1. Introduction
Indonesian military was and still is used by the government of Indonesia directly or indirectly by the influence of U.S administration which results in violation of human rights in Indonesia. Military has been implied to fight against separatist movement, ethnical conflicts and terrorism. In this paper, I will analyze how U.S. foreign policy influences human rights situation in Indonesia. The Indonesian military could be beneficiary of the new domination given by the Bush administration to its war against terrorism, the same military suppressed East Timor and continued human rights abuses in West Papua, Aceh, and other conflicted area in Indonesia. This paper seeks how the decade long influence of U.S administration on Indonesian government depleted human rights values in Indonesia. This trend of violation of human rights is continued till date through the counter terrorism activities as post September 11 phenomenon. The paper therefore, an effort to critically investigate why U.S. foreign policies do not have any significant role in improving human rights values in Indonesia.
Democracy is not yet matured in Indonesia. Long term authoritarian rules have paralyzed the human rights practices. Even though respect for human rights is ‘western concept’[i] imported in to Asia, it is significant to find out the root causes for ignorance of human rights in Indonesia.
The country is stepping towards democracy from the long term authoritarian states. During the last couple of decades military had played a dominant role in Indonesian government and suppressed separatists’ movements at several provinces that cost loss of lives and violation of human rights. U.S. had supported the authoritarian Indonesia because Suharto agreed to have military ties between the two countries and it was important for U.S. to have a strong relation with Indonesia during cold war era. Indonesia is strategically important geographical location for U.S. to fight against terrorism as well as to keep control over this region. In addition, U.S. Indonesia military ties will ensure US’s military superiority in South East Asia. Human rights values have been slaughtered in Indonesia as a result of the U.S. foreign policy from Suharto to Megawati.
2. Evidences of degradation of human rights and the separatist movement
I will show some evidences that will agree with my claim of degradation of human rights in Indonesia. Firstly, Human Rights violations multiplied in Indonesia in 1965 when coup was committed by the communist party that removed President Sukarno. Suharto became President. 250,000 members and supporters of communist party were detained and equal numbers of persons were killed between 1965 and 1967 (Jetschke 1999: 140).Why U.S. government did not deny or refuse Suharto government as authoritarian ruler because U.S. policy that undermined human rights and emphasized economic and political benefits in this region.
Secondly, Indonesian military have killed a large number of people in East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya (recently renamed West Papua). In 1975 it invaded East Timor, a former Portuguese colony. In 1999 Indonesian army has stormed East Timor and killed thousands of civilian and destroyed the infrastructure of the country. The Indonesian army and its militia allies systematically destroyed the country, killing at least 2,000 people and forcing 250,000 more into concentration camps in West Timor. According to the United Nations, Indonesia’s 24 years of occupation resulted in the deaths of over 200,000 Timorese.[ii] Logic of dictator ruler behind these killings and destruction is to keep territorial integrity. Military hardware was supplied by U.S. and Indonesian army used it to suppress the independence movement in East Timor. Two other independence movements are going on in Aceh and Irian Jaya. Neither U.S. governments took strong position against Indonesian government or influenced to stop killing people in these provinces. A wave of extrajudicial killings of petty criminals resulted in between 3,000 and 5,000 victims between 1983 and 1985; approximately 2,000 alleged members of a separatist movement in the Indonesian province of Aceh were killed during counter insurgency campaigns between 1989 and 1991 (Jetschke 1999: 139). If U.S. foreign policies have had initiatives to improve human rights situation in Aceh, it would not have kept silence.
Thirdly, Clinton Administration had imposed ban on military aid to Jakarta following the invasion in East Timor. Bush administration now realizes that those bad days have gone and Indonesian army needs their help to combat against terrorism. Why counter terrorism policy of U.S. does not have clear indication to avoid human rights violation, the reason is, it would be a barrier to reach their goal. Therefore, these two countries have agreed to expand modest between their militaries to support Indonesia's efforts at military reform and professionalism.
Fourthly, Conn Hallinan (June 12, 2002) in his article published in “Foreign Policy in Focus”[iii] has mentioned one statement from Magawati’s December 29, 2001 speech to military cadets, where she speaks towards the cadet: “You can do your duty without being worried about human rights,” which is an assurance from leader of the nation for the military cadets to ignore human rights values. Magawati being a representative of a newly born democratic government how relies on military to suppress self-determination movements. Either national sovereignty motivated her make such statement or territorial integrity urged her to humiliate human rights.
3. Economic interest and military ties
Here, I argue economic benefit of both countries is good reason for military ties. U.S. backed Suharto’s invasion of the former Portuguese territory. There is a reason why this continued through the Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton eras, when U.S. policy focused on supporting Suharto’s military and burnishing his image to the world. Clinton imposed ban on military aid to Indonesia because he realized that U.S. – Indonesia military ties might have been responsible for the severe violation of human rights in East Timor. Bush administration has welded the ties to fight against terrorism. Hence the relation is regained, which will secure U.S. business and economic interests. If military ties between two countries is important to balance power with China in South East Asia, economic profitability of American transnational companies is equally significant. Leading U.S. businesses including Texaco, Exxon-Mobil, Freeport McMoRan, Unocal, Elpaso Energy International, Halliburton, Anadarco and Conoco have considerable investments in Indonesia. For example the U.S. mining company Freeport McMoRan has built the world's largest gold mine in West Papua and also began exploiting its plentiful copper resources.[iv] Mutual military ties are required for functioning billion dollar U.S. companies by proving security against terrorist, separatist and fanatic Islamic activists. The colonial British, Dutch and Portuguese during nineteenth and twentieth century have had more straight forward attitude for collecting mineral and resources, doing trade and businesses, and commercializing agriculture than today’s U.S., the economic imperial of twenty first century’s global market. Here, my intention is to link U.S. economic interest with U.S.-Indonesia military ties. As a result of strong ties, U.S. closes eyes when the Indonesia army violates human rights in separatist provinces coloring guerrillas or freedom fighters as member of terrorist groups under the anti terrorism program.
U.S. government has already realized the growing threat that is emerging from the fundamentalist Islamic groups in Indonesia. Therefore, after September 11, U.S. administration has taken initiatives to strengthen relationship with Indonesian government. During their meeting, Bush promised the visiting President Megawati a restoration of military aid and a total of US$ 657.4 million in financial aid.[v] Reason why large amount of money is allocated for the defence and security issues while low amount is assigned for the social welfare could simplify the equation of U.S. interest on Indonesia’s defence. The interest behind providing huge amount of fund is to ensure security for the American transnational corporations working in Indonesia. Here, in addition, I like to focus on Bush administration’s target to upgrade capacity of Indonesian defence and security system that would be utilized to fight against terrorism but there is a doubt of misusing military and police administration of Indonesia against innocent people, journalists, intellectuals, political activists and the separatists who are not engaged in terrorist activities. Hence U.S. government has planted the seeds, which will result in human rights violation.
4. Counter Terrorism: a controversial act
The main focus here is to analyze the adverse affect of counter terrorism measures in Indonesia. Megawati is caught between international pressure to aggressively crack down on terrorism, and domestic nationalist and religious forces that resent what they see as foreign interference. U.S. foreign policy in Palestine and Iraq has already generated unfaithfulness on U.S. government among the Muslims in Indonesia as well as across the world. It is necessary to keep it in consideration that working closely with US to fight against terrorism has created anti-Muslim image of President Megawati Sukarnoputri among Indonesians. The Muslims in Indonesia have not welcomed American foreign policy in Indonesia to work against terrorism and eventually have distrusted hypocritical US Middle East policy in Palestine and Iraq that undermines Muslim world. Indonesia being largest Muslim population in the world has brotherhood sentiment with the Muslim majority countries. Consequently Indonesian Muslims have already criticized the U.S. invasion in Iraq. Thus, it is important for U.S. government to have a close relation with government of Indonesia to protect any possible terrorist threat with the help of counter terrorism acts that may come out from the angry Muslims. As a part of the war on terrorism Bush administration wants to develop military to military relation between two countries even though Indonesian military have left evidences in the country’s history for the gross violation of human rights. Phasuk (2003:4) has explained how blindly Indonesian government has accused guerrillas of the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM) for their involvement in a series of bombings in Jakarta and North Sumatran city of Medan. Nevertheless in Aceh human rights defenders are in danger and journalists have faced serious interrogations and threats. The government also claims that GAM is linked to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) where JI is suspected as a terrorist organization, though JI has long evidence as an Islamic political party. Phasuk (2003: 4) says, “In the context of the US-led war on terrorism, the Indonesian government is waging campaign aimed at the international community to have the GAM declared a terrorist organization.” Under the banner of US-led anti terrorism program Indonesian government resists separatists’ movements at the conflict porn provinces.
Despite frequent bombings and attacks in Christian areas by Islamic groups, Bali bombing, Marriot hotel incident have reminded once again the strong presence of terrorist activities inside Indonesia. Growing Australian and American pressure to fight against terrorism has placed President Megawati in trouble. U.S. government is suspected that Islamist groups have connection with Al-Queda. On the other hand leaders of the Islamic groups in Indonesia are biased by the conspiracy theory of Bush administration. Din Syamsuddin, the vice chairman of Indonesia's second largest Muslim group, Muhammadiyah, believes the United States is working against Islam.[vi] Like Syamsuddin his followers and many other Muslims in Indonesia believes that U.S. is against Islam. Timo Kivimaki[vii] (2003:15) has pointed out that, “wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have confirmed in the minds of Indonesians that this unfairness can not be fought by using nonviolent or conventional military means.” Which indicates the frustration, anger and anguishes of angry Muslims and they will choose the violent way to exert their hatred against U.S. administration. When situation in Indonesia is such a complex after September 11, President Megawati is standing between nationalism and Muslim belief in her country and allies of US-led counter terrorism program. Megawati is loosing her popularity among the Islamic political parties as well as their supporters due to her ties with U.S. administration on war against terrorism. The controversial counter terrorism act may increase arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings, disappearance, and torture in prison. I think, War against terrorism can take the shape of war against separatist at the back end and Violation of human rights would be absolute byproduct at the end.
5. Indonesia – U.S. military relation is more important than human rights values
From Suharto’s new order to Megawati’ democracy era Indonesia remains as more or less an authoritarian state. The question is arised why human rights standards and practices have not been improved during this passage of time. The reason behind why human rights are not much emphasized by Indonesian government could be the contents of human rights are new in Asia and concept is western. Eldridge (2002:13) argues, “…many Asian leaders reject the basic idea of universality with regard to both meaning and application.” There is a debate about universality of human rights. Cultural relativity is accountable for the weak presence of western human rights values in South East Asia. In Indonesia Islam, nationalism and Asian values are key dominant elements, which act as barrier for the promotion of human rights. Jetschke (1999: 148) has mentioned how Suharto government mobilized nationalist sentiments against foreign intervention in Indonesia. He took benefit out of nationalist feeling. Nationalist sentiment is strong enough to be partial and do not hesitate to violate human rights of the separatists. NGOS, INGOs and transnational human rights groups have been working since long in Indonesia for establishing human rights values. National Commission on Human Rights was result of these efforts but the will of sovereign State is more important than a commission of human rights for improving respect for human rights. Eldridge (2002: 16) stated:
“The notion of universal human rights poses a fundamental challenge to the rationale underlying state sovereignty, by which states are autonomous both in exercising jurisdiction within their territorial boundaries and pursuing their national interest in conducting external affairs.”
Thus, conflict is clearly visible between sovereign state and universal human rights. Indonesia is not the exception where military dictatorship backed by U.S. support amplified the challenge of human rights to protect violations of rights, which are considered as internal issues of sovereign state.
Conclusion
During cold war it was more essential for U.S. to have military relation rather than to have respect for human rights values in Indonesia. Now war on terrorism is the first priority for U.S. government than to improve human rights and social welfare in Indonesia. Nonetheless, military relation can secure U.S. transnational companies and large scale investments in Indonesia. Economic and geopolitical interest of U.S. has lot more interests in Indonesia than human rights saga. On the other hand, national integrity instead of slaughtering freedom fighters and economic support from U.S. for the reformation of Indonesian military are more important than to develop human rights standards.
References
Boone, Bruce (December 2001) ‘Indonesia after S11: Anti-Terrorism, Geopolitics and Counter-Revolution’, (http://www.marxist.com/indonesia/indonesia_after_S11.html), site visited on December 11, 2003.
Eldridge, Philip J. (2002) ‘International Human Rights; Theory and Practice’, The Politics of Human Rights in South East Asia, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 12-31.
Hallinan, Conn (June 12, 2002) ‘Supporting Indonesia's Military Bad Idea Second Time Around’, Foreign Policy in Focus. (http://www.selfdetermine.org/crisiswatch/0206indonesia.html), site visited on December 11, 2003.
Jetschke, Anja (1999) ‘Linking the Unlinkable? International Norms and Nationalism in Indonesia and the Philippines’, in Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (eds) The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 134-71.
Kivimaki, Timo (2003), ‘Terrorism in Indonesia’, Terrorism in South East Asia, NIASnytt, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies: pp. 15-18.
Phasuk, Sunai (2003), ‘A Sketch of Human Rights Situation in Southeast Asia’, The paper was presented on October 14, 2003 at Human Rights Department, Mahidol University.
Ressa, Maria (2003), ‘Radical Islam recruits on U.S. distrust’, Monday, September 8, 2003 Posted: 0503 GMT, (http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/09/08/indonesia.radicals/) site visited on December 11, 2003.
