Pierre Sane

On the World Economic Forum

Sane: This is the forum of business and government. NGOs and trade unions have managed to get invitations to come to the table. It was interesting though that the speech of the President of Switzerland highlighted human rights as the priority of the 21st century - and I think this is all the more opportunity when we look at the crisis in Asia.

Sane: The crisis in Asia is due in large part to a lack of transparency. The crisis in Asia will certainly tomorrow lead to repression and human rights violations because the question will be: Who is going to pay for the crisis? And workers will certainly resist attempts to cut their living standards in order to bail out the banks. That is not yet on the agenda, but it is certainly coming - which shows that the link between economic processes and human rights largely understood is something that has to be part of the thinking of those who are leading this process of globalization. In other words, there cannot be any sustainable globalization without universalization of human rights.

Sane: We hear that governments have lost power and the new actors in the economic field do not have as much responsibility to step in and fill the void that has been created by the disempowerment basically, of the state. But to a certain extent this lack of power is something that has been planned, something that has been decided. It’s a policy that has been implemented. Deregulation is something that has been implemented, decided as a policy by the governments. The governments have pushed for this new neo-liberalism dogma. So we cannot accept that they have lost the power to insure that as economic processes go on, the responsibility for human rights protection and human rights promotion somehow has to go to other actors.

Now having said that, all individuals and all organs in society have a responsibility to protect and promote human rights. Business cannot just milk the fruit of globalization without sharing in the responsibility to insure that this will be sustainable-- that is why we have engaged in a critical dialogue with business to discuss with them their own understanding of the responsibilities that they have; to discuss with them their own understanding of the action they can take - vis á vis their workers but also vis a vis the purity in which they operate; to work together with government to enhance the protection of human rights in the countries in which they are making these huge profits.

Sane: I participated in a roundtable earlier today entitled "NGOs - Partners or Meddlers," (non-governmental organizations) from the perspective of corporations. We want to engage business in a critical dialogue - what does it mean? It means that we want to make them recommendations that will assist them in fulfilling their responsibilities under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But at the same time, we are telling them that if they don't uphold those responsibilities we will expose them and we will campaign industry to insure that their image in the public, which is more and more instrumental in assisting them getting an edge over their competitors, that their image in the public will be tainted by their record in faraway countries.

It is a dialogue we have started. Obviously it has risks and opportunities. The risk for us is to make sure we are not co-opted and human rights are not instrumentalized in the pursuit of profit. We do not expect business to become a human rights defender. We know that if business adopts a human rights language and behavior it will be as a means to the long-term objective of securing greater and greater profits.

For us, human rights is an end, it’s an absolute. So there is a journey that we can go together. There are some tactical alliances that we can develop. But we are perfectly conscious that tactical alliances may break when business realizes that the enhancement of human rights enjoyment becomes an obstacle to the realization of greater and greater profits.

Sane: Yes well, if there is one influential actor in Nigeria -- if there is one body that General Kabasha will listen to and return their phone calls, it’s probably Shell Oil. Therefore we cannot accept the statement that Shell cannot engage in human rights issues in Nigeria because it will be political interference. Shell obviously engages in issues that have to do with environmental laws in the country, that have to do with labor laws, that have to do with laws regulation transfer of profit, etc. -- and with all those engagements it is influencing the Nigerian government when it comes to it’s policies -- economic policies, political policies, etc. So therefore, we don’t see why -- when it comes to human rights -- suddenly it becomes political and Shell cannot engage in that kind of debate with the Nigerian government. Shell did take up the environmental issue because of pressure that organizations like Greenpeace exercised on the company. It is now the turn of the human rights organizations to move on and exercise the same type of pressure because that is the only way we can get companies to meet their responsibility.

Sane: Amnesty’s position is that first the issue is not trade or human rights, or trade and then maybe human rights tomorrow. It is human rights period. If you are engaging in trade relations with a government, you have to pursue at the same time a human rights agenda. If you decide for whatever reasons not to engage in trade with a particular country, you still have to pursue a human rights agenda because that is part of your universal responsibilities. So we do not promote sanctions, we do not oppose sanctions. We promote and we push for responsibilities of everyone, and especially those who have the power -- that is big companies -- to contribute to an international human rights order.

Sane: That’s what we are saying. We are not saying it is wrong to trade with China. We are not saying that is right not to trade with China. We are saying that whether you are trading with China or not, you have to push for human rights agenda in China. So for us the issue, there is a problem with the way the issue is presented -- that is, if you stop trading that means you are for human rights in China and if you start trading, you are against human rights in China. The issue is presented at times in a very simplistic way because the fact the you stop trading with China will not remove your responsibility when it comes the human rights of the Chinese people.

