FaithWorld

from John Lloyd:

After the U.S. fades, whither human rights?

The shrinking of U.S. power, now pretty much taken for granted and in some quarters relished, may hurt news coverage of human rights and the uncovering of abuses to them. But not necessarily. Journalism is showing itself to be resilient in adversity, and its core tasks – to illuminate the workings of power and to be diverse in its opinions – could prove to be more than “Western” impositions.

When the British Empire withdrew from its global reach after the World War Two, the space was occupied, rapidly and at times eagerly, by the resurgent United States, at the very peak of its relative wealth and influence in the immediate postwar years. What it brought with it was a culture of journalism that was increasingly self-confident in its global mission: not just to describe the world, but to improve it. Some European journalism had that ambition too, but these were nations exhausted by war. The Americans, at the peak of their influence in the postwar years, had the power, wealth, standing and cocksureness to project their vision of what the world should be.

Now, American power too will shrink, and the end of U.S. hegemony (it was never an empire in the classic sense) will mean that there will be a jostling for power, influence, and above all resources by getting-rich-quick mega-states like China, India and Brazil. They will project their view of what the world should be -- they have already begun, some (China) more confidently than others (India, Brazil).

Whether this will mean that the illumination of the workings of power around the globe will be better or worse will be one of the large themes for journalism of the next decades. In his The World America Made, Robert Kagan thinks, by implication, that it could be worse, because he believes the U.S. did most for human freedom round the world and a loss of American power means a threat to the protection it offered to democratic change. He writes that “perhaps democracy has spread over a hundred nations since 1950 not simply because people yearn for democracy, but because the most powerful nation in the world since 1950 has been a democracy.” I think he’s right in this, and that his “perhaps” is pretty definite. And if he is right, it means that the impulse to probe and expose will be weaker.

The U.S., however imperfectly, often hypocritically, and at times mendaciously, nevertheless possesses a default mode in favor of freedom and human rights. So do the European states. But though the European Union is more populous and has a higher GDP than the U.S., it’s disunited and likely to stay that way. So the decline of the U.S., even if it remains only relative rather than absolute (as Kagan believes), is the important issue. It could mean that the narratives of human rights, told by Western governments, by NGOs and above all by journalism, will become fainter.

Western journalism has developed human rights, and their abuses, into one of its major themes. Where the “something must be done” approach to issues was once largely confined to domestic matters, it is now writ globally. Western journalists, especially those from Anglophone countries, feel empowered to report and comment critically on the authoritarian and despotic policies of every country everywhere – the more so since the end of the Cold War meant that the pressure from Western governments to soft-pedal the abuses of tyrants who were on our side was no longer felt in the editorial offices.

The U.S. decline could mean that the narratives of human rights, told by Western governments, by NGOs and above all by journalists, will become fainter – unless state-sponsored journalists see a model in Western reporting that they can learn from and adapt. Join Discussion

COMMENT

Yes, I was wondering about that “wither” (whither?), too.

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from The Great Debate:

How to tackle the child marriage crisis

By the end of today another 25,000 young children will have been robbed of their childhoods, cheated of their right to an education, exposed to life-threatening health risks, and set on a path that often leads to a life of servitude and poverty. Their plight is the result of widespread and systematic human rights violations. Yet the source of the injustice they suffer is hidden in the shadows of debates on international development: They are child brides.

Each year, 1.5 million girls -- many just starting their adolescent years -- become child brides. It was shocking for us to discover the sheer scale of the problem and to understand its impact on human rights and the life cycle of opportunities, and most tragically of all, on maternal and infant death rates.

