The Politics of Human Rights Diplomacy

Abstract

The issue of Human Rights features as a prominent agenda of the United Nations and its related international organizations. However, when it comes to precise formulation of a country’s foreign policy in bilateral or multilateral forums, the issues of trade and national security find priority over pressing human rights violations occurring within the countries engaged in the diplomatic dialogue. An often-employed reason behind such an approach is the need to respect sovereignty and non-interference of a country in diplomacy. This article aims at analysing the potential which diplomacy holds to pressurize recalcitrant regimes to respect human rights. In doing so, the article tries to explore the ambit of Human Rights Diplomacy and the relationship between agenda of politics and human rights.

Keywords

Human rights diplomacy humanitarian diplomacy humanitarian foreign policy

Introduction

The complexity of devising a foreign policy revolves around balancing and prioritizing among different agendas—security, trade and health issues being the primary ones, which often feature in the bilateral and multilateral forums. Although a number of United Nations (UN) resolutions have been passed on the agenda of basic human rights, bilateral diplomatic ties are rarely built on the basis of human rights issues alone. When it comes to precise formulation of a country’s foreign policy in bilateral or multilateral forums, the issues of trade and national security find priority over pressing human rights issues occurring within the countries engaged in the diplomatic dialogue. An often-employed reason behind such an approach is the need to respect sovereignty and non-interference of a country in diplomacy. It would be unfair to give a blanket statement that human rights issues are ignored altogether in foreign policies, but the fact remains that when it comes to pressurizing recalcitrant regimes to respect human rights, diplomatic ties have not been terminated based solely on the grounds of human rights violations in the other state. Human rights activists have often accused developed nations of hypocrisy for ignoring human rights violation for political convenience, even on issues that these nations are otherwise very vocal about (Amnesty International 2015). These developed countries are accused of not only ignoring grave human rights abuses but also of actively forming bilateral alliances with abusive governments for various trade-centric aspects (The Economist 2011).

However, narrowly focusing on the so-called hypocrisy in formulation of diplomatic relations would lose sight of the big picture at hand—the potential that diplomacy holds for raising the standards of human lives. In the field of international relations, it should be realized that distancing foreign policy agendas away from politics is a futile exercise, and it is an unwarranted one as well. Diplomacy is about politics, and so is the issue of Human Rights. As noted, international law scholar Louis Henkin states, the concept of human rights is a political one based on interpersonal morality and should express a prevailing relationship between society and the individual (Henkin 2000). An understanding of human rights must focus on politics, for politics and morality are not ideologically disjunctive. Moreover, advancing important agendas through the tool of diplomacy warrants importance to the fact that diplomacy functions around the fulcrum of reciprocity (Posner 2013).

This article aims at highlighting the ways in which the tools of diplomacy can best be utilized for realizing the goal of human rights protection across the globe. In order to do so, the first section of this article discusses the ambit of human rights in the context of human rights diplomacy. The second section of the article revolves around the discussion of whether scrutinizing a country for its objective behind raising a human rights concern impedes the realization of human rights through diplomacy. Lastly, the final section of the article discusses the strategies that may be employed for the way forward in human rights diplomacy.

Exploring the Scope of Human Rights in Diplomacy

At the outset, the scope of human rights in diplomacy requires a two-pronged analysis. First, the perennial challenge that human rights advocacy faces, that is, the critical choice in defining the jurisprudential basis of claiming human rights—between defining human rights based on international universal standards and individual rights versus gravitating toward a more communal or collective notion of human rights whereby individual rights are subject to communal notions of identity. The struggle is to blend a strong unbending human rights policy with classical realpolitik. Second, the way in which states deal with human rights issues, beyond ideology and hypotheticals, in terms of real cases and conflicts.

