The real Avatar story: indigenous people fight to save their forest homes from corporate exploitation

In James Cameron's newest film Avatar an alien tribe on a distant planet fights to save their forest home from human invaders bent on mining the planet. The mining company has brought in ex-marines for 'security' and will stop at nothing, not even genocide, to secure profits for its shareholders. While Cameron's film takes place on a planet sporting six-legged rhinos and massive flying lizards, the struggle between corporations and indigenous people is hardly science fiction.

For decades real indigenous tribes around the world have faced off with corporations—mining, logging, oil and gas—determined to exploit their land. These corporations, much like the company in the film, usually have support from the government and access to 'security forces', sometimes in the form of ex-military or state police. Yet unlike the film, in which the indigenous group triumphs over the corporate and military invaders, the real-life stories of indigenous tribes rarely end justly: from Peru to Malaysia to Ecuador their struggles continue.

Spears versus guns

Kayapo Shaman in Brazil

In Avatar the indigenous tribe, called the Na'vi, use poison-tipped arrows to defend themselves against the guns, gas, and explosions used by the human invaders. Art imitates life: in June of this year, violence erupted in Peru as heavily-armed police clashed with indigenous protestors, some carried spears, others were unarmed.

The indigenous tribes were protesting nearly 100 new rules pushed through the Peruvian government—led by President Alan Garcia—that made it easier for foreign companies to exploit oil, gas, timber, and minerals on indigenous land. The violent skirmish that followed led to the deaths of 23 police officers and at least 10 indigenous people—with indigenous groups saying the government went to great lengths to hide/dispose of bodies to make it appear that fewer natives were killed. Bodies were allegedly dumped in rivers.

What is known is that 82 protesters suffered gunshot wounds and 120 in total were injured in the melee. Protesters say tear gas was used; in addition some say machine guns—shown in photos—were fired at them.

Peruvian security forces killing indigenous protesters in Peru.

Just weeks after the bloody incident, Texas-based Hunt Oil, with full support of the Peruvian government, moved into the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve with helicopters and large machinery for seismic testing. A scene not unlike Avatar, which shows a corporation entering indigenous territory with gun ships. The seismic testing alone involves 300 miles of testing trails, over 12,000 explosive charges, and 100 helicopter land pads in the middle of a largely-untouched and unknown region of the Amazonian rainforest. The reserve, which was created to protect native peoples' homes, may soon be turned into a land of oil scars. Indigenous groups say they were never properly consulted by Hunt Oil for use of their land.

Many of the rules put forth by the government that led to the protest have since been determined unconstitutional, while Garcia has rescinded two rules. Still Garcia says—as evidenced from Hunt Oil—that he plans to move forward with controversial oil and gas development on tribal lands in the Amazon.

Photos of an uncontacted tribe in the Terra Indigena Kampa e Isolados do Envira, Acre state, Brazil, near the border with Peru, caused a stir when they were released by Survival International, an NGO, in May 2008. The indigenous group is said to be threatened by oil exploration in the area

Areas of the region slated for development are also home to uncontacted Amazonian tribes. Garcia has repeatedly called into question the existence of any such tribes, though aerial photos recently showed uncontacted natives armed with spears near the area in question. The leases under protest are a part of the Free Trade Agreement signed by both the United States and Canada.

In the film the Na'vi are dismissed as "blue monkeys" and "savages" by the corporate administrator. Both the corporation and their hired soldiers view the Na'vi as less than human.

In Peru, President Alan Garcia has called indigenous people "confused savages", "barbaric", "second-class citizens", "criminals", and "ignorant". He has even compared tribal groups to the nation's infamous terrorists, the Shining Path.

There is no end in sight in the struggle between the indigenous people of Peru and government-sanctioned corporate power.

Decades of oppression in Borneo: violence, rape, murder

In March 2006, the bulldozers belonging to Interhill, a Malaysian logging company, reached Ba Abang, a Penan village in the Middle Baram region.

In March 2006, the bulldozers belonging to Interhill, a Malaysian logging company, reached Ba Abang, a Penan village in the Middle Baram region.

