European determination and concerns. Belgium has been designated as the country to host the UN Council of Human Rights for three years and the country's minister for foreign affairs, Karel De Gucht, has provided an indication of how he will be carrying out this role. He made a robust denunciation of the attempt to contest the universal value of human rights and affirmed his determination to reverse this trend. Let's see what he says: “The fact that a coalition of countries attempts to empty the very concept of human rights of its meaning, is a new development and even more worrying - especially because these countries could indeed achieve this aim if we do not watch out”. Mr De Gucht points out that the universal value of these rights is under attack, “under the cover of such principles as sovereignty, non-intervention and solidarity between countries of the South”.
He is radically opposed to this evolution: “No culture or religion can invoke mitigating circumstances when human beings are mutilated sexually or treated as simple merchandise. Human rights belong to everyone. If we abandon their universal nature, no-one will be safe”. After the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the fall of the Berlin Wall, “we experienced our halcyon days” when the universal nature of human rights was acknowledged: now, “the consensus that prevailed during that epoch has definitively disappeared”. Karel De Gucht sharply attacks the “cultural relativism and trend in certain western intellectual circles, which affirms that we cannot impose our so-called Western standards everywhere”. He explains that “sovereignty is increasingly used to condemn allegedly arrogant Western interference, as if state sovereignty has supreme value that cannot tolerate any other body above it”.
Acquiescence? Is the Belgian minister optimistic about the possibility of getting rid of this trend and making the universal notion of human rights prevail? Not really. He intends to take action in this direction in his new role because “the UN Council of Human Rights has the capacity to call states that violate these rights, to order”. But what about the results? He affirms that he was “utterly opposed to the election procedure, also within the EU”, which appoints members of this organisation and “allows some of those with a bad record on human rights to become members”. He acknowledges that Belgium was elected to the body, “together with other countries notorious for violating human rights”. His conclusion is resigned to wishing for “the miracle solution to reverse this trend, but geopolitical reality and the balance of forces are such as they are”.
Inevitable compromise. There we are then, faced with an eternal lack of synchronicity between principles and reality. Europe can protest, condemn, increasingly take a position on these matters (they are not in short supply) and also subordinate its agreements with third countries to conditions on human rights and democracy. It must also, however, take into account the different specific situations and what is possible and appropriate practically. Make war on Russia over the Georgia affair - is easy to say for pontificating pseudo-philosophers. Break all ties with China over Tibet - is at first glance, a noble and courageous position, but it is in fact untenable. There is no easy balancing act; even the prophets recognise the need for compromise when they exercise an operational function, whether they go by the name of Kouchner or any other.
Divergences over “universal competence”. This partial acquiescence is not shared by everyone. The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) made a spirited protest against the Spanish parliament's decision to radically reduce the competence of national courts making decisions on what is happening in other continents (yesterday, this column described this orientation as being reasonable). The FIDH regrets that “political and diplomatic considerations are leading Spain backwards” and it indicates that Spanish judges had opened investigations into crimes allegedly committed by Israelis in Gaza in 2002; Chinese officials in Tibet; US leaders in Guantanamo, as well as crimes committed during the genocide in Rwanda or under the Chilean, Argentinean and Guatemalan dictatorships. Why should the national judges of a member state have specific competence in all these cases? It seems to me that only the UN could have sufficient legitimacy to intervene - and also in Darfur, Chechnya and so forth. We will soon see what has been decided for the presidency of UNESCO. Mr De Gucht, taking a firm line on his principles, did not mince his words when describing the actual situation. At the present time, Europe should be more concerned about protecting its own culture and convictions than hoping that the whole world shares these things. (F.R./transl.rh)