CAIRO: The key of preserving a country’s human rights is the development of a sophisticated non-governmental rights movement, according to Aryeh Neier, an American human rights activist.
Neier, who was speaking at a lecture at the American University in Cairo, is the president of the Open Society Institute and former executive director of Human Rights Watch and national director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
He explained that the strongest human rights movements emerged from the countries that faced the greatest struggles, citing the Eastern European countries which have fairly significant rights movements that have emerged to oppose the communist regimes.
Economic and social rights
Neier spoke about human rights movements, as well as the debated economic and social rights.
“I’m notorious in the international human rights field, as I’m one of the best known who adhered to the view that human rights are civil and political rights not second or third generation rights including economic and social rights,” he said.
“What is often not recognized is that those economic and social rights are susceptible to being cast in civil and political rights [as it doesn’t allow] the discriminate treatment of a segment of the populations, if we approach the equality element of those matters,” Neier explained.
He gave an example where services, such as paving streets, were offered in certain parts of a town but in others. “The lack of those services is a question of equality, not an economic question, and very often it’s that way,” he noted.
He explained that economic and social rights are goals to be pursued rather than rights, and they can be pursued through the political process.
Looking back on history, Neier said that including economic and social rights in human rights movements was due to the fact that five articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights deal with those types of rights.
He explained that this dates back to 1944 when Franklin Roosevelt gave ‘The Four Freedoms’ speech, one of which was freedom from want which is an economic and social rights concern.
After his death, Eleanor Roosevelt was the US delegate to the UN when the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted and it included preamble quotes from Roosevelt’s speech.
Neier explained that the principle reason behind the incorporation of the social and economic rights into the declaration is that the two major super powers – the US and the Soviet Union – supported it.
“Looking at classic 18th century declaration of rights, which include the American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of Rights for Man and Citizen, they have no hint of economic and social rights,” he said.
“If it hadn’t been for Eleanor Roosevelt, I’m not sure whether what developed lately in economic and social rights would have developed,” he noted.
Neier was inquired by the audience about the reason the US has not yet ratified the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
“[You have to] deal with the general reluctance of the US to ratify international treaties,” he answered, providing the example that they did not sign the Genocide Treaty until 1988, with reservations, understandings and declarations which nullify the provisions of the treaty.
Neier calls the ratification of the Genocide treaty as “a strange accident of history,” as Ronald Reagan endorsed the treaty to overcome the political storm caused by his visit to a military cemetery where former Nazi Waffen-SS soldiers were buried.
Obama’s administration
Neier was also asked about the Obama administration and the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. “The Obama administration ought to bring those being held at Guantanamo to federal court, but they’re having a great deal of difficulty [as] Congress tried to block trail at federal courts and institute a military commission to bring defendants to the US for trial,” he said.
“As a constitutional matter, the executive branch doesn’t need permission of Congress, the obstacles are political but could ultimately be overcome if the administration is determined enough,” Neier added.
“When Obama came into office he was determined then backed down […] there are different forces in the administration, one wants to take a bold approach while the other wants to take a more politically caution approach,” he explained.
“Things are shifting, we don’t know yet how this will come out,” he pointed out.