Early marriage is a hidden crisis. Because the victims are overwhelmingly young, poor and female, their voices are seldom heard by governments. Their concerns do not register on the agendas of global summits. But early marriage is destroying human potential and reinforcing gender inequalities on a global scale. It is subjecting young girls to the elevated health risks that come with early pregnancy and childbirth. It is reinforcing the subordination of women. And it is holding back progress toward the United Nation’s 2015 goal of universal primary education. Without educating girls who are not in school today and preventing them from marrying, we cannot ever hope to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

The full extent of child marriage is not widely recognized. A new report just published by my office identified 16 countries in which over half of the young women were married by the age of 18. On a regional basis, West Africa has the highest incidence of child marriage, with Mali, Chad and Niger recording rates in excess of 70 percent. The practice is also widespread across sub-Saharan Africa, and in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, where many children marry at a far younger age than 18.

Yet one of the gravest injustices suffered by child brides is the denial of education. Marriage and premature pregnancies keep millions of girls out of school, imprisoned in a world of diminished opportunity. Once married or pregnant, few child brides make it back into school. For example, our research shows that only 2 percent of married girls between the ages of 15 and 19 in Nigeria attend school, compared with 69 percent of unmarried girls. Denied the chance to realize their potential through education, many of these girls will be condemned to lives blighted by poverty, illiteracy and powerlessness.

A casualty of child marriage, education is also a fundamental solution to the problem. Women who are educated marry later, especially if they reach secondary school. Compared with women who have either no education or just primary schooling, the median age of marriage among girls with a secondary education is more than two years higher in Bangladesh and Nigeria, three years higher in Ethiopia and Mali, and four years higher in Chad.

Keeping girls in school and out of child marriages will also save lives. If, through a combination of education and other policies, half of the world’s teenagers delayed birth until after the age of 20, the associated decline in infant mortality rates would save 166,000 young lives a year -- or over half a million lives in the three and a half years until the 2015 Millennium Development Goal on child mortality. And not only would children's lives be saved, but mothers' as well. Over 70,000 teenage mothers die in pregnancy or childbirth every year, a number that has remained static while it appears that for older women the figures have been coming down.

Early marriage is destroying human potential and reinforcing gender inequalities on a global scale. Join Discussion

COMMENT

If Gordon Brown is just finding out that everyone isn’t like his English constituents he should be ashamed. Thet have done perfectly well with their own culture in those countries. Of course, he and his American masters would change the whole world into their corrupted image!

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from Global Investing:

How socially responsible is your investing?

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Is your investment ethically sound and socially responsible?

A new survey by consulting firm Mercer finds that only 9% of more than 5,000 investment strategies achieve the highest environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings.

Socially responsible investing (SRI) involves buying shares in companies that manage ESG risks. For example, firms that make clean technologies are favoured, while businesses which pollute the environment, are complicit in human rights abuses or nuclear arms production are shunned. All this sounds good, but the performance of such investments has been somewhat mixed -- meaning being good doesn't always mean doing well. But the SRI industry is hoping that greater involvement of funds, especially long-term ones such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds -- may generate flows into the sector and lead to better performance.

Of the 5,175 strategies assigned ESG ratings, 57% are in listed equities, 20% fixed income and the remaining 23% across real estate, private equity, hedge funds and others.

Private equity has the highest proportion of highly rated ESG strategies, while hedge funds and fixed income had the fewest. From a geographic perspective, emerging markets and Asia-Pacific have the highest proportion of top ratings, while Canada -- and this may come as a surprise to some -- has the least.

Is your investment ethically sound and socially responsible? A new survey by consulting firm Mercer finds that only 9% of more than 5,000 investment strategies achieve the highest environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings Join Discussion

U.N. rights forum proclaims equal gay rights, Muslims states object

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The top U.N. human rights body declared Friday there should be no discrimination or violence against people based on their sexual orientation, a vote Western countries called historic but Islamic states firmly rejected. The controversial resolution marked the first time that the Human Rights Council recognized the equal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, diplomats said.

The text, presented by South Africa, was adopted by 23 countries in favour, 19 against with 3 abstentions and one delegation absent during voting. Libya’s membership in the 47-member Geneva forum was suspended in March.

“All over the world, people face human rights abuses and violations because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including torture, rape, criminal sanctions, and killing,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement issued in Washington. “Today’s landmark resolution affirms that human rights are universal,” she said, calling it a “historic moment.”