The first ideological debate has not been brought to any definitive conclusion, and the state actors continue to oscillate between the choices, depending on the states involved in the multilateral groupings. The foremost of all human rights declarations issued by different states at a multilateral forum is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948, as a common universal metric of human rights, irrespective of the people and the nations they belong to (United Nations General Assembly 1948). The UDHR was aimed at representing the universal recognition that basic rights and fundamental freedoms are inherent to all human beings, inalienable and equally applicable to everyone, whatever their nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, 1993, which was a statement to reinforce the UDHR, while laying the foundation for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, states, “all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated,” calling on the international community to “treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner.” The Preamble to the UDHR recognizes the inherent dignity of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world. The Preamble of the UDHR states that it is essential to promote friendly relations between nations, and that the member states have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the UN, the promotion of universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms. It also emphasizes on the importance of a common understanding of these rights and freedoms, for the full realization of this pledge to humanity. It is important to give credence to the shared history of human rights, in order to ward off cultural relativist arguments, which claim that contemporary human rights norms represent a Western imposition on non-Western societies. As scholar Andrew Vincent notes, the claim that politics is the key to understanding human rights is both complex and indefinite and contains a number of possible interpretive permutations (Vincent 2010). This observation is critical, for politics cannot be isolated from implementation of human rights. The rights, which find mention in the Articles of this principal Human Rights document, encompass all three generations of rights. The first-generation rights under the UDHR are the following:

right to life, liberty, and security (Article 3);

right to protection from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 5);

right to recognition as a person before law (Article 6);

right to equality before law and equal protection of the law (Article 7);

right against arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile (Article 9);

right to fair hearing (Article 10);

right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty and right against application of retrospective penal laws (Article 11);

right to privacy (Article 12);

right to freedom of movement and residence within territorial boundaries (Article 13);

right to political asylum (Article 14);

right to nationality (Article 15);

right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief (Article 18);

right to freedom of expression (Article 19);

right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association (Article 20); and

right to take part in the government of his country (Article 21).

The second-generation rights, which find mention in this document are as follows:

right to nondiscrimination (Article 2);

right to prohibition of slavery and bonded labor (Article 4);

right to marriage and entitlement to equal rights in marriage (Article 16);

right to property (Article 17);

right to social security and realization of economic–social–cultural rights indispensable for dignity (Article 22);

right to work and favorable conditions at workplace (Articles 23 and 24);

right to a basic standard of living (Article 25); and

right to education (Article 26)

Lastly, it also highlights the third-generation human rights such as.

the right to participate in the cultural life of the community and to advance the arts and share in scientific advancement (Article 27) right to social and international order for realization of these rights (Article 28)

It can be seen that the human rights, which find mention in the fundamental document, are quite robust and varied, and these are economic, social, as well as political in nature. This illustrates that at an ideological level, the world community was mindful of the fact that human rights cannot be truncated into rights for the bare minimum sustenance of life. The expression “human rights” connotes a multifaceted and eclectic concept, the wide scope of which gives true recognition to the underlying ethos of human rights.

Although the UDHR was meant to be a universally accepted document, in practice, its acceptability is far from what was desired. The UDHR is not a convention, an agreement, or a resolution; it is therefore non-binding. The true reflection of the scope of human rights can be found in the human rights instruments of the smaller regional international groupings, such as that of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and Group of Twenty (G20) among others.

The ASEAN established the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights to promote human rights in the member states. The Commission drafted the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD), and it was adopted unanimously by ASEAN members in 2012 (ASEAN Human Rights Declaration 2012). Despite the reaffirmation of its commitment to the UDHR and other international human rights instruments to which ASEAN member states are parties, Article 7 of the AHRD undermines the universality of human rights by seeking equal weightage to the “regional and national context bearing in mind different political, economic, legal, social, cultural, historical and religious backgrounds.” Moreover, the human rights have been subordinated to public morality under Article 8 of the AHRD, which bears significant potential to violate human rights at the very core. The inefficacy of the ASEAN human rights system extends beyond the drafting of the AHRD, to other procedural shortcomings, such as the lack of any redressal mechanism for violation of human rights (Hien 2016). This lack of a redressal mechanism has exacerbated the inefficacy of the ASEAN when it comes to human rights diplomacy, despite it having multiple instruments, acknowledging the presence of human rights.

