To: Foreign Affairs,
Defence and Trade Select Committee
New Zealand
Parliament
Parliament
Buildings
Wellington
Attn:
Clerk of the Committee
From: Student Christian Movement Aotearoa
(Prepared by the Canterbury-Lincoln Unit).
Address for
service
PO Box 22-652
Christchurch
Attn: Mark
Murphy Phone: (03) 355 1893
or
Michael Perkins Phone: (03) 366 9274 or 021 805 941
Full Human Rights for All
A submission to the Foreign
Affairs, Defence and Trade
Select Committee inquiry into New Zealand’s part in the promotion and
implementation of international human rights.
Prepared by:
Mark Murphy, Ellen Murray, Geoff Keey, Fiona Dalton and Michael Perkins
We wish to make an oral
submission and request
that the committee comes to Christchurch.
Outline of Submission
A. The
Student Christian Movement and Human Rights
Getting our own house in order
B. The
interpretation of human rights – an integrated approach
Are human rights standards
universal, or culturally relative?
The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights
Human rights and human development
– an integrated approach
C. New
Zealand’s Foreign Policy
United States- Deterring Democracy
Iraq: Sacrificing the Vulnerable
D. New
Zealand’s struggle for realizing human rights in the 21st century
1. Freedom from discrimination –
for equality
Getting our own house in order
2. Freedom from want – for a decent
standard of living
3. Freedom for the realization of
one’s human potential
Getting our own house in order
4. Freedom from fear – with no
threats to personal security
Authoritarianism in New Zealand
6. Freedom of participation,
expression and association
Getting our own house in order
Constraints on the NGO Sector.
7. Freedom for decent work –
without exploitation
Getting our own house in order
G. Appendix
A – SCMs in the Asia-Pacific Region of WSCF
A. The Student Christian Movement and Human Rights
1. “The liberal mainline Protestants have been very engaged in human rights as an issue, believing it to be a main concern of the Lord Jesus himself. Church leaders have used their pulpits to advocate human rights for a long time. Their work in the World Council of Churches, an international ecumenical association of churches founded in 1948 in which liberal Protestants have maintained a very strong position, was instrumental in bringing the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights into being.” [1]
2. The Student Christian Movement (SCM) is New Zealand’s oldest Christian organised student body and has been in existence since 1896. SCM has a long-standing commitment to the promotion of human rights. SCM Aotearoa is part of a global network of student Christian organisations and is affiliated to the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF).
- There
are 15 SCMs in the Asia-Pacific region of WSCF, and over 90 in all the regions
of WSCF combined. Every year SCM sends members to countries where human
rights are abused as a matter of course. A map highlighting the SCMs of
the region is attached.
- In
the last 3 years, we have sent members to programmes and exposures in the following
countries:
Indonesia (three times),
Thailand (three times),
Cambodia (once),
The Philippines (twice)
Beirut (once),
Malaysia (twice),
Mexico (once),
Fiji (once)
5. The establishment of the World Council of Churches was a direct result of the traditions of WSCF. When the WCC was instituted in 1948, Philip Potter, the WSCF Historian, said, “the roll-call was like a WSCF school reunion”.[2] SCMA is part of Conference of Churches of Aotearoa New Zealand, Christian Conference of Asia, World Student Christian Federation Asia-Pacific Region. WSCF also has consultative status with the UN.
Getting our own house in order
- SCM
is taking part in the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Decade to
overcome Violence (WCC-DOV). One of
the key realisations in WCC-DOV is that the church has promoted violence
through violent ideas in theology and through violent suppression of
diversity of thought. Our part in WCC-DOV is to reverse this. For this
reason we use the same ‘getting our own house in order’ approach to human
rights and foreign policy issues. We believe that as a Christian group it
is not appropriate for us to ignore human rights in New Zealand whilst
discussing human rights overseas, any more than it is appropriate for New
Zealand foreign policy to discuss overseas trade issues while ignoring
human rights issues overseas.
7. “Among Christians there are many who make a distinction between compassionate ministries, such as meeting the needs of the victims of human rights violations, and advocacy ministries, such as addressing the governments and social systems that bring about the oppression.
“Both are certainly works that can be guided by God’s love. Some, particularly the more conservative evangelical Christians, are more comfortable with the compassion side of human rights concerns but question the utility of advocacy, being perhaps either blind to the more systemic sources of oppression, or simply pessimistic about the outcome of political engagement. Some of them would agree with a friend of mine who once said that trying to influence the political realm “is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” In other words, the world is a sinking ship and the real kingdom work is spreading the gospel, to see as many saved as possible before it goes down.
