Human Rights and Diplomatic Action (Folha de S. Paulo, September 9th, 2011)

 

In view of the events of the Arab Spring, we have expressed our solidarity with the social mobilization for greater freedom of speech and political and institutional progress in countries under authoritarian rule. Both in the UN Security Council and in the UN Human Rights Council, we have condemned the human rights violations committed by the Libyan and Syrian regimes.

 

While ensuring that our commitment to the values that define us as a nation will carry over to our diplomatic actions, Brazil has always worked to strengthen multilateralism, in general, and the United Nations in particular.

 

The U.N. is the key body for making decisions that have a global reach, particularly those pertaining to international peace and security and coercive actions, which include sanctions and the use of force.

 

Military actions that are not legitimized by the UN Security Council are often prone to become a factor for instability, violence and human rights violations on a broad scale, as demonstrated by the military intervention in Iraq. These actions also undermine the credibility of the international mechanisms endorsed by the international community as a whole.

 

We should not forget that the first and foremost human right is the right to life. The primary obligation of the international community when faced with a crisis situation is to prevent tensions from escalating. Whenever violence spreads, the first to fall victim are those who are the most vulnerable, such as children, women, the elderly, and the disabled.

 

In addition to defending the legality of our coercive actions vis-à-vis the UN charter and international law, we must always employ appropriate measures keeping in sight our ultimate goals, i.e. promoting democracy, human rights, protecting the civilian population, creating stability that will generate opportunities for economic and social progress.

 

A strong international order does not benefit from unrestrained interpretations of UN Security Council mandates. And whenever the international order is weakened, those who are the most vulnerable will suffer the most. As well stated by Professor Richard Falk, from Princeton University, in an interview to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo: In Libya’s case, there was a gap between what was authorized by the Security Council and the actions undertaken by NATO.

 

The relationship between promoting international peace and security and protecting human rights has evolved significantly over the last few decades after the United Nations was established in 1945. One cannot say for certain that this evolution, albeit positive in general, was the work of a group of countries, in particular.

 

It was the result of a clash of ideas in which those who were more powerful militarily were not necessarily at the forefront of the calls for justice and equality. I recall that the first drafts of the UN charter included very few references to human rights, for reasons that today may seem surprising.

 

Robert C. Hildebrand, who provided an account of the UN charter negotiations in his book "Dumbarton Oaks," attributes it to the fact that the United States was worried about being questioned on racial segregation that was still in effect there and the concerns of the United Kingdom that its sovereignty over its vast colonial empire would be challenged, which effectively happened.

 

The struggle against apartheid provides an eloquent example of joint action on the part of the developing world against practices that go against human dignity. When the issue was taken before the UN Security Council, the objections to the application of sanctions against the minority regime in South Africa were raised by the Western countries that were permanent members of the UNSC.

 

Since the UN charter was adopted, the relationship between promoting human rights and ensuring international peace has gone through various phases. It was paralyzed as a result of the ideological rivalry during the Cold War and benefited from the short-lived international consensus of the immediate post-Cold War period and from the international actions to repel Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

 

By the mid-1990’s, some voices were raised, motivated by the fair goal of preventing that inaction on the part of the international community would allow bloody episodes such as those in Bosnia and the genocide in Rwanda, thus forging the concept of "the responsibility to protect."

 

Even though collective responsibility must not necessarily translate into coercive actions in order to be effective, voices that were particularly in favor of intervention and military action emerged in the West continue to spur controversy and debate.

 

As we know, the UN Charter provides for the possibility of using coercive actions, based on procedures that include the veto power of the five current permanent members of the UN Security Council, the body entrusted with the primary and nontransferable duties of maintaining international peace and security.

 

The incorporation of the responsibility to protect into United Nations directives must thus include the understanding that, under certain specific situations, human rights violations imply a threat to peace and security.

 

For Brazil, it is essential that the international community, while carrying out the responsibility of protecting life through military means, be able to rely on the appropriate multilateral mandates and comply with yet another principle: that of ‘responsibility while protecting.’ The use of force must only be considered as a last resort.

 

Skipping steps and hastening the use of coercive actions go against the rationale of international law and the UN Charter. If our ultimate goals include the unwavering defense of human rights as a universal and indivisible principle, as enshrined in the Vienna Conference of 1993, Brazilian actions must be decided on a case by case basis, with a rigorous analysis of the circumstances and the most effective means to deal with each specific situation.

 

There is no room for simplistic generalizations or rhetorical convenience in establishing human rights policies that are consistent.