Another significant regional multilateral forum of diplomacy is the OIC, which occupies a prominent position in the field of diplomacy among the countries with Muslim-majority population. The OIC in its Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam—CDHRI (Cairo Declaration)—limits the universal rights enshrined in the UDHR to a considerable extent. While there is nothing that hinders a harmonious combination of Islam and human rights, the particular conception of Islamic rights promoted in the Cairo Declaration does conflict with essential principles of the UN Declaration on human Rights. However, the declaration is expressly based on Islamic values, stating that “all the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic shari’ah” (Chase 2015). Two aspects in which the Cairo Declaration is in sharp contrast with the UDHR are the right to freedom of religion and the right to gender equality. While Article 18 of the UDHR upholds the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to change one’s religion and the freedom to manifest one’s religion in teaching, practice, worship, and observance, Article 10 of the CDHRI states that seeking to convert people from Islam to another religion or atheism is prohibited. This contrast in the way the right to religion is sought to be laid down in the two declarations reveals that the right to freedom of religion, which is inalienable, under the UDHR is not defended by the OIC, leaving the nonbelievers of Islam in a vulnerable position (Akkad 2012). Another key aspect on which the UDHR and CDHI can be differentiated is the right to nondiscrimination based on gender. Article 2 of the UDHR applies all rights and freedoms equally to men and women, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Article 6 of the CDHRI is more restrictive in case of women, stipulating that though a woman is equal to man in human dignity, and has her “own rights to enjoy,” she has the corresponding burden of “duties to perform.” This clause undermines gender equality, as it infers that men and women have different rights and duties, thereby adopting a conservative interpretation of Shari’ah law, among multiple other liberal interpretations possible.

The second prong to the scope of human rights diplomacy is the fruition of diplomatic negotiations on specific cases of human rights protection and advocacy. The consequences of human rights violations, whether of the right to life or the right to freedom of expression, which have a potential to spill over national borders, are the ones that are given better credence in diplomatic platforms. The modern forms of communication have transformed the nature of human rights crisis, and the rising expectation among victims of violation warrants action from the international community, and in such cases, where the governments of the respective countries have themselves turned into abusers of human rights, it is through diplomacy that victims can be helped. The principle of nonintervention, as enshrined in Article 2 of the UN Charter, is rooted deeply in international relations, but though fundamental with respect to territorial sovereignty, it has been an obstacle to achieving compliance on human rights standards. A case in point being the alleged human rights violations in North Korea that are perpetrated by state actors on their own nationals and the United Nation’s effort to intervene. A landmark 2014 UN report on North Korean human rights concluded that North Korean security chiefs—and possibly leader Kin Jong Un himself—should face justice for overseeing a state-controlled system of Nazi-style atrocities. In November 2019, the intervention of UN Security Council in the above matter failed due to US’ refusal to sign a letter that would have authorized the UN Security Council to hold meeting on the human rights situation in North Korea, despite the USA having blacklisted North Korea for human rights abuses back in 2016 (Lederer 2019). However, in December 2019, the UN General Assembly, in its annual resolution, condemned “the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights in and by” North Korea. This resolution, sponsored by dozens of countries including the USA, was adopted by the 193-member UN General Assembly without a vote. Although such resolutions are nonbinding, these do carry substantial political weightage (Reuters 2019).

The scope of human rights diplomacy need not be limited to targeting failing governments only. Human rights diplomacy is not only for exposing a wrongdoer, it is also about resolving the issue primarily through nonviolent mechanisms of dialogue. The diplomatic dialogues, leading up to the peace negotiation drafted under the auspices of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, have had extensive affirmation of the central place of human rights in the attainment of peace in those regions (Human Rights Quarterly 1996). Through human rights diplomacy, countries can be effectively engaged in garnering support from other nations to find solutions to the crisis—whether through implementation of trade barriers, military assistance, or financial aid. It is all about the effectiveness of the diplomatic strategies that are taken. Supporting a nation to uplift the economic conditions of its citizens is no less a part of human rights diplomacy than condemning a nation for human rights violation.