“Others, particularly the more liberal, mainline-denomination Christians, emphasize the advocacy side of the work, saying that the real source of the problem is the political systems and the institutions of injustice that oppress, and that simply meeting the needs of the victims is like treating victims’ gun-shot wounds while failing to take the gun away from the killer.” [3]
8. We are not only qualified to discuss this issue because of our long history of study, education and activism in the area. We hold this approach to Christianity, Human Rights and foreign policy, not only because we believe that it is an a essential part of our faith, but also because we have direct contact with students and churches in most parts of the world, and we hear directly from them the situation in their countries.
B. The interpretation of human rights – an integrated approach
Are human rights standards universal, or culturally relative?
- SCM
professes belief in a common
humanity and recognizes this as the experience of the victims of human
wrongs and those who struggle on their behalf. Against cultural
relativism, we affirm human rights from pragmatic and idealistic
perspectives. That is, human rights – as specified in the UDHR and
subsequent covenants – although broad, are not an all encompassing
morality, but a minimum ethical
consensus supported and
ratified by a remarkable majority of the international community.
10. It should be noted that while New Zealand and our key allies such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia claim to be proponents of the UDHR, the sad reality is that we have all done much to undermine its application. We have willingly participated in deliberate efforts to sabotage the development of human rights throughout the Asia Pacific region where it has been expedient for economic or political reasons. It would be fair to say that not only are human rights a universal standard, but that abuse of the human rights outlined in the UDHR are fairly universal too.
- Indeed
there is a certain irony that we shake our heads when monstrous figures
like Suharto claim that human rights are a Western construct and do not
apply to Asia, while quietly forgetting that we and our friends helped
create him, arm him and provide his armies with the necessary skills to
torture and kill his own citizenry.
Are human rights of secondary importance to socio-economic development? How much does socio-economic development provide a foundation for human rights?
12. As the terms of reference allude to, there has and continues to be a long-standing debate regarding the relationship between human rights and socio-economic development. Parties on both sides of the political spectrum use this tension to deny the fullness and indivisibility of human rights.
- On the
one hand, communist, post-communist, and some ‘developing’ nations, such
as China and Malaysia, have used this tension to justify their failure to
provide civil and political rights. They must first, it is claimed, secure
the socio-economic foundation that will allow them the luxury of human
rights. For this to be achieved many democratic rights of individuals may
be suspended to enable a strong developmental state to pursue the
long-term interests of the people.
- In
the language of human rights, socio-economic rights – basic rights of
subsistence and security of life – are claimed to be prior to civil and
political rights. The irony is that many have moved away from their
claimed goal and instituted free market reforms, which have impoverished
their people, while finding the old state power systems useful in this
task.
- On
the opposite end of the Cold War political spectrum a similar reasoning is
used to subordinate ‘human rights’ to economic interests. Free-market
liberals have applied an economic framework as the basis for human rights.
This has encouraged the suspension of human rights standards in developing
nations, exploited consequent cheap labour while polluting the environment
in the stated hope that economic liberalization will lead to political
liberalization and ‘human rights’. From this perspective human rights are
seen primarily as civil and political rights.
- However,
the evidence from China, Southeast Asia and South America is that such an
approach has been inconsistent with the development of human rights, has
resulted in the intensive form of political repression that is on-going in
the Philippines and Colombia. It has often been carried out with debt
repayment as a lever to overturn popular opposition to free-market
economic reforms.
- SCM
contends that this debate – regarding the relationship between human
rights and socio-economic development – is predicated on a fundamental
misunderstanding of the nature of human rights, and a fundamental denial
of the central principle of their indivisibility.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- From
its inception the UDHR has upheld both positive rights (which
require states to provide certain enabling conditions to improve the
quality of life of its citizens) and negative rights (which
limit the state’s use of force against individuals) as the necessary twin
pillars to meaningful securing human freedom. Any approaches which
emphasize one approach at the expense of the other, perpetuate an
illegitimate, obsolete, and artificial distinction between the
civil-political and the social-economic.
- Theoretically,
this threatens to tear apart human rights from within. Actually, it
provides justifications for the continued denial of human rights and
limits our vision and promotion of human dignity. Both approaches
necessarily go hand in hand.
- SCM therefore
recommends an integrated approach that considers and promotes all of the
rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and argues
that the UDHR and subsequent agreements should be the primary basis for
foreign policy in New Zealand
Human rights and human development – an integrated approach
- SCM
submits the Human Development Report 2000 to the Select Committee, and
encourages Parliament to adopt its ethos and approach to human rights.
This report integrates the human rights and human development traditions
in an attempt to secure full human
rights for all.
- “
Human rights and human development share a common vision and common
purpose – to secure, for every human being, freedom, well-being, and
dignity. Divided by the cold war, the rights agenda and the development
agenda followed parallel tracks. Now converging, their distinct strategies
and traditions can bring new strength to the struggle for human freedom…
Human rights can add value to the agenda of development. They draw attention to the accountability to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of all people. The tradition of human rights brings legal tools and institutions – laws, the judiciary and the process of litigation – as means to secure human freedoms and human development.