Britain, France joined the United States in voting in favour, while Russia voted against and China abstained, results showed. Delegations from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Bangladesh took the floor to reject the text in a heated debate held on the last day of the council’s three-week session.

Mauritania’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Cheikh Ahmed Ould Zahaf, said that the issue did not fall within the scope of any international human rights treaty. “This issue has nothing to do with human rights,” he said, speaking before the vote. “What we find here is an attempt to change the natural right of a human being with an unnatural right. That is why calls on all members to vote against it.”

Read the full story here.

The top U.N. human rights body declared Friday there should be no discrimination or violence against people based on their sexual orientation, a vote Western countries called historic but Islamic states firmly rejected. Join Discussion

COMMENT

Backwards nations that sill have a big problem with granting women equal rights strongly oppose gay rights, nothing news worthy here. Those nations have a long way to go, and their greedy feel they can lie and rape their population at will finically, and many times sexually. This does show most people on earth do feel human rights need to be respected. Thanks UN for helping more humans come out of the darkness of oppression. S.A. Proved it’s leadership in Human rights once again. It is sad that nation is poor. S.A. Should be proud of herself!

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Islamic bloc drops 12-year U.N. drive to ban defamation of religion

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Islamic countries set aside their 12-year campaign to have religions protected from “defamation”, allowing the U.N. Human Rights Council in Genea to approve a plan to promote religious tolerance on Thursday. Western countries and their Latin American allies, strong opponents of the defamation concept, joined Muslim and African states in backing without vote the new approach that switches focus from protecting beliefs to protecting believers.

Since 1998, the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) had won majority approval in the council and at the United Nations General Assembly for a series of resolutions on “combating defamation of religion”. Critics said the concept ran against international law and free speech, and left the way open for tough “blasphemy” laws like those in Pakistan which have been invoked this year by the killers of two moderate politicians in Pakistan. They argued that it also allowed states where one religion predominates to keep religious minorities under tight control or even leave them open to forced conversion or oppression.

But Pakistan, which speaks for the OIC in the rights council, had argued that such protection against defamation was essential to defend Islam, and other religions, against criticism that caused offence to ordinary believers. Islamic countries pointed to the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in Denmark in 2005, which sparked anti-Western violence in the Middle East and Asia, as examples of defamatory treatment of their faith that they wanted stopped. However, support for the fiercely-contested resolutions — which the OIC had been seeking to have transformed into official U.N. human rights standards — has declined in recent years.

The new three-page resolution, which emerged after discussions between U.S. and Pakistani diplomats in recent weeks, recognises that there is “intolerance, discrimination and violence” aimed at believers in all regions of the world. Omitting any reference to “defamation”, it condemns any advocacy of religious hatred that amounts to incitement to hostility or violence against believers and calls on governments to act to prevent it.

The U.S.-based Human Rights First campaign group said the new resolution was “a huge achievement because…it focuses on the protection of individuals rather than religions” and put the divisive debates on defamation behind. However, diplomats from Islamic countries have warned the council that they could return to campaigning for an international law against religious defamation if Western countries are not seen as acting to protect believers.

For more on Pakistan’s blasphemy law, see:

Towards a review of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws

Islamic countries set aside their 12-year campaign to have religions protected from "defamation", allowing the U.N. Human Rights Council to approve a plan to promote religious tolerance. Join Discussion

COMMENT

@Ganesh
“I’m talking about the fact that Middle Eastern countries would be nowhere without their oil wealth”

Yes I got your point and that’s why I stated in my previous comment that Race to green energy is on.

“I can’t comment on the conspiracy theory that the West is waging these wars in the Middle East because of oil”

Do you think there could be some reason other than oil?? Saudi protests are suppressed with US blessings and Libya protests are encouraged by same US. How do you think this puzzle can be solved.