Since the late 1980s, Interhill has been cutting down rainforests in a 55,000 hectare timber concession in Sarawak's Middle Baram region. Photos and captions by the Bruno Manser Fund Across the world, another people are fighting to save their homes from corporate exploitation. The Penan people of Malaysian Borneo have suffered greatly from industrial loggers entering their ancestral home: not only has the tribe lost forest land and important tribal sites, including burial grounds, to bulldozers and chainsaws, but the Penan people have faced violence, rape, and even alleged murder.

The struggle began when industrial logging first appeared in the area in the 1980s and today shows no sign of abatement or resolution. In fact, a new threat has risen in recent decades as logged forests are swiftly turned into industrial oil palm plantations, excluding any chance of the natural forest returning after logging or of natives receiving their land back.

The Penan—some of whom live as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the forest—have fought corporate loggers through lawsuits and road barricades. In turn they faced violence from Malaysian police and security forces hired by powerful logging companies. Some even fear for their lives. In 2008 longtime Penan chief, Kelesau Naan, was allegedly murdered for his long activism against logging on tribal lands. When his body was finally found—after two months—it was discovered that several of his bones were broken, leading the Penan to believe he was murdered for his opposition to the destruction of his tribe's traditional lands. Prior to this, two Penan activists disappeared mysteriously in the 1990s and Swiss-activist, Bruno Manser, who fought long and hard for Penan rights, vanished in the region in 2000.

Recently, Penan girls have come forward to say that they were raped, beaten, and sexually abused by logging employees. A 110-page report released this year by the Malaysian Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development has documented their stories, while a government team investigating the matter stated that at least eight allegations of rape or sexual abuse were "certainly true". Girls as young as ten were assaulted and raped, some becoming pregnant. The Penan girls, who receive rides to-and-from school by loggers, have said that it was common to be sexually abused during these rides. Yet a probe by the police into the matter went nowhere due to lack of evidence.

Former regional Penan chief of the Upper Baram region, James Laloh Keso (center)

Just this month the rapes were dismissed by government official, James Masing, the Sarawak Minister for Land Development. The Minister told the BBC that in regards to the rapes the "Penan are very good story tellers. They change their stories, and when they feel like it."

Most recently, the Penan people have tried a new strategy to preserve their dwindling home. Seventeen tribes of the Penan declared a 'peace park' covering 163,000 hectares of their ancestral home in order to bring light to their situation and pressure the government to halt plans for logging in the area. The government refused to recognize the status of the peace park and logging is slated to continue.

Few indigenous people have faced more tragedy, despair, and humiliation over the past thirty years than the Penan.

The curse of oil

A battle of a different kind is ongoing in Ecuador. Oil giant Chevron is currently in a $27 billion lawsuit with Ecuadorian indigenous tribes for environmental damage caused by Texaco, a company acquired by Chevron in 2001. In court Texaco has admitted to dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste inside Ecuador's rainforest from 1964-1990. A court expert found contamination at every one of Texaco's former well sites, estimating oil damages 30 times larger than the infamous Exxon-Valdez spill and spanning an area the size of Rhode Island.

The case, known to some as the 'Amazon Chernobyl', involves 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorian plaintiffs. The toxic spill impacted six indigenous tribes, one of which has vanished entirely. The court has found that over 1,400 people have suffered untimely deaths from cancer due to contamination from the oil spill.

World of Avatar: in real life January 13, 2010
A number of media outlets are reporting a new type of depression: you could call it the Avatar blues. Some people seeing the new blockbuster film report becoming depressed afterwards because the world of Avatar, sporting six-legged creatures, flying lizards, and glowing organisms, is not real. Yet, to director James Cameron's credit, the alien world of Pandora is based on our own biological paradise—Earth. The wonders of Avatar are all around us, you just have to know where to look.

Despite these facts, Chevron has gone to great lengths to avoid reparations for environmental damage. In 2008 it was revealed that Chevron hired key political players, including former Senate majority leader Trent Lott and John McCain fund-raiser Wayne Berman to lobby United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab, members of Congress, and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte to threaten suspending US trade preferences with Ecuador until the lawsuit was dropped. But the corporation's attempt to use US political power to disenfranchise 30,000 indigenous people failed.