End Notes
[i] Universalist theories of human rights derive from western concepts of natural law originating from the Roman Empire, evolving in face of many challenges through the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods into the contemporary industrial and post-industrial age. (Vincent 1986: 19-36), quoted by Eldridge (2002: 1)
[ii] The information were picked up from Conn Hallinan’s “Supporting Indonesia's Military Bad Idea Second Time Around”, June 12, 2002, published in Foreign Policy in Focus. For more details see
(http://www.selfdetermine.org/crisiswatch/0206indonesia.html), site visited on December 11, 2003.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Bruce Boone (December 2001) has explained about corporate takeover and the huge investment of American companies in Indonesia. For detail see: Indonesia after S11: Anti-Terrorism, Geopolitics and Counter-Revolution (http://www.marxist.com/indonesia/indonesia_after_S11.html), site visited on December 11, 2003.
[v] Ibid
[vi] Maria Ressa, Jakarta Bureau Chief of CNN, has discussed about rise of radical Islamic groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and Laskar Jihad and their hatred and anti-Americanism message through terrorist activities in Bali that killed 200 people and loss of lives by fueling Muslim-Christian violence. For details see: (http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/09/08/indonesia.radicals/), visited on December 11, 2003
[vii] Timo Kivimaki (2003: 18), Senior Researcher of Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, mentioned in his article “terrorism in Indonesia” that violent Indonesian Jihad could be targeted against financial institutions, international investments, companies, individuals and tourists.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
What Works? Cruel challenges
What works?
There is a debate and doubt whether human rights standards and law really work especially at poor and conflict prone countries. Two important questions are associated with it. i) Does it work?, ii) Where does not it work and why?
If it does not work, it is nation sate’s failure to respect and implement for the citizens within its territory. It is discussed earlier that limited resources is not an excuse for not implementing human rights. Germany can because of richness and Ghana can not because of poverty; this logic may not valid here. Thus, Resource and wealth may not be the only reasons; there are other causes for the failure of human rights standards. It is all about changing “attitude” of people and nations towards human rights.
Legal/moral obligation or Conscience
Commitment of governments for international human rights standard is often found weak in developing countries. Moral obligation seems almost absurd. Individual, groups, private, and corporate bodies are found busy within greater capitalist frame. These entities are becoming greedy, exploitative, and manipulative, which are some of the outcomes of capitalism. Moral degradation is happening in a faster pace.
For legal obligation state party must respect human rights first and foremost. Many state parties lack in “respecting”. Myanmar, North Korea, and China are some examples of repressive regime about human rights. A country having strong legal framework and democracy may appear incompetent. ODI (1999: 6) gives a good example,
The legal recourse is the hardest hurdle to jump in achieving rights, especially so in countries where legal recourse is most needed, but also in others: for example in India, which has a well-developed legal framework, it has been estimated that it would take 350 years to clear the current backlog of court cases, even if no new cases were added. It is also easy to think of countries where any dialogue about rights would be extremely difficult.
Thus any prescription is difficult to be given under above circumstances for fulfillment of human rights. However, coherence between national, regional, and international legal framework could give a better result in terms of “respecting” and “protecting” human rights. European Union (EU) and Organization of American States (OAS) are good examples. Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is in a process to develop human rights legal frame for the region. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is still found ignorant about human rights. Nonetheless, SAARC’s usefulness and effectiveness is also under doubt comparing with other regional entities in the world.
Moral or legal obligation may not alone work. Both can be mutually complementary to each other. In addition, conscience, which is inward ability, faculty, or sense of right or wrong, is needed. Conscience is connected to moral values. Moral values are things held to be right or wrong or desirable or undesirable. Different cultures have very different moral value systems. Moral values, along with traditions, laws, behaviour patterns, and beliefs, are the defining features of a culture.[1] There is no generally accepted definition of what conscience is and how it works. Formation of United Nations at the end of devastating World War II was a kind of universal conscience of the nation states to unite the world with out any discrimination, which is reflected in UN Charter and UDHR. However, educating or awaking people about conscience and moral values could be hardest challenge. This issue needs more study and research for human development in general.
Changing global context and new age challenges
Changing global context and challenges may worsen situation that ever imagined. We are not the programmer or designer of the world and subsequently we can not come up with any “magic bullet” for poverty alleviation along with a time frame. Perhaps we will be watching one such effort MDG’s fatal end at the end of 2015. According to AAI at the current rate of progress, it will take 120 years to reach the Millennium Development Goal and WFS commitments to halve hunger by 2015. Therefore, it is time to have alternative thoughts and solutions rather prescriptions. As long as we do not have unusual magic bullet, we keep trying with whatever we have such as MDGs, PRSPs, SLA, RBA, Human Security, and so on. But we do not have time much for experimentation. It is time for action,
In a world overflowing with riches, it is a outrageous scandal that more than 826 million people suffer hunger and malnutrition and that every year over 36 million die of starvation and related causes . We must take urgent action now. (Jean Ziegler, April 2001, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food)
Cornwall and Brock (2005: 1) says, “Open the newspaper and the first few pages often have enough talk of violent death, inequity, deprivation and misery to make one feel the world we live in is hardly a place where a “world without poverty” could ever come to exist.” Is not it true for most of the countries in the world. And what about Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, and other conflict prone African states where death toll is gradually increasing day by day.
Sustainable livelihood, rights based approach, participation, empowerment, good governance, accountability, poverty alleviation etc are. the concepts that had been discussed so far in this paper. I am afraid, if critics say all these are buzzwords of development industry. Arguably there could be many set of buzzwords and each set could have some purposes or messages. Is it new fashion to play with jargons in the development world? However, arguably these buzzwords are not empty at least. Each of the “jargon” is carrying intention to do good to bring change in institutions, processes, and practices. “Human development”, “rights based approach”, and “human security” have their distinct dimension for addressing human sufferings and substantially looking for way out for human wellbeing though have not succeed yet. They may not come up with any absolute solution over decades, which may further upset development practitioners.
How long should we be continuing this effort to end poverty? It may appear pessimistic prediction that hunger, poverty, and food insecurity may continue till dooms day. Academics and activists of transnational civil society agree that there is enough food in this world to feed the population in hunger. Where does the surplus food of the world go? Is not it the politics to trash food rather feed hungry? And this power politics of wealthy groups is no more a secret. The amount of food they waste and the amount of money they spend in arms production and in war could be surplus for solving hunger and poverty issue in the globe. This is not supposed to happen. Politics, conspiracy, and exploitation are dominating over good will for serving humanity.
Acording to Bello (2006), “there has been too much dissonance between the promise of globalization and free trade and the actual results of neoliberal policies, which have been more poverty, inequality, and stagnation.” Hypocrisy is adopted so skillfully in neoliberal policies and executed so efficiently by agencies like WB and WTO that developing countries are feeling cheated. In one hand, these agencies had been talking a lot about poverty reduction, empowerment, governance etc., and on the other hand, exploiting with the help of trade rules and conditionalities. According to Bello, China is the country where 120 million had been lifted out of poverty during last 15 years. Interventionist state policies managed market forces to do that. Neoliberal prescriptions did not work. China’s success in poverty reduction may not be our role model because it is known as repressive regime in terms of human rights, governance, and democracy. It is not at the same time unavoidable to agree that political will and state interventions are the best way to control market forces and achieving food sovereignty.
UN came into existence from the conscience of the world because of devastation of World War II. And its range of conventions on international human rights standards and treaty committees are there for safe guarding humanity. There are some criticisms that UN is toothless and ineffective. Some angry activists call UN as “United Nothing”. MDGs seem to end by 2015 as commitments unfulfilled. UN could not give any comprehensive solutions to injustice, inequity, and conflicts around the world. Starting from Rwanda genocide to Darfur crisis, from Israeli occupation in Palestine to US invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq, from nuclear race between big powers to small countries like North Korea and Iran, from hunger to malnutrition and poverty; UN failed significantly. UN is reforming itself because of its set back and is trying to find a way out for its efficacy.
According to Kofi Annan (2005: 4), “divisions between major powers on key issues have revealed a lack of consensus about goals and methods.” He mentions, over 40 countries have been scarred by violent conflict, number of internally displaced people stands at roughly 25 million, global refugee population of 11 to 12 million, and some of them have been the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, HIV/AIDS, the plague of the modern world, has killed over 20 million and people infected has surged to over 40 million, more than one billion people still live below the extreme poverty line, and 20,000 die from poverty each day. Declining public confidence in the institution is observed. He also notes that dozens of countries have become poorer, devastating economic crises have thrown millions of families into poverty, and increasing inequality in large parts of the world means that the benefits of economic growth have not been evenly shared. In my opinion, these are the facts of present world. And we should not live anymore on dreams and wishes rather think about the truths, cruelties, and challenges of the changing global context. Nonetheless, it is time to come up with locally made innovative solutions appropriate in specific social, political and cultural context rather than depend on development prescriptions.
However, this is the last Institution of sovereign states in the world that has global human rights standard, which protects rights of the global citizens. It is the last mediator and negotiator for peace in this conflict torn world. If it fails and wipes out, the humanity may have to watch the collapse of civilization.
Huntington (1993) predicts, “Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” In the last couple of centuries the conflicts were between princes, nation states, and ideologies within western civilization. Huntington defines “civilization” as a cultural entity. Thus, civilization is a kind of big picture where people are grouped in a bigger circle such as Chinese, Westerners, Arab etc. According to Huntington West is now at the peak of power in terms of military and economy. Thus, desire of west is translated through the policies and decision of multilateral institutions in the name of desire of world community, which is a double standard. Therefore, we are approaching towards dangerously conflicting world, as Huntington notes, “…conflicts between groups in different civilizations will be more frequent, more sustained and more violent than conflicts between groups in the same civilization; violent conflicts between groups in different civilizations are the most likely and most dangerous source of escalation that could lead to global wars…” The severity of conflict in the present could help us to imagine the brutality of the future. A relevant question may appear how poverty, hunger, and food insecurity will be reduced or alleviated? Even being optimistic, only the contrary could be imagined.
Global average temperature is going to increase between 1.5C and 4.5C so as increasing the green house gases. Rate of ice melting is getting higher, which will increase sea level at the end. Incidences of storms will be increasing along with frequent earth quakes. The 2007 report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the evidence of climate change and subsequently an emergency alarming for the human race. Persistent lobbying by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel overcame most American resistance, but she was unable to achieve implementation of binding emissions restrictions for G8 nations. Given the large rift over climate change that has existed between the US and Europe, however, Merkel and her allies still deemed the summit a success[2]. Bush Administration threatened to reject most of the German sponsored measures. Here, we see the imperialist’s “naive response” in the climate change issue. Climate change, that will cause more natural disasters, is going to add more vulnerability to human race.
End Notes:
[1] for detail see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_value, visited July 2, 2007
[2] for detail see http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/206 , visited July 3, 2007
There is a debate and doubt whether human rights standards and law really work especially at poor and conflict prone countries. Two important questions are associated with it. i) Does it work?, ii) Where does not it work and why?
If it does not work, it is nation sate’s failure to respect and implement for the citizens within its territory. It is discussed earlier that limited resources is not an excuse for not implementing human rights. Germany can because of richness and Ghana can not because of poverty; this logic may not valid here. Thus, Resource and wealth may not be the only reasons; there are other causes for the failure of human rights standards. It is all about changing “attitude” of people and nations towards human rights.
Legal/moral obligation or Conscience
Commitment of governments for international human rights standard is often found weak in developing countries. Moral obligation seems almost absurd. Individual, groups, private, and corporate bodies are found busy within greater capitalist frame. These entities are becoming greedy, exploitative, and manipulative, which are some of the outcomes of capitalism. Moral degradation is happening in a faster pace.
For legal obligation state party must respect human rights first and foremost. Many state parties lack in “respecting”. Myanmar, North Korea, and China are some examples of repressive regime about human rights. A country having strong legal framework and democracy may appear incompetent. ODI (1999: 6) gives a good example,
The legal recourse is the hardest hurdle to jump in achieving rights, especially so in countries where legal recourse is most needed, but also in others: for example in India, which has a well-developed legal framework, it has been estimated that it would take 350 years to clear the current backlog of court cases, even if no new cases were added. It is also easy to think of countries where any dialogue about rights would be extremely difficult.
Thus any prescription is difficult to be given under above circumstances for fulfillment of human rights. However, coherence between national, regional, and international legal framework could give a better result in terms of “respecting” and “protecting” human rights. European Union (EU) and Organization of American States (OAS) are good examples. Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is in a process to develop human rights legal frame for the region. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is still found ignorant about human rights. Nonetheless, SAARC’s usefulness and effectiveness is also under doubt comparing with other regional entities in the world.
Moral or legal obligation may not alone work. Both can be mutually complementary to each other. In addition, conscience, which is inward ability, faculty, or sense of right or wrong, is needed. Conscience is connected to moral values. Moral values are things held to be right or wrong or desirable or undesirable. Different cultures have very different moral value systems. Moral values, along with traditions, laws, behaviour patterns, and beliefs, are the defining features of a culture.[1] There is no generally accepted definition of what conscience is and how it works. Formation of United Nations at the end of devastating World War II was a kind of universal conscience of the nation states to unite the world with out any discrimination, which is reflected in UN Charter and UDHR. However, educating or awaking people about conscience and moral values could be hardest challenge. This issue needs more study and research for human development in general.