Striking the right balance between aiding and condemning a nation, either singly or in consortium with other nations, is what encompasses human rights diplomacy in its truest sense. A case in point is the multilateral forum, Group of 20 or G20. Though formed initially in response to global economic turbulence, human rights organization Amnesty International urged the leaders of the member states to address Saudi Arabia’s problematic human rights record, as the country was set to assume the presidency of the G20 global economic forum in November 2019 (Amnesty International 2019). The member states were asked to pressure the Saudi Arabian authorities to commit to end the patterns of egregious human rights violation. It was not the first time that the G20 was being asked to address human right concerns. In 2019, as the G20 countries were preparing to convene for their Summit and Ministerial meeting in Osaka, Japan, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights called on them to fulfill their commitments and demonstrate action and leadership to fully implement the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for implementing the UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework (UN OHCHR 2019a). Since a wide range of serious human rights abuses has been found to be linked with global supply chains across various sectors, the issue requires the G20’s intervention for true realization of economic and social rights, a prerequisite for sustainable development. As noted, Business and Human Rights Strategist Joshua Rosenzweig points out, human rights should be central to G20 decision-making (Joshua 2017). To ensure trade and investment and promote justice and well-being for all, diplomatic forums such as the G20 need to put human rights on its discussion agendas, since lack of focus on these issues has the potential to perpetuate and deepen poverty, marginalization, and inequality.

The Politics Behind Human Rights Diplomacy: Should the Motive be scrutinized?

As scholar Bertrand G. Ramcharan, President of the Guyana Institute of Public Policy observes, the heart of the matter is the “…the perennial struggle between realism and idealism in human rights protection” (Ramcharan 2011). This observation was made in light of the effectiveness of the international organs of the UN in promotion and protection of human rights, whereas it was found that with the exception of the Security Council, the organs have mostly engaged in promotional work, instead, of taking on the challenging tasks of actively providing protection against human rights violations. The General Assembly of the UN has played a significant role in the adoption of human rights standards, while the Security Council has made limited contributions to protection in situations involving threats to, or breaches of, international peace and security.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is one of the principal organs of the UN, which deal with human rights, but its political nature leads one to question whether the representative Ambassadors in the Council are on a mission to protect human rights universally or only those in furtherance of their governments’ interests (Piccone 2016). Impartiality for the UN is to be more than its procedural dimension, referring not only to the position of UN officials as unbiased and informed but also the value the institution seeks to project and that which UN officials are supposed to represent and further in the absence of particular interests. (Rhoads 2019). This organ of the UN has been criticized for its lack of consistent and transparent criteria when deciding which countries should be the target of resolutions and which topics should be prioritized. The Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ebrahim Ebrahim, at the High-Level Segment of the 22nd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (2013) had said that, “In serving as an agency for the promotion and protection of human rights globally, the Human Rights Council must not be compromised…In discharging its mandate, the Council should remain a credible arbiter and deal with all global human rights concerns in a balanced manner. There should be no hierarchy. Economic, social and cultural rights should be on an equal footing and be treated with the same emphasis as civil and political rights.” (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Republic of South Africa 2013).

In 2006, the UN General Assembly had voted to replace the controversial 60-year-old UN Commission on Human Rights, which was hampered for years by the politics of intransigence, geopolitical rivalries, and inadequate concern for the victims of human rights violations around the world, as the then Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan claimed. The 47-seat membership of the UNHRC is on an equitable geographical distribution, with the largest number of seats being given to the African as well as the Asia Pacific states with 13 seats each, followed by the significant drop in the number of seats being given to the Latin American and Caribbean states with 8 seats, Western European states with 7 seats, and, lastly, Eastern European states with 6 seats. The members of the Council can serve for the period of 3 years and are ineligible for reelection after serving for two consecutive terms in office (United Nations Human Rights Council Elections).