Then this September Chevron released a video that it said proved Ecuadorian officials, including the presiding judge, were taking bribes on the case. However, the video turned out to be a fake: the business man in the video is in fact a convicted drug felon and another person in the video is an Ecuadorian contractor who has received payments from Chevron. Both the bribe and the bribers in the video were faked and others appearing in the video say the footage was heavily edited. Chevron denies that they were in any way involved in making the video.

The lawsuit has been ongoing since 2003 and a ruling has not yet been made. But Chevron has stated publically that even if it loses the case it won't pay any damages.

"We're not paying and we're going to fight this for years if not decades into the future," according to Chevron spokesman Don Campbell.

This year a documentary Crude detailing the struggle by indigenous people to hold Chevron accountable was released in theatres. Chevron's responded with a PR campaign to disparage the film-maker and the indigenous victims [Editor's note: Chevron's PR efforts included posting comments on mongabay.com articles].

No happy Hollywood ending

Oil and gas blocks in the western Amazon. Solid yellow indicates blocks already leased out to companies. Hashed yellow indicates proposed blocks or blocks still in the negotiation phase. Protected areas shown are those considered strictly protected by the IUCN (categories I to III). Image courtesy of PLoS ONE

While the film Avatar ends with the indigenous aliens securing their home from corporate and military invaders, in reality that outcome is rare. Often these conflicts drag on for decades with the indigenous tribes, despite best efforts, tragically losing their home bit-by-bit. Forests are decimated, biodiversity lost, carbon released into the atmosphere, and the tribe is slowly weakened and destroyed from without, their culture and traditions attacked at the same time as their territory is knocked down.

Despite the repeated unjustness, rarely do these stories reach the mainstream media in the industrial world. Companies act with impunity, devastating forests and homes in part to feed the insatiable appetites of developed and emerging economies for furniture, oil palm, gas, and crude oil.

While Avatar is a fun, showy film that many may view as simple sci-fi entertainment, the film clearly alludes to struggles and injustices that one doesn't need to travel across the galazy to see, but are occurring right here on planet Earth.

France’s Niqab (Veil) Bill Shows Its Blatant Religious Intolerance

France’s Niqab Bill Shows Its Blatant Religious Intolerance

By

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

There was a time in my life when France loomed big in my radar screen of the countries that I needed to visit. In my teenage years, I occasionally met French tourists, mostly college going students. Most of them spoke very little English. And yet that language barrier did not hinder these young French tourists from visiting the new independent state of Bangladesh. They appeared inquisitive and fun-loving.

Years later when I came for my graduate studies in North America, I had few classmates that had come from France. They were good students, not the kind you see amongst today’s French politicians. At the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, one of the externals for my Ph.D. dissertation committee was a French professor who taught instability phenomena in the aerospace engineering department. He was a brilliant man who later returned to France to care for his ailing mother. I also met many French-speaking North African students who had a love-hate relationship with everything French. While they were bitter about their colonial experience, I could see their eyes shine every time they had the opportunity to speak in French, especially with someone from France or the province of Quebec in Canada. While some of us made fun of such unmistakable mood changes amongst our French-speaking friends, which we viewed as a flaw, they would remind us that ‘civilized people speak French and not English.’ There was definitely that nostalgia about being ‘civilized’, in spite of the memories of a bitter past that their parents had to endure against the French colonizers!

While the French Republic gave us the notions of liberty, equality and fraternity, the non-European natives – the colonized people – were never included in that formula. They were for conquer, colonization and carnage. And the French colonizers were a tough bunch -- ruthless killers, criminals and marauders -- who fought tooth and nail before ceasing their control of the former colonies.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second largest in the world behind the British Empire. Its influence made French the fourth-most spoken colonial European language, behind English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The French rule of Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962. Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, known as colons and later, as pieds-noirs (meaning “Black-Foot”). These colonists accounted for ten percent of the population in Algeria, before the country achieved its independence in 1962. In Algeria, the native Muslims were not considered French and did not share the same political or economic benefits as those enjoyed by the pieds-noirs.

Politically, the Muslim Algerians had no representation in the Algerian National Assembly and wielded limited influence in local governance. To obtain citizenship, they were required to renounce their Muslim identity, a bigotry-ridden litmus test, whose ramification in terms of certain Muslim-related legislative measures cannot be overlooked or ignored in today’s so-called secular France. Since this renouncement would constitute apostasy, only about 2,500 Algerian Muslims acquired citizenship before 1930.