Changing global context and new age challenges
Changing global context and challenges may worsen situation that ever imagined. We are not the programmer or designer of the world and subsequently we can not come up with any “magic bullet” for poverty alleviation along with a time frame. Perhaps we will be watching one such effort MDG’s fatal end at the end of 2015. According to AAI at the current rate of progress, it will take 120 years to reach the Millennium Development Goal and WFS commitments to halve hunger by 2015. Therefore, it is time to have alternative thoughts and solutions rather prescriptions. As long as we do not have unusual magic bullet, we keep trying with whatever we have such as MDGs, PRSPs, SLA, RBA, Human Security, and so on. But we do not have time much for experimentation. It is time for action,
In a world overflowing with riches, it is a outrageous scandal that more than 826 million people suffer hunger and malnutrition and that every year over 36 million die of starvation and related causes . We must take urgent action now. (Jean Ziegler, April 2001, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food)
Cornwall and Brock (2005: 1) says, “Open the newspaper and the first few pages often have enough talk of violent death, inequity, deprivation and misery to make one feel the world we live in is hardly a place where a “world without poverty” could ever come to exist.” Is not it true for most of the countries in the world. And what about Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, and other conflict prone African states where death toll is gradually increasing day by day.
Sustainable livelihood, rights based approach, participation, empowerment, good governance, accountability, poverty alleviation etc are. the concepts that had been discussed so far in this paper. I am afraid, if critics say all these are buzzwords of development industry. Arguably there could be many set of buzzwords and each set could have some purposes or messages. Is it new fashion to play with jargons in the development world? However, arguably these buzzwords are not empty at least. Each of the “jargon” is carrying intention to do good to bring change in institutions, processes, and practices. “Human development”, “rights based approach”, and “human security” have their distinct dimension for addressing human sufferings and substantially looking for way out for human wellbeing though have not succeed yet. They may not come up with any absolute solution over decades, which may further upset development practitioners.
How long should we be continuing this effort to end poverty? It may appear pessimistic prediction that hunger, poverty, and food insecurity may continue till dooms day. Academics and activists of transnational civil society agree that there is enough food in this world to feed the population in hunger. Where does the surplus food of the world go? Is not it the politics to trash food rather feed hungry? And this power politics of wealthy groups is no more a secret. The amount of food they waste and the amount of money they spend in arms production and in war could be surplus for solving hunger and poverty issue in the globe. This is not supposed to happen. Politics, conspiracy, and exploitation are dominating over good will for serving humanity.
Acording to Bello (2006), “there has been too much dissonance between the promise of globalization and free trade and the actual results of neoliberal policies, which have been more poverty, inequality, and stagnation.” Hypocrisy is adopted so skillfully in neoliberal policies and executed so efficiently by agencies like WB and WTO that developing countries are feeling cheated. In one hand, these agencies had been talking a lot about poverty reduction, empowerment, governance etc., and on the other hand, exploiting with the help of trade rules and conditionalities. According to Bello, China is the country where 120 million had been lifted out of poverty during last 15 years. Interventionist state policies managed market forces to do that. Neoliberal prescriptions did not work. China’s success in poverty reduction may not be our role model because it is known as repressive regime in terms of human rights, governance, and democracy. It is not at the same time unavoidable to agree that political will and state interventions are the best way to control market forces and achieving food sovereignty.
UN came into existence from the conscience of the world because of devastation of World War II. And its range of conventions on international human rights standards and treaty committees are there for safe guarding humanity. There are some criticisms that UN is toothless and ineffective. Some angry activists call UN as “United Nothing”. MDGs seem to end by 2015 as commitments unfulfilled. UN could not give any comprehensive solutions to injustice, inequity, and conflicts around the world. Starting from Rwanda genocide to Darfur crisis, from Israeli occupation in Palestine to US invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq, from nuclear race between big powers to small countries like North Korea and Iran, from hunger to malnutrition and poverty; UN failed significantly. UN is reforming itself because of its set back and is trying to find a way out for its efficacy.
According to Kofi Annan (2005: 4), “divisions between major powers on key issues have revealed a lack of consensus about goals and methods.” He mentions, over 40 countries have been scarred by violent conflict, number of internally displaced people stands at roughly 25 million, global refugee population of 11 to 12 million, and some of them have been the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, HIV/AIDS, the plague of the modern world, has killed over 20 million and people infected has surged to over 40 million, more than one billion people still live below the extreme poverty line, and 20,000 die from poverty each day. Declining public confidence in the institution is observed. He also notes that dozens of countries have become poorer, devastating economic crises have thrown millions of families into poverty, and increasing inequality in large parts of the world means that the benefits of economic growth have not been evenly shared. In my opinion, these are the facts of present world. And we should not live anymore on dreams and wishes rather think about the truths, cruelties, and challenges of the changing global context. Nonetheless, it is time to come up with locally made innovative solutions appropriate in specific social, political and cultural context rather than depend on development prescriptions.
However, this is the last Institution of sovereign states in the world that has global human rights standard, which protects rights of the global citizens. It is the last mediator and negotiator for peace in this conflict torn world. If it fails and wipes out, the humanity may have to watch the collapse of civilization.
Huntington (1993) predicts, “Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” In the last couple of centuries the conflicts were between princes, nation states, and ideologies within western civilization. Huntington defines “civilization” as a cultural entity. Thus, civilization is a kind of big picture where people are grouped in a bigger circle such as Chinese, Westerners, Arab etc. According to Huntington West is now at the peak of power in terms of military and economy. Thus, desire of west is translated through the policies and decision of multilateral institutions in the name of desire of world community, which is a double standard. Therefore, we are approaching towards dangerously conflicting world, as Huntington notes, “…conflicts between groups in different civilizations will be more frequent, more sustained and more violent than conflicts between groups in the same civilization; violent conflicts between groups in different civilizations are the most likely and most dangerous source of escalation that could lead to global wars…” The severity of conflict in the present could help us to imagine the brutality of the future. A relevant question may appear how poverty, hunger, and food insecurity will be reduced or alleviated? Even being optimistic, only the contrary could be imagined.
Global average temperature is going to increase between 1.5C and 4.5C so as increasing the green house gases. Rate of ice melting is getting higher, which will increase sea level at the end. Incidences of storms will be increasing along with frequent earth quakes. The 2007 report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the evidence of climate change and subsequently an emergency alarming for the human race. Persistent lobbying by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel overcame most American resistance, but she was unable to achieve implementation of binding emissions restrictions for G8 nations. Given the large rift over climate change that has existed between the US and Europe, however, Merkel and her allies still deemed the summit a success[2]. Bush Administration threatened to reject most of the German sponsored measures. Here, we see the imperialist’s “naive response” in the climate change issue. Climate change, that will cause more natural disasters, is going to add more vulnerability to human race.
End Notes:
[1] for detail see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_value, visited July 2, 2007
[2] for detail see http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/206 , visited July 3, 2007
Food Security, Food Sovereignty, and political will
Food security
There are complexities of issues, policies, and national-international perspective over fod security, hunger and famine. The interesting aspect is that defining and setting policies for food security had always been in the hand of powerful agencies. Most of these agencies are dominated by the think tanks and representatives of rich countries. The politics of favoring interests of rich countries lies within the domination of multilateral implementing agencies such as WTO, WB, Asian Development Bank (ADB), IMF, International Finance Corporation (IFC), United Nations (UN) agencies etc. Multilateral agencies are complex and paradoxical in policies and practices rather bilateral agencies in terms of “trade-off”. For example, AoA of WTO benefits rich nations by exploiting poor nations in the name of trade justice and trade liberalization. The process happened in such a perplexing way that representatives and thinkers of poor nations realized the paradox of exploitation from the impacts of this trade rule.
FAO’s definition focusing on “access” rather “food production and sufficiency of poor nations” reminds us the politics of favoring rich nations in line with WTO. In 1983, FAO defined, “ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to the basic food that they need”. FAO stresses on “access” besides demand and supply side of food equation. Interestingly, the definition could not recognize the large group of people without purchasing power. Therefore, access and supply of food may not ensure their “food entitlement”.
In 1974, World Food Summit (WFS) defined, “availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices”. Surprisingly, this definition could not give special attention to vulnerable and marginalized poor across the LDCs. However, in 1986, WB recognized “chronic food insecurity” associated with “structural problem”, “low income” besides “transitory food insecurity” caused by natural disaster, economic collapse or conflict. The definition further appears as, “access of all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life”. WB still missed stressing on “production” and “food sufficiency”.
In 1994, UNDP’s HDR came up with “Human Security”, which covered a range of components including food security. From human security perspective, food came up much more as entitlement and social security aspect rather stand alone issue. In 1996, world food summit came up with more complex definition stressing ‘physical and economic access’ to ‘sufficient, safe and nutritious’ food. The definition is further refined in The State of Food Insecurity 2001 as ‘physical, economical, and social’ access to ‘sufficient, safe, and nutritious’ food. The later version of food security definition added words like ‘sufficient’, ‘safe’, and ‘nutritious’. It could be ridiculous in the context of conflict stricken, famine, and hunger affected countries to think about safe and nutritious food. The world leading agencies have been fallen in the trap of bureaucratization, which resulted in producing tons of documents beside numerous dialogues and conferences with out any significant outcome and change on the ground. We need to revisit this issue of multilateral agencies’ role in addressing and changing food insecurity on the ground.
The concept “food security” is exploited, partly because the leading agencies’ stand point is not clear. When trade liberalization clearly exploits food security of developing nations, the so called development agencies do not take side of marginalized farmer of the developing nations. As Glipo notes,
To the degree that food sovereignty incorporates fundamental questions of economic sovereignty, land reform, women’s rights and small farmers’ rights, it has become a more comprehensive platform for advocacy among those seeking fundamental changes in the national and global order. To the extent that it advocates a new development paradigm that rejects the rigidity of free trade and the export-oriented industrial agriculture model of the North, many accept its relevance to third world conditions. (2003: 22)
End Notes:
[i] Secretary General, FIAN International, International Human Rights Organisation for the Right to Food.
[ii] Walden Bello, ‘The Future in the Balance’ Acceptance speech, Right Livelihood Award, Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, 8 December 2003.
There are complexities of issues, policies, and national-international perspective over fod security, hunger and famine. The interesting aspect is that defining and setting policies for food security had always been in the hand of powerful agencies. Most of these agencies are dominated by the think tanks and representatives of rich countries. The politics of favoring interests of rich countries lies within the domination of multilateral implementing agencies such as WTO, WB, Asian Development Bank (ADB), IMF, International Finance Corporation (IFC), United Nations (UN) agencies etc. Multilateral agencies are complex and paradoxical in policies and practices rather bilateral agencies in terms of “trade-off”. For example, AoA of WTO benefits rich nations by exploiting poor nations in the name of trade justice and trade liberalization. The process happened in such a perplexing way that representatives and thinkers of poor nations realized the paradox of exploitation from the impacts of this trade rule.
FAO’s definition focusing on “access” rather “food production and sufficiency of poor nations” reminds us the politics of favoring rich nations in line with WTO. In 1983, FAO defined, “ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to the basic food that they need”. FAO stresses on “access” besides demand and supply side of food equation. Interestingly, the definition could not recognize the large group of people without purchasing power. Therefore, access and supply of food may not ensure their “food entitlement”.
In 1974, World Food Summit (WFS) defined, “availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices”. Surprisingly, this definition could not give special attention to vulnerable and marginalized poor across the LDCs. However, in 1986, WB recognized “chronic food insecurity” associated with “structural problem”, “low income” besides “transitory food insecurity” caused by natural disaster, economic collapse or conflict. The definition further appears as, “access of all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life”. WB still missed stressing on “production” and “food sufficiency”.
In 1994, UNDP’s HDR came up with “Human Security”, which covered a range of components including food security. From human security perspective, food came up much more as entitlement and social security aspect rather stand alone issue. In 1996, world food summit came up with more complex definition stressing ‘physical and economic access’ to ‘sufficient, safe and nutritious’ food. The definition is further refined in The State of Food Insecurity 2001 as ‘physical, economical, and social’ access to ‘sufficient, safe, and nutritious’ food. The later version of food security definition added words like ‘sufficient’, ‘safe’, and ‘nutritious’. It could be ridiculous in the context of conflict stricken, famine, and hunger affected countries to think about safe and nutritious food. The world leading agencies have been fallen in the trap of bureaucratization, which resulted in producing tons of documents beside numerous dialogues and conferences with out any significant outcome and change on the ground. We need to revisit this issue of multilateral agencies’ role in addressing and changing food insecurity on the ground.
The concept “food security” is exploited, partly because the leading agencies’ stand point is not clear. When trade liberalization clearly exploits food security of developing nations, the so called development agencies do not take side of marginalized farmer of the developing nations. As Glipo notes,
To the degree that food sovereignty incorporates fundamental questions of economic sovereignty, land reform, women’s rights and small farmers’ rights, it has become a more comprehensive platform for advocacy among those seeking fundamental changes in the national and global order. To the extent that it advocates a new development paradigm that rejects the rigidity of free trade and the export-oriented industrial agriculture model of the North, many accept its relevance to third world conditions. (2003: 22)
So called agencies, thus, played tricky role with food security and technically saved face of WTOs and their allies. However, more or less these food security efforts goes in line with ‘access to food’, which ultimately reminds the existence of market and ability of people to buy from the market. Thus, vibrant and radical agencies for the marginalized peasants of the south deny “access to food” for food security and replace it by “production of food” for food-sufficiency, which is food sovereignty.
This study focuses on ‘entitlement’ to food, which is in line with Amartya Sen’s ‘entitlements’ of ‘individuals’ and ‘households’. And ‘entitlement’ complies with ‘power relation’ from the perspective of RBA. This issue will be further discussed at the power relation section.