Rights also add moral legitimacy and the principle of social justice to the objectives of human development. The rights perspective helps shift the priority to the most deprived and excluded. It also directs attention to the need for information and political voice for all people as a development issue – and to civil and political rights as integral parts of the development process.
Human development, in turn, brings a dynamic long-term perspective to the fulfilment of rights. It directs attention to the socio-economic context in which rights can be realized – or threatened. The concepts and tools of human development provide a systematic assessment of economic and institutional constraints to the realization of rights – as well as the resources and policies available to overcome them. Human development thus contributes to building a long-run strategy for the realization of rights.
In short, human development is essential for realizing human rights, and human rights are essential for full human development.”[4]
- This
conceptual integration of human rights and human development provides many
advantages. Principally these include:
A coherent
and integrated approach to foreign
policy.
A framework that is sufficiently broad
to coherently address our various international challenges, from
democratisation to global poverty.
A principled, compelling, global moral
approach through which to promote human rights, condemn human wrongs, and
create a culture of obligation for
the fulfilment of human rights.
A practical approach that utilizes the
specific tools, measures, policies and statistics of human development
economics to create a culture of
accountability for human rights.
An interdisciplinary approach, offering the insights of philosophy,
law, economics, and social science.
A multi-dimensional
approach to the securing of human rights, combining norms, institutions,
legal recognition and enforcement, and an enabling economic environment.
An approach that is consistent with and does full justice to
the UDHR and other major human rights instruments which New Zealand has
strongly supported, that recognizes the full implications of the these rights
and duties.
24. SCM recognizes and affirms the consequences of adopting such an integrated approach. These include:
An
affirmation that social justice
and individual freedom are both
integral to the human rights vision. Through such a framework, “poverty is as
much a human rights issue as is arbitrary arrest” and both can lead to an untimely
death.[5]
A recognition of the breadth and indivisibility of human rights. As the Human Development Report
makes clear, “Every country needs to
strengthen its social arrangements for securing human freedoms – with norms,
institutions, legal frameworks and an enabling economic environment.
Legislation alone is not enough.”[6]
i.
This entails a critique
of human rights discourse and practice in New Zealand. Human rights have
been defined too narrowly and implemented too inconsistently. Even this select
committee inquiry, as the terms of reference illustrate, reconsiders New
Zealand’s role in the promotion and implementation of international human
rights only within the confines of ‘foreign policy’. It is a principal theme of
this submission that human rights is an
issue of both national and international policy and that New Zealand needs to
ensure that our own house is in order. Only such an admission enables us to
counter accusations of human rights hypocrisy
and inconsistency. SCM acknowledges
that securing human rights is a most desperate crisis in developing nations and
that developed countries are some of the key drivers behind much of the abuse
of human rights that occurs in developing countries.
ii.
We also acknowledge that New Zealand has failed in its
obligations to properly implement the UDHR both in terms of domestic and
foreign policy.
iii.
Historical domestic examples of these failures include;
compromises of the rights of Maori as tangata whenua, the treatment of
asylum-seekers, and inadequate protection of the right to protest.
C. New Zealand’s Foreign Policy
- SCM
submits that aspects of New Zealand’s foreign policy record are
instructive in understanding how our policy decisions contribute to
violations of human rights. In the past New Zealand has far too often
allowed the strategic and economic needs of our allies to override our
avowed commitments to human rights.
- We
have been guilty, time and time again, of remaining silent in the face of
gross abuse of human rights. New Zealand has also been involved in
assisting the perpetration of these abuses.
- This
part of the submission focuses heavily on the actions of Australia and the
United States. The purpose of this is that Australia is the country with which
we have the closest foreign policy relationship while the United States is
the most powerful state in the World, one that we have generally friendly
relations with and one that is popularly supposed to be a champion of
human rights.
- It
is important that the committee recognises the impact of New Zealand
foreign policy on the personal safety of others through our support for
human rights abusers or direct involvement with known human rights abuses.
This is not a matter that New Zealanders readily wish to acknowledge, but
it is a fact of New Zealand foreign policy decision-making. In doing so it
is important that we dispel important myths about the foreign policy
actions of states which we may consider allies in human rights promotion.
East Timor: Our Shame
- One
example of this is the history of New Zealand’s involvement with East
Timor and New Zealand’s allies’ contribution to human rights abuses in
Indonesia. It should be noted that New Zealand has provided military
training in counter-insurgency to the Indonesians, training which
primarily would be used for the exercise of Indonesian government control
against dissent, and until recently, to maintain control of East Timor.
- During
the period when New Zealand trained the Indonesian military in counter-insurgency,
the military was organised down to the village level with local military
commanders sitting alongside civilian leaders at the local level.
