An old friend, professor Bert Lockwood and his daughter Meredith, run a podcast series “Human Rights: Conversations Across Generations”. With great pleasure did one as it is true that much of the recent NGO history on human rights remains unrecorded so it will serve a purpose one day. It is now officially live. Listening Links:
The shock of the cancellation of RightsCon in Zambia this year is still reverberating amongst human rights defenders who are grappling with the implications for their advocacy work. Like other networks across the globe, APC was impacted by this turn of events that disrupted the plans of many of its members, as well as staff; it wasn’t just a financial blow, but the loss of an opportunity to meet and strategise face-to-face, to network with donors and other organisations, and raise awareness about key advocacy issues that needed to be pushed forward on the global digital rights agenda.
While RightsCon 2025 was hosted in Taipei, Taiwan, AccessNow attributed the cancellation at least in part to behind-the-scenes pressure from China for Taiwanese participants to be excluded from the event in Zambia. This wasn’t necessarily something new for civil society. APC member in Taiwan Open Cultural Foundation (OCF) explained that Taiwanese civil society has seen China react strongly even to seemingly non-political international events when it believes its sovereignty claims or geopolitical interests are being challenged. JCA-NET, a member based in Japan, also pointed to several similar restrictions on participation in events in the past: “It is not uncommon for major powers to block foreign participation in important international conferences,” the organisation’s Toshi said. “Last year, the United States blocked PLO Chairman Abbas from attending the UN General Assembly. Japan also refused to issue visas to some participants for the 2023 IGF in Kyoto.”
But having an international event of this size “postponed” by a government just days before it was due to start – which the Special Rapporteur Gina Romero called a “clear violation of the rights to freedom of assembly, association, and expression” – was, for many, unprecedented. It was, as one APC member from South Asia summed up, a “sobering reminder that digital rights work does not happen in a neutral space.”….
“Political deviations have become extreme and a consensus over the universality of human rights no longer exists,” said Pavel Antonov from Bluelink, an organisation based in Bulgaria and advocating for digital rights in the European Union. “National governments can no longer be trusted on their commitments. It’s a wake-up call for human rights defenders around the world.”
…“This happened to Zambia now, but this could easily happen in the US or an EU member state,” warned Antonov.
And the signs are there. “I work in the private sector for economic reasons but also for political reasons,” said one anonymous APC associate also based in the EU. “I do not work in the NGO space or in human rights anymore as I am an immigrant in an EU country with a very restricted civic space. If I expressed my views about Palestine and certain other conflicts I might lose funding and residence. I am not happy to be a victim of chilling effects, but my family and children are currently more important. A talk at the University in my city was cancelled today and raided by the police.” The question then becomes: Where do activists find a sense of certainty, of at least something they can rely on? Who can they trust?
For many in APC, the answer lies in putting faith in their own political commitment to building bottom-up structures driven by communities. “As a fundamental principle, we should not equate the state with the diverse people living within its borders,” said Toshi. “It is important to prioritise these diverse people above all else, rather than the state.”
Part of this re-thinking how solidarity could best be actualised also raises the question of how expensive it is to participate in conferences such as RightsCon – especially in the context of the currently strained funding environment.
“The cancellation of RightsCon imposes a significant financial burden on civil society organisations across the board, but in particular the ones in the Global South,” said Betancourt. It is not only organisations in the Global South who are struggling to find the resources to participate in the many forums that happen each year. While JAC-NET had competing advocacy priorities, and the language of the event was a barrier, RightsCon was simply too expensive for them to attend in-person despite being based in Japan.
For some this offered a moment to pause and reflect, a chance to ask: Can things be done differently? There was a need to “become more collaborative within the digital rights movement itself, particularly in how limited resources are used,” said Ramanujam.
“As civil society organisations, we must work to avoid duplicating efforts, build on each other’s strengths, and work more strategically based on our different positions and capacities within the broader ecosystem.”
