March 12, 1992
In December, America celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. While the
Bill of Rights allows Americans to take many human rights for granted, not every country
has a Bill of Rights. Outside the US, human rights have been a high-priced commodity.
With the changing lines on the world's maps and the remaking of Eastern Europe,
however, it may well finally be the time to take an optimistic look at the future of
international human rights. As the politics of the world have experienced change, a new
role for human rights has emerged.
Prior to the recent changes in South Africa and Eastern Europe, the situation was grim.
The Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, Stalin's purges, apartheid in South Africa, dying
infants in Rumania, and the massacre in Tianamen Square... The state of human rights
seemed to reach an all time low.
But like a tidal wave, change is washing away much of the torture, the killings, the
horrors. Former victims of human rights abuses now head the governments that at one time
tortured them, as is the case with Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia (Amnesty Intertnational
1989 Report).
The scope of changing human rights is far reaching and very positive. Peace has finally
been achieved in the long-standing civil war in El Salvador. Arabs and Israelis have sat
down to talk. South African President F. W. De Klerk received an overwhelming
"yes" vote in support of his reforms to end apartheid. (All from New York Times,
Baltimore Sun, and World News Tonight)
Today marks a new future for basic human rights. Serious steps are being taken every
day worldwide. This past week Russia, a former human rights violator, appealed to the
United Nations Human Rights Committee for a stricter international policy on sanctions
against human rights violators. In Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev went as
far as to suggest that a human rights police force be assembled in order to actively
protect the rights of individuals worldwide. (New York Times and Baltimore Sun, week of
Feb. 2)
However, all has not been overcome. In the same week, Chinese Foreign Ministry accused
the United States of mingling in their internal affairs when the US State Department cited
the Chinese government for systematic violation of basic human rights in an annual report
on human rights. (Amnesty International Monthly Mailing Breifs, New York Times) The
violators of human rights are having to go deeper underground to avoid the relash of
international opinion.
Today the international trend seems to lean towards a growing universality of human
rights as a given. Although there are still areas that need to be convinced of these basic
inalienable rights, the world has reason to cheer at the recent progress and positive
change, and can use this energy to keep the momentum for positive change forging ahead.