Western hypocrisy on human rights

Bereket Gebru

Numerous western governments and NGOs produce reports on human rights conditions in countries all around the world. These reports generally label the developing world as major violators of human rights while depicting the developed as the guardians of these rights all across the world. The passing of bills such as HR 128 by the U.S. senate also comes to mind when discussing the self-perception of western governments and their opinions about the rest of the world on matters of human rights.   

Although human rights conditions in developing countries are generally bad considering the lower economic conditions and more non-inclusive political environments in these countries, the reports do not show the trend across the spectrum of issues human rights incorporate. They might present the state of arbitrary detention in a developing country over a short period of time, for instance, but they do not make a long time analysis of the condition of the right to form and join trade unions or the right to adequate living standard in the face of austerity measures in the developed world.

These reports generally deal with common issues such as: freedom of expression, association and assembly; arbitrary detention and ill-treatment; conduct of security forces; freedom of the media, etc. Such issues make up the political section of human rights. However, there are economic and social rights that do not get addressed in these reports that are hugely implicative of the alleged great role played by governments in the developing world towards human rights violations. These long list of rights incorporated in the articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) are just ignored because they would expose the harsh realities of the neoliberal international system they are trying to promote.

I would imagine that an extensive and complete report on human rights would deal with the state of each of the 30 articles of the UDHR. Every country, regardless of their development stages, fails short of fulfilling all of the articles. By dealing only with a selected section of the universal declaration of human rights, therefore, the western reports manage to depict a grim image of human rights conditions in the developing world while camouflaging their own embarrassments systematically.

That approach thus makes me question their staunch allegiance to human rights promotion. The constant emphasis of human rights violations and intentional omission of better human rights conditions in the developing world along with the systematic avoidance of deteriorating human rights conditions in the developing world make these reports untrustworthy. Had they been interested in progresses made towards ensuring the protection of human rights in all countries around the world, though, they would have dealt with the topic more seriously and comprehensively.

To provide a clear picture of how a comprehensive approach to analyzing human rights conditions would favor the current torrid image of developing countries, let me use a factual inclusion that I used before.

Generally speaking, the achievement of rapid economic growth that transcends to development translates to better conditions for the protection of human rights. Accordingly, Ethiopia has been experiencing a double digit growth for the last one and half decades mounting itself at the helm of the fastest growing countries in the world.  

Consequently, this sustained rapid economic growth registered in the country has created much more favorable conditions for human rights protection. Through the use of micro and small enterprises, for example, the economic growth has generated millions of jobs for the unemployed productive section of society. In so doing, those who have become employed would enjoy better living standards and health conditions, which in turn mean improvements in the right to desirable work and to join trade unions along with the right to adequate living standard.

Similarly, raising the gross enrolment rate of primary education to about 97% and register double and triple fold access to secondary and tertiary education to citizens does a lot of justice to ensuring the right to education. As access to quality education also contributes to one’s hopes of landing a desirable work, that right also gets better protected along the way. The same moves can also be taken as investments in promoting the right to adequate living standard.

The tremendous achievements in disseminating health services to small villages and large cities alike in Ethiopia also has its share in alleviating the right to life and the right to adequate living standards in the country. Saving millions of lives of children by getting them access to health services and reducing the child mortality rate by two-thirds would definitely help ensure the right to life of this group of society.

Though there obviously are various activities being undertaken in Ethiopia that would directly or indirectly help improve human rights in the country, western human rights reports only prefer to narrow things down to isolated cases of breach and legal measures on those suspected of committing acts of crime under the country’s laws.

By comparison, let’s consider what the inclusion of an additional article would mean for a human rights report about the U.S. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights deals with the right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions.

A March, 2015 article entitled “The rise and fall of US labor unions, and why they still matter” states: “the US labor movement was once the core institution fighting for average workers. Over the last half century, its ranks have been decimated. The share of the private sector workforce that is organized has fallen from 35% to approximately 6.5% today (2015).

In dealing with the reason for this sharp fall of the labor unions, Richard Wolff noted in his article “Organized labor’s decline in the US is well-known. But what drove it?” that big business, Republicans and conservatives had developed a coordinated strategy to break up labor unions as far back as the late 1940s. He then wrote: “They would break up the coalition of organized labor, socialist and communist parties.

The article entitled “The rise and fall of US labor unions, and why they still matter” states that “U.S employers developed a set of legal, semi-legal and illegal practices that proved effective at ridding establishments of existing unions and preventing nonunion workers from organizing. It also gives a detailed account of the actions taken to weaken existing unions and blocking workers’ organization into unions.

With the last major piece of federal legislation aiding unions in their organization efforts passed back in 1935 along with political blockade of recent (2008-9) efforts to pass an Employee Free Choice Act, the U.S. government has effectively weakened trade unions and made it hard for workers to organize. Accordingly, it has infringed on the human rights of millions of its citizens. The fall of U.S labor unions has been raised by the article entitled “The rise and fall of US labor unions, and why they still matter” to be the root cause of the growth of economic and political inequality, stalled progress on racial integration and the removal of an established pathway for immigrant populations to assimilate economically.” With further effects of the fall of the unions, the U.S can be liable for the violation of other articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights such as: right to equality, freedom from discrimination, right of peaceful assembly and association, right to participate in government and free elections, right to adequate living standard and right to participate in the cultural life of community.  

As has been demonstrated above, the consideration of an article not normally incorporated in the human rights reports of western governmental and non-governmental organizations would expose the intentional economic, political and social discrimination these governments impose over certain groups in their societies.

By adopting a comprehensive approach for human rights reports, therefore, the currently concealed transgressions of western countries against human rights in and outside of their countries would be exposed smearing their relatively clean records with dirt. On the other hand, the same move would give developing countries the chance to redeem themselves through socially beneficial pro-poor acts they have carried out. That would create a scenario where the harsh economic and political conditions in the western world would reflect badly on the state of human rights in those states while the growth in regions like Africa would spell brighter day for people in those regions.

Sounds about right considering just the facts but that could be one hard pill to swallow in some regions of the world so obsessed with looking down on others. The shortcomings in economic and political human rights are, after all, an important alibi for western governments to rationalize their policy of aid to the developing world. Despite the latter’s insistence on trade and investment, western countries have showed their resilience to stick to an aid strategy that helps them promote their policies and engulf recipients with debt.

So, how can they imagine themselves being portrayed as having gross human rights violations that are somehow not as extremely contrasted to those in the developing world? What would the realization of these glaring problems lead to in their societies? So, I dare the western countries and their NGOs to come up with comprehensive human rights reports that honestly look into each of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in both the developing and developed world.