“I would like to see international and regional digital rights organisations and networks come together and figure out how regional and global rights convenings can build on each other,” said Chat Garcia Ramilo, APC’s Director. She mentioned several annual regional convenings “spearheaded by like-minded civil society organisations” to illustrate her point. Apart from the Digital Rights Asia-Pacific Assembly, which attracts activists, academics, techies and policy makers in that region, three of them were held in Africa alone: the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAFRICA), the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum, and Bread & Net, which bills itself as the leading digital rights ”unconference” in West and North Africa. …
Most in the APC community nevertheless also emphasised how important forums such as RightsCon amongst others including the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) were for organising around digital rights.
“We need to continue finding, creating and advocating for these spaces, acknowledging and supporting the range of expressions and reactions, even if we don’t fully agree with all parts of it,” another member from the region said. “These spaces are crucial to exchange ideas, learn from each other, get inspired but also to demonstrate collective power.”
As we assess the impact of this year’s RightsCon cancellation, the APC network is also reflecting on the lessons learned and the tools already at our disposal to help us move forward. Overall, a call to share learnings and strengthen joint action emerged as a common thread across many reflections within the APC network.
Sharing a glimpse of what the APC community would have brought to RightsConIn a push to create alternative spaces for community exchange, when we reached out to our network for this article, we also asked: ”If RightsCon had gone ahead, what key message would you have highlighted in your sessions/interventions?”While we will not be able to reflect the full, compelling agenda and APC’s priorities for this year’s event, here we present some of the insights shared:https://www.canva.com/design/DAHKtmLB-cA/6UrGaUUEYVmbrqCoFmq10Q/view?em
After 16 years of leadership, Gerald Staberock is stepping down from his role as Secretary General of the OMCT. The Executive Council has accepted his resignation and will oversee a smooth transition to new leadership to continue advancing the organization’s mission to combat torture and support human rights defenders worldwide.
A good friend and colleague has taken the thoughtful decision to start a managed transition of his own position at the helm of a key international NGO. Forgive me for being biased but he is a remarkable and exceptional person.
Under his leadership, OMCT gained renewed energy, reinforcing its footprint across regions through dynamic regional offices and in country-presence and further expanding the reach and impact of its global network. This was no small accomplishment. With staff, members and partners around the globe, Gerald also aided in “opening roads, working through landslides and filling gaps” so that OMCT could respond more effectively to the needs of people who were subject to torture and serious human rights violations or abuse. He has fostered a model of work that is lean and fitting for purpose in some of the toughest places in the world and has put our network of human rights defenders at the heart of our identity. He has maintained time after time that our true reserves are human – the trust, commitment and courage of our members, partners and staff.
The Executive Council of the OMCT extends special thanks to Gerald for his unwavering commitment to OMCT’s values and philosophy. After 16 years of dedicated service, Gerald has made the personal decision to step down to embrace new challenges and devote more time to his family, and the Executive Council fully supports and respects this decision, sharing his conviction that a leadership transition can be healthy for both him and the organization. We are committed to ensuring that this transition is safe, orderly and well-timed, and that OMCT remains firmly anchored in its values and strategic vision. Gerald has promised in the past that he’s committed to OMCT and the challenge of torture and, in any case, a smooth handover to the next Secretary General.
In this vein, the Executive Council is eager to start the recruitment process for the OMCT’s next Secretary General. You can access here the call for applications. Timing of the new Secretary General will depend on the availability of the candidate selected, and a dedicated transition process will be co-defined between the Executive Council working group, the incoming Secretary General and Gerald.
Gerald’s own Message to the SOS Torture Network and partners is a demonstration of his modesty and foresightedness:
I am writing you today to tell you that I informed our executive board early this year that it is time for leadership transition after 16 years at the OMCT. I can assure you that we will ensure that this is a safe, orderly and well-timed transition so that there will be no gaps. I am also addressing this to all our supporters; this is the time we need you to stay course with us more than ever. The relationship with many of you has been enriching, marked by a shared commitment that has helped us shape our vision. I would particularly like to thank our support committee in Geneva for their support.