Between 1975 and 1979 an estimated
200,000 East Timorese – a third of the population – lost their lives
because of war-related starvation and disease or because of massacres and
atrocities[7].
- Furthermore,
New Zealand has consistently turned a blind eye to Australian support for
the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, irrespective of the tremendous loss
of human life that was involved. That the Australians sought to profit
from this situation through an oil access deal with Indonesia (that they
considered would not have been possible with the East Timorese), was
particularly sickening.
33. Under the 1974 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a treaty which violates international law is void. The Indonesia-East Timor Gap treaty which enabled the Australians to access East Timorese oil was signed in 1989. It recognised Indonesian Sovereignty over East Timor, in direct contradictions to declarations of the United Nations General Assembly which had condemned the invasion of East Timor. This action by Australia was a gross breach of the Friendly Relations Convention and the founding document of the United Nations.
- The official
Australian attitude to the invasion of East Timor was expressed by the
ambassador in Jakarta, Richard Woolcott, who in July 1975 cabled Canberra:
“[We should] leave events to take their course... and act in a way which
would be designed to minimize the public impact in Australia and show
private understanding to Indonesia of their problems... I know I am
recommending a pragmatic rather than a principled stand but that is what
national interest and foreign policy is all about.”[8]
- SCM questions
whether the present Australian intervention in East Timor has any moral
basis or whether it was based on the analysis that to not support the
independence process would have been to invite international opprobrium
and the likely loss access to East Timorese oil reserves. Australia has now signed an agreement
with East Timor in order to retain access to the oil that Australia
accessed previously through its unlawful treaty with Indonesia.
United States- Deterring Democracy
- In
an approach, that has been a common pattern of US involvement in - and escalation of - some of the worst
human rights abuses in the last century, the US provided the resources,
training and encouragement for the Indonesian military takeover in 1965.
Even the CIA records the mass slaughter following the 1965 coup as one of
the worst mass murders of the 20th century along with the
purges of Stalin and Mao and the mass murders of the Nazis. Unlike the
other three atrocities, the West worked to ensure that this came
about. This resulted in the
massacre of over half a million Indonesian citizens at the time and
systematic human rights abuses throughout the Suharto era- not just in
East Timor, but throughout the Indonesian archipelago.[9]
This pattern was repeated throughout the Asia Pacific region including
Central and South America.
- Academic
Noam Chomsky has unearthed reports by policy analysts in the United States
prior to and after the military takeover in Indonesia. Prior to the invasion, policy analysts
expressed concern that the Indonesian military would lack the ruthlessness
of the Nazis (as they also did for the South Vietnamese state forces),
concerns which at least one analyst later said, were misplaced. In most cases, mass slaughter did not
break out until elite military units arrived on the scene.
- It
should be remembered that the military were armed and trained by the
United States.
39. The United States was also determined that the invasion of East Timor come about. UN Ambassador at the time, Patrick Moynihan explained in his memoirs, “The United States wished things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United States prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.” Remarkably, he wrote this in the open knowledge that within a few months 60,000 people had died, or 10% of the population. Surely such people should be put on trial.
- Even
as late as 1993, when the ghastly extent of human rights abuse and the use
of terror and domestic repression by the Indonesian military had been
known for almost thirty years, the United States Commerce Department
licensed the export of thousands of electroshock guns to Indonesia. In February 1998, Pius Lustrilanang, an
Indonesian political activist spoke of torture with these weapons “I had
electric shocks applied to my feet and hands for so long that they had to
change the batteries, and I became weak so I told them what they wanted.” [10]All
this despite the fact that the Indonesian military has primarily engaged
in combat with civilians of their own country, and of East Timor. All this
despite the fact that an electroshock gun is clearly not a combat weapon
but a torture weapon.
It is also clear that the United States
government was instrumental in the overthrow of the democratically elected
Allende government in Chile and the installation of General Pinochet’s regime.
The US government then attempted to downplay and dismiss the subsequent
violence of torture, kidnappings, rape and murder while increasing
military aid and training, largely used for domestic terror and supplied
for that purpose as happened in Indonesia.
Iraq: Sacrificing the Vulnerable
- New
Zealand’s involvement in sanctions against Iraq is a matter of which we
should be deeply ashamed. These sanctions almost certainly breach the
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and ought to be judiciable as a
crime against humanity.
- The
scale of the suffering is incredible. Perhaps as many children have died
in Iraq as there are young people in New Zealand. These are not just
statistics. Imagine every New Zealand family losing every child. Reflect
on the sorrow and the pain.
- More
incredible still is that while these sanctions occur, United States oil
companies have been doing secret deals with the Iraqi government to profit
from the partial reconstruction of the oil fields. Oil field service
companies Schlumberger and Halliburton were exposed in the Washington Post
in February this year. The CIA director in the Gulf War, John Duetch, is
on the Board of Directors for Schlumberger while Bush Administration
Secretary of Defence and present US Vice Presidential hopeful Richard
Cheney is CEO of Halliburton.
