Fighting for Human Rights

Fighting for Human Rights In a world that is increasingly disillusioned with formal politics, people are no longer prepared to wait for governments and international institutions to act on human rights concerns. This book identifies civil society activism as a key means of realising human rights and as a new form of politics. Fighting for Human Rights documents and compares high-profile campaigns to cancel debt in the developing world, ban landmines and set up the International Criminal Court as well as campaigns that focus on democratisation, environmental justice, HIV/AIDS and blood diamonds. These campaigns aim to establish national and international agreements that will become the basis for processes of monitoring and enforcement. This book asks how this can be done, examines the strategies used, and discusses the crucial issue of how formalisation of agreements can be made a stepping-stone to implementation rather than an end in itself. This important work is an essential read for everyone interested in the pressing issue of upholding human rights and the assistance that civil society can provide. Paul Gready is a lecturer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. He has worked for the research department of Amnesty International, a number of human rights organisations in South Africa, and as a human rights consultant. Fighting for Human Rights Edited by Paul Gready First published 2004 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Paul Gready for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors for their contributions All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Fighting for human rights / edited by Paul Gready. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Human rights–Case studies. 2. Civil society–Case studies. 3. Non-governmental organizations–Case studies. 4. Political participation– Case studies. I. Gready, Paul. JC571.F497 2004 323—dc22 2003026489 ISBN 0-203-49772-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-34428-6 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–31291–4 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–31292–2 (pbk) Contents List of illustrations vii Notes on contributors viii Introduction 1 PAUL GREADY 1 Human rights and global civil society: on the law of unintended effects 33 RICHARD FALK 2 Debt cancellation and civil society: a case study of Jubilee 2000 54 NICK BUXTON 3 “New” humanitarian advocacy? Civil society and the landmines ban 78 DON HUBERT 4 “International lawmaking of historic proportions”: civil society and the International Criminal Court 104 WILLIAM PACE AND JENNIFER SCHENSE 5 The Pinochet case: the catalyst for deepening democracy in Chile? 117 ANN MATEAR 6 Civil society and environmental justice 134 CAROLYN STEPHENS AND SIMON BULLOCK 7 “The most debilitating discrimination of all”: civil society’s campaign for access to treatment for AIDS 153 BRIDGET SLEAP vi Contents 8 Climb every mountain: civil society and the conflict diamonds campaign 174 IAN SMILLIE Index 192 Illustrations Table 6.1 Scales and types of environmental injustice 140 Boxes 6.1 UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights and the Environment, draft principles 136 6.2 Environmental justice in the United Kingdom 141 6.3 The procedural injustices that lead to substantive environmental injustice 142 7.1 What are antiretrovirals (ARVs)? 154/155 7.2 TRIPS provisions 158 7.3 Two pharmaceutical giants – Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline 161 viii Author Contributors Simon Bullock works for Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland on sustainable development issues. Nick Buxton has been a campaigner and activist on development and human rights issues for a number of years. As Communications Manager for Jubilee 2000, he was responsible for helping to build up and assist communications between national, regional and international networks supporting the worldwide campaign for debt cancellation. He is the author of “Dial up networking for debt cancellation and development” in S. Hick and J. McNutt (eds) Advocacy, Activism and the Internet: community organisation and social policy (2002). Nick Buxton is currently Online Communications Manager for the Catholic development agency, CAFOD. Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University where he was a member of the faculty for 40 years. Since 2001 he has been Visiting Professor, Global Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara. He is also Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board of The Nation. His most recent books are Human Rights Horizons (2000), Religion and Humane Governance (2001) and The Great Terror War (2003). Paul Gready is a Lecturer in Human Rights at the Institute of Common- wealth Studies, University of London. He has worked for a number of human rights organizations over a 15-year period, including Amnesty International. His academic publications include Writing as Resistance: life stories of imprisonment, exile and homecoming from apartheid South Africa (2003) and the edited volume Political Transition: politics and cultures (2003). Among his research interests are South Africa, human rights, political transition and democratization, and cultural studies. Contributors ix Don Hubert is Deputy Director of the Peacebuilding and Human Security division of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University. He has a PhD in Social and Political Science from the University of Cambridge, and has held post-doctoral positions at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University and the Humanitarianism and War Project at Brown University. He is author of The Landmine Ban: a case study in humanitarian advocacy (2000); and editor, with Thomas Weiss, of The Responsibility to Protect: research, bibliography, background (supplementary volume to the report of the international commission on intervention and state sovereignty) (2001); and, with Rob McRae, of Human Security and the New Diplomacy: protecting people, promoting peace (2001). Ann Matear has a PhD in Politics from the University of Liverpool. She is currently a Principal Lecturer and has taught Latin American Studies at the University of Portsmouth since 1995. Her areas of research interest are Chilean politics with the primary focus on issues of equity, social justice and democratization. She has published a number of articles and a co-authored book on gender equity in public policy, and the struggle for justice and human rights in the Chilean transition to democracy. William Pace is Convenor of the NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement, Institute for Global Policy, and Secretary-General of The Hague Appeal for Peace. Jennifer Schense is Legal Adviser to the NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC). Bridget Sleap has an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. She has worked, and written papers on, a number of HIV-related human rights issues including access to treatment, HIV vaccine trials in developing countries, the rights of widows, and HIV- and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination. She has worked in Mozambique and Egypt and is presently working on increasing female-initiated HIV prevention options. Ian Smillie is an Ottawa-based development consultant and writer. He is an associate of the Humanitarianism and War Project at Tufts University in Boston, and during 2000 he served on a UN Security Council Panel investigating the links between illicit weapons and the diamond trade in Sierra Leone. His latest books are Patronage or Partnership: local capacity x Contributors building in humanitarian crises (2001) and, with John Hailey, Managing for Change: leadership, strategy and management in Asian NGOs (2001). Ian Smillie serves as Research Coordinator on Partnership Africa Canada’s Diamonds and Human Security Project and is an NGO participant in the Kimberley Process which is developing a global certification system for rough diamonds. Carolyn Stephens is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Health and Policy and Co-Director of the Centre for Global Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She also holds positions with the Universidad Nacional de Tucuman (UNT), in North- West Argentina, as a Profesora Titular en Salud Politica y Medio Ambiente, and as a visiting Professor in the Universidad Federal de Parana in Brazil. Her research focus is on environmental inequalities, environmental justice and health in developing countries, particularly in participatory projects with disadvantaged communities and children internationally. Most recently she has moved to work on participatory ways of using epidemiology in supporting people to analyze their own health and environmental issues. Carolyn Stephens has

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