For the past years, every time I came back from one of the many trips that are part of this job, I was intrigued by a watch making advertisement at the Geneva Airport. It basically says, ‘you never own this watch, your task is to keep it safe to hand over to a next generation’. Not being the owner of any luxury watches the advert always touched me, and each time I would think about OMCT. And when my decision nourished that after 16 years of leadership, it is time to accept that change is good, I had to look back at this advert.
My task was to take on an incredible gift from the founding fathers (yes, they were male) and a charismatic preceding director whom I call a friend. An organization built around a network, built around people that work in their countries to make them better places, more just, safer – and who sadly often don’t get the recognition for the good they do.
I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed and continue to enjoy working with amazing staff and members in our network. Human rights are really about people, people we help, serve, support, torture survivors and human rights defenders that make the difference. Our reserves are not financial but these relationships – they are our most important currency. In this, OMCT being able to provide tangible support is a is a meaningful achievement. Human rights work is also collective, it is about a movement, an eco-system. I appreciate our joint work in the Human Rights Defenders mechanism – Protect Defenders – stimulating and effective. I believe that our collective work within United Against Torture Consortium will be crucially important for the future. OMCT will remain about being united because it makes us better and stronger.
…I feel after 16 years it is the right moment to making sure that this incredible gift – not a watch – but an organization called OMCT – is given into the safe hands of a new generation…..
Several readers of this blog, who are very concerned with the situation in Iran, wonder whether the human rights world is paying enough attention. There is no agreed criterion for measuring and – for sure – what the UN and NGOs can do is anyway limited. Still, just to give an idea here a list of recent links:
In 2025 the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) welcomed 14 new organisations, on the occasion of its 42nd Congress, which took place in Bogotá at the end of October. The federation now has 194 members in 120 countries. Of varied origins, cultures, organisations, issues and sizes, yet united by a common struggle: the universal defence of human rights. These 14 memberships demonstrate the vitality of the human rights movement across the world, the relevance of the growth of an international federation dedicated to this universalist cause, and the need to bring together the strengths of civil society worldwide in the face of the challenges it is faced with. Local struggles, global problems, the organisations of FIDH find within the federation a space of solidarity where they can exchange ideas and collectively develop solutions to the shrinking civic space observed throughout the world.
“With these new arrivals, our federation is growing and becoming stronger, particularly on the Asian continent“, says Alexis Deswaef, President of FIDH, elected at the same congress in Bogotá.
Santiago Cantón, secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists. (Geneva Solutions/Michelle Langrand)
On 11 May 2023 Geneva Solutions carried an interview with the incoming Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists:
The new head of the International Commission of Jurists warns of the challenges human rights face as democracies across the world falter and calls on human rights groups to rally behind a new purpose. After spending the last few years in the United States, Santiago Cantón, the Argentinian jurist who recently became the new secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), will call Geneva his home for the next five years.
The discreet organisation of well-respected judges and lawyers, located in the Paquis neighbourhood and now celebrating its 70th anniversary, is almost as old as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Born from the ashes of World War II initially to investigate abuses committed in the Soviet part of post-war Germany, the group has made vital contributions over the decades to the human rights architecture. Most notably, they helped push for the creation of an international criminal court and several UN human rights instruments, including the Convention on Enforced Disappearances, first proposed by its then-president Niall MacDermot.
Cantón, 60, also brings with him some heavy baggage of experience in human rights. He was the executive secretary from 2001 to 2012 of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, one of the arms of the Organization of American States tasked with reviewing rights abuses. Before that, Cantón served as the commission’s first special rapporteur on freedom of expression from 1998 to 2001. More recently, Cantón was part of the UN Human Rights Council’s commission of inquiry on abuses committed in the occupied Palestinian territories during the 2018 protests.
