“Naturalmente, er I mean ‘naturally’ we could help with with our expertise in that area.” Stated sub-Commandante Marcos de La Guerra, speaking on behalf of Los Companeros de Comité para promover el odio de homosexuales de Cuba’ (aka the Government).

Martinned: Wouldn’t the more sensible thing be to do another investigation into the other half of the story?

I suppose that this might be true in an ideal world, or if the Goldstone report’s reporting on Israel were adequate. In an ideal world, the UN HRC would not have spent all of its time on Israel and ignored the various worse human rights abusers out there. But that’s not the world we live in – Hamas will never be investigated by the HRC. The Goldstone report wasn’t exactly sensible on Israel either: it ignored the thousands of rockets to which Israel responded, thereby ignoring the question of whether Israel’s actions were in self-defense. It also ignored the question of whether Israel is the most moral army in the world.

As to respecting values, I think of Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck. He tried to outlaw suttee, aka sati, and was met with the “But it is tradition!” argument – even though it was not as widespread as usually assumed today. Recalled to England, he was told to stop his move to outlaw the practice. Upon returning to India, he had decided that his English employers and the Indian could be subvertedm and to paraphrase what he told a gathering of Indian officials:

“I will respect your tradition of burning widows. In return, you will respect our tradition of hanging murderers.”

With support from high Indian officials (a couple of whom had already banned the practice in their areas) it was effectively stopped…

This may be a downpayment -

“National Security Advisor Reiterates US Commitment to Peace, Palestinian State at ATFP Gala (hat tip Nidra Poller)
Washington, DC, Oct. 16 –

At the Fourth Annual Gala of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), the National Security Advisor, General James L. Jones, reiterated the Administration’s commitment to establishing a Palestinian state and determination to move forward with peace talks.

“We are clear, unambiguous and consistent,” said Gen. Jones, “The time has come to relaunch negotiations without preconditions to reach a final status agreement on two states.”

The National Security Advisor emphasized that, “President Obama’s dedication to achieve these goals is unshaken, is committed, and we will be relentless in our pursuit of achieving these.” He said that ending the conflict and the occupation is essential because what is at stake is “nothing less than the dignity and the security of all human beings.” [is this a pre-condition. If so, for whom]“We must move beyond talking about talks and get to the hard work of addressing the core issues that separate Israelis and Palestinians,” Jones said.”

Well, Ryan, it’s not Obama’s fault that the Bush administration collected these individuals in such a slipshod manner, mixing willy-nilly the dangerous ones with the innocent bystanders, plus the totally innocent who were fingered by their enemies. And it’s not Obama’s fault that Americans, and Congress, are hysterically opposed to having the Guantanamo prisoners brought to U.S. soil for trial, and incarceration or release as the case may be. Given the atrocious politics on this — delivered by the Rove-Cheney-Bush administration — this was perhaps the best Obama or any president could do.

the Council issues resolutions promoting the values of the developing world, whose members outnumber and hence outvote the members from the developed world

Yes, “one country, one vote” is horrible (or “one country, two votes” like the US Senate). IMF/World Bank rules are sooo much better! Or maybe we should just vote more or less in proportion to population, like the EP and EU council of ministers.

Ariel: While the human rights institutions (the Human Rights Council, the NGOs, etc.) view the Goldstone report as affirming human rights, I don’t see it that way at all. The Goldstone report had the mandate of looking at only one of the two parties in the conflict and did so. This means that it completely ignored the serial human rights violations committed by Hamas: everything from targeting civilians and using human shields to throwing rival Palestinians off of buildings. While the human rights industry may not see it that way, the only appropriate response to this report would be to reject it outright.

Wouldn’t the more sensible thing be to do another investigation into the other half of the story?

zywotkowitz: Obama certainly wouldn’t want his image to have the chink of giving amnesty to a human rights abuser.Dream on. The Obama admin won’t risk taking a tough stance with anyone (except of course those nations that are in such a position of such weakness that they cannot react in kind ie. Israel, Honduras).

I agree, except: Israel? Really? It is my distinct impression that Israel can take care of itself just fine. Ever since its independence, it has taken care of itself, and it still does to this day. Unlike Honduras, they don’t have to care very much about being adressed in the strongest possible terms by the Obama administration.

1) Effectively hand the HRC over to the human rights abusers giving them a free stamp of approval from the UN HRC. Those in the know might realize it doesn’t mean much but it can divert a lot of attention.

2) Send the message to other countries that we value our security/renditions more than human rights. Sure that may not be why we aren’t joining but it’s the message that would be sent.

