Hi moses,
I do not agree with a fundamental principle in amnesty, and I suppose this will make you happy. I don't agree with the notion of universality, and amnesty wants it to be fundamental. That is basically the difference you are citing; and I agree 100%.
At times it plays into my African work: demanding notions of universal application of law in rwanda after the genocide made no sense. There are probably often examples that can be multiplied on and on.
I might look for other words to describe this human rights work. While recognizing the need to create a local form of justice, we need the Kantian imperative in some sense.
For instance, gachacha courts in Rwanda after the genocide—and I do not mean the trc court in s Africa—struck me as an excellent mechanism. Amnesty wanted legal standards to be observed, that you might demand in a western legal framework, and I opposed that notion.
So I can say I agree completely with you. But, but, there are two more considerations that need to come into play. First, the amnesty international or human rights watch, or other groups like them (PEN or human rights first, etc) are really necessary if we are to have any traction against abusive governments., they won't attend to our complaints about their abuses otherwise.
And the notion that these hr groups are all western is misplaced, for lots of reasons. They have centers now in Africa; they are populated by African directors and workers who are the experts, etc etc. amnesty has directed considerable energy to oppose abuses in the west, and esp in the u.s.
But it was wrong about gachacha in demanding universal application of legal principles derived from universal legal frameworks.
Here is my second caveat: the gachacha courts, good initially, became instruments of the govt, turned away from their initial charges and wound up charging just those deemed oppositional to the govt, refused to charge tutsis for their crimes, became politicized after about a year.
At that point an organization like amnesty or hrw was needed to assess the situation and to try to bring pressure on the govt. in fact, we have almost no pressure to bring to kagame who is completely authoritarian.
And consider his opposite, nkurunzima, an old school autocrat.
Basically amnesty is supposed to be neutral, apolitical, and I agree with you and biko that that is not really possible.
But in this imperfect world, it is best we have onhand, and the alternative ideals are dead ends.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "meochonu@gmail.com" <meochonu@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday 25 April 2018 at 14:27
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - human rights issues
Lucky you (MSU) to have Albie Sachs on your campus. I hear you on the points you raised, but let me say this. Issues of origin and unequal application of human rights conventions aside, do you not take seriously the more fundamental theoretical, conceptual, and philosophical question of different cultural constructions of rights (individual vs community, etc) and of how violations of those rights should be addressed (retributive vs restorative justice)?
Are these not first order issues to be resolved before one proceeds to enforcing or bureaucratizing human rights conventions across contexts?
On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 11:33 AM, Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
Hi all
In a recent thread, where I was inveighing against torture and human rights abuses, moses ochonu spoke to the Eurocentric issues involved in basing an argument on enlightenment values, and instruments like the un conventions on human rights.
He is right that those notions were framed during the enlightenment in states that sanctioned slavery, although we could trace notions of human rights law back to the ancient period.
He is right that the ideals were contradicted by actual practice.
But I do not want to concede that they are not crucial for Africa, or anywhere else, no matter how imperfectly they are administrated. The international criminal court has indeed focused on African miscreants, although the Balkan leaders came in for their knocks too.
But I would want to argue that regardless of their original, they are absolutely crucial for us, today, in any country.
In my university, albie sachs is about to visit. The announcement says,
We are writing to offer you and your students a rare opportunity to meet one of the keenest legal minds in South Africa and arguably one of the most important architects of its 1994 post-apartheid Constitution. On Friday, May 4, we have arranged a faculty-student conversation with Albie Sachs, retired judge and author, who will be on campus to accept an honorary degree from Michigan State at the Spring Commencement celebration. Please share this invitation with your colleagues and students interested in Southern Africa, human rights, restorative justice and constitutional law.
Albie was one of the architects for the legal instruments that gave us one of th most progressive constitutions in the world, that of south Africa.
Regardless of how one thinks about gender issue, sexual orientation, individual rights, the limits on the state, etc., this constitution is the essence of what should be adopted everywhere, and it matters very little that it was framed in south Africa rather than in another country.
I would not call rights universal, but general; not god-given, but human crafted, and therefore in need of constant revision given changing needs and times.
But, but, who would argue that torture, extrajudicial killings, and the like ought to be banned?
That the laws are applied unequally doesn't mean we abandon the ideal of applying it, but that we fight for the long run to institute them.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
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