As a young student, Cantón saw his country fall into the clutches of a military junta that would rule ruthlessly for ten years. While initially drawn to diplomacy and foreign relations, Cantón knew it wasn’t an option to place his skills at the service of a dictatorship. He opted instead to study international law and human rights.
One of his first experiences, and the one to inspire him the most, was advising former US president Jimmy Carter in his democracy programmes in Latin America, most notably supporting elections in Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic in 1990 at a time when the two countries were emerging from bloody conflicts and transitioning into democracies. He saw the region break away from the chains of military regimes and usher in a new era of democracy and rule of law. “1948, with the universal declaration of human rights, was the big bang of human rights,” he told Geneva Solutions. “Since then, the architecture of human rights created throughout the world has been extraordinary.”
But the tides have turned. “Human rights are in decline and have been since the beginning of the century,” he regretted.
For Cantón, part of it is due to a lack of leadership. “We don’t have the same leaders in the world, and the governments that support human rights today, do not have the leadership they need to have for political reasons.” He said long gone are the Raúl Alfonsín of Argentina, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Patricio Aylwin of Chile, leaders who stood up for democratic values following their countries’ exit from military rule.
“You do have leadership on the wrong side. And they’re winning,” he added. He cited the leaders of El Salvador and Mexico, as well as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and the US’s Donald Trump, as examples of how populist leaders have successfully appealed to disillusioned populations.
“Take El Salvador. Here we have someone that has 70 to 80 per cent of popularity. People (feel) that democracy did not deliver. They are tired and want to change everything completely,” he said. President Nayib Bukele’s recent sweeping crackdown that saw over 60,000 suspected gang members arrested has been praised by many Salvadorians fed up with the violence and insecurity that has gangrened the country for years. And despite the harsh criticism his methods have drawn from human rights campaigners, political figures across the region are flaunting it as a successful model that can be replicated in their own countries.
Cantón cautions against the temptation of wanting to scrap everything. “We cannot just change everything! There are things we need to keep, and human rights is one of those,” he said.
On Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the usual trio singled out for their authoritarian regimes, Cantón prefers to avoid tired narratives. “it’s not a question of left and right, it’s a question of the strength of the rule of law, and the rule of law is declining,” he observed.
Beyond that, human rights that touch upon issues associated with deeply entrenched cultural values have also been met by a wall of resistance. Cantón hasn’t finished unpacking he has already faced a first crisis. A report published by the ICJ in early March on how to apply human rights standards to criminal law was falsely accused across the internet of condoning sex between adults and minors. For Cantón, the world is increasingly polarised, and he views social media as a significant contributing factor. “It’s hard to find the middle ground, and when things are so polarised, they keep getting pushed harder towards two crazy extremes.”
But governments are not the only ones that need to do some soul-searching. Civil society is also struggling to maintain morale, according to Cantón. “It’s very frustrating when you take one step forward, and you have to go back like ten steps,” he said. For the past years, human rights groups have been on the defence, trying to protect hard-won advances. “We need to mobilise the human rights community again, strongly behind something,” he said.
One of the initiatives the ICJ is working on is the creation of a standing independent mechanism to investigate rights violations. UN-backed probe mechanisms are usually set up on a case-by-case basis and have been accused of being selective and politically motivated. The group of lawyers suggests that such a permanent expert body, created through the Human Rights Council or the General Assembly, could help by making it easier to trigger investigations.
Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth has announced that he plans to step down at the end of August 2022, Human Rights Watch said on 26 April. Roth has led the organization since 1993, transforming it from a small group of regional “watch committees” to a major international human rights organization with global influence.
“I had the great privilege to spend nearly 30 years building an organization that has become a leading force in defending the rights of people around the world,” Roth said. “I leave Human Rights Watch with confidence that a highly talented and dedicated staff will carry on that defence with great energy, creativity, and effectiveness.”