Political will for food security
11 years after the 1996 WFS summit food insecurity remains high across the world. The same is echoed by Flavio Valente[i],
"It is unacceptable that more than 850 million human beings continue to go hungry everyday despite repeated – and repeatedly breached - commitments of governments and intergovernmental organizations."
Despite of WFS and lots and lots of seminars, conferences, and dialogues, food insecurity and hunger remains. The quest for knowing ‘why hunger exists’ could lead us to find root cause. Le Vallée (2006) stressed on ‘willingness of government’ so as the ‘greater political will’ to erdicate hunger and ensure food security. Political will of a government could solve food insecurity within a nation state. For example, a country like Bangladesh, which had been corrup and failed for couple of decades because of lack of political will. Off course, absence of good governace resulted in corruption and food insecurity. Therefore, good governace could ensure an idol mechanism through which political will could alleviate food inecurity. Good governance should have rule of law, accountability, transperancy, sound public administration, respect and protection for human rights.
Good governnace ------------------ political will
If it is the policy of ‘pruduction’ and ‘self-sufficiency’ for food security, the government of a nation state has to adopt that policy and its implication. If it is ‘access to food’ in the market, which is sometime beyond government’s control because of global trade and free markets, still government needs to avoid policy intervention to protect her citizens. If it is international politics for exploiting developing countries, the government needs to have strategies for not to be exploited. Paarlberg (2002) says, “Food insecurity persists largely because of governance and policy failure at the national level”. Paarlberg adds where national governments have performed well in the developing world, hunger has been significantly reduced, while in those regions where hunger is not yet under control, improving governance at the national level must now be the highest priority (cited in Le Vallée 2006). Therefore, the responsibility and duty of national government is the only measure for production, supply, and entitlement of food unless conflict and disaster issues destabilize a nation state.
Some may argue that globalization and trade liberalization have impacted food insecurity locally. Top down pressure of multilateral and bilateral agencies could obligate a developing country to adopt and implement self-destructing policies. Still Paarlberg (2002) says, “Despite globalization, most food insecurity today is still highly localized and locally generated”. Ultimately it is states responsibility to fight against international policy intervention, which is against state’s interest.
There is a need for synergy between national and international political will. Unless political will of international community wants an end of food insecurity rather food conspiracy, it could be a struggle to overcome hunger and insecurity from a national perspective. Poltical will should not end in frsutrated attempts to address problem rather it should end in policies and programs. But there is a doubt about international political will?
The conept of food security is misinterpreted by rich countries and their alliens, which is a food conpiracy. Developing countries now distrust western counterparts for agricultural trade off. As Glipo notes, “In the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh where rapid trade liberalization practically demolished small-scale agriculture…national peasant movements are strong in these countries and are leading the movement to dismantle the WTO and its oppressive trade agreements, particularly the AoA and the TRIPs agreements (2003: 21).” This growing distrust leads these Asian countries to believe in “food sovereignty”.
Globalization Vs Food Sovereignty
In the name of globalization and free market economy, the rich and powerful nations have been exploiting the poor nations. And this is a cruel reality, which has been realized by the citizens of poor nations lately today. As Bello[ii] notes, The free market policies that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank imposed on some 100 developing and transitional economies between 1980 and 2000 had induced, in all but a handful of them, not a virtuous circle of growth, prosperity, and equality but a vicious cycle of economic stagnation, poverty, and inequality.
Globalization and it neoliberal programs has the intention to destabilize social and economic atmosphere of developing countries and eventually taking control over market along with natural resources. After the end of colonial legacies, this is an imperialist aggression in the form of trade agreements to have control over the markets of poor nations. TNC and big players out of corporate driven globalization have been wiping out small payers of developing nations at the so called open market. Thus, trade invasion is much more sophisticated and complicated in nature than military invasion of colonizers’ era. American and British invasion in sovereign nations Iraq and Afghanistan is examples of neo imperialism, which is a new form of colonial invasion. This indicates growing threat against national sovereignty. However, this paper may keep track on food sovereignty issues.
Asia-Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty’s (APNFS) agenda is to remove WTO from food and agriculture and to ensure food sovereignty through developing national policies for food and agriculture. And the agenda is to develop protection mechanism from external hazards like AOA. Pesticide Action Network (PAN) - Asia Pacific, IBON and Via Campesina are some networks that want no more WTO and their slogan is food sovereignty. These protestors and advocacy groups had chosen “food sovereignty” as objective because “food security” is already misinterpreted by northern elites for their own benefit. Thus, food sovereignty is not confusing concept for the oppressed peasants and policy advocacy groups. As Glipo notes, “food sovereignty came popularly to mean not only the struggle for food security and food selfsufficiency…” A considerable definition was given by International NGO/CSO Planning Committee (IPC),
Food Sovereignty is the right of individuals, communities, peoples and countries to define their own agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land policies, which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and cultural appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies
Food sovereignty opposes export oriented model of agriculture. It protects farmers who are landless, small, marginalized and rural women. It promotes agro-ecological model and community based natural resource management. Food sovereignty paradigm has come through a series of conferences of NGOs, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and social movements and become more comprehensive. The elements of food sovereignty are identified in the following box.
Elements of food sovereignty
i. priority of local agricultural production to feed people locally;
ii. access of smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and landless people to land, water, seeds and livestock breeds and credit. Hence the need for land reform; for the fight against GMOs and patents on seeds, livestock breeds and genes; for free access to seeds and livestock breeds by smallholder farmers and pastoralists and for safeguarding water as a public good to be distributed equitably and sustainably used; and for secure access to fishing grounds by artisanal fisherfolk;
ii. the right to food;
iii. the right of smallholder farmers to produce food and a recognition of Farmers Rights;
iv. the right of consumers to decide what they consume, and how and by whom it is produced;
v. the right of countries to protect themselves from under-priced agricultural and food imports;
vi. the need for agricultural prices to be linked to production costs and to stop all forms of dumping. Countries or unions of states are entitled to impose taxes on excessively cheap imports, if they commit themselves to using sustainable production methods and if they control production in their internal markets to avoid structural surpluses (supply management);
vii. the populations’ participation in agricultural policy decision-making;
viii. the recognition of the rights of women farmers who play a major role in agricultural production in general and in food production in particular;
ix. agroecology as a way not only to produce food but also to achieve sustainable livelihoods, living landscapes and environmental integrity.
Source: ITDG 2005
The forum on ‘food sovereignty’ debated over the above elements and later on came up with four priority areas, which are known as four pillars or principles. These are 1) right to food, 2) access to productive resources, 3) mainstream agroecological production, and 4) trade and local market. Right to food is legal obligation where as food security is technical concept. And food sovereignty is a political one. And so far food sovereignty is most comprehensive solutions for ensuring livelihoods of the marginalized rural population. In addition, it protects poor and developing countries form exploitative interventions of globalization and trade agreements led by elite countries.
End Notes:
[i] Secretary General, FIAN International, International Human Rights Organisation for the Right to Food.
[ii] Walden Bello, ‘The Future in the Balance’ Acceptance speech, Right Livelihood Award, Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, 8 December 2003.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Incorporation of Rights Based Approach in the ICT for development programs
1. Introduction
The gap between privileged and underprivileged with regard to access to information is increasing through out the world. The developed countries enjoy the benefits of ICT, on the other hand, the least developed and developing countries are lagging behind the facilities of it. The poor nation with less access to ICT can be characterized by indicators e.g., personal computer (per100 people), fixed telephone lines (per 1,000 people), mobile phones (per 1,000 people), Internet users (per 100 people), Internet hosts (per 100 people) television in use (per 1,000 people), radios in use (per 1,000 people)[i]. If the technology can be used as a tool for development programs, developing countries can be benefited out of it. Initially ICT was accounted for telephone, telegraph, fax, photocopier, radio and television. Computer and Internet with the help of satellite communication have occupied the business, trade, education, health, communication and administration of today’s world. Mobile phone communication has brought revolutionary changes in socio-economy developed of developing countries. Mobile phone can be a tool in empowering poor people of the village community. On the other hand a Community Technology Center (CTC) can be another kind of tool to increase capacity of a community. Generally the concept of CTC consists of various ICT equipment e.g. telephone, computer, internet, fax, photocopier, television etc. Application of ICTs for empowering village community is a growing field adapted by developing organizations. Donor organizations also encourage flowing fund for this purpose but these development attitude should adopt Rights Based Approach (RBA) that will ensure inclusion of disadvantaged and will not be confined within a particular group as a project itself.
RBA must fulfill the elements e.g. participation, empowerment, non-discrimination, and accountability of duty bearers. RBA should ensure that development programs deal with the extreme poor and not only serving purpose by creating a pro-poor group in the community. ICT for development program carried out by governments and other local and international agencies should meet the requirement of RBA. There is a need to develop a frame work of RBA and evaluate the existing ICT for development programs with respect to the frame work of RBA.
Thus, concept of capacity development of poor villagers has been raised to reach the target group to bring socio economic changes in their lives. Empowering villages using ICT is a micro level approach to development. Basically it is bottom up process even though combination of top down and bottom up is required initially to set up a project. Inter governmental (IG), governmental, International, national, local non governmental organizations (NGOs), donors, specialized United Nations (UN) agencies have realized the need to keep balance in capacity of people between the developed and underdeveloped countries. Therefore, different development projects on education, poverty alleviation, health, housing, food, information and communication, skill development have been conducted at the community level of the developing countries. ICTs can play a significant role in the rural economy with proper financing mechanism like micro credit that may lead self-employment and self-reliance. Sengupta (2000: 15) says, “…if a group of destitute or deprived people have to have a minimum standard of well-being, a simple transfer of income through doles or subsidies may not be the right policy. They may actually have to be provided with the opportunity to work or to be self-employed, which may require generating activities…” The right policy should include ICT applications in terms of capacity building of the village people that directly contributes to involve villagers in income generating activities and indirectly affects improvement in education, health, employment, skill, communication, and access to information village households. The incorporation of rights based approach in ICT for development program may result in over all well-being and also meet the human development approach as a by product of the whole process, which should focus specially on extreme poor and disadvantaged.
2. WSIS and poverty reduction by ICTs
WSIS (2004) in its Principle 3 says, “…we reaffirm the universality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelation of all human rights and fundamental freedom, including the right to development enshrined in the Vienna Declaration.” WSIS in its Principle 12 says, “…we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use of ICTs a tool to that end”, and in Principle 14 mentions, “we are resolute to empower the poor, particularly those living in remote, rural and marginalized urban areas, to access information and to use ICTs as a tool to support their efforts lift themselves out of poverty.” Principle 43 of the WSIS reflects the realization eradication of poverty as a means of development by the ICT application as it says, “Distribution of benefits of ICT-driven growth contributes to poverty eradication and sustainable development.” The ‘interdependence’ and ‘interrelation’ of all human rights are lays on the common ground of development that urges for poverty eradication. Empowerment of poor is the only way to push them out the poverty line, which requires rigorous implementation of ICT programs to ensure sustainable development that can create a sound environment where people can enjoy their rights. Thus the bottom up approach for creating favorable environment for the realization of rights can strengthen the top down approach of human rights promotion and protection by International Human Rights Instruments, National Jurisdiction or by other mechanisms.
2.1. Human Rights and ICT based development
ICTs have enormous social and economic impacts. It can change people’s living standard. The widening gap between the countries of north and south and urban and rural areas can be minimized by the implementation of effective economy driven ICT projects. OHCHR (2003)[ii] says about the human rights approach to ICTs that, “…ICTs not only as a means of exchanging and disseminating information, but as a tool to improve the enjoyment of human rights such as the freedom of expression, the right to education, the right to health, the right to food and other rights, seeking universal access by all to information and services. The human rights approach seeks to bring individuals and communities, particularly the disadvantaged, vulnerable and socially excluded, squarely into the Information society, upholding the principles of non-discrimination, participation and accountability.” Poor villagers of Asia Pacific and African countries can be considered as ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘vulnerable’ in terms of poverty and accessibility to ICTs. Hence, it could be a human rights approach to ‘uphold’ these people and let them have the opportunity to participate in the progress of rural economy. Unless these people are self reliant and generate income, they can not improve their livelihoods to enjoy ‘human rights’ including freedom of expression, education, health, food, and an adequate house. Governments of poor countries have lack of resources besides inadequate commitment and inappropriate integration plans to eradicate poverty. ICTs can be more effective than agriculture, livestock, poultries, and fisheries for income generating activities because of less risk of losing investment. Caspary and Connor (2003: 7) says, “besides the strictly economic benefits, there can be important social benefits of maintain long-distance contact with family members working abroad or in the city. The experience of Bangladeshi women who make up the majority village phone operators for the Grameen network suggests that social status can be enhanced by virtue of control over a valuable resource-information access. ” Therefore, village phone have removed the physical distance between relatives working in cities and family members living in villages. Village phone operators are benefited by giving phone service for fee basis and the villagers are advantaged by exchanging important information over phone. The Community Technology Centers (CTCs) can also enhance accessibility for the village community for having better communication with their relatives living at distant places. Thus, ICT can increase access to information besides economic benefits which in turn can enable village community to know about their rights.
3. Why RBA?
Human race has been struggling through out the history to reach the consensus and establish a set of rules that will eradicate injustice from the society they live. As an outcome of the struggle religion and different theologies based on religion and faith came to enable people to remove exploitation and abuse on basis of moral commitment. Justice, legitimacy, and rule of law came into existence to ensure equality and justice. The series of declaration of International Human Rights Standards are the examples of struggle of human race in the 20th century after experiencing the catastrophe of two world wars.