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Frictions seen easing in troubled U.N. human rights body

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The United States and NGO campaign groups say diplomatic shifts on highly-charged issues like religion and Iran in the long-polarised U.N. Human Rights Council could turn it into a more effective body.

U.S. ambassador Eileen Donahoe said emerging accords on tackling religious hatred, Iran’s rights record and unusual cooperation across mutually suspicious regional blocs on Libya could mark a turning point for the forum.

“While the council remains an imperfect body, we have seen distinct progress in terms of its ability to respond to happenings in the world with respect to human rights in real time,” the U.S. ambassador to the council told reporters on Wednesday. “There is more shared common ground here than people realise.”

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to promote universal human rights used terms like “seismic shift” and “groundbreaking” to describe an apparent softening in demands from the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic States (OIC) that religions be protected internationally from “defamation.”

NGOs had previously welcomed the council’s surprising consensus decision last month to expel Libya — whose rights record most members had praised effusively only three months earlier — for killing anti-government protesters.

Read the full story here.

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The United States and NGO campaign groups say diplomatic shifts on highly-charged issues like religion and Iran in the long-polarised U.N. Human Rights Council could turn it into a more effective body. Join Discussion

Vatican tells U.N. that critics of gays under attack

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People who criticise gay sexual relations for religious or moral reasons are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views, a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the Roman Catholic Church deeply believed that human sexuality was a gift reserved for married heterosexual couples. But those who express these views are faced with “a disturbing trend,” he said.

“People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between people of the same sex,” he told the current session of the Human Rights Council.

“When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature … they are stigmatised, and worse — they are vilified, and prosecuted.

“These attacks are violations of fundamental human rights and cannot be justified under any circumstances,” Tomasi said.

Read the full story here.

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People who criticise gay sexual relations for religious or moral reasons are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views, a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday. Join Discussion

COMMENT

It appears to me that the Vatican has put itself in a difficult positoon. If it insists that pedophiles are gay, and continues to discover pedophiles in the priesthood – qite a few of them, then it must be hiring gay priests. Maybe there is a test for gayness they can administer. However since there is no evidence whatsoever that pedophiles are gay, they might do better to take a look at their own organisation before blaming homosexuals who are no different in their range of behaviours than any other group – and the vatican ought to know that pedophilia is more about power and inability to relate to one’s peers sexually than it is about homo- or heterosexuality. As to abusive behaviour – well who better to recognise that than the vatican?

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U.N. restores gay reference to violence measure

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The United States has succeeded in getting the United Nations to restore a reference to killings due to sexual orientation that had been deleted from a resolution condemning unjustified executions.

Western delegations were disappointed last month when the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee approved an Arab and African proposal to cut the reference to slayings due to sexual orientation from a resolution on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions.

The 192-nation General Assembly approved on Tuesday a U.S. amendment to the resolution that restored the reference to sexual orientation with 93 votes in favor, 55 against and 27 abstentions. The amended resolution was then adopted with 122 yes votes, one against and 62 abstentions.

After ensuring that violence against gays would be back in the resolution by voting in favor its own amendment, Washington sent an ambiguous signal about its support for the overall declaration by joining 61 other nations in abstaining. It was not immediately clear why Washington withheld its support. The only country that voted against the resolution was Saudi Arabia.

The main opposition to the U.S. amendment came from Muslim and African nations, which had led the push to delete the reference to sexual preference from the resolution last month.

The General Assembly passes resolutions condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings every two years. The 2008 declaration had included an explicit reference to killings committed because of the victims’ sexual preferences.

The United States has succeeded in getting the United Nations to restore a reference to killings due to sexual orientation that had been deleted from a resolution condemning unjustified executions. Join Discussion

European human rights court faults Ireland on abortion ban

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The European Court of Human Rights ruled against Ireland on Thursday for stopping a Lithuanian cancer sufferer from terminating a pregnancy, in a blow to the predominantly Catholic country and its tough abortion laws. In a final ruling, the rights court found Ireland had not respected the privacy and family rights of the Lithuanian woman, who was living in Ireland and feared a pregnancy could trigger a relapse of her cancer, in remission at the time.