Sane: Amnesty has been adjusting its mandate since the beginning of the organization, and we have agreed in our last council meeting in Cape Town last month, that the promotion of social and economic rights and cultural rights should be even more preeminent in the work of Amnesty International. It has been part of our work in the field of human rights education, but we have now decided for the sake of giving substance to our belief in the indivisibility of human rights, for the sake of giving substance to the belief, that you cannot have universality of human rights if at the same time you don't have indivisibility of human rights -- freedom from fear and freedom from want are the two hands of the same body. We have been working on pushing one side probably to the detriment -- at least in terms of visibility -- of the other side. So we have decided to give it -- certainly more visibility -- because what are confronting today is a world where poverty is on the increase and poverty leads to powerlessness.

Sane: Yes, and what we are seeing in the new human rights movement - because actually human rights predates economic globalization -- and I think that was the foresight of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They said when they were drafting the Declaration that these rights have to be universally applied if we want to live in a world of peace and justice. They cannot just be applied in certain parts of the world. And therefore, unless globalization proceeds with a determination to implement human rights standards everywhere in the world, we are going to face catastrophes.

Sane: The Universal Declaration is a document around which those who have fought against colonialism, against racism, against apartheid, derive their legitimacy -- and allowed them to claim a higher moral edge over their oppressors. The world community came together and agreed that in order to avoid the atrocities that were committed during the Second World War, in order to avoid genocide, in order to avoid mass destruction, there was a need to implement certain minimum standards of civilized behavior on how the governments deal with their citizens. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been at the origin of several conventions and treaties, which today have formed the corpus of international human rights law. Those governments who have developed these laws, when they are violating human rights they are breaking the laws that they themselves have created. The only thing that we do -- that we continue to do -- is remind them their responsibility is to put the mirror in front of them.

So the Universal Declaration is very important. The governments have failed because they have not disseminated the declaration. So many, many people do not know about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or have not read it, but in the Declaration -- in signing it, the government did commit themselves to disseminate it and to educate people about it. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is today the best-kept secret in the world. And that is why during the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration, we want to disseminate as many copies of the document in as many languages as possible because when you know about your rights, that’s really the beginning of liberation. Secondly, the Declaration has given rise to several treaties and conventions which governments have by and large not just failed to ratify, but have failed to implement. We have therefore a body of law which points us in the right direction -- the only thing we have to do is to walk towards that direction and put continuous pressure on the government to meet the obligations that they themselves have enacted. So yes, the Declaration is extremely important for us. It’s the manifesto for the human rights movement. Like it says in the declaration itself, it is the foundation for peace and justice in the world.

Sane: Amnesty is the antidote to despair. Today people have the impression with all the atrocities that they are seeing every day on television, that they are powerless to change the current situation. They think that the forces that are so powerful - big companies, some powerful governments, that there is actually very little they can do as individuals. And what we are saying, we are saying that it is not true. We are saying that we can change this world for the better. But for that we need certain principles - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - we need objectives, assuring an international human rights order - we need commitment and we need action. Action at the individual level, and action collectively. And throughout the history of Amnesty International, we have demonstrated that we can achieve certain results. We have demonstrated that we can have small victories. We cannot change the world overnight, but it is those small victories that will give people the confidence that if they are determined, if they are organized, they can change it for the better. And that is the kind of hope that Amnesty gives to people, and that is the invitation it extends to people, especially the young generation.

Sane: Well I guess each individual member of Amnesty will have a different motivation because of personal circumstances, because of their education, because of religion, because of encounters, etc., so it’s very difficult to generalize. For me, I have always worked in the field of human rights, be it in development, socio-economic rights and allocation of poverty, or civil political rights. That is being extended to cover socio-economic rights. I feel that for me, the best contribution really I can make -- because I feel that this is why we are here in this world, to contribute something -- is to work towards a world where you will have respect for everybody -- where the worth of a human being will be the supreme value. And being an African, being a black person and coming from a society whose history --since the encounter with Europe -- has been a history of systematic denial of basic rights through slavery, colonialism, etc., I certainly want to make sure that the world I leave to my children is better than the world in which my grandparents are living in, and better than the world in which I am living in. So, it’s for their freedom. So to a certain extent, it is also selfish in terms of future generations of Africans, and future generations of minorities underprivileged, all those who are discriminated against.

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