RBA is a paradigm shift. Hence, the concept of RBA is quite new in the area of development programs. Development programs have wide range of issues and applications for community empowerment. ICT in the development program have been appeared as a tool to empower poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in the communities. Therefore, it is necessary to know about whether the existing approach of ICT based development programs can really empower the disadvantaged people in the community or it creates new type of well-off class than the rest within a community. By examining the development programs, it can be possible to know about the success and failure of these programs to include disadvantaged.
3.1. Linkage with right to development
The demand for linking human rights and development policy was put forward especially at the World Conference on Human Rights (1993) in Vienna, the World Conference on Women (1995) in Beijing, and the world summit for Social Development (1995) in Copenhagen.
After attainment of certain level while the basic needs are met, and additionally quality of life of the people are improved, it is reasonable to make these people realize about their civil and political rights. Declaration on the Right to Development of 1986 reflects the aims of “constant improvement of well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development.” According to the Article 1 paragraph 1 of the Declaration on the Right to Development:
“The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.” Hence the development is ‘inalienable’ from other human rights because it is a nucleus of all rights.
3.2. Elements of Rights Based Approaches
The RBA is a conceptual framework that has the following elements, which ensures the human development in terms of minimum standard of life that individual essentially should have as a human being. The basic elements of RBA are Non-discrimination, Participation, Empowerment, Accountability, Good governance, and linkage to rights, which should be adapted at ICT for development programs.
Non-discrimination
A development project or programs meet the requirement of RBA when it includes people irrespective of differences e.g. age, sex, religion, ethnicity, language, gender, age, property, and birth status etc. Non-discrimination is the basic principle of RBA. This core concept of non-discrimination is also reflected in the declarations and conventions of UN. Development projects run by state or non state actors should follow the core concept of non-discrimination.
Attention to vulnerable groups:
One important aspect of non-discrimination is to put especial attention towards vulnerable groups. Women, children, elderly people, poor, diseased people can be considered as the vulnerable people in the community. Development programs should emphasize these vulnerable groups in the community and execute programs and projects to uplift into a level where they can meet minimum standard of life at least and can claim their rights.
Participation
Active and meaningful participation of people in a development oriented projects and programs can bring empowerment in turn. RBA identifies participation as rights rather than a kind of tool or program.
Participation is recognized as having a central and decisive role in development models. ‘Participatory development’ and ‘people-centered development’ are frequently linked to sustainability. The notion of participation is always associated with the terminology of ‘empowerment and ownership.’ But it is not enough. (Cheria et al. 2004: 36)
Participation is more than ‘empowerment’ and ‘ownership’. Mostly the trend of development programs and policies are formulated and implemented from the state, donors or organizations. People, for whom the project is, do not have much involvement in determining their needs and eventually they do not take part in policy level. Participation enables these people to find their needs and to decide appropriate measures and activities to meet the need. Therefore, Cheria et al. (2004: 37) mentioned, “participation in a human rights approach includes control of planning, process, outcome, and evaluation…people are the subjects, the active players, who determine and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
Participation brings claim-holders and duty-bearers in the same table where they can make strategies and decisions. The policies and strategies should include special attention to the poor and disadvantaged people. Through the active, free and meaningful participation people can design development policies to fulfill their needs. To enhance the capacity for participation the adequate access to information, adequate organizational capacities, and necessary supports have to be ensured.
Empowerment
Empowerment is to make poor and disadvantaged people powerful economically, socially, culturally or politically. The development projects and programs usually have set of objectives to empower people in a community. Empowerment is giving powerless a power so that they can meet their basic needs from the economic perspective and can achieve the ability to claim their rights from duty bearers. Income generating capacity and self-reliance type programs are the present trend of development projects that represents the concept of empowerment in practice. RBA focus on what specific capacities are required for a group of poor or disadvantaged people so that they can claim and exercise their rights.
Accountability
Accountability is the responsibility of duty bearers to create a socio, economic, and politically sound environment where the people in their communities can avail the level to communicate with duty bearers. Transparency, honesty, reliability, trust and willingness of the duty bearers can only create such a situation.
Accountability refers to the effectiveness with which the governed can exercise influence over their governors. Trust and reciprocity are not easily sustained without specific rules of holding leaders accountable to civil society. (Cheria et al. 2004: 41)
Good governance
Good governance has link with accountability and transparency of the governors. Good governance is the core requirement for flourishing human rights values. Effective administration with legitimacy is a key area of good governance. Good governance consists of many elements that in all ways ensure justice, rule of law, free from corruption and abuse, empowerment of poor, consideration of vulnerability, transparency, honesty, efficiency, effectiveness, participation, human rights. The definition ‘good governance’ defined by OHCHR, United Nations Development programme (UNDP), ESCAP, Commission on Global Governance, and others except World Bank have more or less the common elements mentioned above. World Bank, IMF, and their allies’ agencies and governments stress on creating space by state for market, which is contrast to the others’ concept.
Asif (et al. 2004) says:
A dictatorship that delivers basic needs to the citizens is no doubt better than a dictatorship that does not, but it is not good governance. Similarly, regular elections alone do not translate into ‘good governance’. Rule of law that is transparent, but unjust – such as Apartheid – is certainly not ‘good governance’. It is only when all these three conditions are fulfilled that governance becomes ‘good governance’ (P.13).
The gap between privileged and underprivileged with regard to access to information is increasing through out the world. The developed countries enjoy the benefits of ICT, on the other hand, the least developed and developing countries are lagging behind the facilities of it. The poor nation with less access to ICT can be characterized by indicators e.g., personal computer (per100 people), fixed telephone lines (per 1,000 people), mobile phones (per 1,000 people), Internet users (per 100 people), Internet hosts (per 100 people) television in use (per 1,000 people), radios in use (per 1,000 people)[i]. If the technology can be used as a tool for development programs, developing countries can be benefited out of it. Initially ICT was accounted for telephone, telegraph, fax, photocopier, radio and television. Computer and Internet with the help of satellite communication have occupied the business, trade, education, health, communication and administration of today’s world. Mobile phone communication has brought revolutionary changes in socio-economy developed of developing countries. Mobile phone can be a tool in empowering poor people of the village community. On the other hand a Community Technology Center (CTC) can be another kind of tool to increase capacity of a community. Generally the concept of CTC consists of various ICT equipment e.g. telephone, computer, internet, fax, photocopier, television etc. Application of ICTs for empowering village community is a growing field adapted by developing organizations. Donor organizations also encourage flowing fund for this purpose but these development attitude should adopt Rights Based Approach (RBA) that will ensure inclusion of disadvantaged and will not be confined within a particular group as a project itself.
RBA must fulfill the elements e.g. participation, empowerment, non-discrimination, and accountability of duty bearers. RBA should ensure that development programs deal with the extreme poor and not only serving purpose by creating a pro-poor group in the community. ICT for development program carried out by governments and other local and international agencies should meet the requirement of RBA. There is a need to develop a frame work of RBA and evaluate the existing ICT for development programs with respect to the frame work of RBA.
Thus, concept of capacity development of poor villagers has been raised to reach the target group to bring socio economic changes in their lives. Empowering villages using ICT is a micro level approach to development. Basically it is bottom up process even though combination of top down and bottom up is required initially to set up a project. Inter governmental (IG), governmental, International, national, local non governmental organizations (NGOs), donors, specialized United Nations (UN) agencies have realized the need to keep balance in capacity of people between the developed and underdeveloped countries. Therefore, different development projects on education, poverty alleviation, health, housing, food, information and communication, skill development have been conducted at the community level of the developing countries. ICTs can play a significant role in the rural economy with proper financing mechanism like micro credit that may lead self-employment and self-reliance. Sengupta (2000: 15) says, “…if a group of destitute or deprived people have to have a minimum standard of well-being, a simple transfer of income through doles or subsidies may not be the right policy. They may actually have to be provided with the opportunity to work or to be self-employed, which may require generating activities…” The right policy should include ICT applications in terms of capacity building of the village people that directly contributes to involve villagers in income generating activities and indirectly affects improvement in education, health, employment, skill, communication, and access to information village households. The incorporation of rights based approach in ICT for development program may result in over all well-being and also meet the human development approach as a by product of the whole process, which should focus specially on extreme poor and disadvantaged.
2. WSIS and poverty reduction by ICTs
WSIS (2004) in its Principle 3 says, “…we reaffirm the universality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelation of all human rights and fundamental freedom, including the right to development enshrined in the Vienna Declaration.” WSIS in its Principle 12 says, “…we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use of ICTs a tool to that end”, and in Principle 14 mentions, “we are resolute to empower the poor, particularly those living in remote, rural and marginalized urban areas, to access information and to use ICTs as a tool to support their efforts lift themselves out of poverty.” Principle 43 of the WSIS reflects the realization eradication of poverty as a means of development by the ICT application as it says, “Distribution of benefits of ICT-driven growth contributes to poverty eradication and sustainable development.” The ‘interdependence’ and ‘interrelation’ of all human rights are lays on the common ground of development that urges for poverty eradication. Empowerment of poor is the only way to push them out the poverty line, which requires rigorous implementation of ICT programs to ensure sustainable development that can create a sound environment where people can enjoy their rights. Thus the bottom up approach for creating favorable environment for the realization of rights can strengthen the top down approach of human rights promotion and protection by International Human Rights Instruments, National Jurisdiction or by other mechanisms.
2.1. Human Rights and ICT based development
ICTs have enormous social and economic impacts. It can change people’s living standard. The widening gap between the countries of north and south and urban and rural areas can be minimized by the implementation of effective economy driven ICT projects. OHCHR (2003)[ii] says about the human rights approach to ICTs that, “…ICTs not only as a means of exchanging and disseminating information, but as a tool to improve the enjoyment of human rights such as the freedom of expression, the right to education, the right to health, the right to food and other rights, seeking universal access by all to information and services. The human rights approach seeks to bring individuals and communities, particularly the disadvantaged, vulnerable and socially excluded, squarely into the Information society, upholding the principles of non-discrimination, participation and accountability.” Poor villagers of Asia Pacific and African countries can be considered as ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘vulnerable’ in terms of poverty and accessibility to ICTs. Hence, it could be a human rights approach to ‘uphold’ these people and let them have the opportunity to participate in the progress of rural economy. Unless these people are self reliant and generate income, they can not improve their livelihoods to enjoy ‘human rights’ including freedom of expression, education, health, food, and an adequate house. Governments of poor countries have lack of resources besides inadequate commitment and inappropriate integration plans to eradicate poverty. ICTs can be more effective than agriculture, livestock, poultries, and fisheries for income generating activities because of less risk of losing investment. Caspary and Connor (2003: 7) says, “besides the strictly economic benefits, there can be important social benefits of maintain long-distance contact with family members working abroad or in the city. The experience of Bangladeshi women who make up the majority village phone operators for the Grameen network suggests that social status can be enhanced by virtue of control over a valuable resource-information access. ” Therefore, village phone have removed the physical distance between relatives working in cities and family members living in villages. Village phone operators are benefited by giving phone service for fee basis and the villagers are advantaged by exchanging important information over phone. The Community Technology Centers (CTCs) can also enhance accessibility for the village community for having better communication with their relatives living at distant places. Thus, ICT can increase access to information besides economic benefits which in turn can enable village community to know about their rights.
3. Why RBA?
Human race has been struggling through out the history to reach the consensus and establish a set of rules that will eradicate injustice from the society they live. As an outcome of the struggle religion and different theologies based on religion and faith came to enable people to remove exploitation and abuse on basis of moral commitment. Justice, legitimacy, and rule of law came into existence to ensure equality and justice. The series of declaration of International Human Rights Standards are the examples of struggle of human race in the 20th century after experiencing the catastrophe of two world wars.
RBA is a paradigm shift. Hence, the concept of RBA is quite new in the area of development programs. Development programs have wide range of issues and applications for community empowerment. ICT in the development program have been appeared as a tool to empower poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in the communities. Therefore, it is necessary to know about whether the existing approach of ICT based development programs can really empower the disadvantaged people in the community or it creates new type of well-off class than the rest within a community. By examining the development programs, it can be possible to know about the success and failure of these programs to include disadvantaged.
3.1. Linkage with right to development
The demand for linking human rights and development policy was put forward especially at the World Conference on Human Rights (1993) in Vienna, the World Conference on Women (1995) in Beijing, and the world summit for Social Development (1995) in Copenhagen.
After attainment of certain level while the basic needs are met, and additionally quality of life of the people are improved, it is reasonable to make these people realize about their civil and political rights. Declaration on the Right to Development of 1986 reflects the aims of “constant improvement of well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development.” According to the Article 1 paragraph 1 of the Declaration on the Right to Development:
“The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.” Hence the development is ‘inalienable’ from other human rights because it is a nucleus of all rights.
3.2. Elements of Rights Based Approaches
The RBA is a conceptual framework that has the following elements, which ensures the human development in terms of minimum standard of life that individual essentially should have as a human being. The basic elements of RBA are Non-discrimination, Participation, Empowerment, Accountability, Good governance, and linkage to rights, which should be adapted at ICT for development programs.
Non-discrimination
A development project or programs meet the requirement of RBA when it includes people irrespective of differences e.g. age, sex, religion, ethnicity, language, gender, age, property, and birth status etc. Non-discrimination is the basic principle of RBA. This core concept of non-discrimination is also reflected in the declarations and conventions of UN. Development projects run by state or non state actors should follow the core concept of non-discrimination.
