By Gregoire Mallard
In the next few months, Tunisia and Egypt will reform their constitution in order to grant more rights to their citizens. But they should also start a process of regional democratic integration to prevent future political leaders from stealing the fruits of their democratic revolution.
The world has watched and cheered the peaceful revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. But observers in the West have expressed fears that future autocrats might steal their victory. Even though each nation follows its own idiosyncratic history, anybody in Tunisia and Egypt can be legitimately concerned about the possibility of an Iranian scenario. Will a populist government ignore the rule of law, steal future elections, and develop an adventurous nuclear program?
Constitutions are supposed to address this peril. But in the past, constitutions have proven malleable. Considering this, nations are well advised to complement their constitutional protections of rights with regional courts and court-like institutions. This is the lesson we have learnt from Europe. When democratic forces emerged from the hashes of Nazi rule, democratic leaders of European parliaments gathered, signed a European bill of rights and instituted a court which all individuals could petition directly if they felt their political and civil rights were threatened by their governments.
The fates of citizens from Tunisia to Jordan are intertwined, as the recent events have showed. As new bills of rights will be written in future constitutions in the Arab world, democratic leaders in Tunisia and Egypt should invite their counterparts in Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, to write down a regional bill of rights that will incorporate their new thinking, their regional legal traditions, and previous international bills of rights.
After the Second World War, the European movement did not stop at the protection of political and civil liberties. European leaders signed in 1957 two treaties in Rome, one which instituted the European Community of Atomic Energy (Euratom). The Euratom Treaty ensures that nuclear development does not take precedence over the rights of their citizens by defining and enforcing standards which ensure a secure environment free of radiological hazards. European citizens can petition the European Court of Justice of the EU if they feel member-states do not honor the treaty, and they elect members of the European Parliament whose mandate includes discussing nuclear policies of their member-states.
These institutions and legal instruments do not yet exist in the Arab world. But they should attract the growing attention of Arab leaders, as important experts like the Chairman of the WMD Commission Hans Blix have recently written. As diplomats experienced in the art of multilateralism like Amr Moussa and Mohammed ElBaradei will likely fulfill important functions in tomorrow’s process of democratic reform, there is actual hope that these ideas might be turned into tomorrow’s reality. They are better placed than anyone to understand that regional organizations should not only defend states’ financial and military interests but also their citizens’ essential rights.
Grégoire Mallard is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. [email protected]
