Hard truths behind human rights rhetoric

Date: 08/10/1998

The EU's commitment to liberty and democracy may look impressive on paper. But two studies due out later this week will accuse it of failing to match its words with deeds. Rory Watson reports

AS THE world prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights later this year, the European Union can take some pride in its own record.

It has arguably been the strongest force promoting gender equality in its 15 member states, it outlaws discrimination on nationality grounds, upholds the rule of law and insists on human rights clauses in its dealings with third countries.

The new Amsterdam Treaty, which is due to come into force by the middle of next year, builds on this foundation. It stipulates that any member state which is considered to have seriously and persistently violated the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law can be punished. That punishment is unspecified, but could involve the freezing of EU funds or the suspension of voting rights.

While the measure was introduced as a safeguard against backsliding towards undemocratic behaviour in the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe, it will also strengthen the hand of human rights campaigners in existing Union member states.

But behind this happy facade lurks a very different picture. Racist and xenophobic attitudes are on the rise in countries as far apart as Germany and Ireland as they struggle to cope with a growing number of refugees and migrant workers.

Governments are clamping down on asylum-seekers from outside the Union, as demonstrated by a recent strategy paper on proposed changes to immigration policy drawn up by the Austrian presidency of the EU. The Belgian government found itself at the centre of a storm of protest at the end of last month when a Nigerian woman died at Brussels airport while being forcibly deported by the country's police. And earlier this year, scores of EU-financed human rights projects were thrown into doubt for several months when the European Court of Justice ruled that the expenditure had no proper legal foundation.

It is this second picture which is taken up by a group of four eminent human rights practitioners in a hard-hitting report, to be released in Vienna tomorrow (9 October), which concludes: “The strong rhetoric of the Union is not matched by the reality. There is an urgent need for a human rights policy which is coherent, balanced, substantive and professional.”

The report's authors argue that the EU cannot conduct an “informed, consistent, credible and effective” human rights policy in the absence of “an authentic commitment, one underpinned by appropriate political, financial and administrative support”.

They claim that the Union's present approach to human rights tends to be splintered in many directions, lacks the necessary leadership and profile, and is marginalised in policy-making.

The group's views will carry a great deal of weight, given its members' extensive knowledge of human rights issues.

They are Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights and former president of Ireland; Catherine Lalumière, a French Radical MEP and former secretary-general of the Council of Europe; Professor Peter Leuprecht, the former deputy secretary-general of the Council of Europe; and Judge Antonio Cassesse, who presides over Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Their criticisms are echoed by Lotte Leicht, the Brussels director of Human Rights Watch. She believes that too often, the protection of human rights is seen as a “soft issue, a reflection of values rather than interests, and thus easily jettisoned if other interests come into play”.

As a result, it is all too easy for human rights to play second fiddle to security or economic concerns.

IN A bid to turn the tide, the group has drafted a human rights agenda for the Union for the year 2000. The 14-point programme is intended to improve the EU's record both within its own borders and in its dealings with the rest of the world.

It calls for a European Commissioner to be given specific responsibility for human rights and to play a central coordinating role within the institution, while a new office in the Council of Ministers would work closely with the EU's future High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The group would also like to see the creation of a European Union human rights monitoring agency and closer cooperation between the European Parliament and human rights committees in national parliaments.

In addition, it suggests that the human rights clauses now included in more than 50 agreements between the EU and third countries should become a standard feature of all such accords and be made more explicit, so that preferential arrangements could be suspended quickly if violations occurred.

Aware of the institutional inertia which can stifle change, the group insists that its agenda is based on policies and structures already in place.

“We do not call for the recognition of new rights, and the increase in resources required is not very great. Very few of the proposals imply a treaty amendment and we do not seek to alter either the existing institutional balance within the Union or the constitutional balance between the Community and its member states,” it states.

The proposals come as the European Commission is conducting its own exhaustive appraisal of the institution's role in the new millennium.

But while there is talk of shuffling Commissioners and departments to create a new administrative structure, little thought has yet been given to the human rights ingredient.

Similarly, while EU governments jostle behind the scenes for who should be the Union's first CFSP High Representative, some suggest that this might also be the time to examine how the new appointee could carry out the human rights aspect of his or her work more effectively.

The importance of a visible and effective EU approach towards human rights is underlined in a Commission-funded report prepared by the European University Institute in Florence.

The study, which is also due to be released later this week, insists that “two hard and discomforting truths” must be faced.

The first is that current policies ranging from monetary union and enlargement to ever greater engagement with the global economy pose new challenges to the EU's commitment to safeguarding fundamental human rights.

The second is even more crucial given the search by government leaders for ways to rekindle interest in, and support for, the Union among the public by demonstrating that it is capable of addressing ordinary citizens' concerns.

“Public opinion is deeply ambivalent towards some of the principal developments within the Union,” warn the authors. “A cleavage between the increasingly generous verbal affirmation of commitment to human rights without matching the rhetoric with visible, systematic and comprehensive action will eventually undermine the legitimacy of the European construction.”

The report underlines a similar discrepancy between the priority which the Union attaches to ratification of the core international human rights conventions by the countries applying for EU membership and its own record.

Belgium and Ireland have yet to ratify the United Nations Convention against Torture; Ireland is not party to the convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; and Belgium, France and the UK have still to ratify the UN's Optional Protocol aiming to abolish the death penalty.

Even more glaring gaps can be found in EU implementation of the human rights conventions, treaties and charters drawn up by the Council of Europe.

Against this background, the group of four is launching a direct appeal to Europe's leaders, as the century draws to a close, “to restore human rights to the central role they enjoyed at the dawn of the European construction: that of the cornerstone upon which the fabric of a united Europe must rest.”