Attention to vulnerable groups:
One important aspect of non-discrimination is to put especial attention towards vulnerable groups. Women, children, elderly people, poor, diseased people can be considered as the vulnerable people in the community. Development programs should emphasize these vulnerable groups in the community and execute programs and projects to uplift into a level where they can meet minimum standard of life at least and can claim their rights.
Participation
Active and meaningful participation of people in a development oriented projects and programs can bring empowerment in turn. RBA identifies participation as rights rather than a kind of tool or program.
Participation is recognized as having a central and decisive role in development models. ‘Participatory development’ and ‘people-centered development’ are frequently linked to sustainability. The notion of participation is always associated with the terminology of ‘empowerment and ownership.’ But it is not enough. (Cheria et al. 2004: 36)
Participation is more than ‘empowerment’ and ‘ownership’. Mostly the trend of development programs and policies are formulated and implemented from the state, donors or organizations. People, for whom the project is, do not have much involvement in determining their needs and eventually they do not take part in policy level. Participation enables these people to find their needs and to decide appropriate measures and activities to meet the need. Therefore, Cheria et al. (2004: 37) mentioned, “participation in a human rights approach includes control of planning, process, outcome, and evaluation…people are the subjects, the active players, who determine and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
Participation brings claim-holders and duty-bearers in the same table where they can make strategies and decisions. The policies and strategies should include special attention to the poor and disadvantaged people. Through the active, free and meaningful participation people can design development policies to fulfill their needs. To enhance the capacity for participation the adequate access to information, adequate organizational capacities, and necessary supports have to be ensured.
Empowerment
Empowerment is to make poor and disadvantaged people powerful economically, socially, culturally or politically. The development projects and programs usually have set of objectives to empower people in a community. Empowerment is giving powerless a power so that they can meet their basic needs from the economic perspective and can achieve the ability to claim their rights from duty bearers. Income generating capacity and self-reliance type programs are the present trend of development projects that represents the concept of empowerment in practice. RBA focus on what specific capacities are required for a group of poor or disadvantaged people so that they can claim and exercise their rights.
Accountability
Accountability is the responsibility of duty bearers to create a socio, economic, and politically sound environment where the people in their communities can avail the level to communicate with duty bearers. Transparency, honesty, reliability, trust and willingness of the duty bearers can only create such a situation.
Accountability refers to the effectiveness with which the governed can exercise influence over their governors. Trust and reciprocity are not easily sustained without specific rules of holding leaders accountable to civil society. (Cheria et al. 2004: 41)
Good governance
Good governance has link with accountability and transparency of the governors. Good governance is the core requirement for flourishing human rights values. Effective administration with legitimacy is a key area of good governance. Good governance consists of many elements that in all ways ensure justice, rule of law, free from corruption and abuse, empowerment of poor, consideration of vulnerability, transparency, honesty, efficiency, effectiveness, participation, human rights. The definition ‘good governance’ defined by OHCHR, United Nations Development programme (UNDP), ESCAP, Commission on Global Governance, and others except World Bank have more or less the common elements mentioned above. World Bank, IMF, and their allies’ agencies and governments stress on creating space by state for market, which is contrast to the others’ concept.
Asif (et al. 2004) says:
A dictatorship that delivers basic needs to the citizens is no doubt better than a dictatorship that does not, but it is not good governance. Similarly, regular elections alone do not translate into ‘good governance’. Rule of law that is transparent, but unjust – such as Apartheid – is certainly not ‘good governance’. It is only when all these three conditions are fulfilled that governance becomes ‘good governance’ (P.13).
Government is an institution and governance is the process. In the context of development projects and programs donor agencies can make State accountable to their people for offering good governance. But the efficiency, moral values, and good desires of government are basic requirements for spontaneous growth of good governance besides external international and donor driven pressure. Most of the LDCs do not have good governance even though the so-called democracy is quite visible in many of them. Unless, states offer good governance, only through development programs a little change may happen in the lives of poor and disadvantaged. Therefore, to implement RBA successfully, good governance is unavoidable element.
Linkage to rights
Human rights are indivisible, interrelated and interlinked. RBA agrees that these civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are integrated and inseparable. National, regional and international legal standards should be taken into consideration, which protects and promote rights of individuals. These normative and legally binding laws guarantee the protection of rights that are offered to people. Therefore, good governance can honor and implement these legal standards for benefiting their people.
- Non-discrimination
- Participation
- Empowerment
- Accountability
- Good governance
- Linkage to rights
This RBA scale is developed here that can be used to evaluate specific ICT for development programs. An ideal development project must meet all the elements that substantially determine the project’s RBA. RBA of any development program can be measured with the help of this RBA scale. RBA is still being nurtured in the conceptual level; few INGOs e.g. Save the Children, Action Aid, Oxfam and UN agencies have started brain storming to implement this approach in practice. At present the concept of RBA is under development for further clarification by INGOs and UN agencies. Different authors and agencies have come up with definition and elaboration, which have some commonness in terms of the elements discussed above. This paper develops RBA frame from the experiences of what already exist and proposes RBA scale to measure the effectiveness in terms of betterment of poor and disadvantaged of existing ICT for development programs.
4. Conclusion
Millions of poor people live in the villages and struggle to survive; ICTs can bring significant socio-economic improvement in the villages. As illiteracy and poverty are the two major constraints for expansion of ICTs, appropriate applications can be an effective tool to make this technology beneficial to uplift people from their poverty line. And unless well-being of these people are improved, complete realization of human rights is not possible. Therefore right to development is inalienable from civil and political rights as well as from economic, social and cultural rights. As long as development is not done, freedom will not be achieved to understand human rights. To open up the door of freedom state and non state actors should come up with affordable ICT application with innovative financing scheme especially for the rural areas. The government and non government organizations should adapt RBA in ICT based development programs, which can bring good result by stopping exclusion and discrimination in practice. Once RBA is implemented, the development programs may not be accused of pro-poor oriented programs, which may lead a new era of empowerment that believes in totality, equality and nondiscrimination.
References
Mander Harsh and Asif, Mohammed (2004), ‘Good Governance’, Bangalore: Books for Change.
Caspary, George (2002), ‘Information Technologies to Serve the Poor: How Rural Areas can benefit from the Communication Revolution’, D+C Development and Cooperation (No.1, January/february 2004, p. 4-5), Deutsche stiftung fur internationale Entwicklung, available at www.dse.de/zeitschr/de102-3.htm, accessed on may 30,2004.
Caspary, George and O’Connor, David (2003), ‘Providing Low-Cost Information Technology Access to Rural Communities in Developing Countries: What Works? What Pays?’ Working Paper No. 229, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, available at www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/52/7112502.pdf
Edwin et al. (2004), ‘A Human Rights Approach to Development’, Bangalore: Books for Change.
OHCHR (2002), ‘Human Rights in Development’, available at www. unhchr.ch/development/right-04.html, accessed on May 25, 2004.
OHCHR (2003), ‘Background Note on the Information Society and Human Rights’, available at www.unhchr.ch/pdf/noteinfsociety.pdf , accessed on April 07, 2004.
Sen, Amartya (1999), ‘Development as Freedom’, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Sen, Amartya (1999), ‘Poverty and Famines’, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Sengupta, Argun (2003), ‘Development Cooperation and the Right to Development’, available at www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/FXBC_WP12--sengupta.pdf, accessed on May 30, 2004.
Sengupta, Arjun (2000), ‘The Right to Development as a Human Right’, available at www.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/FXBC_WP7--sengupta.pdf, accessed on May 30, 2004.
UNDP (2004), ‘ICT and Human Development: Towards Building a Composite Index for Asia’, Technical Paper, New Delhi: ELSEVIER
Wakelin, Oliver and Shadrach, Basheer, ‘Impact Assessment of Appropriate and Innovative technologies in Enterprise Development’, available at www.itcltd.com/docs/ED%20Impact.pdf, accessed on May 30, 2004.
WSIS (2003), ‘Report of the Geneva Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society’, Document WSIS-03/Geneva/9(Rev.1)-E, 18th February 2004, available at www.itu.in/wsis, accessed on May 29, 2004.
End Notes
[i] See United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2004: 22), ICT and Human Development: Towards Building a Composite Index for Asia, New Delhi: ELSEVIER
[ii] Back ground Note on the Information Society and Human Rights (October 2003), see detail at www.unhchr.ch/pdf/noteinfsociety.pdf, accessed on May 30, 2004
Internet an Alternate Powerful Medium for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
1. Introduction
The Internet is a unique communications medium. Like no other medium before, it allows individuals to express their ideas and opinions directly to a world audience and easily to each other, while allowing access to many more ideas, opinions and information than previous media have allowed. Consequently, there is a vital connection between the Internet and human rights. The Internet is a democratizing medium; Uniquely Suited to the Promotion of Human Rights.It is more than a mere industry. The current regulatory framework is compatible in the context of the traditional print media, and the relatively newer media of radio and television broadcasting, telecommunications, films and videotapes. If censorship on Internet is to be enforced on an agreeable way, the present laws should be updated. In fact legislation always lags behind the changing technologies. Mailing lists via email and bulletin boards on the Internet enable people to speak out without the fear of being heard. It allows them to step out of their cultural and political boundaries as well by encouraging a true participatory democracy. Preventing this means it would be impossible to create a vocal and active global community, which transcends race and geography. This is insufficient to have a look at the Internet from one perspective. There are many human rights issues regarding the Internet. In this paper I will see it from three different perspectives. This paper will analyze the prospects of Internet medium for promoting human rights and how this medium can be a tool for organizations. It is also highlighted here in this paper that what international laws protect freedom of expression and privacy. The paper critically analyzes the nature of repressive government’s censorship on Internet and how they violate freedom of expression and interfere with privacy of individual.
2. The Internet and Human Rights Work: why Internet is powerful medium?
The Internet is one of the best means for communicating on human rights, because it is inexpensive and global. E-mail makes point-to-point communication between human rights workers and among NGOs (non-governmental organizations) cheap and easy, and allows for better coordination of actions. Furthermore, the Internet has the potential of reaching global audiences, including those most in need of such information. The Internet is important to those working for human rights, as it can provide a secure means of communicating between and coordinating the work of human rights groups. Internet in human rights is as a great tool for NGOs and activists to be in touch with each other, to share information privately, and to coordinate actions. Activists can expose human rights violations and let people know about them over Internet. Many human rights organizations throughout the world have instituted e-mail lists to propagate their press releases, alerts and denunciations vis a vis human rights violations[i]. Internet Access is important for the promotion of Human Rights. Net access without civil liberties guarantees in technology and in law may not benefit individuals and may be coupled with government control and extended surveillance capability[ii]. Governments take out the benefit of laws to impose censorship on Internet. Unfortunately autocratic governments make and use law as slave to work in favor of them and violate the right to access Internet. A good government should provide full disclosure of information infrastructure development plans and encourage democratic participation in all aspects of the development process. The idea of extra-territoriality is what the Internet is able to offer. Books can be physically turned back at the border or destroyed during a raid, but work published on the Internet is permanent and there is a greater potential of reaching the millions out there. As Internet is a global technology having fastest and cheapest communication channel, it has the ability to work for the universality of Human Rights. Internet is the network of networks; therefore, I believe it can help to integrate human rights activists’ networks worldwide.
2.1 Human Rights NGO: prospects and problem
Internet is the revolutionary medium for human rights NGOs. Large NGOs such as Amnesty International (AI), with over 60 offices and a million members, rely heavily on e-mail and the Internet for sharing information, consulting about strategy, debating new ideas, maintaining archives and initiating quick responses to current events[iii]. Similarly Human Rights Watch, Save the children, Action aid and many other international NGOs have adopted Internet technology not only by using e-mail and developing web sites but also by introducing net conferences, net messages, news groups, bulletin boards and online publications. On the contrary hundreds of small and medium scales local or national NGOs of developing countries are struggling to adopt Internet. Lack of Internet infrastructure, budget, technology skill, and training about Internet know how are the barriers to popularize Internet as a medium among these NGOs. In some countries where governments have control over other type of media as radio, television and print, Internet medium can be the only way for human rights activists to fight against government repression. Human rights communities that would find it difficult and dangerous to acquire hardcopy reports have been able to obtain and circulate them through cyberspace[iv]. Repressive governments have realized the power of Internet medium and started imposing restriction on free flow of information through Internet and nowadays maintain extreme control over it. These governments especially target to suppress human rights NGOs. For most human rights communities, therein lies the dilemma: it is precisely those communities in greatest need of empowerment that is least likely to have access to the Internet[v]. The de-centered, anti-hierarchical, network oriented, democratic natured and electronic modes of communication like the WWW encourages new ways of thinking, writing, reading, creating, communicating, organizing and learning. For grassroots organizations these attributes of the Net allow them to utilize technology which reflects their ideals of networking, inclusion and participation[vi]. From my point of view promotion, dissemination and awareness building programs can be run in faster pace through Internet by the human rights organizations that have been working for civil and political rights as well as for economic, social and cultural rights.
