Unlocking Insights: Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy’s Keynote Address on International Human Rights Day 2023, presented by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka.
Thank you very much chairman Dehideniya and the members of the Human Rights Commission. I want to acknowledge Professor Savithri Gunasekara as my mentor who is in the audience and other members as well. It is wonderful to be here in an event organized by the Human Rights Commission. I see so many familiar faces. I remember my time at the Human Rights Commission. It was a time of great personal growth. Sri Lanka was at peace during that period of peace process. But we went through the Tsunami of 2006. We set up services for the victims. I remember going to Hambantota a few days after the Tsunami. Nothing was standing. I just have a memory of clothes and household items hanging from the trees. People huddled together. So traumatized. The assistance of such wonderful civil servants like Mr. Lionel Fernando and the efficiency of his operations spoke a lot. People still remind me about it. But it is also true that Hambantota has now been rebuilt. And it is perhaps a reminder that nothing really, or any stage is really not permanent. Today in 2024 I have traveled around the country with some women’s groups, the North and the South, especially after the economic disaster. Some people are picking up the pieces. Others are still in a terrible way. We have a long way to go. Civil and political rights are continued to be denied as you have pointed out in some of your statements. This cannot continue and citizens’ voices must be raised. Also, poverty, inequality, and corruption are the main issues of the day. You can feel the anger when you drive around the country. Hope that the Human Rights Commission as the premier institution dedicated to rights will find ways and means to constantly evade that struggle for justice. This year it’s the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration for Human Rights. It is the primary articulation of the world’s aspiration for dignity, for freedom, and justice for all. Therefore, today I thought I would pay tribute to this life-saving document especially as we meet here today in Sri Lanka today. Everywhere I went in the world when I was with the UN, victims would hold up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a sign of hope. Academics and bureaucrats often questioned it or looked down on it. But not victims of violence. One contribution I can make today is perhaps quickly trace the history of the UDHR within the UN system just to give you a perspective and context. So, we understand where we come from today. If you look back on the history, whenever terrifying, devastating wars were fought, in the aftermath, there is usually what is called ‘a never again moment’. A moment out of which make may come at a transformative peace. For example, in 1648 the eight years war in Europe led to the treaty of Westphalia, where international law was born and ruled the space international system. In Asia after the terrible wars evade, emperor Asoka in India converted to Buddhism and set forth many edicts for a peaceful and ethical order. In 1947 after the holocaust and the mass killing during World War II, there was what we can call a never again moment and yearning for a transformative peace. Never let it happen again and so we have the creation of the United Nations; we have the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which though had been centuries in the making due to philosophers and activists. The task of drafting the UDHR was left to Eleanor Roosevelt from the US, Pen-Chun Chang from China, and Charles Malik a scholar from Lebanon. The renowned scholar René Cassin from France was also involved. Now within the UN system, there are four phases with regard to Human Rights. The first phase was between 1947 and the late 1960s. This is what we made term the standard setting phase. The United Nations wrote conventions, protocols they were all drafts, Standards were set. Normative frameworks were worked out. We have Universal Declaration; we have International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; we have International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights; we have the genocide convention, political rights, and most importantly economic rights also spelled out. So all these norms on political and economic rights, and universal crimes like Genocide and torture was spelled out. International norms were created and a legal framework was created. This was also very important for countries coming out of colonialism. And now in our case Sir Ivor Jennings did not give Sri Lanka a bill of rights. So, when the 1972 and the 1978 constitutions were drafted they looked at the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. If you read our Fundamental rights chapter, the ICCPR is there. That is the ICCPR but in a very watered-down version. But the ICCPR was the model. So, this phase of standard setting led to a lot of colonial countries adopting these universal frameworks within their constitutions. The second phase of human rights within the UN system began with South Africa an apartheid. African countries pushed to go beyond standard setting to pierce the veil of sovereignty and to name and shame South Africa. They set up the ad hoc working group of experts to study South Africa an apartheid. As their reports came in agitation grounds of Africa grew both of the Human Rights Commission and of the Security Council. And for the first time in perhaps the last time we went to very strong action. It created the convention apartheid and South Africa was suspended by the General Assembly, not expelled but was suspended only to return in 1994. But after this experience with South Africa an apartheid, it was generally accepted that the UN can report on the internal issues of the countries, that the veil of sovereignty does not protect you against naming and shaming when it comes to human rights violations. Now after apartheid era during that same period, other issues also came to the fore, disappearances of Latin America and Chile and Argentina which became a model for many other countries. Horrendous things were happening, people were being abducted in vans without license plates and the crime of disappearances in Latin America first appeared and was legally recognized. The UN set up a working group on disappearances to report on the disappearances of that period and the working group came to Sri Lanka in the late 1980s during the uprising. In the same era, the special rapporteur on torture was also set up in the early 1980s. So, in this second phase we have the creation of the UN becoming more proactive and dealing with the areas that are everyone agrees with very strong apartheid disappearance and torture. Then the Cold War ended and a lot more countries joined the UN, and were believers in human rights.