3) Allow human rights declarations and possibly even agreements to be developed without our input and there is a real danger these would end up forming the basis for a future more powerful international system that we would have difficulty ignoring.

Ultimately either you believe that declarations of UN commissions lacking in any legal force or even presidential signature don’t pose any threat or you worry about their creeping influence. In the former case there is no harm to us joining while in the later it’s vital we don’t let the HRC function without our input.

There is a good argument for refusing to participate in international institutions when participating would give the institution significant legitamacy and power, e.g., if we had joined the ICC I think it would be a much more powerful institution. However, even if we join the HRC my sense is that it would still just generate ineffectual official ideals and condemnations.

eyesay:

I think most references to human rights in this discussion are meant to refer to the signing of treaties and the making of official pronouncements about human rights. Obviously, when it comes to really advancing human rights everyone things we should be all in, the question is just whether the international human rights agreements help or hurt than endeavor.

The only real break from the Bush administration on the human rights front, rhetoric aside, was the decision to join the comically named Human Rights Council….

Within 2 days of his inauguration, Obama set a timetable for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as well as all overseas CIA detention centers for terror suspects. That’s human rights too.

These values include: redistribution from north to south (which, if history is any guide, means redistribution to regimes, not to people); weakening property rights, especially intellectual property rights, which southern countries would like to appropriate; protecting religious and “traditional” values, which, it turns out, have little to do with what westerners normally think of as human rights, and mainly involve the subordination of women and opposition to secularism; and asserting the “right to development,” which both underlies the south’s claims for aid and excuses developing countries from complying with obligations of any sort—including obligations to respect the other human rights—that might retard economic growth.

If the Human Rights Council has any real-world effect, it is to advance these anti-western values.

Since when are economic redistribution, weaker intellectual property rights, religious values, opposition to secularism, and subordination of women all “anti-Western”? All of those things enjoy a long history in the West and still have substantial support there. You don’t get to take your personal values and attribute them to all of Western Europe.

Ricky Nelson: A little early to declare Obama is all rhetoric on human rights. While the US has not endorsed the Goldstone report, it has refrained from completely dismissing it. The administration has taken a wait and see approach to the report by recommending that domestic institutions try and take care of the matter.

While the human rights institutions (the Human Rights Council, the NGOs, etc.) view the Goldstone report as affirming human rights, I don’t see it that way at all. The Goldstone report had the mandate of looking at only one of the two parties in the conflict and did so. This means that it completely ignored the serial human rights violations committed by Hamas: everything from targeting civilians and using human shields to throwing rival Palestinians off of buildings. While the human rights industry may not see it that way, the only appropriate response to this report would be to reject it outright.

Dream on. The Obama admin won’t risk taking a tough stance with anyone (except of course those nations that are in such a position of such weakness that they cannot react in kind ie. Israel, Honduras).

I must admit I know significantly less on Al-Bashir and Sri Lanka. But the prospect of Al-Bashir cooperation was a recent development that will probably catch more media attention if it continues. When the media hits, I’ll be watching for how the US changes its stance. Obama certainly wouldn’t want his image to have the chink of giving amnesty to a human rights abuser.

I’m going to focus in the intellectual property issue, because that’s one of my personal points of interest.

Can you make a case for why this should be an important point of interest for developing countries?

Historically, ignoring IP has been an important method of boot-strapping economies. The US did so for some time, just as one example. A guest blogger made the case (quite well, I think) that IP should not be considered a moral here issue, but rather a policy balancing act.

I suppose a question that might be useful here is, do you think that, even if it holds back (in terms of economic growth, lifespan, access to self-improvement) a large number of people in developing countries, we should still respect the notions of IP that Western nations have settled upon? Or is this something that should be, perhaps, winked at until they “catch up”?

These values include: redistribution from north to south (which, if history is any guide, means redistribution to regimes, not to people); weakening property rights, especially intellectual property rights, which southern countries would like to appropriate

Prof. Posner,

I was wondering if you see any difference in the prevalence of these “values” in the domestic versus the international political system. For instance, for some reason the majority of Americans has chosen not to completely appropriate the wealth from the wealthiest few percentage of Americans. This may be because (1) the poor majority hopes (perhaps foolishly, according false consciousness-like idea) that they will one day be rich and don’t want to be taxed when that happens and/or (2) the poor majority realizes that excessive redistribution would be counter-productive because it would cause the rich to stop working/stop any trickle-down effect from the rich. Do you think that poor nations would be prone to making these same sorts of considerations or is something else driving them to arive at their “values.”

Thanks.