2.2 Freedom of expression and privacy: why these are essential to strengthen Internet as medium?
Online communication must therefore be fully protected by international guarantees of the right to freedom of expression. Let us see how we can strengthen the platform of Internet media by understanding international laws. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and other international human rights agreements enshrine the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, and regardless of frontiers.” Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” Article 19, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of borders.” Article 10, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
The Internet is a medium for both public and private exchange of views and information. People must be able to express opinions and ideas, and share information freely when using the Internet. The potential of the Internet to allow public participation in governance processes, at international, national and local levels, should be utilized to its full. At the same time, there should be mechanisms in the public domain to oppose - or in extreme cases, ban - the publication of content that is harmful to women, children and other vulnerable groups, or content that can incite violence and hatred[vii]. Applying laws and licenses, content filtering, tapping and surveillance, pricing and taxation policies, telecommunication markets manipulation, hardware and software manipulation can restrict freedom of expression and limit access to information. Government-mandated use of blocking, filtering, and label systems violates basic international human rights protections. Efforts to force all Internet speech to be labeled or rated according to a single classification system distort the fundamental cultural diversity of the Internet and will lead to domination of one set of political or moral viewpoints. Free expression should not be restricted by indirect means such as excessively restrictive governmental or private controls over computer hardware or software, the telecommunications infrastructure, or other essential components of the Internet. Governments in Western democracies often appear guilty of violating human rights, especially the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and then governments in less democratic countries will use all infringements of the principle of freedom of expression on the Internet as excuses to strictly control how citizens use the system. Human Rights Watch seeks to encourage governments to strengthen protections for freedom of expression at this early stage of the Internet's development.
The Universal Declaration, the European Convention and international human rights instruments protects the right to privacy. These core documents explicitly protect the privacy of correspondence and communication:
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” Article 12, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.” Article 17, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” Article 8, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
Privacy is becoming increasingly important for citizens in the information society. Electronic communications can be very easily intercepted by anyone who wants to. Sending an e-mail message is thus the equivalent of sending a postcard. In the human rights arena especially, many matters discussed among NGOs are extremely confidential. Names of witnesses to human rights violations, for example, need to be kept from those who would harm them. Repressive governments commonly use their intelligence services to tap the phone communications of human rights groups and intercept their mail. It is very likely that they are also intercepting electronic mail. A global study of Internet censorship in over fifty countries and regions finds that Internet restrictions, government secrecy and communications surveillance have reached an unprecedented level across the world[viii]. Singapore's citizens are still fearful. A bureaucrat told a local Internet service provider to scan 80,000 e-mail accounts of university researchers for pornographic material and in April, Singapore's internal-security agency secretly scanned 200,000 private computers[ix]. Similarly the government of Burma and China has dishonored Internet privacy of individual, families and organizations. Basically repressive governments fear from the accessibility of Internet medium. I think that the nature of such ruling system is to oppress the freedom of speech and expression. In the early age it was quite easier to control press, audio and visual medium but the emerging Internet medium has unpredictable technical capacity that ensures privacy of users. Nevertheless Internet has encouraged millions of people around the world to exchange their ideas, visions, cultures, political debates and beliefs. Internet has become a threat for the dominating rulers. As it is difficult to have control over Internet medium, some governments have been installing filtering and baring technologies by spending millions of dollars. I believe governments are imposing censorship on Internet users to protect incoming- outgoing information and ideas because they scare from free flow of information. Governments should not require the identification of Internet users or restrict the ability to express political beliefs on the Internet anonymously.
2.3 Censorship on Internet: how has it become an evil force of repressive governments?
The Internet has the ability to explode information onto every user. More information can be gathered and distributed at a faster speed, meaning that the flow of information in circulation increases at an exponential rate. Technology and censorship are often seen as opposing forces in the information age. The problem of censorship and new technology is best highlighted by the Internet. The Internet is an example of a convergent medium: it has a mail function, a news-reading function and a computing-software function. Convergence poses problems for censorship because it becomes difficult to classify the new medium and to decide who regulates them and how. Singapore's current censorship regime assumes that the media are distinct and separate from one another. Censorship does not sit well with computer culture, where maximum freedom is celebrated. Cyberspace culture privileges free speech and the free flow of ideas as a route to social and intellectual progress. For example, the US Senate Commerce Committee's proposal to ban obscene material in cyberspace faces strong opposition from Internet users. I think the process of censorship in the age of new technologies is problematic, as new laws tend to be inadequate modifications of old laws applied to older technology. The National University of Singapore, for example, has different servers for staff and students. The idea is that staff will get materials with less censorship than students. The lesson from the West, however, appears to be that censorship using technology does not work well. Filtering and prohibiting technologies may not always work with accuracy. It may create some adverse effects or interruption to normal data transmission. Currently, Usenet groups in Singapore are censored using guidelines issued by the Ministry of Information and the Arts, the government body in charge of media censorship[x]. There are no widespread, uniform guidelines or procedures for restricting use of any Internet services, and local administrators have to make arbitrary decisions on access. Harish Pillay, who heads Singapore's Internet Society, says “Singapore Internet users are always fighting the censorship in their own mind, the perceived fear .. that someone will come knocking on your door.” This is important to point out that Singapore government has already created panic among Internet users by the activities of censorship. I am quite sure that freedom of expression of the citizens is violated in Singapore as well as arbitrary interference of right to privacy is committed by ruling authority.
So when does it require to censor the Internet? Perhaps it is becoming obvious that the Internet now plays an important tool in politics, particularly for oppressed societies who can only transmit stories of state crime, in the hope that the global community will respond with help. It is therefore imperative that the Internet should not be permitted to be censored. In Burma, a law passed in September 1996 obliges anyone who owns a computer to declare it to the government. Those who fail to comply may face up to 15 years in prison. The introduction of the Internet to the Burmese diaspora in mid-1990 changed the power equilibrium, while the Internet has become the single most important medium among Burmese exiles in terms of debating issues, discussing ideas, drawing up strategies, and doing the lobbying work that helps to mobilize effective international pressure on the regime.[xi] Realizing the influence of Internet, Burmese military rulers have upgraded themselves with latest Internet infrastructure. In addition they have restricted the expansion of Internet among the Burmese people and the ISP is totally state controlled. Cyber cafes are very few in numbers and also monitored by the state officials. According to me Burmese government have brutally prohibited the citizens from accessing Internet or having an e-mail address, which is a massive violation of human rights regarding access to information.
Like Burma some governments take numerous steps to prevent their citizens from gaining access to the Internet. Nations such as Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam put lot of efforts to prevent Internet access. Also identified countries are of Central Asia and the Caucasus, like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. China's authorities have spent the summer tightening up supervision of the Internet, clamping down first on domestic web portals, then Internet cafes and foreign-owned portals such as Google and Yahoo.[xii] Digital spying is part of China's online economy that has received major investment. Human rights activists believe the effort employs 30,000 people. Since 2000, they say, China's web filtering has overtaken Saudi Arabia's in scale. The firewall now surrounds the country, not just a few cities. It works by scanning for suspect words as digital documents cross the international gateways and needs big banks of servers. In China over the past year, new regulations and controls have been imposed on use of the Internet, including censorship of foreign news sites, the creation of special Internet police, and actions to shut down Internet sites posting information on corruption or articles critical of government. Internet cafes are required to register and inform the police about their customers. The Ministry of State Security has installed tracking devices on Internet service providers to monitor individual email accounts. And bulletin boards critical of the government have been shut down. There is no doubt that these censorship activities have weakened freedom of expression of the mass. Monitoring individual e-mail account is severe interference of individuals’ privacy.
3. Conclusion
The vast new potential of the Internet for expanding access to information and participation in government and civil society has already begun to show itself with concrete contributions to democracy and human rights. The Internet has opened up new opportunities for matters on political, intellectual, and personal. The Internet's architecture allows for a diversity of views and exchange of information that is simply not possible in any other media. As of August 1998, one service identified 29,000 IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels, 30,000 Usenet newsgroups, and 90,095 mailings lists -- each one representing a network of individuals worldwide interested in a particular subject. The rise of the Internet also requires a reexamination of the meaning of the concept to “seek and receive” and to “impart” information. National restrictions on local speech have a direct and negative impact on the ability of Internet users around the world to “seek and receive” information and ideas, as well as their right to “impart” information. For example, if citizens of one country are prohibited from discussing political issues critically online, then not only are their rights infringed upon, but also the right of others around the world to “seek and receive” that information is directly implicated. In Internet citizens from the most repressive regimes are able to find information about matters concerning their governments or their human rights records that no local newspaper may dare print, while denouncing the conditions under which they live for the world to hear. The Internet allows us an intimate look at other countries, other people and other cultures that few before were ever able to attain. This power to give and receive information, so central to any conception of democracy, can be truly achieved on the Internet, as nowhere before. Attempts to suppress information and communication on the Internet, therefore, not only violate international human rights laws; in the end they are likely to be futile.
References
Censorship and Internet A Singapore Perspective, Dr. Peng Hwa Ang and Ms. Berlinda Nadarajan, http://normative.zusammenhaenge.at/beitraege/sg-censorship.html
Grassroots Organisations and the New Information Technologies: the Personal Computer, Email, the Internet and the World Wide Web, BY REBEKAH PASQUALINI, http://communication.students.rmit.edu.au/projects/burma/grassroots.html
Human Rights NGOs: Our Love Hate Relationship with the Internet, Patti Whaley, Human Rights and the Internet, Edited by Steven Hick, Edward F. Halpin, Eric Hoskins, p.30.
Huridocs-tech Singapore to relax Internet censorship laws From: Debra Guzman, Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network, http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/msg00252.html
Internet for social justice and development, The Associations for Progressive Communications, Internet and ICTs for Social Justice and Development, APC Internet Rights Charter, http://www.apc.org/english/rights/charter.shtml#7
Mobilizing online, The Burmese diaspora’s international lobby against the junta, Zaw Oo.
Silenced, an international report on censorship and control of the Internet, http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/ The cost of China's web censors, By Mary Hennock, BBC News Online business reporter , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2264508.stm
The Internet and Human Rights: An Overview, Center for Democracy and Technology, http://www.cdt.org/international/000105humanrights.shtml
End Notes
[i] The Internet and Human Rights: An Overview, Center for Democracy and Technology, http://www.cdt.org/international/000105humanrights.shtml
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Human Rights NGOs: Our Love Hate Relationship with the Internet, Patti Whaley, Human Rights and the Internet, Edited by Steven Hick, Edward F. Halpin, Eric Hoskins, p.30.
[iv] Ibid. p.32
[v] Ibid. p.38
[vi]Grassroots Organisations and the New Information Technologies: the Personal Computer, Email, the Internet and the World Wide Web, BY REBEKAH PASQUALINI, http://communication.students.rmit.edu.au/projects/burma/grassroots.html
[vii] Internet for social justice and development, The Associations for Progressive Communications, Internet and ICTs for Social Justice and Development, APC Internet Rights Charter, http://www.apc.org/english/rights/charter.shtml#7
[viii] Silenced, an international report on censorship and control of the Internet, http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/censorship/
[ix] huridocs-tech Singapore to relax Internet censorship laws From: Debra Guzman, Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network, http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/msg00252.html
[x] Censorship and Internet A Singapore Perspective, Dr. Peng Hwa Ang and Ms. Berlinda Nadarajan, http://normative.zusammenhaenge.at/beitraege/sg-censorship.html
[xi] Mobilizing online, The Burmese diaspora’s international lobby against the junta, Zaw Oo.
[xii] The cost of China's web censors, By Mary Hennock, BBC News Online business reporter , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2264508.stm
The Internet is a unique communications medium. Like no other medium before, it allows individuals to express their ideas and opinions directly to a world audience and easily to each other, while allowing access to many more ideas, opinions and information than previous media have allowed. Consequently, there is a vital connection between the Internet and human rights. The Internet is a democratizing medium; Uniquely Suited to the Promotion of Human Rights.It is more than a mere industry. The current regulatory framework is compatible in the context of the traditional print media, and the relatively newer media of radio and television broadcasting, telecommunications, films and videotapes. If censorship on Internet is to be enforced on an agreeable way, the present laws should be updated. In fact legislation always lags behind the changing technologies. Mailing lists via email and bulletin boards on the Internet enable people to speak out without the fear of being heard. It allows them to step out of their cultural and political boundaries as well by encouraging a true participatory democracy. Preventing this means it would be impossible to create a vocal and active global community, which transcends race and geography. This is insufficient to have a look at the Internet from one perspective. There are many human rights issues regarding the Internet. In this paper I will see it from three different perspectives. This paper will analyze the prospects of Internet medium for promoting human rights and how this medium can be a tool for organizations. It is also highlighted here in this paper that what international laws protect freedom of expression and privacy. The paper critically analyzes the nature of repressive government’s censorship on Internet and how they violate freedom of expression and interfere with privacy of individual.
2. The Internet and Human Rights Work: why Internet is powerful medium?
The Internet is one of the best means for communicating on human rights, because it is inexpensive and global. E-mail makes point-to-point communication between human rights workers and among NGOs (non-governmental organizations) cheap and easy, and allows for better coordination of actions. Furthermore, the Internet has the potential of reaching global audiences, including those most in need of such information. The Internet is important to those working for human rights, as it can provide a secure means of communicating between and coordinating the work of human rights groups. Internet in human rights is as a great tool for NGOs and activists to be in touch with each other, to share information privately, and to coordinate actions. Activists can expose human rights violations and let people know about them over Internet. Many human rights organizations throughout the world have instituted e-mail lists to propagate their press releases, alerts and denunciations vis a vis human rights violations[i]. Internet Access is important for the promotion of Human Rights. Net access without civil liberties guarantees in technology and in law may not benefit individuals and may be coupled with government control and extended surveillance capability[ii]. Governments take out the benefit of laws to impose censorship on Internet. Unfortunately autocratic governments make and use law as slave to work in favor of them and violate the right to access Internet. A good government should provide full disclosure of information infrastructure development plans and encourage democratic participation in all aspects of the development process. The idea of extra-territoriality is what the Internet is able to offer. Books can be physically turned back at the border or destroyed during a raid, but work published on the Internet is permanent and there is a greater potential of reaching the millions out there. As Internet is a global technology having fastest and cheapest communication channel, it has the ability to work for the universality of Human Rights. Internet is the network of networks; therefore, I believe it can help to integrate human rights activists’ networks worldwide.