Under Roth’s leadership, Human Rights Watch grew from a staff of about 60 with a $7 million budget, to 552 covering more than 100 countries and a nearly $100 million budget.
Roth began his human rights career as a volunteer, working on nights and weekends while serving as an attorney and a federal prosecutor. He joined Human Rights Watch in 1987 as deputy director. At the time, the organization consisted of Helsinki Watch, formed in 1978 to support dissident movements in Eastern Europe; Americas Watch, founded in 1981; and Asia Watch, formed in 1985. Shortly after Roth joined, the organization created Middle East Watch and Africa Watch. Early in his tenure, Roth moved the organization toward a single identity as Human Rights Watch…
Roth recognized the need for real time documentation of atrocities to generate immediate pressure to end them. That led to the creation of a group of specially trained researchers who could provide a surge capacity to the organization’s regular country researchers.
Roth also embraced new possibilities to bring perpetrators to justice. As Human Rights Watch researchers meticulously documented abuses, the organization pressed the United Nations Security Council, then in a more cooperative moment, to create international war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Human Rights Watch research was used to build some of the cases, and staff testified at both UN tribunals. Human Rights Watch also played a prominent role in establishing the International Criminal Court, fending off pressure from the US government seeking to ensure immunity for its own forces.
“Ken’s fearless passion for justice, his courage and compassion towards the victims of human rights violations and atrocity crimes was not just professional responsibility but a personal conviction to him,” said Fatou Bensouda, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. “He has indeed been a great inspiration to me and my colleagues.”
Today, amid the horrific abuse taking place in Ukraine, an infrastructure is in place to hold perpetrators accountable.
Roth also created special teams to address the needs of certain marginalized people, including women, children, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, refugees, people with disabilities, and older people. He also oversaw the development of specialized programs on poverty and inequality, climate change, technology, and corporate social responsibility. In addition, he initiated a program to address human rights in the United States.
Roth changed the way that Human Rights Watch directed its advocacy. The organization began focusing mainly on US foreign policy. Roth globalized the organization’s advocacy, establishing offices in Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Johannesburg, and Sydney. He also spearheaded the organization’s work with the United Nations, with dedicated advocates in New York and Geneva.
After the 9/11 attacks, Human Rights Watch documented and exposed the use of “black sites” where US officials interrogated and tortured terrorism suspects. Under Roth, Human Rights Watch pressed the US government to investigate and prosecute those responsible for issuing the orders. Eventually the US Senate issued the Torture Report confirming Human Rights Watch’s findings and denouncing the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of torture.
“Ken Roth turned Human Rights Watch into a juggernaut for justice,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “He has inspired a generation of human rights defenders to fight for a better world. During the so-called ‘war on terror,’ Ken went to Guantanamo and brought to bear his acumen and stature in exposing the farce of the military commission process. No organization and no leader have had a greater impact in human rights on a global scale.”
Human Rights Watch’s communication strategy evolved dramatically under Roth. The organization began by writing reports. Over time, it also began producing shorter and quicker reports and built a strong multimedia capacity, so that videos, photos, and graphics now routinely accompany the organization’s publications and sometimes are the publication itself. The organization also embraced social media. The organization has amassed nearly 14 million followers on the major social media platforms. Roth himself has more than half a million Twitter followers.
In his nearly 30 years at the helm of Human Rights Watch, Roth traveled the world, pressing government officials of all stripes to pay greater respect to human rights. He met with more than two dozen heads of state and government along with countless ministers and made investigative or advocacy trips to more than 50 countries. Whenever he could, he also met with communities affected by human rights violations. During his early years with the organization, he conducted fact-finding investigations himself, including in Haiti, Cuba, Israel-Palestine, Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion, and Serbia after the US bombing. In recent years, he has been especially concerned with addressing atrocities during the Syrian war as well as Chinese government repression in Xinjiang.
