Tag Archive for 'human rights'

Open Democracy’s retrospective and prospective look at the decade/s

Open Democracy has asked a range of its contributors to answer the following questions:

A volcanic decade in global politics ends amid deep unease about the world’s ability to rise to key 21st-century challenges. openDemocracy writers draw breath and look ahead by reflecting on three questions:

1) What was the most significant trend in the century’s first decade?

2) What do you most hope for, and most fear, about the decade to come?

3) What idea do you see fading and/or emerging in 2010 and beyond?

Their reflections and prognostications can be found here and here.

Reading through the responses, a number of common themes emerge. One is the rise of China and the end of a unipolar world (and in this context, it’s interesting to observe more evidence surfacing about the snubs Beijing has been giving Barack Obama). Associated with this theme is the end of the liberal optimism of the 1990s, the decline of effective peacekeeping and conflict resolution, and the rise of the anti-terror security state in the 2000s. Whatever the views of the ideologues of globalisation, it’s difficult not to conclude that the first decade of this century saw the state come back. While much could be written critical of the emergence of international human rights law and international co-ordination which was one of the important trends of the 90s, conversely urgent problems like climate change are insoluble without concerted world action (while the last years of the late decade showed that the global financial sector could be bailed out at all deliberate speed).

Here too, it might be germane to observe that the sort of authoritarian state led capitalism characteristic of the Chinese model has both its parallels and echoes in the West (as civil liberties decline and torture becomes an acceptable subject of public discourse) and that its rise challenges the 90s end of history/democratisation thesis that market activity brings civic virtue in its wake. For many of the writers, the 2000s were a somewhat dark decade, characterised by rising inequality. Notable is a focus on the practice of multinationals buying up huge swathes of agricultural land in developing countries (particularly in Africa); for instance the leasing of almost half Madagascar’s arable land by a South Korean corporation. This issue warrants more attention than it’s received. It’s in stark contrast with pronouncements such as the Millennium Goals, and symbolises the end of the discourse of development and the entrenchment of a core/periphery model in the global economy, aside from its obvious human and ecological implications.

There’s much to ponder here.

Interestingly, only a small number of contributors referred to the rise of social media and the dissemination of the internet as a key development of the 00s. That’s something I’ll take up presently in another post.

Entrenched racism

Crossposted from No Right Turn.

In the run-up to the 2007 election, then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard decided to repeat his successful racial wedge tactics with Aborigines as the victims, declaring a “state of emergency” in Northern Australia, taking over townships, and suspending anti-discrimination laws so it could subject aborigines to authoritarian and paternalist controls on the basis of race. Now, James Anaya, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of indigenous people, has pointed out the obvious: that this was fundamentally discriminatory. And he didn’t mince his words in saying so:

“There is entrenched racism in Australia,” Anaya told reporters in the capital, Canberra, after visiting several Aboriginal townships in the past week. “These measures overtly discriminate against Aboriginal peoples, infringe their right of self determination and stigmatize already stigmatized communities.”

The Australian has more:

Compulsory income management and blanket bans on alcohol and pornography were “overtly discriminatory” and further stigmatised already stigmatised communities, he said.

“People who have a demonstrated capacity to manage their income are included.

“It’s inappropriate to their circumstances but is also, as expressed by them, demeaning.”

The indigenous rights expert was also scathing of federal Labor’s insistence that housing funds would only flow if indigenous communities signed over their land.

“It’s a mistake to assume that indigenous peoples … aren’t capable of taking care of their homes,” Prof Anaya said.

“Indigenous control can be appropriate to indigenous peoples’ development, to their aspirations, to indeed being in control of their lives like all others.”

As for compensation for indigenous people taken from their families by government agencies, the UN rapporteur was unequivocal: “There should be reparations,” he said.

That’s a pretty stunning condemnation of a government we all expect to behave better. It will be interesting to see how the Rudd government, which has moved a long way from Howard’s position, responds.

Facebook, social media, subjectivity and workplace privacy

One of the most interesting teaching assignments I’ve had for a while is tutoring in a course in New Communications Technologies offered through the School of Humanities at Griffith. Some of the class discussions we’ve had so far this semester have been really interesting – confirming some hunches I have about the fallacies of the ‘Digital Natives’ discourse among other things. But one of the most intriguing aspects of our interchanges has been the articulation of differing views on and revelation of different levels of knowledge about the issue of privacy in the use of social media, and particularly social networking sites such as Facebook (whose use is now so ubiquitous that like Google, it’s morphed from a proper noun into a verb).

It would seem that I’m not the only person facilitating such conversations in a university context. Melissa Gregg, from Sydney Uni, wrote a really ace post the other day about some issues which had arisen in tutorials she convened about Facebook and employers’ demands for profiles as part of the recruitment and selection process. She writes about this at home cooked theory:

…for me, the most disturbing revelation came in tutorials, when students started talking about how many employers are now asking for print-outs of Facebook profiles from job applicants. It sounded particularly common in entertainment and service industries, even though I detected some were suggesting it was commonplace in corporate interviews as well–that it should be taken for granted if you were looking to work for a significant firm.

Her remarks sparked some interesting comments, and prompted a post on the legal issues surrounding this sort of demand by Legal Eagle at Skepticlawyer. Legal Eagle’s post, as usual assured in its comprehensiveness and insight, correctly notes that the law has not kept up with technology in this domain, as in many others.

There’s another set of issues arising here about the increasing blurring of professional and personal identity. Continue reading ‘Facebook, social media, subjectivity and workplace privacy’

Bikie gangs and the law

Ken Parish has an excellent post at Club Troppo about the excessive reach of the “anti-bikie” laws recently enacted by several state parliaments. The powers, and the lack of safeguards on using them, provided by the laws are akin to the excesses of the anti-terrorism legislation (incidentally, when is sedition going to be taken off the books, Kevin Rudd?)

Amongst other things, this act permits “eligible judges” (hand-picked by the Attorney-General of the day) to proscribe organizations based on evidence which is not disclosed to either defendants or their lawyers.

I don’t have anything to add other than thanking Ken for drawing this to our attention. Why is it that every time we turn our backs on them, police forces are forever trying to acquire more powers, and supine governments are all too eager to hand such powers to them?

Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 60th anniversary

Amnesty International has released a video – You Are Powerful – to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UDHR. They’re encouraging its widest possible distribution. Kate Allen explains at Comment is Free.

The level of controversy that still surrounds not just the UDHR (and right wingers just love to cast stones at the UN) but also the universality and indeed nature of human rights shows that they are inherently political and not grounded in any natural, philosophical or theological foundation. The key thing is that they have to be fought for, and their universality comes from the recognition afforded to others. Continue reading ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 60th anniversary’