The Human Rights Blog

Elizabeth Hebert, M.A. Conflict and Dispute Resolution, University of Oregon

Antionette Vlieger’s book entitled, “Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates: A Socio-legal Study on Conflicts” looks at the conflicts surrounding the controversial relationships between migrant domestic workers and their employees in the Middle Eastern countries of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is published as a part of the Human Rights and Culture Series published by Quid Pro Books.  Her central research question is “Which factors influence the (emergence and character of) conflicts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between domestic workers and their employers, the norms of both parties (may) refer to, and the related (im)balance of power?”

Ms. Vlieger outlines the norms in the conflicting societies, discusses the institutions involved with domestic work in the Middle East, household dynamics, and concludes with pragmatic steps forward to bettering the condition of migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Ms. Vlieger gives more background on her research in the interview below.

1)     How did you originally begin researching about the situation of migrant domestic workers?

The fact that I got to do this research was quite a coincidence. I was researching intercultural communication between lawyers and their clients, when my professor suddenly passed away. The dean transferred me to another department and my new professor asked me to change  my research topic. He proposed something completely dull and I answered that if I’d have to research that for five years, I’d probably jump off the roof somewhere halfway. We decided to think it over for a couple of weeks and that weekend, at the ballet classes of his daughter, he got a request from an anthropology professor: “Something is going wrong in the Middle East with the domestic workers, can you send a lawyer?”  He had my resume in his bag, showing that I had studied, apart from law school, a bit of anthropology, economics, some Arabic and politics of the Middle East. That next Monday I totally agreed with him that I was perfect for the job. I guess that I was a bit naïve when accepting this assignment. It was a lot more difficult than I had imagined: not intellectually but emotionally.

2)     What was the most difficult challenge you faced when trying to access and interview domestic workers? Employers? Government officials?

There were loads of hurdles to take. For instance, most domestic workers are not allowed to leave the house of their employers. At first I could only interview the women who had run away from their employers, but that very much colored my results. I needed a better place to contact the women and I decided to fly to two countries of origin: The Philippines and Indonesia. There, I simply waited at the airport for planes to arrive from Riyadh and Dubai. I also found an office in Manila where domestic workers renew their passports when going back to the same employer. I interviewed these women in the waiting room. Interviewing employers was not so difficult in Saudi Arabia, but it was in Dubai. The original Emirati population has been reduced to 5%, so many of them are fed up with, or actually afraid, of all foreigners. Most government officials wanted to talk to me and I guess being a tall, blue-eyed blond was a benefit. But the legal-religious elite in Saudi Arabia generally refused to talk to me because I am a woman. Also, I never succeeded in gaining access to prisons or deportation centers. I did manage to research the agencies that send the women across the world. In the two countries of origin,I  sent somebody to find out what they would tell her about the working conditions, and then in Saudi Arabia and Dubai I pretended to be pregnant and in need of a domestic worker to hear what they tell employers about the work conditions. According to some researchers, this is not allowed to conceal that you are a researcher, but when dealing with traffickers, it’s the only way to do it. Otherwise they would never have given answers like: “she will be your slave for two years,” while these are very important data.

3)     How did benevolent employers react to your research?

The employers vary the way people in our own countries vary. There were employers who warned me: “It is very important what you are doing, but please be careful of the government. There is too much money at stake, they don’t want you to ruin their image.” Others agreed that the research was necessary, but thought it was ridiculous that an outsider was doing it. I always replied that as soon as they would actually address the problems themselves, I would be happy to step back. Many simply denied the existence of a problem, or they said the root of the problem was the domestic workers themselves. Some suggested places to research and others simply admitted to being too afraid of the government to say anything about it. One women in Saudi Arabia was very surprised about my research results, about the lies told by the agencies and about the lack of freedom of the domestic workers, partly due to the severe poverty back home. This lady actually went to Indonesia herself, to stay with the family of her domestic worker, to learn more.

4)     Why do you believe there has been an increase in awareness surrounding the issues of migrant domestic workers, particularly in the Middle East?

I am not altogether sure that there has been an increase in awareness compared to the size of the problem. Although I have no quantitative data to support this, I think the problem is growing, not diminishing.  And as it is growing, it draws more attention. Both governments are trying very hard to cover it up. Workers who create problems are instantly deported. Newspapers can’t write about it. I tried to say something about it on the radio, to publish something in the papers, but all in vain. Especially Dubai is doing a lot of window dressing: they built this fantastic center for trafficking victims and show journalists around. But they don’t recognize anybody as  a victim and then publicly claim there is no problem. Dubai thrives on foreign investments, both dirty and clean. They are well aware of the importance of maintaining the brand of Dubai. Saudi Arabia is already struggling with its image, in light of the origins of Al Qaida and the position of women in the country. They play it rough: If, for instance, Indonesia is complaining too much about the treatment of the female workers, the government threatens to stop funding mosques, to stop delivering oil, to stop issuing visas to pilgrims heading for Mecca. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, (so) that it a serious threat. Also, there is so much money going around in the human trafficking business that many people are paid to keep their mouth shut. I (too) was threatened: “Are you sure you want to get home alive?” In light of all this, the fact that awareness increases is a miracle and I think it can only be explained by the growing size of the problem.