Following a French Justice Ministry decree, décret Crémieux, in 1870, all Sephardic Jews -- who had settled in Algeria (Tunisia and Morocco) after the Spanish Inquisition as a welcome gesture from the Ottoman Empire -- quickly became French citizens and came to be regarded by the natives as the pieds-noirs.

Like in other former colonies, the nationalists in Algeria wanted equality, if not liberty, which were denied to them. During a reform effort in 1947, the French government created a bicameral legislature with one house for the Pieds-Noirs and another for the Algerians but made a European’s vote equal seven times a native’s vote. In response, Algerian paramilitary groups such as the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) appeared which demanded independence from the French rule. This led to the outbreak of a war for independence, the Algerian War, in 1954, in which over the next eight years more than a million Algerians were killed by the colonists and the French government.

After General Charles de Gaulle assumed leadership in France in 1958, he attempted peace by visiting Algeria within days of his appointment and by organizing a referendum on January 8, 1961 for Algerian self-determination. The referendum, organized in metropolitan France, passed overwhelmingly. Pieds-noirs viewed this referendum as betrayal and formed the Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) and began attacking institutions representing the French state, Algerians, and de Gaulle himself. They terrorized and tortured the Muslim population of Algeria and bombed places of worship, business, schools and housing. The bloodshed culminated in 1961 during a failed Algiers putsch that was led by retired generals to topple de Gaulle. After this failure, on March 18, 1962 de Gaulle and the FLN signed a cease-fire agreement, the Évian Accords, and held a referendum. In June 1962 the French electorate approved the Evian Accords by an overwhelming 91 percent vote. On July 1, 1962, Algerians voted 5,992,115 to 16,534 to become independent from France. De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country on July 3.

As noted earlier, Algerian independence had been bitterly opposed by the pieds-noirs and many members of the French military, and the anti-independence OAS. A "scorched earth" policy was declared by the OAS to deny French-built development to the future FLN government. This policy climaxed June 7, 1962 as the OAS Delta Commando burned Algiers’ Library, with its 60,000 volumes, and blew up Oran’s town hall, the municipal library, and four schools. In addition the OAS was pursuing a terror-bombing campaign that in May 1962 was killing an estimated 10 to 15 people in Oran daily.

The Evian Accords stipulated that Algerians would be permitted to continue freely circulating between their country and France for work, although they would not have equal political rights to French citizens. It is no surprise that many of the Muslim migrants to France are from Algeria.

After independence of Algeria, many Pieds-Noirs settled in France, while others migrated to New Caledonia, Italy, Spain, Australia, North America, Israel, and South America. As hard-core racists, many of them remain hostile to Muslim migrants in France and elsewhere.

The post-9/11 xenophobia against Muslims in France owes a great deal to racist and bigoted elements within the French society that have not come to terms with their losses in Algeria. They see the Muslims as aliens and unwanted, and would like nothing better than a litmus test, much like the failed attempt in colonial Algeria more than a century ago. To them, the French Muslims must prove their adherence to the French way of life by renouncing their Muslim identity. Interestingly, President Nicolas Sarkozy, a crypto-Jew with roots in Ottoman-ruled Salonika, is at the head of such a xenophobic campaign against Muslims in Europe.

Last week, on July 13 the French lower house of parliament approved a bill banning wearing garments such as the niqab or burqa, which incorporate a full-face veil (with eyes open), anywhere in public. It envisages fines of 150 euros for women who break the law and 30,000 euros and a one-year jail term for men who force their wives to wear the burqa. While the bill is showcased as a touchstone for the Sarkozy administration’s policy of integration, most Muslim women do not fit the stereotype of marginalized, oppressed women. Many of the 2000 niqab-wearers in France are new converts to Islam. They wear it as a choice, as a sign of their modesty, and not out of forced compulsion from anyone. The French bill is opposed to religious freedom and is highly discriminatory. It proscribes what to wear and what not to wear on the streets.