Roth inevitably earned many enemies. Despite being Jewish (and having a father who fled Nazi Germany as a 12-year-old boy), he has been attacked for the organization’s criticism of Israeli government abuses. The Rwandan government was particularly vitriolic in its criticism of Roth after Human Rights Watch, which had issued a definitive account of the genocide, also reported on atrocities and repression under President Paul Kagame.
The Chinese government imposed “sanctions” on him and expelled him from Hong Kong when he traveled there to release the annual World Report in January 2020, which spotlighted Beijing’s threat to the global human rights system. Roth responded to these and many other criticisms by noting that the organization employs the same fact-finding methodology and applies the same human rights principles in every country where it works.
Roth has written extensively on a range of human rights issues. In addition to writing the introduction to the World Report since 1990, he has published more than 300 articles including in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and Foreign Affairs. I quoted him often in this blog: see e.g. : https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/kenneth-roth/
Roth plans to write a book drawing on his personal experiences about the most effective strategies for defending human rights. “I am leaving Human Rights Watch but I am not leaving the human rights cause,” Roth said.
Human Rights Watch will conduct an open search for Roth’s successor. Tirana Hassan, chief programs officer, will serve as interim executive director.
Our shared quest for equality, dignity and a healthy planet continues
On 20 October 2020Phil Lynch, who as director of the International Service for Human Rights has enormous experience, reflects on the important role the UN still plays in making the world a better and fairer place:
We are all part of the one human family. We share a common humanity and strive to meet common needs – we all want to learn, to have peace and good health, to provide for our families and loved ones, and to live free and dignified lives, without discrimination on any grounds. We might not always agree on how to achieve these things, but there is far more that unites us than divides us.
That’s why it’s so important that we have places like the United Nations, where we can come together to talk, work through our differences and find solutions to our shared challenges.
This week marks the 75th anniversary of when the UN Charter entered into effect and the United Nations officially came into being.
In the decades that have followed, the UN has played a vital role in maintaining peace and security by helping to resolve conflict and harnessing our collective knowhow to confront everything from health and humanitarian emergencies to gender inequality. The UN has also been a vital space for civil society and communities to testify against injustice, confront power, challenge impunity, demand accountability, and push for change.
It’s by no means a perfect organisation, but without a shadow of a doubt the world today is a far better, fairer, healthier and safer one than it would be without the UN. This is due in no small part to the importance the UN places on the protection and promotion of human rights.
No matter who we are or where we live, our lives are better when we treat each other fairly and with respect. That’s what human rights are all about – making sure that values like freedom, equality and solidarity are at the heart of our decisions and are reflected in behaviours and laws around the world.
Unfortunately, sometimes laws passed by governments are repressive or not sufficiently protecting us, in particular the most vulnerable among us. And companies may act in ways that put their profit first, at the expense of human rights. . Often it takes people and communities to hold powerful politicians and corporations to account and make sure that everyone can benefit from the human rights and freedoms that we are all meant to share.
Human rights defenders are the people that work to make this happen.
These are the people that speak out against injustices like systemic racism, sexism or the climate crisis and who work on the frontlines with communities to find solutions and advocate for better ways of doing things. These are the people who make sure that, as humanity advances, no one is left behind.
It’s of the utmost importance that human rights defenders have a seat at the table so they can give voice to the concerns and ideas of the people impacted by the very policies, practices and objectives being discussed at the UN.
Unfortunately, some governments – concerned about facing criticism – try to lock human rights defenders out of the conversations. Worse still, in some countries, the government or groups with powerful vested interests harass or discredit people who defend human rights. In some countries, they are beaten up, imprisoned and even killed.
As the UN’s Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, recently told the General Assembly, the UN is only as strong as its members’ commitment to its ideals and each other.
There is no way we can advance the UN’s noble aims if we continue to let members get away with human rights violations and reprisals against people who defend human rights. The duty falls to all member States and their diplomats to uphold the very principles at the heart of the UN’s mission – peace, equality, dignity and healthy planet – and the promise that their country has made to support that mission.