With membership on the UNHRC comes the responsibility to uphold high human rights standards, a criteria insisted on by states themselves when creating the UNHRC. In these elections, human rights diplomacy plays a major role—in terms of both a political strategic one and a humanitarian activist one. Unfortunately, the members having record of gross human rights violations have led the USA to withdraw from the UNHRC in protest (Morello 2018). The UN Ambassador of the USA, Nikki Haley, in her strong critique of the Council’s membership went as far as to claim that it had become a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias, citing the failure to confront and address the issues of gross human rights abuses in Congo, Venezuela, China, and Iran. The USA had further accused the UNHRC of chronic bias against Israel (Al Jazeera 2018a). The move by the USA was regretted by foreign leaders. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussain called this decision of the USA as disappointing, for in times of humanitarian crisis, a global superpower like the USA is expected to step up instead of stepping down. A major reason behind the US decision is possibly to strengthen its ties with Israel, since the announcement came in close heels to the UNHRC’s vote to probe the killing of Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip on account of Israel’s alleged excessive use of force (Al Jazeera 2018b). Though the precise reason which contributed the most toward US foreign policy being steered in this way can be debated, US allegations against member states such as Sudan, Venezuela, China, and Iran cannot be ruled out as merely politically motivated statements.

The elections to the UNHRC held in October 2019, for the term starting in 2020, saw Venezuela and Brazil get voted to the Council, despite its well-documented record of human rights abuses and express contempt for the concept of human rights (The Guardian 2019a). Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), reportedly found the Venezuelan government authorities responsible for systematic egregious abuses and humanitarian emergency. In July 2019, following a fact-finding mission to Venezuela, UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet, in his report, accused President Nicolás Maduro’s security forces of committing a series of “gross violations” against Venezuelan dissenters (The Guardian 2019b).The report further condemned the notorious Special Forces that plotted a series of politically motivated killings. According to the report, women and men alike were being subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading forms of punishments, such as electrocution, suffocation, food and water deprivation, exposure to extremities in temperature, and sexual violence.

Economic progress in a country has often masked the human rights abuses that occur within a country, a case in point being Rwanda. A member of the UNHRC, Rwanda, through skillful diplomacy, claims itself to be “Africa’s Singapore” (Fabricius 2019). While on the economic side the country has shown much progress, human rights activists have reported that the political situation in Rwanda is not as free from human rights abuses as it is being portrayed to be. The authoritarianism in the political order of Rwanda is being glossed over by its apparent effectiveness and economic success—alleged egregious human rights abuses on political opponents being sidelined.

In international relations, a one-sided approach to the accusations would remove one from the realities of the complex understanding required in diplomacy. There is hardly any clearly identified black and white, and all countries have their share of humanitarian work and tainted human rights records. On the one hand, China has been accused of human rights violations, such as the violation of the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression and religion; on the other hand, China is emerging as a big contributor of humanitarian aid and emergency relief. Xavier Castellanos, Regional Director of Asia Pacific International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies observed that until recently, most of the humanitarian agenda have been led by the West, and it can be increasingly seen that China and other emerging countries are becoming key contributors to the humanitarian agenda (Xiaodong Wang 2019). Similarly, the USA has on many occasions been hailed as a protector of human rights and on other occasions been accused of human rights violations.

Upon analysis, it can be seen that the complex diplomatic strategies involved in countering human rights violations need to consider their impact on the greatest stakeholders, that is, the victims themselves. A blatant application of sanction cannot be a suitable way forward. As Idriss Jazairy, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, observes: “Real concerns and serious political differences between governments must never be resolved by precipitating economic and humanitarian disasters, making ordinary people pawns and hostages thereof” (UN OHCHR 2019b).

