[co_inspiracion] Fwd: PHM-Exch> Human rights and social justice: the in(di)visible link

From: Mario Parada <mario.parada@xxxxx>
To: co_inspiracion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 08:49:27 -0400
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From: Claudio Schuftan <cschuftan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 2013/8/6
Subject: PHM-Exch> Human rights and social justice: the in(di)visible link
To: phm-exchange <phm-exchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


From: Luke Holland <lholland@xxxxxxxx>


HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: THE IN(DI)VISIBLE LINK


http://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/ignacio-saiz-alicia-ely-yamin/human-rights-and-social-justice-indivisible-link


CESR Executive Director Ignacio Saiz and CESR Chairperson Alicia Yamin
challenge outdated notions regarding human rights and social justice in an
Open Democracy op-ed article

*
*

Aryeh Neier, formerly of Open Society, affirms that the pursuit of social
justice is not an appropriate goal of a human rights organization, arguing
that human rights is concerned with restraints on the exercise of power
whereas social justice is concerned with the redistribution of wealth and
resources.


Human rights and social justice are not synonymous. But the distinction
that Neier draws between the two concepts is based on a questionable
characterization of both, as well as on a drastically limited notion of
what constitutes “power.” Human rights are defined in a way that renders
economic, social and cultural rights completely invisible. As the
international community marks the 20th anniversary of the Vienna
Declaration<http://viennaplus20.wordpress.com/>,
which unequivocally affirmed the indivisibility and equal importance of all
human rights, there can be little credible basis for asserting that civil
and political freedoms are the deserving “core” of the human rights agenda.
Since Vienna, outdated arguments regarding the non-justiciability of
economic and social rights, their vague or exclusively programmatic nature,
and the impossibility of measuring progress have all been significantly
eroded through practice.


The Center for Economic and Social Rights is part of a generation of
international human rights organizations born after the end of the Cold War
to challenge injustice in the economic and social sphere from a holistic
human rights perspective. Its mission was shaped by the realities of
globalization and the chronic persistence of poverty and widening social
inequality despite the democratic transitions of the 80s and 90s. In this
context, the human rights movement could not just concern itself with
constraining abusive interference by the state in individual civil
liberties. Protecting human rights involved bolstering the state’s capacity
to rein in the unbridled power of market forces, and ensuring its
institutions were equipped to protect the enjoyment of human rights from
infringements by private actors, such as Chevron/Texaco in
Ecuador<http://www.cesr.org/section.php?id=20>or Shell Oil in
Nigeria <http://www.cesr.org/section.php?id=39>, as well as to fulfil a
series of positive obligations necessary for people to live lives of
dignity.


From its inception in 1993, CESR has articulated its mission as promoting
“social justice through human rights”, reflecting the goal of transforming
the social and international order in which all human rights can be fully
realized (in the language of Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights). As human rights advocates focusing on economic and social
rights, we have had to address the unfair distribution of resources which
fuels deprivation and inequality within and between societies, and is doing
so all the more blatantly in the wake of the global economic crisis. It is
clear to us, as well as to an ever-growing number of people in the human
rights field, that human rights advocacy must be concerned with
distributive justice, as well as palliative retributive justice, which does
not transform underlying structures of power in society.



Today, there are powerful reminders all around us that human rights and
social justice aspirations are inseparable. From the ongoing turmoil in
Egypt, to the protests over public services in Brazil or austerity in
Europe, the same frustration is being voiced that democratic freedoms do
not in themselves lead to more just societies unless accompanied by fairer
social and economic governance.



This does not mean, of course, that all human rights organizations should
address the full panoply of human rights. It is perfectly valid for
organizations to focus on aspects of the agenda suited to their
competencies and traditional *modus operandi*. But methodology can also
adapt to mission, rather than vice versa. The experience of organizations
such as CESR shows that is possible to develop effective and rigorous
methods to document abuses of economic and social rights, attribute
responsibilities for specific breaches of human rights standards and press
for accountability, much as organizations like Human Rights Watch do in the
civil and political rights sphere. Exposing the injustice behind more
systemic policy failures – for example, building the evidence that high
rates of preventable maternal death in
Angola<http://www.cesr.org/section.php?id=50>or
Guatemala<http://www.cesr.org/downloads/assessing.fiscal.policies.from.a.human.rights.perspective.pdf>are
linked to inequitable allocation of resources, or that post-crisis
austerity measures in
Ireland<http://www.cesr.org/downloads/cesr.ireland.briefing.12.02.2012.pdf>and
Spain <http://www.cesr.org/article.php?id=1287> are discriminatory and
retrogressive – has required developing new
methods<http://www.cesr.org/downloads/new_horizons_final_report.pdf>for
rights-based monitoring and advocacy. These include quantitative tools
(marshalling statistical evidence using indicators, benchmarks and indices)
and techniques such as budget and tax analysis to assess whether resources
are allocated and generated in line with human rights principles.


These approaches, which demand a more interdisciplinary range of skills,
have been married with traditional techniques of human rights advocacy, as
well as with various forms of social mobilization, to powerful effect.
There is considerable
evidence<http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780979639555>that
human rights research, policy advocacy and litigation, particularly
when associated with social movement mobilization, have been successful in
many different contexts in challenging economic and social injustices, from
the denial of access to life-saving medical treatment to starvation deaths
resulting from dysfunctional food schemes. Experience has shown that for
human rights advocacy to bring about change in the sphere of economic and
social policy, accountability must be pursued in a variety of different
forms and venues, from courtrooms to boardrooms, newsrooms, classrooms,
living rooms and on the streets.  The most durable and transformative
change comes about when judicial challenges and policy advocacy aimed at
decision-making elites has been part of a broader strategy enabling social
justice movements to deploy the tools of human rights advocacy in ways
adapted to their particular context.  For this reason, economic and social
rights organizations have made it a priority to forge links with social
movements<http://www.escr-net.org/our-work/social-movements-and-grassroots-groups>and
grassroots groups, working with them to devise tools and strategies
for
accountability and to support their efforts to localize and “vernacularize”
human rights claims*. *


What this debate drives home is that human rights organizations are far
from homogenous. They vary greatly in mission, methods, approaches to
partnership and levels of resources. While each organization is at liberty
to define its mandate based on where it perceives it can make a difference,
those with the greatest reach and profile must guard against undermining
the efforts of others to promote a more comprehensive and transformative
understanding of what human rights mean.



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[co_inspiracion] Fwd: PHM-Exch> Human rights and social justice: the in(di)visible link

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