At the International Service for Human Rights, we help human rights defenders access the UN system so their voices are heard. We build their capacity on the frontlines and at the UN. We work to strengthen the UN’s human rights systems and we seek justice and accountability for human rights violations.
As we celebrate 75 years of the UN, we know the world is facing many challenges, but as we’ve done so many times in the past, we can, we must and we will find our way through them – and that is always done best when we do it together acting with care and solidarity.
The pursuit of peace, equality, dignity and a healthy planet continues. Thanks for being a part of it.
Ravindran Daniel, in Open Global Rights of 10 November 2020 published a piece that should interest anybody who wrestles with the issue of how to ‘decentralise’ the international human rights movement. In “What are the implications of International Human Rights NGOs moving to the South?” Daniel – who is a human rights lawyer from India, served as director of the Human Rights Division with the UN peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Libya and the Sudan and established the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development – takes the recent closure of AI India as the starting point for a wider discussion of the structural problems that come up in trying to realise the ‘democratization of the global human rights movement”. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/09/29/amnesty-feels-forced-to-shut-sown-its-india-office-amidst-govenment-pressure/]
..The closure of Amnesty International’s India office raises questions about AI’s global strategy and the democratization of the global human rights movement. AI’s India office was part of the AI’s 2010 Global Transition Program (GTP) which aimed at restructuring the organization by reducing its London office operations and transferring them to regional hubs in various parts of the world. New forms of national offices were set up in India, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Indonesia. The aim was also to make AI a truly global movement and raise funds from the Global South and not depend entirely on funds from the Global North. Donors such as the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundation funded AI’s move to the South which was seen as strengthening mobilization from local to international levels and increased contact with human rights defenders and civil society actors.
However, it also raised some questions for both AI and the global human rights movement.
When opening its office in India in 2012, AI may not have foreseen the assumption of power by an illiberal government in 2014; although it must have known the risks involved in other countries. When AI rolled out its GTP program in 2010, was it unrealistically optimistic, particularly when the global support for human rights in the West was rapidly declining? The optimism about emerging powers such as India, Brazil, and South Africa had waned and several illiberal governments had become powerful in the global system. It could not have waited for an opportune time since governments of various hues always challenge human rights organizations to function freely. The fact remains that human rights offices, national or international, face reprisals by governments and AI should have foreseen it when it established its India office under the GTP program. The question remains: was the cost including the consequences for those associated with AI India worth the risk?
However, the question is: given its tradition of safeguarding its members from bias and reprisals, what steps did it take to prevent reprisals for its members and supporters of national offices? Since 2001, AI abandoned its “own country rule” under which AI members were barred from working on cases in their own countries. It was a self-imposed limitation to safeguard members against potential problems from their own governments but also to stress the importance of solidarity in human rights work.
The closure of the Indian office raises the value of “own country rule” which would have possibly prevented the Indian government from taking the extraordinary step of closing the AI’s office. The Indian Government is alleging money laundering, which would entail conducting investigations against all those who contributed to AI India putting a large number of its supporters at risk.
Was the cost including the consequences for those associated with AI India worth the risk?
Moreover, the aim of the “own country rule” was to prevent AI’s local chapters from becoming just another local human rights organization with international links. In the case of the AI India office, its links to its parent organization seemed to have impeded its functioning. For example, in November 2019, Indian police raided the AI India office after the parent organization testified before the US Congress on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
The closure of the AI’s India office has implications for the global human rights movement as well. An evaluation of the Ford Foundation’s Strengthening Human Rights Worldwide Global Initiative (SHRW), under which the foundation funded AI to move to the South, raised the following issues: how to differentiate between the roles played by national and international NGOs; if these roles could be construed as the imperial expansion of Northern-based groups?; if such moves help or reduce the voice of local groups and communities;and if international NGOs have an advantage over national NGOs in garnering a larger share of resources due to a concentration of “cultural capital” (“knowledge and access to global governance institutions”) among NGOs based in the North?