45. One legacy of the Gulf War is that more ordnance was rained down on Iraq during the six weeks of the Gulf War than was dropped in the whole of World War 2. Unknown to the public or the Allied troops at the time, much of it was coated with depleted uranium (DU). [11]
D. New Zealand’s struggle for realizing human rights in the 21st century
- The
Human Development Report 2000 identifies seven major sites of struggle in
the realization of human rights in the 21st century. Using this
integrated approach, SCM highlights major human rights concerns for New
Zealand foreign policy as well as areas in which New Zealand needs to get
its own house in order.
1. Freedom from discrimination – for equality
47. “ Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
-UDHR, Article 2
48. “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.”
UDHR, Article 7
Getting our own house in order
- While
the high level of support in Parliament for the settlement of Treaty
claims is welcome, as is the present government’s Closing the Gaps policy,
there remain a number of domestic issues that New Zealand should address
to bring human rights equality to New Zealand. This includes advancing
Consistency 2000 and providing same-sex and opposite-sex couples with
equal relationship property rights.
Relationship property law
- In
1998, SCM wrote to all MPs asking them to support Consistency 2000, and to
oppose the Human Rights Amendment, which would have exempted Government
from the human rights provisions of its own legislation. SCM welcomes
recent progress made towards the creation of property rights for same-sex
couples as a step towards a more just society. We believe that further
steps towards granting full human rights to people in same-sex
relationships is an important part of New Zealand’s role as a beacon of
progressive social organization. Just
as we played this role in universal suffrage, and now in same-sex
relationship property rights, this submission demands that we not forget
our heritage, and that we model good human rights practice at home as well
as demanding it overseas. These are indivisible strategies both in seeking
justice and in realising human development.
2. Freedom from want – for a decent standard of living
51. “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and of their family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond their control.”
- UDHR, Article 26 (1)
Poverty eradication
52. The Human Development Report 2000 has broken new ground in highlighting global poverty as perhaps the greatest human rights challenge in the 21st century. As the report stated, “a decent standard of living, adequate nutrition, health care, education, decent work and protection against calamities are not just development goals – they are also human rights. Of the many failures of human rights, the denial of these economic, social and cultural rights is particularly widespread.”[12]
53. This means that New Zealand should address the poverty implications of our foreign policy including the spectacular failure of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to reduce global poverty in spite of having been provided with that explicit purpose over fifty years ago. The New Zealand government should also review the human rights implications of our advocacy on trade and other related economic agreements. SCM considers that these agreements generally do not further the cause of human rights for all and often actively undermine the implementation of human rights
54. SCM recommends that New Zealand acknowledges that globalisation appears to be intensifying poverty around the world. It is difficult to point to any part of the world where living standards are rising for the majority of the population or where key indicators such as educational and health standards are rising.
55. SCM recommends that New Zealand adopts an explicitly rights-based approach to aid/development assistance. Rephrasing aid in the language of human rights is not simply a semantic matter. Learning to ‘talk’ aid in the language of human rights gives urgency and priority to issues of poverty and the failure to provide basic social services. It recognizes that poverty must be discussed in terms of justice rather than charity. Therefore, development assistance should not be seen as a generous gift but rather as fulfilling/helping to fulfil the necessary obligation a human right establishes. Development assistance enables indebted, underdeveloped nations to fulfil these human rights obligations to a greater extent. Moreover, it is a most significant way in which we affirm our commitment to Article 28 of the UDHR; our duty to build “a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.”
56. Concretely, SCM notes and praises the increased ODA funding as per the June 2000 budget. Further, we submit the recently completed OECD ‘Development Co-operation Review of New Zealand’[13] to the Select Committee. The review concluded that New Zealand has a “serious and credible aid programme” but also noted “the election of a new coalition government provides the opportunity to map out a mid-term agenda for its development assistance.”[14] Among the recommendations SCM sees as most significant, the review recommends that New Zealand:
Sharpens the focus of its aid
programme “by making poverty reduction a clearer objective for the NZODA
programme.”
“Looks to allocate more ODA towards
programmes directly targeted to poor people and the basic sources of poverty.”
Sets a medium-term ODA/GNP target.
3. Freedom for the realization of one’s human potential
57. “Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for their dignity and the free development of their personality.”
UDHR, Article 22
Getting our own house in order
- SCM
recognizes that social, cultural, and economic deprivation is present
within our own society. This social inequality is further compounded by
the large proportion of Maori and Pacific Island peoples afflicted by
these evils. As Helen Clark put it, “there is a legacy of entrenched
poverty, of second and third generation unemployment and under-employment,
of poor health, inadequate housing and low educational achievement.”[15]
Overcoming these problems represents one of the major human rights
challenges facing New Zealand society. SCM affirms the present
government’s Closing the gaps
policy, and sees this as an important way in which the government is attempting
to fulfil its obligations in providing for the economic, social, and
cultural rights of these New Zealanders.