5)     What do you think of using a trafficking framework when discussing the situation of domestic workers?

I have used several frameworks to discuss this problem: human rights, women’s rights and workers’ rights, access to justice and power balances. But you are right, I paid a lot of attention to the trafficking framework because I noticed a problem there that in my eyes needs to be addressed. The Palermo Protocol on trafficking prescribes national governments to criminalize and prosecute trafficking. But the business of human trafficking has grown tremendously and the amounts of money going around in it are astronomical. In countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, both poor countries, the average salary of a government employee is very low and therefore most of them can be bribed easily. In the Middle East, the money flows opposite of how it flows in the West, not from citizens to the government in the form of taxes, but from the government to citizens. Oil money is used not only to oppress the population, but also to bribe them. So in the oil-rich Middle East, the system is not corrupt, but corruption is the system. This means that traffickers will not be prosecuted there either: they actually form part of the government. I wanted to draw attention to the fact that we all agree that we cannot leave the fight against drugs to, for instance, the Colombian government, as the drugs mafia is too rich and powerful compared to that government. But at the same time we do leave the fight against human trafficking to national governments, while that mafia is just as rich and powerful. So I feel it is necessary to discuss the issue of domestic workers in a trafficking framework, to draw attention to the fact that the international flows of migrant workers need to be monitored at an international, not at a national level.

Antoinette Vlieger is a professor at the University of Amsterdam. Her book, Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates: A Socio-legal Study on Conflicts is available in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, Nook and Apple. Full info and links available is at Quid Pro Quo and Amazon.

Popularity: 4% [?]

David Prater, J.D. Candidate 2012, The University of Maryland School of Law

On February 3, 2012, the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) handed down its decision in the Jurisdictional Immunities of States Case (Germany v. Italy, w/Greece Intervening).   Germany won the case.

At issue before the ICJ was the immunity of Germany from the judicial process of Italy (and Greece) for forced labor, deportations, and massacres committed by German armed forces during the Second World War.   The Court held that the long standing principle of immunity of states from the judicial process of foreign domestic courts could not be abrogated even when the substantive claim before the foreign domestic court involved gross violations of human rights on the territory of the forum state by organs of the foreign state acting in their official capacity.

This decision comes at a time when a significant obstacle for the successful conclusion of on-going stalled armed conflicts is the immunity of armed forces for violations of human rights committed during the course of the armed conflict.   By declining to abrogate foreign sovereign immunity, the Court likely had an eye toward allowing states the freedom of action to successfully negotiate peaceful resolutions to armed conflicts, rather than prolong peace in hopes of achieving an all victory in order to forego responsibility for the acts of armed forces during the course of the armed conflict.

Background

The Second World War was a global conflict.   Almost no territory was left untouched by its effects.   The atrocities committed during the war spawned the current international legal order and was the genesis of the human rights movement.

In Italy, German armed forces forced Italian civilians into slavery and deported them to Germany to work in factors.  In Greece, German armed forces committed a massacre against Greek civilians thought to have an affiliation with Greek partisans.

During negotiations to formally end the war after Germany’s unconditional surrender, Germany agreed to undertake various reparations schemes to compensate victims of the Third Reich’s odious policies while Italy and Greece agreed to waive all claims of it civilians arising from the war.  However, the claims of numerous victims were invalidated by Germany’s compensation commission for a variety of procedural and substantive reasons.   In particular was one Mr. Ferrini, who was forcibly deported from Italy to Germany and forced into manual labor.  Germany claimed Mr. Ferrini was detained as a prisoner of war and was excluded from the competency of their reparations scheme.

Mr. Ferrini brought suit in Italian domestic courts against the state of Germany for the injuries, mental and physical, suffered by him during his forced deportation and subsequent labor in Germany during the course of the war.  Germany declined to participate in the adjudication because Germany insisted that the state of Germany maintained immunity from the judicial process of Italy.  Generally, a state is immune from the judicial process of foreign domestic courts when it commits sovereign acts.  However, when a state acts in a commercial capacity or on the territory of the foreign forum’s territory, the state can be subjected to the judicial process of a foreign domestic court.

