Loong Wong
Human rights are universal
In April, Asian governments adopted a common position to be taken to the World Conference on Human Rights currently being held in Vienna. While reaffirming a commitment to the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the "Bangkok Declaration" set out a catalogue of qualifications and escape clauses.
The Bangkok Declaration is based on the view that development must take precedence over human rights. The Asian governments reason that implementation of economic and social rights is impossible in the absence of a relatively large supply of goods and services, and many civil and political rights are seen to be of questionable subjective significance in conditions of gross underdevelopment.
However, there is no guarantee that a well-developed economy will protect the powerless and less well off. The need for economic development should not override such rights as freedom from physical abuse and civil liberties. Human rights are inseparable and interdependent, and any development strategy that denies these rights negates the very concept of development.
In his address to the Bangkok conference, S. Wiryono, the head of the Indonesian delegation, suggested that critics of Asian governments' stance on human rights merely seek to impose western values. The conference asserted that there is a culturally specific "Asian" concept of human rights which differs from the "western" ideal. But this argument is clearly not plausible. The struggle for human rights is going on in all societies and is hardly a recent "western" invention.
Individuals all over the world have been detached from their traditional ties with their local communities through the spread of global capitalism.
"Original culture" does not exist in a pristine state anywhere (if it ever did), and the international culture of human rights has emerged as the natural response to changing conditions.
It is also not true that all cultures create equally valid patterns of human behaviour. To argue so
would mean that practices like infanticide, head-hunting and suttee within a culturally distinct group of people are worthy of respect by another. It is also not true that moral claims from outside a culture have no validity within it.
It was also argued at Bangkok that the campaign for compliance with international conventions and the monitoring of human rights abuses in Asia is intervention in the internal affairs of nations and transgression of their sovereignty. But sovereignty — which used to be synonymous with the power of absolute monarchs — has come to be seen as reflecting the will of the people through popular choice and participation.
Asian non-government organisations (NGOs) have charged their governments with avoiding their human rights obligations and have argued that human rights are of universal concern. In a statement released before the Bangkok Declaration was issued, the NGOs pointed out that international solidarity for the human rights struggle in Asia "cannot be considered to be an encroachment" on national sovereignty.
Asian governments have criticised western countries for pointing to human rights abuses in Asia, arguing that such scrutiny is politically motivated. They rightly claim that international economic and political arrangements work against the people of Asia, creating, perpetuating and in some cases aggravating poverty and thus hindering the "full enjoyment of human rights".
But notwithstanding these inequalities, and regardless of the motives of critics, all people should be guaranteed human rights. The principles of human rights provide a context through which social, economic and political changes can be mediated and negotiated. These principles have to be monitored and upheld. Asian governments should be no exception.
[Dr Loong Wong teaches politics at Deakin University.]