- New
Zealand also needs to address the tendency of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund to prescribe structural adjustment policies to
relieve debt (often originally taken on as a result of advice from the WB
and IMF). These result in the removal or privatisation of key health and
education services and dramatically increase poverty.
Debt
- Members
of SCM have experienced first-hand the way that debt repayment cripples
the social services of third-world countries. In 1999, Michael Perkins of
SCM Canterbury-Lincoln spent a week in Manila with SCM Philippines
learning about the situation of the urban poor. He visited the Payatas
rubbish dump community, which collapsed in June, killing approximately 200
people. He describes the experience of Payatas as the most harrowing of
his life. The organisers of the Quezon City Urban Poor People’s coalition
(funded by a grant from German Churches) were very clear that the problem
in the Philippines is that military spending and debt repayment are far
higher on their Government’s spending agenda than are social services.
This is a major human rights issue, which causes the untimely death of
millions. The Jubilee 2000 campaign has concluded that current debt is
mostly unpayable, and that debt-repayment far outstrips foreign aid. New
Zealand foreign policy recognises this situation through VASS funding of
organizations such as Christian World Service, which supports projects
that directly benefit the poor. SCM recommends that directly targeted ODA
support for the poor is increased, and that ODA in general is designed to
aid the poor. Too much reckless loaning was made to support corrupt
dictatorships in countries such as the Philippines. Just as New Zealand
foreign policy recognises now that aid to the poor is paramount for human
rights reasons, we demand that our foreign policy realise that the West’s
mistakes should not be paid for by the poor of the third-world. Our
foreign policy needs to remove the gun from the hand of the killer, as
well as tend the wounded. For this reason we demand that third-world debt
cancellation become New Zealand’s demand, and become expressed through our
dealings with other countries. We
can actually use our influence on the international stage to help the poor
of the region, and we must take the leadership role that is in our
heritage.
4. Freedom from fear – with no threats to personal security
“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
UDHR, Article 3
“Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
UDHR, Article 14
“No one shall be subjected to
torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
UDHR, Article 5
- SCM
takes seriously the condemnations made regarding New Zealand’s treatment
of refugees and asylum seekers in the Amnesty
International Annual Report 2000. The legislation and policies that
allowed for the indefinite detention of asylum seekers were a clear
violation of the human rights of those affected. Further, the confinement
of asylum seekers in (substandard) prisons constitutes ‘cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment’ given that many asylum seekers have experienced
trauma and torture in prisons. While we recognize efforts made by the
present government to overcome this problem, we express our disgust at the
ease with which blatantly anti-human rights legislation and policies can
be made by our Parliament, and supported by one of our major political
parties.
Authoritarianism in New Zealand
- Sadly,
breaches of basic rights with respect to liberty and the security of the
person are not unknown in New Zealand. There is a streak of
authoritarianism that runs through New Zealand society. This has revealed
itself on a number of other occasions, including the declaration of a
State of Emergency during the 1951 waterfront lockout and associated
legislation which made it an offence to feed even the children of
locked-out workers. The intense police reaction to the 1981 Springbok Tour
protest, itself about basic human rights in South Africa, is among the
examples from our lifetime.
- New
Zealand’s security services, themselves part of our foreign affairs framework,
are not subject to sufficient democratic or legal scrutiny. It is
unacceptable that the Inspector General of Intelligence is administered by
the department of the Minister in charge of the SIS and that it lacks a
fully independent investigative capacity. It is also unacceptable that the
actions of intelligence services are not subject to proper Court scrutiny.
5. Freedom from injustice
Crimes against humanity
64. It is an indictment on the twentieth century that during this time the phrase ‘crimes against humanity’ became common currency in human rights discourse. This refers to such gross human rights violations as systematic murder, torture, forced disappearances, deportation and forcible transfers, arbitrary detention and persecutions on political or other grounds. It is a monumental affront to justice that many of the perpetrators of these crimes have never been prosecuted. SCM argues that New Zealand has an international obligation to help remedy these human rights injustices.
65. Furthermore, New Zealand has an obligation to ensure that it does not contribute to human rights abuses elsewhere. This means that we should audit the end-purposes to which our military training is put, carefully assess the foreign policy actions of others with whom we cooperate, and hold New Zealand-owned businesses accountable when they contribute to human rights abuses.
Pinochet Case
66. The recent attempted trial of General Pinochet highlights an important though often forgotten international obligation: the duty to extradite or try persons responsible for crimes against humanity, torture, extra judicial executions and enforced disappearances. In The Case of General Pinochet: Universal jurisdiction and the absence of immunity for crimes against humanity[16], Amnesty International detailed the following precedents and grounds for such an obligation.