In its holding, the Italian court declined to honor Germany’s immunity from judgment of its courts and proceeded to hold Germany responsible for the damages suffered by Mr. Ferrini.  To satisfy the judgment, Italian courts executed on several German owned properties within Italy that were used by Germany for cross-cultural purposes.  Germany brought an application to the ICJ to resolve the dispute between Germany and Italy regarding Germany’s immunity from the judicial process of foreign domestic courts.

The ICJ held that the exercise of jurisdiction by Italian courts and the execution of those judgments was a violation of international law.  The ICJ reasoned that states retain their immunity for the acts of their armed forces committed on the territory of a foreign state during the course of an armed conflict.   This judgment severely restricts the rights of states to adjudicate gross violations of human rights that occur on their territory.

Please see video: Nazi massacre village fights for compensation

Analysis

The ICJ’s opinion in the Jurisdictional Immunities of the State should first be placed in its proper historical context.  No country was left untouched by the Second World War and conduct comparable to those committed by Germany at issue in the Ferrini case were committed by virtually every country.  For instance, the United States used uncompensated forced labor of German POWs and civilians after their occupation of Germany.  This does not suggest some form of moral equivalency between the regimes, but rather suggests that if the ICJ were to allow claims from over 60 years ago to be resurrected against states who committed gross violations of human rights virtually every state would be subjected to trial proceedings in every far-reaching jurisdiction across the globe.  This would severely strain international diplomacy and the comity enjoyed between states.

Secondly, the ICJ opinion should be placed in its contemporary context.  Current armed conflicts in Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan have resulted in gross violations of human rights by both opposing forces.  If the ICJ were to permit the abrogation of sovereign immunity, regardless of treaty provisions waiving all claims, for gross violations of human rights committed by armed forces the effect would likely be to prolong the conflict until one side could claim a victory sufficient to suppress any claim against the state.  In fact, issues of immunity were central to the United States decision to withdraw from Iraq.  Read more about the Haditha massacre and immunity of armed forces here.

If states were permitted to abrogate their obligations under treaty and custom for legal claims arising from an armed conflict, then international peace and security between states would be tenuous.  However, the result permits states to sail the rights of their civilians down the river to negotiate what is the best resolution for states, and not the civilians to whom the state is purportedly responsible.

On another matter, the Jurisdictional Immunities of the State opinion appears to leave the ICJ’s most ambitious human rights doctrine – convergence – in limbo.  The convergence doctrine holds that a state’s obligations under international human rights law are not suspended when the state enters into an armed conflict.  In the Armed Activities Case (Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda), the ICJ held that an occupying power had obligations not only as the occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention but also had obligations under any treaty in force before the occupying power took effective control of the territory.   Under the principle articulated by the ICJ in the Jurisdictional Immunities of the State, civilians in formerly occupied territory can have no recourse through domestic courts for human rights violations committed by foreign armed forces during an armed occupation.  These disputes can only be resolved through bilateral negotiations between states.

Conclusion

In the Jurisdictional Immunities of the State Case, the ICJ handed down a decision that weighed heavily in favor of state interests over individual human rights claims.  While the effects of the decision conform to traditional principles of international law that emphasize a ‘community of nations’ over the rights of individuals, the decision sends a strong signal to human rights activists that the ‘humanization’ of international law is far from assured and that state interests continue to seriously impede the full aspiration of the human rights movement especially to those most vulnerable to violations, persons living in areas of conflict and occupation.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Paul Scrom, J.D. Candidate 2012, Hofstra University School of Law

Recently, several pieces of legislation were introduced in the United States Congress aimed at preventing internet piracy and protecting intellectual property (“IP”).  Specifically, the Protect IP Act (“PIPA”) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”) were the two leading attempts at limiting the Internet.  The bills seemed almost guaranteed to pass until a tremendous amount of protest by internet users and internet companies greatly influenced Congress to delay voting on the bills and convinced lawmaking proponents of the bill to cease their support.  During the arguments over the bill, opponents quickly drew comparisons to the Internet censoring structures of Iran and China, two countries infamous for their internet regulation surmounting to human rights violations.  The same could be said for PIPA & SOPA, but one main difference is that the American bills at least mask censorship of speech by claiming their only goal is to stop piracy and protect IP rights.  But, there is a conundrum:  there are both human rights in IP protection, and in freedom of speech and expression.

