Asia, Europe must not lecture over rights

By Arif Havas Ugroseno

JAKARTA (JP): With the summitry of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) fast approaching, Amnesty International has launched yet another campaign, which it has called Human Rights, the Missing Link in the Asia-Europe Meeting.

Amnesty is proposing a five-point agenda to be discussed at the gathering; a) a strong rejection of calls for a review of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights --- even though everyone knows it was formulated when its major drafters were violating all kinds of human rights in their colonies --- and a call for the ratification of major international instruments; b) provision of access to NGOs, especially in the work of the ASEM Vision Group; c) the creation of a so-called operational dialog on human rights; d) the inclusion of human rights in regional security talks; e) the development of business codes of conduct to include human rights.

The human rights organization feels that the time is ripe and opportune to bring such a loaded agenda to the summit -- it recently declared to the press in Brussels that "the Asian crisis provides a unique opportunity to discuss human rights in concrete terms". An agenda with this mindset is opportunistic, shady, inoperative, ill-informed and just plain wrong.

To strike a foe while it is weak is called strategic, but to clobber a weak friend is no more and no less than back-stabbing opportunism. It is not clear whether Asia, in Amnesty's eyes, is a friend or foe of Europe. At any rate, Amnesty believes there is no way to promote and protect human rights in Asia except by waiting for Asia to be weak enough to be dictated to.

This is clearly a nonstarter and constitutes an erroneous and weak basis on which to build strong and mutually beneficial cooperation in the promotion and protection of human rights.

Although leveled against a narrower target, the conviction of Jose Ramos-Horta and the president of Portugal that the current economic crisis provides the right opportunity to further coerce Indonesia into yielding to their terms on the East Timor question reveals the striking similarities of Amnesty's mindset with these opportunists. The six-million-dollar question now is whether this state of mind is coincidental or conspiratorial.

The proposition is inherently shady. The core objective is the creation of the so-called operational dialog and the inclusion of human rights in regional security dialogs. If frank talks are so sincerely desired, the blueprint of such dialog should not be a one-way approach where Asia violates and Europe dictates, as proposed in Amnesty's proposal but should be a two-way street where both sides should have the opportunity to address the human rights problems of each other.

As Mark Turner writes in Human Rights: EU Wrongs (European Voice Jan. 8 to Jan. 14, 1998), if Europe is so squeaky clean, surely more scrutiny would only highlight the continent's claims to moral superiority. However, it is doubtful that the EU will ever willingly allow foreign parties to formally scrutinize or publicize its human rights records and extend recommendations to improve their human rights performance.

A statement akin to Article F of the Treaty of the EU statement explaining the EU's own human rights problems is not likely to be made during any international human rights debate. As a matter of fact, when German Green Party MEP Claudia Roth criticized member states' internal records in a controversial report, politicians lined up to condemn it as unwelcome and illegitimate interference.

The so-called operational dialog is simply inoperative. This dialog, which would be conducted transparently and be publicly reported, is no different than creating a human rights monitoring mechanism outside the purview of the United Nations human rights mechanisms or any other existing treaty bodies or regional human rights mechanisms.

Everybody in the human rights world knows all too well that establishing a new human rights mechanism is not an easy task, especially when it is built with the wrong approach and is not commissioned or mandated by any international or regional treatise on the establishment of such a human rights mechanism.

The idea to inject human rights issues into broader regional security talks in Asia shows that Amnesty is ill-informed on the complexity and fundamental necessities of establishing a regional security dialog or cooperation in Asia.

Unlike Europe, this continent is huge and remarkably diverse. Needless to say, the establishment of any regional security dialog should take into account the different competing interests of various major powers both within and without the region such as China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and ASEAN.

As is the case with the ASEAN Regional Forum, for instance, the process of establishing regional security cooperation moves at a speed tolerable to its participants so as to facilitate the discussion of all issues of common concern in a more open fashion and to support collaboration and encourage positive behavior from all participants.

Judging from the strained human rights relations between the U.S. and many other powers in Asia -- which are marked by the Americans' messianic approach or the EU's finger-pointing habit as evidenced in its human rights commission -- Amnesty's proposition will only jeopardize the process of developing mutual understanding and trust and defeat the whole purpose of establishing such regional security talks.

The campaign is just plain wrong. ASEM does not need such unrealistic and misleading propositions. Asia and Europe need human rights confidence-building measures. One cannot possibly isolate the EU's attitude problem in human rights debates at the United Nations fora in Geneva or New York from the rights talks proposed to be held at ASEM.

One cannot imagine what the atmosphere at ASEM would be if the EU performs its ritual of making a long statement condemning human rights violations in Asia. Furthermore, the existence of recalcitrant chauvinistic domestic agendas pursued by countries such as Portugal will destroy the very confidence needed to commence constructive rights talks at ASEM.

Should both Asia and Europe sense the urgent need to start this kind of dialog, they should arrive at an understanding to devise a concrete and acceptable design aimed at creating an atmosphere of human rights trust.

Exchanges of human rights scholars, students, human rights officers, legislators and members of national commissions on a frequent and regular basis, frank talks aimed at developing convergent human rights views, finding ways and means to eliminate finger-pointing habits which trigger defensive positions are a few initial steps that could be taken.

Creating such confidence is not an overnight business. Any sincere attempt to build strong and lasting cooperation entails the consequences of time-consuming measures since true understanding grows slowly from within.

The writer is a graduate of Harvard Law School and now works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The views expressed here are purely personal.