67. At international law there exists a clear case for universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity. “Given that crimes against humanity are ergo omnes [obligations which pertain to all, given that crimes against humanity form part of jus cogens or fundamental norms of international law], it follows that all states are under an obligation to prosecute and punish crimes against humanity and to cooperate in the detection, arrest and punishment of persons implicated in these crimes. It is now recognized that all states are under an obligation to try or extradite persons suspected of committing crimes against humanity…”[17]
68. As signatories of various UN covenants, New Zealand has a duty to honour commitments made in UN treaties. These include obligations established by the UN General Assembly in 1973 which insisted that “States shall co-operate with each-other on a bilateral and multilateral basis with a view to halting and preventing was crimes and crimes against humanity, and shall take domestic and international measures necessary for that purpose.”[18]
69. “States shall assist each other in detecting, arresting and bringing to trial persons suspected of having committed such crimes and, if they are found guilty, in punishing them.”
70. “States shall not take any legislative or other measures which may be prejudicial to the international obligations they have assumed in regard to the detection, arrest, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
71. Many international precedents exist whereby a number of states have enacted legislation permitting their courts to exercise universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity. Countries such as Canada, France, and Luxembourg have displayed willingness and established powerful precedents in this area (see the Amnesty report for specific details).
72. SCM argues that New Zealand has a clear international obligation to provide, and assist in providing, legal remedy for crimes against humanity. Regrettably, there are many present cases which call for action including bringing to justice those responsible for gross human rights violations, such as in the former Yugoslavia. In Indonesia the murder of a New Zealand citizen and a successful civil case achieved in an American court establish an even stronger case for action. We recommend that New Zealand follows the precedent set by courts and governments in such countries as Canada and, as with the nuclear issue, pursue a progressive internationalist approach.
73. SCM recommends that New Zealand be prepared to take unilateral action where necessary and should therefore not be afraid to take legal action against human rights violators. New Zealand should do so without fear or favour. SCM recognises that this is likely to create some diplomatic difficulties for New Zealand as a number of friendly states have contributed to significant breaches of international human rights laws, including Australia and the United States.
74. The difficulty of advancing human rights through the international legal arena should not be underestimated. The United States in particular has acted to undermine the establishment of strong legal structures for the universal protection of human rights, rejecting the International Court of Justice indictment of former President Reagan, vetoing declarations requiring the universal recognition of international law and opposing the establishment of an international war crimes tribunal.
6. Freedom of participation, expression and association
“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.”
UDHR, Article 19
Getting our own house in order
75. SCM expresses outrage at the suppression of protest during the visit of President Jiang and Clinton. Philip Joseph, a leading constitutional lawyer, reviewed the visit and concluded, “the political censorship and suppression during Jiang’s visit was demoralising for a country that proclaims itself a ‘free and democratic society’ (cf s 5 of the Bill of Rights). There was no visible separation between the government as political executive, and the state’s law enforcement arm.”[19] To overcome this serious problem, and ensure that freedom of expression and protest is legally assured, SCM recommends Parliament adopt Joseph’s legislative solution;
76. “The constitutional status of police ought to be clarified by legislation and their operational independence put beyond doubt. It is recommended that Parliament amend the Police Act 1958 in order to establish a legal separation between the police in their operational capacity, and the government qua political executive.”[20]
77. Joseph’s article is appropriately titled The Illusion of Civil Rights in New Zealand. In his words, “the events of last September are a disturbing reminder of the fragility of the freedoms we take for granted…We condoned oppressive and discriminatory law enforcement in order to placate a foreign power that places a lesser value on liberty.” When New Zealand’s commitment to the full democratic rights of its citizens was fully tested, we failed. Moreover, we hope the Select Committee notes the irony that the protesters whose rights were effectively denied during this period were protesting against extensive human rights abuses by China, the USA’s complicity in Indonesian atrocities, and New Zealand’s failure to sufficiently voice protest in both cases. This case is instructive. It highlights the indivisibility of human rights, and shows how passivity in the face of human rights violations results in complicity.
Religious Freedom in Asia
78. Although humans cannot live without bread, they cannot live on bread alone. Both physical and intellectual poverty and coercion are contrary to the human rights vision. Freedom of thought and expression is the basis for the ethical and spiritual development of human beings. When this is ignored, denied, or taken for granted, we settle for a truncated view of what it means to be human. As a Christian organization linked to a network of fellow believers/activists in the Asia-Pacific region, SCM draws to the attention of this inquiry the widespread suppression of religious freedom in Asia. For example, SCM Pakistan currently must meet in secret due to blasphemy laws. Similarly, Myanmar SCM had to be renamed “University Christian Work” because the overtones of the word movement brought the threat of suppression by the military government.