Human rights diplomacy cannot undertake a unidirectional scrutinizing exercise even when a government has faltered on human rights standards, since the resultant impact of the diplomacy would have a strong spiraling effect on the citizens themselves. These citizens are already a victim of human rights violations and further deprived when sanctions are applied against the defaulting country. For example, Iran, another member of the UNHRC accused by the USA of hypocrisy, has a record of state-sponsored human rights abuses. However, it has also been reported that the US government’s broad sanctions on Iran have drastically constrained the ability of Iran to finance humanitarian imports, including medicines, causing deprivation for common citizens, threatening their right to health (Human Rights Watch 2019; Kokabisaghi 2018). On a strictly technical interpretation, the US government had created exceptions for vital medicines and medical equipment, but it failed in its international legal duty to monitor the effects of its sanctions, as there was strong reluctance of USA and European companies and banks to risk incurring legal actions by exporting or financing exempted humanitarian goods (Human Rights Watch 2019).

It can be seen, that sanctions have been imposed on developing countries on the grounds of human rights violations for they have been clearly demarcated as perpetrators in front of the world community. But the more complex challenges arise when the developed nations have an equal share of accusations and accolades on its record of human rights observation. Belarus has many a times called out developed countries for their record of human rights violations. In its report titled, “The Most Resonant Human Rights Violations in Certain Countries,” the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Vladimir Makei highlights that,

No other issue on the international agenda appears currently to be as polarizing as human rights…This happens because some countries, relying on their own political and economic clout, have come to assume the mantle of human rights high moral advocate…Yet it is clear to everyone, and the report has been tasked to demonstrate this, that by declaring their approaches universal, the high moralists, however, act in a selective manner and forget about their own principled stance wherever and whenever they find it necessary. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Belarus 2013)

The Report then goes on to demonstrate human rights violations in the “high moralist” countries, including Austria, Belgium, Sweden, France, Germany, Canada, the UK, and the USA, among others.

There can be two sides of the debate, that is, whether a country’s ulterior motive behind its human rights stand should be scrutinized or not. On the one side, it can be argued that foreign policy must be reflective of a state’s own domestic conditions and ideals, and hypocrisy should not be encouraged. On the other side of the debate, it can be argued that politics is an integral part of formulating one’s foreign policy—the perennial struggle between idealism and realism. According to the realistic view, while a government should be held accountable for human rights violations in its own country, that should not be a ground for denouncing its efforts to curb human rights violations elsewhere. An illustration of this can be found in Russia, China, and Iran’s response to the annual human rights report issued by the USA (O’Connor 2019). The USA believes that by articulating abuses and pressuring noncompliant regimes, recalcitrant governments can be pushed to change course and cease engaging in brutality and human rights violations (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2019). According to the US Human Rights Report (United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor 2018b), Russia’s occupation and purported “annexation” of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula continued to affect the human rights situation there significantly and negatively. The Report further accused Russia of human rights abuses such as extrajudicial killings, including the killings of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons in Chechnya, by local government authorities, enforced disappearances, and pervasive torture by government law enforcement personnel that sometimes resulted in death and sometimes involved punitive psychiatric incarceration, unjust arrest, and detention of political prisoners, among others (U.S. Mission to the OSCE 2019). The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned this report by coming up with its own list of alleged US human rights violations—including charges of racism and anti-immigrant discrimination, law enforcement abuse, mass surveillance, media suppression, and restriction on rights and freedoms under the pretext of fighting terrorism (O’Connor 2019). In the US Report on the condition of human rights in China, it is claimed that China went after nearly all forms of political opposition, threatening detention, forced disappearance, violence, and even state-sanctioned killings of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, and petitioners under Chinese Communist Party’s unrivaled dominance (United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor 2018a). China responded by publishing its report on human rights situation in the USA, titled “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2018,” advising the “self-styled human rights defender” US government to reflect upon their own human rights situation at home and deal with their own issues first, such as issues of gender discrimination and immigration tragedy (Lu Hui 2019). Iran too retorted in a similar manner. The US Report criticized Iran’s high execution rate, harsh prison sentences, restrictions on freedoms, and alleged role in human rights abuses through support for militant groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bahram Qassemi dismissed the allegations calling the US “the world’s biggest violator of human rights” and argued that the US President Trump’s administration with “its dark and unacceptable human rights record, is definitely not qualified enough to address human rights situation in Iran” (The Iran Primer 2019).

