, problems of illiteracy, patterns of the inferior status of women and the gross and massive violations of human rights which result from such practices and conditions.

Much to the confusion and frustration of those who were used to viewing human rights within the neat confines of legal instruments and procedures, human rights were thrown in the whirlpool of the world's massive and urgent problems, affecting the lives and the well-being of millions of people. In retrospect, the perspective set out in the Proclamation of Teheran and followed up in other policy documents added new dimensions to the human rights debate, enabled actors at national and international levels to perceive major world issues in human rights terms, and gave new impetus to the aspirations of many people. At the same time this analysis did little to solve those major issues and to operationalize the link between human rights and major global issues. Analytical strength did not find a response in operational strategies.

E. New International Economic Order

On the basis of the same line of thinking awareness grew in the seventies that, in spite of all the efforts by the UN and related agencies to achieve peace, freedom and justice, and in spite of the progressive development of international human rights law, the prevailing international structures operated to the advantage of the powerful and to the detriment of the weak, resulting in the latter's increasing dependency and impoverishment. This led to the call for a New International Economic Order formulated and proclaimed by the UN in 1974.⁶ And a few years later the UN General Assembly stated that

the realization of the new international economic order is an essential element for the effective promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms and should be accorded priority.⁷

When it became evident that the structural changes which were called for by a new international economic order were not going to materialize, the claims advanced by developing countries became less vocal. Moreover, the new international economic order did not only suffer from the unwillingness on the part of the wealthy countries to work towards a radical change in the economic structures of the world, but also from the inherent deficiency that the call for equity and justice among nations was not accompanied by a parallel call for more equity and justice within nations, thus contributing to a new social order and a new human or humanitarian order. In fact, the basic standards for the new social and human order already existed, embodied in the International Bill of Human Rights.

F. A New World Order?

The vision of a New World Order which was so much in the mind of President Roosevelt was advanced once again by another president of the United States in a State of the Union Address to the US Congress in January 1991, in the middle of the war in the Gulf. President Bush stated that:

What is at stake is more than one small country; it is a big idea: a new world order - where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause, to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace, security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle and worthy of our children's future.⁸

These high-sounding words reflected the mood of the time and marked the period immediately following the end of the Cold War. In the same euphoric spirit, the Heads of State or Government of the States participating in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe declared in November 1990 in the `historic' Charter of Paris that `the era of confrontation and division in Europe has ended'. They stated:

Ours is a time for fulfilling the hopes and expectations our peoples have cherished for decades: steadfast commitment to democracy based on human rights and fundamental freedoms; prosperity through economic liberty and social justice; and equal security for all our countries.⁹

It was this euphoric spirit which heralded the values of peace, human rights, pluralistic democracy, the rule of law, good governance and popular participation as essential ingredients of a new world order. Against this background the initiative was taken to convene `at a high level' a World Conference in 1993.¹⁰ It was expected that such a World Conference would strengthen United Nations capacity to enforce human rights and create means and methods of preventing violations of human rights.

However, this optimism soon dissipated as a result of the dramas that occurred in various places of the world, most notably in the former Yugoslavia. Deep-rooted antagonisms, dividing people along national, ethnic and religious lines, found expression in the most brutal and inhuman actions. Radical sentiments of nationalism and ethno-centrism reemerged. Efforts by the international community to control and counteract these developments and to stop man's inhumanity to man proved to be largely fruitless, and United Nations monitoring procedures were simply inadequate as a means of coping with massive violations of international humanitarian law.

G. The Vienna World Conference

In this changed political climate scepticism was the order of the day and the level of expectations of a positive outcome emerging from this second major human rights gathering was quite low. The idea that the world organization could become an effective instrument for creating and upholding a new world order no longer captured the imagination of the main actors. It is no surprise that under these circumstances the Vienna World Conference did not produce major break-throughs and open up new perspectives, but it did have the merit of reaffirming and consolidating already existing achievements and of giving new impulses in favour of the rights of vulnerable groups. The Vienna Document highlights the rights of indigenous people,¹¹ migrant workers, children, disabled persons, asylum seekers and displaced persons, and the document is particularly forceful as regards human rights of women. As was correctly stated by an informed observer:

... women's human rights was perhaps the only area in which the World Conference can be said to have met the challenge of defining a forward-looking agenda twenty-five years after the last world conference on human rights.¹²

A well organized strategy by women's rights activists managed to bring women's human rights into the `mainstream' of UN human rights activities. Vienna was particularly promising from the perspectiveof women's human rights.

3 UN Charter, Article 1

4 Eide, `The Four Freedoms and Human Rights in the New International Order', in A. Eide, J. Helgesen (eds), The Future of Human Rights Protection in a Changing World: Essays in Honour of Torkel Opsahl (1991) 1-8.

5 United Nations, Human Rights - A Compilation of International Instruments, Vol. 1 (First Part) (1993) 51-54.

6 Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, adopted by G.A. Res. 3201 (S-VI) of 1 May 1974; Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, adopted by G.A. Res. 3281 (XXIX) of 12 December 1974.

7 G.A. Res. 32/130 of 16 December 1977.

8 See Eide, supra note 3, at 1.

9 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Charter of Paris for a New Europe (21 November 1990), text reproduced in 11 HRLJ (1990) 379-389.

10 G.A. Res. 45/155 of 18 December 1990.

11 Much to the dissatisfaction of indigenous organizations and groups the Vienna document uses the wording `indigenous people' instead of the term `indigenous peoples' (Declaration, para. 20; Programme of Action, paras. 28-32).

12 Sullivan, `Women's Human Rights and the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights', 88 AJIL (1994) 152-167, at 152.

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