FORUM OF SCHOOLS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATIONS

Topic: "Human rights as a European value"

Guest: Dr Wiktor Osiatynski, CEU

Moderator: Sanja Elezović, executive director of FOSI ROM

The first lecture in the autumn series of the Forum of European Integration Schools, organized by Centre for Civic Education, Centre for Development of Non-Governmental Organizations and European Movement in Montenegro in cooperation with the Faculty of Political Science and with support of the FOSI ROM, took place on 5 October 2007 on the topic "Human rights as a European value". The guest of the Forum was Dr Wiktor Osiatynski, professor at the Central European University and a member of the Board of Open Society Institute, as well as of a number of boards within individual initiatives of the Institute.

At the very beginning, Osiatynski emphasised that this particular stage of EU accession is the key period for institutionalization of human rights. "The process of accession to the EU is the period to adopt the laws that guarantee human rights, to create permanent institutions and courts to protect them and NGOs to monitor their implementation. Do not miss out on this unique opportunity while the EU still possesses the mechanisms to enforce its demands", he said, stressing especially the importance of the civil society in this period. "If you miss out on this chance, the next one will be hard to find. Once the country becomes an EU member, the enforcement mechanisms disappear", he added, illustrating the point with the current situation in Poland, where the government is violating the Constitution, and the EU has no means to influence this situation.

Osiatynski then went into explaining the history of the concept of human rights and the question to what extent this is a European value, and to what extent it is characteristic of the USA. According to him, there are two human rights regimes: internal and international. Within the international human rights regime he distinguishes three categories: international human rights law (legal instrument), international human rights movements and humanitarian law, which includes such humanitarian interventions as in East Timor and Kosovo. Blurred boundaries between human rights law and humanitarian law frequently cause confusion, so that nobody can tell any more whether the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo was an act of humanitarian law or of human rights protection, says Osiatynski. In the internal/local human rights regime the Constitution, courts and the statutes constitute the mechanisms for the protection of human rights. Further, he gave a detailed explanation of the mechanisms for the protection of human rights within one country, as well as of the situations when those mechanisms fail to function and when it is necessary to recourse to the international instruments.

Human rights have become an element of international politics and have therefore ceased to be the highest value, since international politics include many more elements and frequently employ double standards, Osiatynski remarked. Therefore, an especially important role exists for the organizations such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International.

Osiatynski gave an overview of the differences between the UN system and the Council of Europe, focusing on the role of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The story of human rights is a story of laws and violations of laws. Humanitarian law and intervention are problematic concepts. Today, human rights are ever less important, while humanitarian law and humanitarian intervention are of growing significance. This is only reinforced by the modern media who are less interested in the legal issues and compliance with the laws than for the pictures suffering and destruction which increase the number of viewers and sell the program. (8 out of 10 photographs that received awards this year were pictures of death, destruction, horrors and human suffering).

He notes three main reasons that have contributed to the decreasing interest for human rights: terrorism, democratization and international cooperation.

Osiatynski outlines two different concepts of the fight against terrorism: one, which tries to counter it through war (the American, or Bush’s concept) and another, which considers terrorism a criminal activity (British, or Blair’s concept). This creates different answers to the terrorist threat: declaration of the war on terror or declaration of terrorism as criminal activity to be fought in courts. According to Osiatynski, the two entail very different consequences for the system of values.

He finds it paradoxical that the very process of democratization should have influenced a decrease in the interest for human rights globally. In authoritarian or dictatorial systems the human rights enjoy a greater support, because the rights of all citizens are in danger, and everyone can become a victim. In the democratic or democratizing societies, however, most of the people are safe, they demand from the state to be protected against crime and are usually insensitive to the violations of rights of smaller groups.

The third element is the very international situation which opens up the question: how to influence the implementation of human rights while respecting the standards of democracy? There is not a single adequate enforcement mechanism to force any party to respect human rights except for intervention, and if they exist they tend to be very weak, especially now that the character and mobility of capital are rapidly changing.

Osiatynski reminded of two mechanisms established in the 1990s to contribute to the protection and enhancement of human rights globally. One was created for foreign NGOs, and was later on overtaken by Bush – the so called Millennium Fund. The main idea was to condition aid to the poor countries by a measure of respect for human rights in the given country. The creation of the second mechanism was initiated by George Soros. Many international NGOs demanded transparency in various business and other projects of potentially global significance, such as monitoring of the exploitation of oil, publishing data on the initial acquisition prices of oil etc. as the South with the so-called resource curse lived to see a complete devastation caused by irresponsible exploitation of resources by the rich North in collaboration with the corrupt local governments. These mechanisms required political support by powerful governments, as no coalition of the NGOs could exert any significant pressure on the multinational corporations involved in such transactions.

However, Osiatynski was optimistic about the extent of positive change that can be made through direct "changes in our environment, society, governments, which means that if we believe that human rights are really important, then we ought to fight for them. No human right is protected simply by being written down in the Constitution, but because some people decide to use those rights and to fight for them. Fighting means more than just talking about it. It means monitoring their implementation, reporting on all violations, challenging the government to face these problems and forging a wide societal support for the protection and improvement of human rights. The legal road is long an expensive, but effective", Osiatynski stated.

(reported by Centre for Civic Education)