In a BBC interview, a French Muslim woman said, “Liberty means freedom of conscience, of expression.” Would Sarkozy and his justice minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, who said on the eve of Bastille Day that the vote was a “success” for the Republic, ever have the moral courage to listen to those French Muslims -- why they wear it? Can these French legislators, the closet bigots -- I must point out, answer the following questions: what is it about the invisibility of a woman’s face that is so challenging to French identity? What is so important about the niqab that gives the state the right to intervene? As the Guardian editorial wisely noted, “Users of the metro or underground learn instinctively to avoid looking each other in the eye. It is regarded as an intrusion. And yet no state legislature would think about passing a law that bans the wearing of sunglasses indoors on the grounds that it poses a threat to national security. So what is it about the niqab, worn by so few, that threatens so many? And what values, exactly, are being protected?” (July 15)

The French bill banning niqab and burqa has only shown how weak the French society is. It is rotting from within like Holland and Belgium. Rather than fixing its inner weaknesses, it is trying to pass a law that would terrorize a small minority that proudly dons burqa or niqab as their personal choice. France talks about secularism, religious freedom and liberty but the essence of such messages has never penetrated its soul.

Sarkozy and his gang of secular fundamentalists ought to know that they can never expect to be respected for upholding flawed values that promote bigotry, instead of pluralism or multi-culture in a world that is increasingly becoming diverse.

THE PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY IN BRITAIN

THE PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY IN BRITAIN. By James Jones and

Peter Oborne

Author’s Note by Peter Oborne

Every year, in a central London hotel, a very grand lunch is thrown by the Conservative Friends of Israel. It is often addressed by the Conservative leader of the day. Many members of the shadow cabinet make it their business to be there along with a very large number of Tory peers and prospective candidates, while the Conservative MPs present amount to something close to a majority of the parliamentary party. It is a formidable turnout.

This year’s event took place in June, with the main speech by Tory leader David Cameron and shadow foreign secretary William Hague in attendance. The dominant event of the previous twelve months had been the Israeli invasion of Gaza at the start of the year. So I examined Cameron’s speech with curiosity to see how he would handle that recent catastrophe.

I was shocked to see that Cameron made no reference at all to the invasion of Gaza, the massive destruction it caused, or the 1,3701 deaths that had resulted. Indeed, Cameron went out of his way to praise Israel because it “strives to protect innocent life”

I found it impossible to reconcile the remarks made by the

young Conservative leader with the numerous reports of human rights abuses in Gaza. Afterwards I said as much to some Tory MPs. They looked at me as if I was distressingly naive, drawing my attention to the very large number of Tory donors in the audience.

But it cannot be forgotten that so many people died in Gaza at the start of this year. To allow this terrible subject to pass by without comment suggested a failure of common humanity and decency on the part of a man most people regard as the next prime minister.

To praise Israel at the same time for protecting human life showed not merely a fundamental failure of respect for the truth but also it gives the perception, rightly or wrongly, of support for the wretched events which took place in Gaza. That is not to condone or excuse the abhorrent actions of Hamas, but to overlook Israel’s culpability is undoubtedly partisan.

It is impossible to imagine any British political leader showing such equanimity and tolerance if British troops had committed even a fraction of the human rights abuses and war crimes of which Israel has been accused. So that weekend, in my weekly Daily Mail political column, I criticized Cameron’s speech to the CFI, drawing attention to his failure to mention Gaza and his speaking of Israeli respect for the sanctity of human life. Soon I received a letter from Stuart Polak, the longstanding CFI director: “Peter, the snapshot of our lunch concentrating on the businessmen and David’s alleged comments was really unhelpful.” The CFI political director, Robert Halfon, wrote saying that my letter was ‘astonishing’ and accusing me of making a ‘moral equivalence’ between Israel and Iran.

I wrote back to them citing a number of reports by international organizations such as Amnesty International highlighting breaches of codes by the Israeli army. I resolved then to ask the question: what led David Cameron to behave in the way he did at the CFI lunch at the Dorchester Hotel last June? What are the rules of British political behaviour which cause the Tory Party leader and his mass of MPs and parliamentary candidates to flock to the Friends of Israel lunch in the year of the Gaza invasion? And what are the rules of media discourse that ensure that such an event passes without notice?

