Ideological (Mis)Use of Human Rights - David Chandler

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120 D. CHANDLER intervention, became a major factor in international relations. Th e introduction of the human rights-based approach into traditional humanitarian practices refl ected two trends: fi rstly, the increased penetration of external actors and agencies into post-colonial states and societies; and secondly, the transformation of the content of traditional humanitarian principles. As Western humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) acquired greater powers and authority within post-colonial states, they redefi ned the central concepts guiding their work. Universality and neutrality came to be redefi ned, not on the basis of a universal view of humanity as being equally moral and autonomous, but on the basis of end goals or aspirations. Th is expansion of external power, through redefi ning the ‘human’ as lacking autonomy, eff ectively set up a hierarchy of the ‘helper’ and the ‘helpless’. Th rough the ethic of responsibility to assist the ‘helpless’—those without autonomy—this discourse reframed political choices as ethical questions. In this way, external NGO actors maintained a ‘non-political’ stance of neutrality at the same time as claiming extended rights to intervene in domestic political processes. From the late 1960s onwards, international humanitarian NGOs used the discourse of human rights to rewrite the boundaries of their authority through expanding the sphere of ethics into the sphere of political decision making. Th e debate within the NGO community, from the late 1960s, over diff ering approaches to universal humanitarian ethics, counter-posed two views of universality. Th e former, ‘rights equality’, view espoused by the ICRC was based on the Enlightenment understanding that the recipients of aid were autonomous capable moral beings and therefore made no judgement regarding the actions or political choices of recipients (see Ignatieff , 1998, pp. 109–163). Th e human rights-based approach saw the recipients of aid in more judgemental terms: this universality was based on ends-based outcomes of peace, development, justice, etc. Th e importance of the shift from a universal ‘rights equality’ approach to that of a ‘human rights-based’ approach is rarely clarifi ed; one exception is Michael Ignatieff ’s discussion of ICRC ‘impartiality’ in his book Warrior’s Honor (Ignatieff , 1998) (see Box 7.3). Th e human rights-based discourse of humanitarianism enabled NGOs to blur the distinction between politics and ethics. Central to this confl ation of politics and ethics was the development of new codes of Box 7.3 The Distinction Between the ICRC and MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders) Michael Ignatieff on Humanitarianism [The ICRC’s] doctrine of neutrality is called into question by organizations like Médecines sans Frontières [Doctors without Borders], which maintains that humanitarian intervention cannot be impartial between the Serb militiaman and the Muslim civilian, or the machetewielding Hutu and the Tutsi victim. . . . [T]his leaves the ICRC wondering whether [its] insistence that all victims are equal, whatever the justice of their cause, makes sense in the bitter confl icts where one ethnic group is now seeking to obliterate the other. (Ignatieff, 1998, p. 124.) James Orbinski (MSF) on Humanitarianism The moral intention of the humanitarian act must be confronted with its actual result. And it is here where any form of moral neutrality about what is good must be rejected. The result can be the use of the humanitarian in 1985 to support forced migration in Ethiopia, or the use in 1996 of the humanitarian to support a genocidal regime in the refugee camps of Goma. Abstention is sometimes necessary so that the humanitarian is not used against a population in crisis. (Orbinski, 1999.) practice based around redefi ning neutrality. Neutrality no longer meant the equal respect for parties to confl ict or for locally-instituted authorities, but was redefi ned as neutrality with respect to human rights frameworks and outcomes. In this way, NGOs claimed decision-making powers over who deserved aid and which practices of development were more appropriate. NGOs accrued more authority through the human rights discourse because they were held to be acting on behalf of rights subjects unable or incapable of acting on their own behalf. Th e extension of the power and authority of humanitarian non-state actors took place in relation to changes in approaches to both confl ict and to development. First, through the extension of assistance to victims of war, there was a shift from the ICRC approach of aid to casualties and assistance to prisoners regardless of political affi liation, to a more engaged, ‘solidarity’ approach, advocated by agencies such as Doctors without Borders who argued that there was a need to discriminate between abusers and victims and to intervene in confl ict with a view to rights-based outcomes (see Box 7.3). Second, there was a shift in NGO approaches to emergency relief, and an increased understanding that 08-goodhart-chap07.indd 120 12/9/08 3:05:58 PM