So, you have the third phase of the UN and the development of Human Rights what they called the golden era. And this took place in the 1990s. Again, there was a never again moment, people had wars of Rwanda and Bosnia coming to their living rooms; there was absolute outrage. I went to Rwanda a month after the genocide. I was immediately taken by the Tutsi rebels who had taken power, to a school and every classroom in the school was filled with skeletons upon skeletons upon skeletons. Then I was taken into a church, again skeletons were all over, that their bodies bashed and smashed. So, it was a terrible reality. And so the world responded. There was a world in which the same thing was happening in Bosnia but in a different form. There was a world conference on human rights which was held in 1993. People came from all over the world. Governments, social activists, victims. There was a special emphasis on economic and social rights; there was a special emphasis on women’s rights and most importantly it led to the creation of the International Criminal Court. The ICC’s issues on women were particularly important during this period, there was the ICC comprehensive drafts on sexual violence, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Violations against Women, the Security Council adopted 1325 on Women Peace and security. The ICC was drafted in the 1990s with the background of the Rwanda and Bosnia wars. So that was the heritage of the 1990s, what is called the golden era of Human Rights. Also at that time, 42 rapporteurs on special procedures were appointed to the Human Rights Commission as it was called. Both political and civil but also economic and social, education and health. These procedures continue today. Now what must realize from this period is, the UN becomes an archive. There’s a constant recording and investigating of human rights violations. The archives are there, the facts are there, the evidence is there but member states were not act. And now human rights are more about geopolitics; and geopolitical struggles; not about actual implementations of human rights. The UN architecture allows for the collection of evidence, it is not ideal for acting on the evidence presented. This golden phase came to an end in 2001 when there was the attack on the Twin Towers, on the World Trade Center. Earlier terrorism like in our Prevention of Terrorism Act was initially dealt with the issue of criminal justice. Now with the United States labeling it as a worn terror or a new approach was brought in to the fore. Especially we saw what is called the ‘shock and awe approach’, now being played out in Gaza. Bombing of whole apartments or buildings, if there a suspected terrorist. Drones dropping everything else thereby destroying it.
I’m on the commission of inquiry in Ethiopia, the same method, bombing drones. And today no one is attempting to regulate any of these innovations in warfare technology. The human rights committee was in shock during this period, and I would say that they have never fully recovered from this era. It is not all negative recent years there has been some activism. The Human Rights Commission was elevated to the Human Rights Council in 2005, the co-equal arm of the Security Council and ECOSOC. Like the Human Rights Council now frequently also sets up commissions of inquiry. I was involved in two- Myanmar and Ethiopia. Well again it’s a gathering of facts, a gathering of evidence and it doesn’t really proceed further. Some countries are now actually laterally recently Argentina put out an arrest on Min Aung Hlaing the head of military coup on Myanmar. But he is unlikely to travel to Argentina. So we are in that phase where there is really no implementation of human rights. So I would say that human rights today is facing a crisis of legitimacy. As we watch a gasp, at what is going on in the Middle East, the Hamas attack on civilians was a gross violation, but the response is clearly disproportional. The UN secretary general has called it a graveyard for children, he has invoked Article 99 of the Charter. And the tip of everyone’s tongue at the words double standards the same country is that push so hard on human rights violations in other countries, are now silent in the face of this devastation. But when I think about it I must say, does that mean that we give up our fight for dignity, freedom, and justice? Do we move from international rules on human rights? Do we throw it all out because they are double standards? But to me what is pointed out is that exactly the opposite must take place. What the Middle East shows us is that both sides have decided to fight without rules. Any assemblance of rules. I hear so much criticism of international law and standards. What a nightmare the world would be without them. We are experiencing it. It is important to keep regenerating the rules important for the rest of the world to keep insist on international law and rules even if we are inpatient. Irrespective of the position of power of individual member groups the clamor for dignity, freedom justice and international rules of war must not stop. It is not only the strong states that play the game of human rights, we do too. It sometimes looks at least with regard to our international obligations that the government will not is sometimes trying to evade justice without coming to the truth. A recent scholar studying countries including Sri Lanka who have come before the Human Rights Council uses the term cosai compliance. Countries where committees, commissions, task forces are constantly being created, but nothing seems to result. Sometimes people think it is tempt to divert international attention. But justice, truth and healing, they must come from within. They must be genuine; they must be authentic. They must be by the people for the people. Otherwise, it will just not work and we will have a very huge infrastructure, which will be a waste of money.
Finally, while we are facing a crisis of legitimacy, I say we are facing a crisis of humanity. The values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we celebrate today are being questioned and violated in such a fundamental way. Man has become but hobs auld, nasty, brutal, and shrewd. Maybe the first two not the last. This is true for the world, and it is true for Sri Lanka. That is because we have lost directions. Last few decades we have made human rights about the member states only. Negotiating, wheel-a-dealing, geopolitics, we have spent a lot of academic time analyzing and deconstructing it. But whenever I have met victims of violence whether it is in Mexico, the Philippines, and Dominican Republic, Nepal, Sudan, Rwanda, I can go on and on, no one says that human rights is not our culture; they have never said that human rights is a western plot. No victim has ever said that to me. To revive human rights, we must take it back to people like in the 1960s and 1970s. It must be more than negotiations among member states, it must be a movement of solidarity of all people; of all communities, careers that insist on certain values. I am a little optimistic. I have met young people in the last few years. They have fresh ideas, they did not carry baggage hope, they will take forward the struggle for human rights both globally and nationally.
Thank you.
Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy
[Radhika Coomaraswamy is a distinguished former Under Secretary General and The Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict. Renowned for her contributions to human rights, she served as the lead author of the Global Study on the Implementation of Resolution 1325 in 2015. Coomaraswamy held the position of Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women from 1994 to 2003. In Sri Lanka, she chaired the National Human Rights Commission from 2003 to 2006.
Beginning her career as an academic at The International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo, Coomaraswamy’s expertise extended to the international arena, where she taught at the New York University School of Law. Her multifaceted career reflects a lifelong commitment to advancing human rights and addressing issues related to children in armed conflict and violence against women]
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