On a personal note I should say that I have known both Stuart Polak and Robert Halfon for many years and always found them fair-minded and straightforward to deal with. Indeed in the summer of 2007 I went on a CFI trip to Israel led by Stuart Polak.

No pressure was put on me, at the time or later, to write anything in favour of Israel. The trip, which was paid for by the CFI, certainly enabled me to understand much better the Israeli point of view. But we were presented with a very full spectrum of Israeli intellectual and political life, ranging from disturbingly far right pro-settler MPs to liberal intellectuals consumed with doubt about the morality of the Zionist state. The trip was also balanced to a certain extent by a meeting with a leading Palestinian businessman and with the British consul in East Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the job of a political journalist is to try and explain how politics works. Ten years ago I exposed, in an article for The Spectator headlined “The man who owns the Tory Party”, the fact that the controversial offshore financier Michael Ashcroft was personally responsible for the financial 

survival of William Hague’s Conservatives. I asked how legitimate Michael Ashcroft’s contribution was, how much he spent, and did my best to investigate how he used his influence.

Now I want to ask a question that has never been seriously addressed in the mainstream press: is there a Pro-Israel lobby in

Britain, what does it do and what influence does it wield?

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

By James Jones and Peter Oborne

In 2007 two US academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published a study of what they called the US Israel lobby, exploring in particular the connection between the domestic power of the lobby in the United States and US foreign policy.

Read On ...... The Pro-Israel Lobby in Britan

950 Dollars (£636) For The Death Of A 10-year-old Boy, 105 Afghan deaths compensated by UK

The UK has paid compensation for the deaths of more than 100 Afghan civilians last year, Ministry of Defence figures have revealed.

Details of claims and payouts made for people killed and injured in error by British forces emerged in response to a Freedom of Information request made by Channel 4 News as part of an investigation into the issue.

Thousands of pounds were paid to relatives of at least 105 Afghan civilians last year - three times as many as 2008 when there were 33 such payouts.

Compensation included 950 dollars (£636) for the death of a 10-year-old boy in the Nad-e-Ali area of Helmand in December and 6,800 dollars (£4,549) after four children were killed.

The figures also set out compensation for damage to property such as livestock and mobile phones.

Details of the incidents and the exact number of people who died are not always provided in the documents, which in a number of cases refer to "fatalities".

According to the MoD - which accused the Taliban of attacking from densely populated areas to effectively use human shields - payments do not mean UK forces are legally liable.

A spokesman for the MoD said: "Any incident involving civilian casualties is a matter of deep regret, particularly when the actions of international forces may be at fault. We have strict procedures intended to minimise the risk of civilian casualties and to investigate any that occur.

"In contrast, the insurgents often target civilians with their indiscriminate attacks and operate from densely populated areas in order to deliberately draw civilians into the battle.

"Payments are made to recognise the circumstances of each incident and to satisfy cultural and operational circumstances; they do not necessarily mean UK forces are legally liable."

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/uk-ireland/105-afghan-deaths-compensated-by-uk-14855027.html#ixzz0roAllGJq

Human Rights

What Are Human Rights?
Human rights are the rights a person has
simply because he or she is a human being.


Human rights are held by all persons equally, universally, and forever.

Human rights are inalienable: you cannot lose these rights any more than you can cease being a human being.

Human rights are indivisible: you cannot be denied a right because it is "less important" or "non-essential." Human rights are interdependent: all human rights are part of a complementary framework. For example, your ability to participate in your government is directly affected by your right to express yourself, to get an education, and even to obtain the necessities of life.

Another definition for human rights is those basic standards without which people cannot live in dignity. To violate someone’s human rights is to treat that person as though she or he were not a human being. To advocate human rights is to demand that the human dignity of all people be respected.

In claiming these human rights, everyone also accepts the responsibility not to infringe on the rights of others and to support those whose rights are abused or denied

Human Rights as Inspiration and Empowerment 

Human rights are both inspirational and practical. Human rights principles hold up the vision of a free, just, and peaceful world and set minimum standards for how individuals and institutions everywhere should treat people. Human rights also empower people with a framework for action when those minimum standards are not met, for people still have human rights even if the laws or those in power do not recognize or protect them.