- We
recommend the Report of the study on religious freedom in Asia (May
2000), compiled by the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), to the Select
Committee:
“The right to religious freedom
has been and continues to be a major concern of Churches in Asia. The recent
incidents in different Asian countries led to situations of communal violence
and religious persecutions. Several of the member churches of the CCA have been
undergoing traumatic experiences of religious intolerance, denial of religious
freedom and persecution by the dominant religions.”
- The
report documents the experiences of religious communities in numerous
countries and concludes with the following common issues of concern.
- Constitutional
violations are widespread (in most of the Asian countries).
- In
a number of situations, there is no separation of religion and State.
- In
a number of situations, there is a State religion.
- Religious
fundamentalism undermines religious freedom (Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia).
- There
is [widespread] discrimination against tribal and indigenous peoples, and
religious minorities.
6. There is use of religion for political advancement (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia).
- In
some countries whose population is composed of a majority religion, the
laws prevent the minorities from assuming positions in the government
(Pakistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia).
81. The challenge is huge and daunting. Nevertheless, we urge the New Zealand government to strongly advocate on behalf of oppressed religious communities in Asia, to not allow economic interests to take precedence over basic intellectual freedoms, and to defend freedom of thought; that most human of rights.
Constraints on the NGO Sector.
82. It was with concern that SCM learnt of constraints placed on the NGO delegate to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) (24 April – 19 May 2000) by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This defeats the point of having NGO delegates at international conferences and undermines the credibility of both the New Zealand government and the NGO sector. SCM asks that the Select Committee closely question the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the unacceptable restraint on the freedom of expression of the NGO sector in this situation.
7. Freedom for decent work – without exploitation
Getting our own house in order
- For
much of the last decade, New Zealand’s labour law has been in breach of
basic International Labour Organisation standards. It is important
that this Parliament rectifies New Zealand’s failure to meet basic human
rights standards in the workplace. It is essential that Parliament
recognise that New Zealand’s present labour law facilitates human rights
abuses by private companies.
- It
is also important that New Zealand addresses the effect of our promotion
of the present globalisation agenda. Liberalisation of national economies
without rules to protect labour rights has resulted in a ‘race to the
bottom’. This has been obvious in New Zealand with the debate over the
Employment Relations Bill. Business leaders have baldly stated that they
will take investment elsewhere unless they have the kind of labour rights
framework that they want, even if this framework means denying New
Zealanders basic human rights.
E. Recommendations
- That
Parliament and the government ensure that the following issues of
inadequate domestic human rights be addressed within the present
Parliamentary term:
The failure to implement Consistency
2000.
The failure to provide same-sex and
opposite-sex couples with equal relationship property rights.
The failure to adopt the ILO standards
in labour rights
- That
the government adopt the approach of integrated human rights as put
forward by the United Nations Human Development Report.
- That
Parliament ensures that the introduction of all legislation is accompanied
with a human rights audit, and that this audit be made publicly available.
- That
the government immediately withdraw from support for the sanctions against
Iraq.
- That
the government review New Zealand’s previous involvement in training
Indonesian forces with a view to auditing the human rights consequences of
New Zealand’s training.
6. That all significant New Zealand governmental foreign policy decisions be accompanied by a human rights audit and that the audit be publicly available.
- That
the Crown Law Office review New Zealand criminal legislation to ensure
that the Pinochet precedence is fully adopted by New Zealand law.
- That
Parliament legislate where necessary to ensure that war crimes and crimes
against humanity are judiciable under New Zealand law, irrespective of the
country in which the crime took place or the nationality of either the
victim or the perpetrator.
- That
all significant trade/economic agreements be required to be ratified by
Parliament and that they be accompanied by a publicly released human
rights audit.
- That
the New Zealand Government affirms its commitment to increasing ODA and
that it makes poverty reduction a clearer target of development
assistance.
- That
New Zealand take a more active stance in criticising the human rights
abuses of other states, including the United States, and that where
possible, New Zealand act to bring human rights abusers to justice,
irrespective of the nationality of the abuser.
- That
New Zealand forcefully advocates the scrapping of unpayable third-world
debt at all appropriate international forums.
F. List of Further Resources
‘Development Co-operation Review of
New Zealand’, posted at www.oecd.org/dac/
Amnesty International Report 2000
Amnesty International, The Case of
General Pinochet: Universal jurisdiction and the absence of immunity for crimes
against humanity, Report, October 1998, posted at www.amnesty.org
Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), Report
of the study on religious freedom in Asia (May 2000)
Joseph, Philip, “The Illusion of Civil
Rights”, New Zealand Law Journal, May 2000
Punitive Damage [video]
UN Development Programme, Human
Development Report 2000, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000
World Council of Churches - Decade to
Overcome Violence,
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/dov/index-e.html