The court, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, ordered Ireland to pay 15,000 euros ($19,840) in damages to the woman, who was forced to travel to Britain, where the laws are more liberal, to have an abortion. Terminating a pregnancy has long been a fraught issue in Ireland, where some of the toughest abortion laws in Europe allow terminations only when the mother’s life is in danger.

“The Court concluded that neither the medical consultation nor litigation options, relied on by the Irish government, constituted effective and accessible procedures which allowed (her) to establish her right to a lawful abortion in Ireland,” it said a statement on the ruling. Here is a court press release and the full text of the judgment.

Ireland’s Health Minister Mary Harney said the government would have to introduce a law clarifying when abortion is legal in Ireland. Currently, a woman can have a termination if she has cervical cancer, an ectopic pregnancy or high blood pressure. “Clearly we have to legislate there is no doubt about that,” she told national broadcaster RTE.  “I think the essence of the judgment is that we have constitutional provisons and we need to give legal effect to them.”

The court rejected appeals by two other women, both Irish, who also had travelled to Britain in 2005 for abortions. One was an unemployed, former alcoholic who was suffering from depression, living in poverty and trying to recover custody of four children from foster care when she got pregnant. The other did not want to become a single parent and feared an extra-uterine pregnancy.

Julie Kay, lead legal counsel for the plaintiffs, called the verdict “monumental” and said the European human rights court had recognised that Ireland’s courts had “turned a blind eye” to the problems women had gaining access to abortion services.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled against Ireland on Thursday for stopping a cancer sufferer from ending her pregnancy, in a blow to the predominantly Catholic country and its tough abortion laws. Join Discussion

Guestview: The infliction of the blasphemy law in Pakistan

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The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone.  Naeem Shakir is a Lahore-based human rights activist and advocate of the Pakistan Supreme Court.

By Naeem Shakir

The religious minorities in Pakistan are once again awe-struck over the death sentence passed against a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, for committing blasphemy. The fear and scare such tragic events create and spread amongst the minorities goes down their spine and dampens their spirits as citizens of Pakistan. They wonder for how long they would be persecuted for having a faith different from the Muslim majority. Each time it has been found that the blasphemy law was used either for religious persecution or for settling personal scores or grabbing land.

In Asia Bibi’s case, the complainant was a local clergyman Qari Mohammad Salam. He was neither present at the place of occurrence nor personally heard the blasphemous words allegedly uttered by Asia Bibi. Muslim women who worked with Asia Bibi in the falsa fruit fields of a local landlord informed him on June 19, 2009 that on June 14, Asia uttered blasphemous remarks about the Prophet (PBUH) and the Quran. The two sisters admitted in evidence that a quarrel took place regarding drinking water that Asia brought, which was declared as ‘unclean’ and they refused to drink it. The complainant stated that she confessed her guilt before a religiously charged mob.

The evidence is full of contradictions. In her statement before the court, Asia Bibi said, “The two female witnesses conspired with Qari Salam and got a false, fabricated and fictitious case registered against her.” She offered to take an “oath on the Bible that she had never passed such derogatory and shameful remarks against the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and Holy Quran.” She further stated, “I have great respect and honour for the Holy Prophet as well as Holy Quran.” Despite her forceful denial, she was convicted unjustly.

In this highly sensitive Islamic society that is under the immense pressure of Talibanisation and militarised as well, who amongst the minorities would dare utter words that would attract charges under the blasphemy law? The zero level of socio-religious tolerance has arrested the process of polemics for many decades now in our society. Academic discussions are undertaken very cautiously even by Muslim scholars and intellectuals. However, the Muslim clerics freely continue blaspheming the symbols and personalities of other religions from the pulpit but no law comes into motion.

The presence of the blasphemy law on Pakistan's statute book perpetuates injustice and brings a bad name to the nation. Join Discussion