We experience our human rights every day in the United States when we worship according to our belief, or choose not to worship at all; when we debate and criticize government policies; when we join a trade union; when we travel to other parts of the country or overseas. Although we usually take these actions for granted, people both here and in other countries do not enjoy all these liberties equally. Human rights violations also occur everyday in this country when a parent abuses a child, when a family is homeless, when a school provides inadequate education, when women are paid less than men, or when one person steals from another.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Rights for all members of the human family were first articulated in 1948 in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Following the horrific experiences of the Holocaust and World War II, and amid the grinding poverty of much of the world’s population, many people sought to create a document that would capture the hopes, aspirations, and protections to which every person in the world was entitled and ensure that the future of humankind would be different. See Part V, "Appendices," for the complete text and a simplified version of the UDHR.

The 30 articles of the Declaration together form a comprehensive statement covering economic, social, cultural, political, and civil rights. The document is both universal (it applies to all people everywhere) and indivisible (all rights are equally important to the full realization of one’s humanity). A declaration, however, is not a treaty and lacks any enforcement provisions. Rather it is a statement of intent, a set of principles to which United Nations member states commit themselves in an effort to provide all people a life of human dignity.

Over the past 50 years the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has acquired the status of customary international law because most states treat it as though it were law. However, governments have not applied this customary law equally. Socialist and communist countries of Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia have emphasized social welfare rights, such as education, jobs, and health care, but often have limited the political rights of their citizens. The United States has focused on political and civil rights and has advocated strongly against regimes that torture, deny religious freedom, or persecute minorities. On the other hand, the US government rarely recognizes health care, homelessness, environmental pollution, and other social and economic concerns as human rights issues, especially within its own borders.

Across the USA, a movement is rising to challenge this narrow definition of human rights and to restore social, economic, and cultural rights to their rightful place on the human rights agenda. The right to eat is as fundamental as the right not to be tortured or jailed without charges!

Source: Adapted from Pam Costain, "Moving the Agenda Forward," Connection to the Americas 14.8 (October 1997): 4.


A Short History of Human Rights[
The belief that everyone, by virtue of her or his humanity, is entitled to certain human rights is fairly new. Its roots, however, lie in earlier tradition and documents of many cultures; it took the catalyst of World War II to propel human rights onto the global stage and into the global conscience.

Throughout much of history, people acquired rights and responsibilities through their membership in a group – a family, indigenous nation, religion, class, community, or state. Most societies have had traditions similar to the "golden rule" of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Hindu Vedas, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, the Bible, the Quran (Koran), and the Analects of Confucius are five of the oldest written sources which address questions of people’s duties, rights, and responsibilities. In addition, the Inca and Aztec codes of conduct and justice and an Iroquois Constitution were Native American sources that existed well before the 18th century. In fact, all societies, whether in oral or written tradition, have had systems of propriety and justice as well as ways of tending to the health and welfare of their members.

Precursors of 20th Century Human Rights Documents 

Documents asserting individual rights, such the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789), and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights (1791) are the written precursors to many of today’s human rights documents. Yet many of these documents, when originally translated into policy, excluded women, people of color, and members of certain social, religious, economic, and political groups. Nevertheless, oppressed people throughout the world have drawn on the principles these documents express to support revolutions that assert the right to self-determination.

Contemporary international human rights law and the establishment of the United Nations (UN) have important historical antecedents. Efforts in the 19th century to prohibit the slave trade and to limit the horrors of war are prime examples. In 1919, countries established the International Labor Organization (ILO) to oversee treaties protecting workers with respect to their rights, including their health and safety. Concern over the protection of certain minority groups was raised by the League of Nations at the end of the First World War. However, this organization for international peace and cooperation, created by the victorious European allies, never achieved its goals. The League floundered because the United States refused to join and because the League failed to prevent Japan’s invasion of China and Manchuria (1931) and Italy’s attack on Ethiopia (1935). It finally died with the onset of the Second World War (1939).

The Birth of the United Nations 

The idea of human rights emerged stronger after World War II. The extermination by Nazi Germany of over six million Jews, Sinti and Romani (gypsies), homosexuals, and persons with disabilities horrified the world. Trials were held in Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, and officials from the defeated countries were punished for committing war crimes, "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity."