There is no denying the fact that foreign policy formulation cannot be dissociated from world politics, and, therefore, expecting countries to ensure highest forms of human rights protections before advocating for the same elsewhere is a futile exercise. It is important to realize that in this globalized world, violation of human rights is increasingly an issue of global concern, even if the instances of violation in question do not seem to affect the other countries directly. Therefore, hypothetically speaking, where Country A is condemning Country B for Reason X, say political freedom to women, but Country A has been accused of Human Rights Violation Y, say child rights, both the claim and counterclaim should attract attention from world leaders. Country A in such a case should not be criticized for bringing a human rights issue to the forefront without being able to deal with all human rights challenges in its own country. However, this should not allow a country to take a stance that is outright hypocrisy, where a country is calling for international action against a country on the same grounds where that country itself has a continuing track record of violation. This approach will ensure that when a country uses its foreign policy to highlight an issue of human rights violation, the focus is on country B’s action rather than on country A’s action. Otherwise, even where a genuine human rights issue has been highlighted, country B would be able to shift the world community’s attention away from its actions, to that of other instances of human rights violation in country A—for no country can claim to be perfect in protecting human rights. However, the fact that no country has attained the highest standard of human rights does not mean that all countries are placed equally in being imperfect. Thus, diplomacy must lead the way forward for the development of all rather than holding those back who try to bring about the change.

The Changing Forms of Human Rights Diplomacy: The Way Forward

While the European Union (EU) was founded in the shadow of the World War II, its foundations were primarily in industrial and trade relations, and the original treaties made very few references to rights. Yet, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights have eventually been critical to EU’s aspirations in foreign politics. As the EU expanded its footprint in international relations and deepened political ties, the role of human rights started becoming increasingly explicit within EU member states, as well as in foreign nations. The Treaty of Lisbon gave full legal effect to the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and provided a way for the EU to streamline human rights into its foreign policy.

One of the most significant contributions of the EU to the field of Human Rights diplomacy has been the way it dealt with the Syrian refugee crisis. As Stavros Lambrinidis, during his tenure as the EU Special Representative for Human Rights observed, human rights is not a soft policy interest in EU’s Foreign Policy (Woodrow Wilson Centre Lecture 2019). While describing EU’s foreign policy, he remarked, “Human Rights will be the silver thread of all our different foreign policy work – whether it is international trade, or counter-terrorism or whether it is the environment, in every one of these foreign policy topics, human rights will be mainstreamed as a main topic of concern and analyses along with the development of other policies.” EU’s adoption of its “effectiveness-coherence-visibility” model of human rights diplomacy tries to ensure that it preaches its own mechanisms to other countries. One of the major roles played by the EU in human rights diplomacy has been in the Syrian Refugee crisis. It went beyond criticizing the failing governments of the conflict-ridden Middle Eastern nations to negotiating with other countries to open their borders for the refugees seeking help (Sadik and Zorba 2017). This refugee relocation program was a realistic approach toward a human rights crisis, with its fair share of national interest and human rights interest.

