January
11, 2015
Rights
and Dignity in an Interdependent World
Leading
legal scholar provides hopeful insights on the state of international
human rights
 On November 13, Dr. Payam
Akhavan of McGill University, shared his expertise in the field of
international human rights in a public lecture at the University of
Ottawa entitled “Human Rights in Decline? Redefining Dignity in a World
of Extremes.” The event was jointly hosted by the University of
Ottawa’s Centre
for International Policy Studies, the Philippe
Kirsh
Institute and the Ottawa Bahá’í Community. The large
crowd was engaged
by Akhavan’s ability to provide fresh perspectives on the questions of
human rights, illustrated with historical examples and his extensive
personal experience in precedent-setting international human
rights
tribunals. Many left with a sense that indeed there was cause for hope
and encouragement in the global progress of human rights.
Throughout his talk, Akhavan emphasized the fact that we are all
increasingly aware of the interdependent nature of our world.
Globalization has its dark sides, but it also provides evidence of an
emerging interdependent global culture, which includes a gradually
expanding expectations of human rights. He quoted the Persian poet
Saadi, who said that all humans are “the limbs of a single body” each
feeling the pain of the whole, noting that the great poets and
philosophers have always known this, but that with technology and
social media, it becomes apparent to all of us in a very immediate and
tangible way. As the world’s interdependence becomes more and more
obvious, Akhavan asserted that the promotion of human rights is not
idealism, it is realism.
Those who continue to violate human rights and who try to exercise
power through hate are unrealistic, said Akhavan, because they fail to
understand the interdependent nature of the modern, globally connected
world. The “pyromaniacs” and “ethnic entrepreneurs” as he called them,
who resist a world of rights, have to go to great efforts to try and
resurrect “old hatreds,” “instrumentally evoking tradition from an
imagined past to serve their present day purposes.”
He challenged those in the West to recall Europe’s long, slow and
troubled path to its current understanding of human rights. It took 400
years of bloody strife for modern Europe to build up functioning
democracies, the rule of law and respect for human rights. It was
simply not realistic, he said for those in the West to expect other
countries to develop fully functional democratic legal systems within a
single generation, let alone a few years. Nonetheless, he told the
audience that he was inspired by his recent visits to Afghanistan,
where he observed remarkable progress being advanced by a new
generation. He gave many other examples from his international
experience that provided evidence of a gradually expanding, if still
uneven, system of law and international human rights.
Akhavan directly challenged the argument still made by some regimes
with poor human rights records that human rights were foreign to their
traditional cultures. While our current legal conception of human
rights does have a particular historical origin, the concept of human
rights rests on a deeper more universal understanding of human dignity.
He used many cross-cultural examples to show that the key concept of
human dignity is found in all major civilizations, from ancient China
to ancient Persia. Even the so-called western tradition of Renaissance
humanism was deeply indebted to the Islamic heritage of Bahgdad and
Dasmascus centuries earlier. Through several examples, he made the case
that beneath the formal legal tradition of rights there exists a
universal understanding of human dignity supported by the traditions of
all major civilizations.
Akhavan downplayed the need to come to an abstract theoretical
agreement about rights as the legal expression of dignity however,
especially noting that in many countries, people will find diverse ways
to articulate their support for human rights. For good reason, many
countries do not wish to tie rights to western ideas if that also means
accepting the baggage of a “consumerism that rests on atomized
individualism,” he said, “which homogenizes and uproots culture,
invading inner spaces in a way that older forms of colonialism did not.”
Instead, he highlighted the practical common ground that emerges when
we come face to face with the real experience of human dignity. The
four year old orphan in Darfur evokes in all people an authentic
realization of human dignity that crosses cultures and provides a
powerful motivation to action.
 He left his audience with a
hopeful message about the actions that we
can and must take close to home, in our own lives. Having functioning
legal institutions is not sufficient to guarantee rights unless there
is also a culture of respect for human dignity to support those
institutions. He reminded us of Edmund Burke’s statement that “evil
triumphs when good people do nothing” and challenged us to practically
translate this into our lives.
The “most important battleground of a just society,” Akhavan asserted,
“is not in corridors of power but how we define ourselves as
communities.” He emphasized the importance of each individual
reflecting on the question “How can I find a space in my community
where I can do some good?” The Holocaust did not begin in the gas
chambers, he said, it began with words of hate, fear and intolerance
that spread throughout society. “The true human rights heroes,” in his
eyes, were, “those serving in their communities.”
Video
links
The video of this talk is now available on
the CIPS website
Interview
on the BBC show “HardTalk” |