Governments then committed themselves to establishing the United Nations, with the primary goal of bolstering international peace and preventing conflict. People wanted to ensure that never again would anyone be unjustly denied life, freedom, food, shelter, and nationality. The essence of these emerging human rights principles was captured in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address when he spoke of a world founded on four essential freedoms: freedom of speech and religion and freedom from want and fear (See Using Human Rights Here & Now). The calls came from across the globe for human rights standards to protect citizens from abuses by their governments, standards against which nations could be held accountable for the treatment of those living within their borders. These voices played a critical role in the San Francisco meeting that drafted the United Nations Charter in 1945.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Member states of the United Nations pledged to promote respect for the human rights of all. To advance this goal, the UN established a Commission on Human Rights and charged it with the task of drafting a document spelling out the meaning of the fundamental rights and freedoms proclaimed in the Charter. The Commission, guided by Eleanor Roosevelt’s forceful leadership, captured the world’s attention.

On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the 56 members of the United Nations. The vote was unanimous, although eight nations chose to abstain.

The UDHR, commonly referred to as the international Magna Carta, extended the revolution in international law ushered in by the United Nations Charter – namely, that how a government treats its own citizens is now a matter of legitimate international concern, and not simply a domestic issue. It claims that all rights are interdependent and indivisible. Its Preamble eloquently asserts that:

[R]ecognition of the inherent dignity and 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 influence of the UDHR has been substantial. Its principles have been incorporated into the constitutions of most of the more than 185 nations now in the UN. Although a declaration is not a legally binding document, the Universal Declaration has achieved the status of customary international law because people regard it "as a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations."

The Human Rights Covenants 

With the goal of establishing mechanisms for enforcing the UDHR, the UN Commission on Human Rights proceeded to draft two treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its optional Protocol and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Together with the Universal Declaration, they are commonly referred to as the International Bill of Human Rights. The ICCPR focuses on such issues as the right to life, freedom of speech, religion, and voting. The ICESCR focuses on such issues as food, education, health, and shelter. Both covenants trumpet the extension of rights to all persons and prohibit discrimination.

As of 1997, over 130 nations have ratified these covenants. The United States, however, has ratified only the ICCPR, and even that with many reservations, or formal exceptions, to its full compliance. (See From Concept to Convention: How Human Rights Law Evolves).

Subsequent Human Rights Documents

In addition to the covenants in the International Bill of Human Rights, the United Nations has adopted more than 20 principal treaties further elaborating human rights. These include conventions to prevent and prohibit specific abuses like torture and genocide and to protect especially vulnerable populations, such as refugees (Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951), women (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1979), and children (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). As of 1997 the United States has ratified only these conventions:

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

The Convention on the Political Rights of Women

The Slavery Convention of 1926

The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

In Europe, the Americas, and Africa, regional documents for the protection and promotion of human rights extend the International Bill of Human Rights. For example, African states have created their own Charter of Human and People’s Rights (1981), and Muslim states have created the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990). The dramatic changes in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America since 1989 have powerfully demonstrated a surge in demand for respect of human rights. Popular movements in China, Korea, and other Asian nations reveal a similar commitment to these principles.

The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations 

Globally the champions of human rights have most often been citizens, not government officials. In particular, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have played a cardinal role in focusing the international community on human rights issues. For example, NGO activities surrounding the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, drew unprecedented attention to serious violations of the human rights of women. NGOs such as Amnesty International, the Antislavery Society, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs, Human Rights Watch, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, and Survivors International monitor the actions of governments and pressure them to act according to human rights principles.

Government officials who understand the human rights framework can also effect far reaching change for freedom. Many United States Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter have taken strong stands for human rights. In other countries leaders like Nelson Mandela and Vaclev Havel have brought about great changes under the banner of human rights.

Human rights is an idea whose time has come. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a call to freedom and justice for people throughout the world. Every day governments that violate the rights of their citizens are challenged and called to task. Every day human beings worldwide mobilize and confront injustice and inhumanity. Like drops of water falling on a rock, they wear down the forces of oppression and move the world closer to achieving the principles expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Source: Adapted from David Shiman, Teaching Human Rights, (Denver: Center for Teaching International Relations Publications, U of Denver, 1993): 6-7.