2.1 Human Rights NGO: prospects and problem
Internet is the revolutionary medium for human rights NGOs. Large NGOs such as Amnesty International (AI), with over 60 offices and a million members, rely heavily on e-mail and the Internet for sharing information, consulting about strategy, debating new ideas, maintaining archives and initiating quick responses to current events[iii]. Similarly Human Rights Watch, Save the children, Action aid and many other international NGOs have adopted Internet technology not only by using e-mail and developing web sites but also by introducing net conferences, net messages, news groups, bulletin boards and online publications. On the contrary hundreds of small and medium scales local or national NGOs of developing countries are struggling to adopt Internet. Lack of Internet infrastructure, budget, technology skill, and training about Internet know how are the barriers to popularize Internet as a medium among these NGOs. In some countries where governments have control over other type of media as radio, television and print, Internet medium can be the only way for human rights activists to fight against government repression. Human rights communities that would find it difficult and dangerous to acquire hardcopy reports have been able to obtain and circulate them through cyberspace[iv]. Repressive governments have realized the power of Internet medium and started imposing restriction on free flow of information through Internet and nowadays maintain extreme control over it. These governments especially target to suppress human rights NGOs. For most human rights communities, therein lies the dilemma: it is precisely those communities in greatest need of empowerment that is least likely to have access to the Internet[v]. The de-centered, anti-hierarchical, network oriented, democratic natured and electronic modes of communication like the WWW encourages new ways of thinking, writing, reading, creating, communicating, organizing and learning. For grassroots organizations these attributes of the Net allow them to utilize technology which reflects their ideals of networking, inclusion and participation[vi]. From my point of view promotion, dissemination and awareness building programs can be run in faster pace through Internet by the human rights organizations that have been working for civil and political rights as well as for economic, social and cultural rights.
2.2 Freedom of expression and privacy: why these are essential to strengthen Internet as medium?
Online communication must therefore be fully protected by international guarantees of the right to freedom of expression. Let us see how we can strengthen the platform of Internet media by understanding international laws. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and other international human rights agreements enshrine the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, and regardless of frontiers.” Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” Article 19, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of borders.” Article 10, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
The Internet is a medium for both public and private exchange of views and information. People must be able to express opinions and ideas, and share information freely when using the Internet. The potential of the Internet to allow public participation in governance processes, at international, national and local levels, should be utilized to its full. At the same time, there should be mechanisms in the public domain to oppose - or in extreme cases, ban - the publication of content that is harmful to women, children and other vulnerable groups, or content that can incite violence and hatred[vii]. Applying laws and licenses, content filtering, tapping and surveillance, pricing and taxation policies, telecommunication markets manipulation, hardware and software manipulation can restrict freedom of expression and limit access to information. Government-mandated use of blocking, filtering, and label systems violates basic international human rights protections. Efforts to force all Internet speech to be labeled or rated according to a single classification system distort the fundamental cultural diversity of the Internet and will lead to domination of one set of political or moral viewpoints. Free expression should not be restricted by indirect means such as excessively restrictive governmental or private controls over computer hardware or software, the telecommunications infrastructure, or other essential components of the Internet. Governments in Western democracies often appear guilty of violating human rights, especially the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and then governments in less democratic countries will use all infringements of the principle of freedom of expression on the Internet as excuses to strictly control how citizens use the system. Human Rights Watch seeks to encourage governments to strengthen protections for freedom of expression at this early stage of the Internet's development.
The Universal Declaration, the European Convention and international human rights instruments protects the right to privacy. These core documents explicitly protect the privacy of correspondence and communication:
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” Article 12, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.” Article 17, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” Article 8, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
Privacy is becoming increasingly important for citizens in the information society. Electronic communications can be very easily intercepted by anyone who wants to. Sending an e-mail message is thus the equivalent of sending a postcard. In the human rights arena especially, many matters discussed among NGOs are extremely confidential. Names of witnesses to human rights violations, for example, need to be kept from those who would harm them. Repressive governments commonly use their intelligence services to tap the phone communications of human rights groups and intercept their mail. It is very likely that they are also intercepting electronic mail. A global study of Internet censorship in over fifty countries and regions finds that Internet restrictions, government secrecy and communications surveillance have reached an unprecedented level across the world[viii]. Singapore's citizens are still fearful. A bureaucrat told a local Internet service provider to scan 80,000 e-mail accounts of university researchers for pornographic material and in April, Singapore's internal-security agency secretly scanned 200,000 private computers[ix]. Similarly the government of Burma and China has dishonored Internet privacy of individual, families and organizations. Basically repressive governments fear from the accessibility of Internet medium. I think that the nature of such ruling system is to oppress the freedom of speech and expression. In the early age it was quite easier to control press, audio and visual medium but the emerging Internet medium has unpredictable technical capacity that ensures privacy of users. Nevertheless Internet has encouraged millions of people around the world to exchange their ideas, visions, cultures, political debates and beliefs. Internet has become a threat for the dominating rulers. As it is difficult to have control over Internet medium, some governments have been installing filtering and baring technologies by spending millions of dollars. I believe governments are imposing censorship on Internet users to protect incoming- outgoing information and ideas because they scare from free flow of information. Governments should not require the identification of Internet users or restrict the ability to express political beliefs on the Internet anonymously.
2.3 Censorship on Internet: how has it become an evil force of repressive governments?
The Internet has the ability to explode information onto every user. More information can be gathered and distributed at a faster speed, meaning that the flow of information in circulation increases at an exponential rate. Technology and censorship are often seen as opposing forces in the information age. The problem of censorship and new technology is best highlighted by the Internet. The Internet is an example of a convergent medium: it has a mail function, a news-reading function and a computing-software function. Convergence poses problems for censorship because it becomes difficult to classify the new medium and to decide who regulates them and how. Singapore's current censorship regime assumes that the media are distinct and separate from one another. Censorship does not sit well with computer culture, where maximum freedom is celebrated. Cyberspace culture privileges free speech and the free flow of ideas as a route to social and intellectual progress. For example, the US Senate Commerce Committee's proposal to ban obscene material in cyberspace faces strong opposition from Internet users. I think the process of censorship in the age of new technologies is problematic, as new laws tend to be inadequate modifications of old laws applied to older technology. The National University of Singapore, for example, has different servers for staff and students. The idea is that staff will get materials with less censorship than students. The lesson from the West, however, appears to be that censorship using technology does not work well. Filtering and prohibiting technologies may not always work with accuracy. It may create some adverse effects or interruption to normal data transmission. Currently, Usenet groups in Singapore are censored using guidelines issued by the Ministry of Information and the Arts, the government body in charge of media censorship[x]. There are no widespread, uniform guidelines or procedures for restricting use of any Internet services, and local administrators have to make arbitrary decisions on access. Harish Pillay, who heads Singapore's Internet Society, says “Singapore Internet users are always fighting the censorship in their own mind, the perceived fear .. that someone will come knocking on your door.” This is important to point out that Singapore government has already created panic among Internet users by the activities of censorship. I am quite sure that freedom of expression of the citizens is violated in Singapore as well as arbitrary interference of right to privacy is committed by ruling authority.
So when does it require to censor the Internet? Perhaps it is becoming obvious that the Internet now plays an important tool in politics, particularly for oppressed societies who can only transmit stories of state crime, in the hope that the global community will respond with help. It is therefore imperative that the Internet should not be permitted to be censored. In Burma, a law passed in September 1996 obliges anyone who owns a computer to declare it to the government. Those who fail to comply may face up to 15 years in prison. The introduction of the Internet to the Burmese diaspora in mid-1990 changed the power equilibrium, while the Internet has become the single most important medium among Burmese exiles in terms of debating issues, discussing ideas, drawing up strategies, and doing the lobbying work that helps to mobilize effective international pressure on the regime.[xi] Realizing the influence of Internet, Burmese military rulers have upgraded themselves with latest Internet infrastructure. In addition they have restricted the expansion of Internet among the Burmese people and the ISP is totally state controlled. Cyber cafes are very few in numbers and also monitored by the state officials. According to me Burmese government have brutally prohibited the citizens from accessing Internet or having an e-mail address, which is a massive violation of human rights regarding access to information.
Like Burma some governments take numerous steps to prevent their citizens from gaining access to the Internet. Nations such as Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam put lot of efforts to prevent Internet access. Also identified countries are of Central Asia and the Caucasus, like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. China's authorities have spent the summer tightening up supervision of the Internet, clamping down first on domestic web portals, then Internet cafes and foreign-owned portals such as Google and Yahoo.[xii] Digital spying is part of China's online economy that has received major investment. Human rights activists believe the effort employs 30,000 people. Since 2000, they say, China's web filtering has overtaken Saudi Arabia's in scale. The firewall now surrounds the country, not just a few cities. It works by scanning for suspect words as digital documents cross the international gateways and needs big banks of servers. In China over the past year, new regulations and controls have been imposed on use of the Internet, including censorship of foreign news sites, the creation of special Internet police, and actions to shut down Internet sites posting information on corruption or articles critical of government. Internet cafes are required to register and inform the police about their customers. The Ministry of State Security has installed tracking devices on Internet service providers to monitor individual email accounts. And bulletin boards critical of the government have been shut down. There is no doubt that these censorship activities have weakened freedom of expression of the mass. Monitoring individual e-mail account is severe interference of individuals’ privacy.
3. Conclusion
The vast new potential of the Internet for expanding access to information and participation in government and civil society has already begun to show itself with concrete contributions to democracy and human rights. The Internet has opened up new opportunities for matters on political, intellectual, and personal. The Internet's architecture allows for a diversity of views and exchange of information that is simply not possible in any other media. As of August 1998, one service identified 29,000 IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels, 30,000 Usenet newsgroups, and 90,095 mailings lists -- each one representing a network of individuals worldwide interested in a particular subject. The rise of the Internet also requires a reexamination of the meaning of the concept to “seek and receive” and to “impart” information. National restrictions on local speech have a direct and negative impact on the ability of Internet users around the world to “seek and receive” information and ideas, as well as their right to “impart” information. For example, if citizens of one country are prohibited from discussing political issues critically online, then not only are their rights infringed upon, but also the right of others around the world to “seek and receive” that information is directly implicated. In Internet citizens from the most repressive regimes are able to find information about matters concerning their governments or their human rights records that no local newspaper may dare print, while denouncing the conditions under which they live for the world to hear. The Internet allows us an intimate look at other countries, other people and other cultures that few before were ever able to attain. This power to give and receive information, so central to any conception of democracy, can be truly achieved on the Internet, as nowhere before. Attempts to suppress information and communication on the Internet, therefore, not only violate international human rights laws; in the end they are likely to be futile.
References
Censorship and Internet A Singapore Perspective, Dr. Peng Hwa Ang and Ms. Berlinda Nadarajan, http://normative.zusammenhaenge.at/beitraege/sg-censorship.html
Grassroots Organisations and the New Information Technologies: the Personal Computer, Email, the Internet and the World Wide Web, BY REBEKAH PASQUALINI, http://communication.students.rmit.edu.au/projects/burma/grassroots.html
Human Rights NGOs: Our Love Hate Relationship with the Internet, Patti Whaley, Human Rights and the Internet, Edited by Steven Hick, Edward F. Halpin, Eric Hoskins, p.30.
Huridocs-tech Singapore to relax Internet censorship laws From: Debra Guzman, Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network, http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/msg00252.html
Internet for social justice and development, The Associations for Progressive Communications, Internet and ICTs for Social Justice and Development, APC Internet Rights Charter, http://www.apc.org/english/rights/charter.shtml#7
Mobilizing online, The Burmese diaspora’s international lobby against the junta, Zaw Oo.
Silenced, an international report on censorship and control of the Internet, http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/ The cost of China's web censors, By Mary Hennock, BBC News Online business reporter , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2264508.stm
The Internet and Human Rights: An Overview, Center for Democracy and Technology, http://www.cdt.org/international/000105humanrights.shtml
End Notes
[i] The Internet and Human Rights: An Overview, Center for Democracy and Technology, http://www.cdt.org/international/000105humanrights.shtml
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Human Rights NGOs: Our Love Hate Relationship with the Internet, Patti Whaley, Human Rights and the Internet, Edited by Steven Hick, Edward F. Halpin, Eric Hoskins, p.30.
[iv] Ibid. p.32
[v] Ibid. p.38
[vi]Grassroots Organisations and the New Information Technologies: the Personal Computer, Email, the Internet and the World Wide Web, BY REBEKAH PASQUALINI, http://communication.students.rmit.edu.au/projects/burma/grassroots.html
[vii] Internet for social justice and development, The Associations for Progressive Communications, Internet and ICTs for Social Justice and Development, APC Internet Rights Charter, http://www.apc.org/english/rights/charter.shtml#7
[viii] Silenced, an international report on censorship and control of the Internet, http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/censorship/
[ix] huridocs-tech Singapore to relax Internet censorship laws From: Debra Guzman, Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network, http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/msg00252.html
[x] Censorship and Internet A Singapore Perspective, Dr. Peng Hwa Ang and Ms. Berlinda Nadarajan, http://normative.zusammenhaenge.at/beitraege/sg-censorship.html
[xi] Mobilizing online, The Burmese diaspora’s international lobby against the junta, Zaw Oo.
[xii] The cost of China's web censors, By Mary Hennock, BBC News Online business reporter , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2264508.stm
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