With the increase in open repositories of knowledge and free diffusion of information across the globe, public diplomacy through non-state actors should be harnessed as an integral part of human rights diplomacy. In an era of global communication, power is diffusing away from states to a much broader range of actors (Donaldson 2018). Public diplomacy is a “space” where politics, culture, science and education, media, NGOs, and users of social networks form a nexus of soft power (Zonova 2012). The fact that this form of diplomacy is gaining legitimacy can be established on the ground that a lot of NGOs have a consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC), which gives them the power to mobilize public opinion in the countries they operate (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2018). This suggests slight shift of emphasis from total dependence on formalized top-down diplomatic relations between national foreign ministers, toward a bottom-up engagement with a much wider array of state and non-state groups, and more direct liaison between non-state actors across international borders. Traditional supranational institutions such as the UN, which was designed for state-to-state negotiations and, as such, were predicated on a unitary model of the state as a single international actor, is also opening up to the idea of enhanced representations of non-state actors in international relations. However, this also puts these non-state actors in a precarious position, and many a time in conflict with the state’s authorities. This is where classical diplomacy can aid the functioning of the non-state human rights defenders. In 1998, the UN adopted the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups, and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, also known as the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (UNDHRD), which spells out the rights of human rights defenders and the obligations of states to protect them (United Nations 1998). In a step toward harmonizing this obligation with its foreign policy, the EU has undertaken to promote the implementation of the UNDHRH in “third countries” through their foreign policy (Front Line 2010). While these guidelines are not legally binding, they represent EU’s commitment toward protection of universality of human rights. The EU recognized that principles of democracy and human rights cannot be simply imported or imposed onto a society, without the support of the civil society, the local defenders of the human rights cause. Article 21 of the Treaty of European Union states that EU action on the international stage should be guided by the principles of universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms and that the Union should act to consolidate and support human rights and fundamental freedoms in international relations (European Parliament 2018). The EU guidelines on Human Rights Defenders aim to provide practical steps for EU action in bilateral relations at all levels of negotiations and in multilateral fora, as well as measures for the protection of Human Rights Defenders at risk. The EU diplomatic missions, that is, the EU delegations and member state embassies are the primary interface between the EU and human rights defenders. These missions have been tasked with raising the causes of human rights defenders during political or human rights dialogues with the countries concerned or during high-level visits. Also, while visiting a country, high-ranking EU officials are expected to hold meetings with human rights defenders. Moreover, the EU delegations are expected to report periodically on the situations of human rights violations and should organize annual meetings between such human rights defenders and EU diplomats, in order to coordinate and share HRD-related information, for possible EU actions through the Council of the EU’s Working Party on Human Rights. The OIC with a similar parliamentary arm has a Permanent Mission Office to the EU in Brussels. The EU-OIC agenda includes issues related to fighting intolerance and promoting interreligious/intercultural dialogue, as well as human rights and humanitarian assistance, although a number of other sensitive issues, such as the rights and protection of Christian and other religious minorities in Muslim countries, have not been adequately addressed (European Parliament, Directorate-General for External Policies, Policy Department 2013). The OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission was held in Jakarta in 2012, which has been tasked with advancement of human rights and fundamental freedoms, in member countries as well as the fundamental rights of Muslim minorities and communities in non-member states in conformity with the universally recognized human rights norms and standards, and with the added value of Islamic principles of justice and equality.

The Human Rights up Front (HRuF), which was called for action to address the lessons post the UN’s “systematic failure” in preventing and responding to serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law to end the war in Sri Lanka, seeks to change UN’s political engagement (Nutt 2015). The HRuF encourages a more proactive engagement with member states to generate political support for early and preventive action to contain situations of humanitarian crisis. The HRuF requires the UN to raise concerns in instances of human rights violations—including economic, social, and cultural rights, which are often clear indicators of a wider pattern of further violations. The HRuF aims to strengthen engagement and consultations with national actors and to support the UN to effectively manage actions on politically sensitive issues, while ensuring that the issues are not altogether dropped, and that the UN continues to support the state actors. These efforts have resulted in paving a renewed recognition of human rights diplomacy.

Conclusion

Human rights diplomacy requires a deep-rooted understanding and recognition of the basis of the very rights. The recognition of the basis varies from one diplomatic platform to another. Upon scrutinizing how states interact with one another to resolve a situation of human rights violation, one realizes that all countries have their share of humanitarian work and tainted human rights records. While the states continue to be chiefly guided by nation-centric interests, a growing recognition of non-state actors on formal diplomatic tables is a welcome change. However, that does not obliterate the requirement of active participation of state actors; rather, their responsibilities increase, in order to protect the human rights defenders in foreign countries through their diplomatic missions there.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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