famines and natural disasters could be better addressed by long-term developmental approaches rather than short-term palliative ones (see further Chandler, 2001). It now appeared that humanitarian NGOs were dutybound to intervene in much more direct and lasting ways. However, this approach of solidarity and education and training meant that the relationship between NGOs and their benefi ciaries changed from one of charity between ostensible equals to one of dependency and empowerment. Th e humanitarian NGOs shift ed from a traditional liberal rights-based approach of equality to an ethico-political approach of human rights that facilitated the inequality of treatment. Th is has resulted in humanitarian NGOs opposing the provision of aid in cases where it was felt human rights outcomes could be undermined (Leader, 1998; Fox, 2001). By the end of the Cold War, the discourse of humanitarian universalism had become a highly interventionist one, transformed through the modern discourse of human rights values and assumptions. Once the barriers to state actors intervening were diminished, this discourse was increasingly taken over by leading states and international institutions and NGOs boomed in numbers and authority as new frameworks of intervention were instituted. According to Mark Duffi eld, the ‘petty sovereignty’ of NGOs—their increasing assumption of political, decision-making powers in regions intervened in—was ‘governmentalized’ in the 1990s: integrated within a growing web of interventionist institutions and practices associated with external intervention and regulation (Duffi eld, 2007). Human Rights and International Law Human rights claims, the ethico-juridical claims of a non-constituted legal subject—the human—tend to confl ict with formal international legal frameworks, which necessarily operate on the basis of constituted legal subjects—sovereign states. Over the course of the 1990s and the early 2000s the understanding of this confl ict has changed. Key to the changing nature of the discussion of human rights and international law have been debates on the redefi nition of the meaning and relevance of the legal subject in international law, i.e. the meaning of sovereignty. Th e discussion of the meaning of sovereignty refl ects the discussions of neutrality and universality, high- IDEOLOGICAL (MIS)USE OF HUMAN RIGHTS 121 lighted in the previous subsection. Th e universal essence of sovereign equality was not the power or capacity of states, which clearly varied tremendously. Th e quality of equality was that of moral and political autonomy, the equality of the right of self-government. Since the end of the Cold War, this framework of sovereign equality has been challenged through the framework of human rights, which asserts that formal juridical frameworks are inadequate to address the needs of people living in many states where governments are held to be ‘unable or unwilling’ to protect their rights (ICISS, 2001). At the most basic level, sovereign autonomy or selfgovernment is seen as increasingly problematic on its own terms. Th e possession of formal democracy is no longer seen as adequate to safeguard the rights and interests of individuals. Many commentators follow Fareed Zakaria in his view of the post-Cold War rise of ‘illiberal democracies’ (Zakaria, 2003). Democracy without liberal cultures and frameworks of rights protections is held to be as likely to be a license for tyranny as for freedom. In order to prevent the ‘tyranny of the majority’ or the arbitrariness of democratic mandates (Mill, 1972, p. 73; Guinier, 1994), international human rights enforcements have been increasingly demanded as part of the agenda of ‘good governance’ and the ‘rule of law’. Th ere is also a second approach of human rights advocacy that undermines the rights of sovereignty, not on the basis of the problems of the formal political framework of citizenship rights, but on the basis of economic and social provisions. Th is is the discourse of the ‘failed’ or ‘failing’ state, where it is asserted that problems with social welfare provision or with economic development indicate that many post-colonial states need external assistance to enhance their ‘functional’ sovereignty (see Ghani et al., 2005). Here the ethico-juridical framework of human rights redefi nes sovereignty on the basis of social and economic capacities, creating a sliding scale of sovereignty and marginalizing the importance of a juridical framework based on autonomy and sovereign equality. Critical commentators are increasingly suggesting that human rights approaches have succeeded in redefi ning sovereignty so that it lacks any distinct legal meaning and that, in this way, external intervention is no longer seen as confl icting with or as undermining of sovereignty. Mark Duffi eld suggests that sovereignty has been redefi ned in terms of the biopolitical—based on the needs of the population rather than the needs 08-goodhart-chap07.indd 121 12/9/08 3:05:58 PM
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Page 3 and 4: ambiguous and abstract nature of hu
Page 5 and 6: mechanisms of the exercise of power
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Page 11 and 12: than undermining it. At the same ti
Page 13 and 14: Human Rights and the Search for Mea
Page 15 and 16: Conclusion Th ere can be no clear l
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Ideological (Mis)Use of Human Rights - David Chandler

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