The ecology of the human rights movement began changing in the 80s and the SHRW review captures it. In this changed context, AI’s efforts to be closer to the ground happened at an ill-advised time when strong NGOs had emerged in the South and were increasingly challenging the traditional human rights ecology. While based in the North, AI was functioning as a global movement with some of the corresponding limitations, such as authoritarian governments accusing it of being a Western organization. AI, instead of building from its strength, seemed to have pursued a naïve goal of expanding in the field at a wrong time for the wrong reasons.
Nevertheless, the global human rights movement must condemn the Indian government’s actions against the AI India office. It must campaign for withdrawing all the cases and restoring the office. It should also examine the lessons learned from democratizing the movement in the last two decades, including strengthening the role and voices of NGOs in the South. AI on its part should re-examine its GTP’s assumptions considering the developments of the last two decades. A 2017 evaluation of the GTP commissioned by AI recommended the need for a “new narrative” that “…goes beyond moving closer to the ground, beyond the distribution of Amnesty International Secretariat (IS) and to the distribution of Amnesty as a movement… (making all) regions vibrant communities for public campaigning”.
In Newsweek of 21 September 2020 Basit Mahmood did an interview with Kenneth Roth who has spent 27 years as the executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) in which he warns that China poses a threat to the global human rights system, that U.S. is no longer to be relied on as a supporter of human rights and how this has left a void, emboldening autocrats who have used the pandemic to undermine democratic societies.
“China and the threat it poses to human rights both at home and around the world is a huge issue,” he says, identifying the current period as the darkest in China’s history when it comes to human rights since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. More than a million Uighur Muslims have been put in internment camps in the country’s Xinjiang province, According to the United Nations (U.N.). China says the camps serve as “re-education” centers designed to combat extremism, but those who have managed to escape share stories of forced labor, torture, medical experiments and rape. Roth says: “The Uighurs are the most severe example of worsening repression under Xi Jinping (China’s prime minister). It’s quite clear that this is the darkest moment in China in human rights terms since the massacre of Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989, the Uyghurs have been the most grievous sufferers of that where a million or more have been detained essentially to force them to abandon Islam and their culture.” The worsening repression doesn’t just extend to minorities, it’s something Roth says we can see also occurring in Hong Kong and Tibet as well as against China’s own population more widely.
“There is no independent civil society,” he says. “There is no independent media, human rights defenders are routinely imprisoned. There is a complete lockdown on any organized public dissent and that is just across the board, not just minority population areas. China’s also building this so-called social credit system which is designed to condition access to various governmental benefits on one’s social reliability. So it’s using high-tech tools to control the population.“…
….
On the human rights challenges facing Europe, Roth expresses particular concern about the situation in Belarus, where the man dubbed “Europe’s last dictator“, Alexander Lukashenko, is facing widespread protests over a disputed election. Lukashenko has been in power since 1994, with the government frequently accused of repressing the opposition….
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch
He also thinks India‘s Prime Minister Modi has got away with what he calls his systematic discrimination against the country’s 172 million Muslims because of the West’s desire to tap into Indian markets and use it as a counterweight against China, which Newsweek will be reporting on in the coming days.
Roth is highly critical of the Trump administration, accusing the president’s foreign policy of being driven by the guiding principle of “self-glorification” and only speaking out in defense of human rights when the offending country is a perceived adversary.
“Trump is utterly uninterested in calling out any human rights violation by anybody other than a handful of perceived adversaries, China, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua and Cuba and that’s about it, which is a completely unprincipled approach to human rights which does not attract any adherence and greatly weakens the force of US intervention,” he says. “Human Rights Watch has been living with Trump for four years now and we have already stopped relying on the U.S. as anything like a principled supporter of human rights.”
With the U.S. increasingly withdrawing from the world stage and with the European Union not really filling the void, as he says, is there a new approach to the defense of human rights emerging?
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 