Human Rights Issues Concerning Internet Regulation

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for rights to freedom of speech and expression, along with intellectual property rights.  In Article 19 the rights to speech and expression are materialized:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Although the Internet did not exist in 1948, when the Declaration was created, the Internet is still a form of media and a frontier in the context of this article.  The laws of any country which limit the freedom to receive and impart information on ideas through the Internet are surely in violation of this fundamental human right.  Article 27 of the Declaration seems to deal directly with intellectual property.  There are two sections to Article 27:

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2.  Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Laws such as SOPA & PIPA have a curious task in balancing these two provisions.  How do you balance the individual’s right to protection of moral and material interests stemming from authoring scientific or artistic creations, if everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural community and to enjoy and share in the arts and benefits of scientific advancement?  The Internet is a medium in which millions of people are creating art and advancing science every single second, participating in a cultural community (Art. 27-1).   Ironically, it may be necessary to limit the medium in order to protect such creation of the individual (Art. 27-2).  Further, the Internet is a river in which the water of ideas constantly flows, and setting up a dam to protect individual creators (Art. 27-2) will consequently impinge upon the right of others to express and hold opinions and receive information (Art. 19).  Countries like China and Iran are highly criticized because the regulatory infrastructures are far from sympathetic toward the rights found in Art. 19 and Art. 27-1.

China and Iran: Arbitrary and Disproportionate Internet Censorship

Photo credit: slashgear.com

China’s “Great Firewall” is the strongest and largest censorship structure of the Internet currently, with Iran’s filtering software right behind it.  The two countries use firewalls and other software to block online speech which it finds immoral or threatening to their system of fear they worked so hard to use to control their citizens.  China not only stymies unapproved content, but the country targets individuals and restricts them from using the Internet altogether.  In fact, a Chinese citizen can easily be arrested for writing a single email complaining about the government.  Both countries participate in this imprisonment of cyber dissidents, clearly violating the human rights embedded in the sections of the Declaration discussed above.  The governments use internet censorship to stop the infiltration of outside, specifically western, media and politics, and to monitor speech internally.  The two governments use a filtration system which requires all websites to register through the government and gain permission on its content.  Although it is well known that the two countries perpetuate abuse through their regulation of speech, the level of the abuse is hard to discern because of the censorship itself.

China’s and Iran’s main goal in internet censorship is to regulate speech in order to suppress dissidence and ensure control through fear.  The United States Congress’ attempt at censorship is aimed at protecting IP, but the fear is that the bills are too broad and even any amount of censorship would inevitably lead to a system like China’s and Iran’s where the government can pick and choose which speech is made available.

SOPA & PIPA: A Road to Another “Great Firewall?”

The human right to protection in one’s IP is uncontroverted; everyone deserves protection for their individual innovations and contributions to entertainment, the sciences, and more.  SOPA & PIPA have the right intentions, but will likely have the wrong effects.  Such effects will inevitably lead to the squelching of speech not subject to IP protection, but subject to protection as a human right.  Thus, the bills need to balance such squelching with IP protection, the two human rights at issue.  When the bills are analyzed, it is clear that they fail in sufficient IP protection, and go too far in squelching the freedoms of speech and expression.

One main illustration of this imbalance is that although SOPA & PIPA claim to only target foreign sites which infringe on IP, the bills require compliance and liability on third party U.S. sites as well.  Not only will this result in suppressing foreign sites from entering U.S. internet domains out of fear of being subjected to lawsuits for what users or subsidiaries post on their sites, but U.S. sites have a positive duty to monitor content and would be subject to liability (under SOPA at least) if they do not act on infringing content.  This will inevitably lead to startup companies, whether foreign or domestic, and individual users, deciding to not enter the market or post on sites out of fear of violating the act, squelching potential speech.  This is particularly problematic for sites such as Youtube and Facebook, which are engines of free speech and allow for user generated content. The bills are overbroad as sites would be in violation of the bills for “enabling or facilitating” infringement.  How far does the definition of enabling or facilitating go?  Practically, the existence of the Internet itself enables and facilitates infringement.  Youtube and Facebook would have to take positive steps to monitor millions and millions of domestic and foreign users.  They would be subject to the lawsuits and potential criminal sanctions associated with bills if they fail to do so.  This would result in the suppression of both speech and the mediums of speech themselves.  Craigslist, Google, eBay, personal sites of musicians, fan sites of celebrities, and other millions of sites that enable the spread of information, speech and business will inevitably be targeted for infringement claims under the broad nature of the bills.

Also, the mechanism for censorship under the bills is exactly the same mechanism used by the Chinese: DNS blocking.  DNS, or Domain Name System, is the identification protocol for anything connected to the Internet.  The bills will block the particular DNS which supports or facilitates content in violation of IP rights.  This is a wholesale technique which will block other speech under the particular DNS that is not in violation of the bills.  This is concerning because the U.S. has promoted similar legislation in other countries, particularly Russia, which now use the legislation to suppress political dissidents, rather than to protect IP.  Although there is some evidence of China’s and Iran’s use of their anti-piracy laws to censor speech over the Internet, they do not need to use such laws to do so since their censorship laws are so blatant.  But in Russia, the government has used laws similar to PIPA and SOPA to target anti-government dissidents.  Once these bills are passed, the United States runs the risk of allowing the government to abuse, whether discretely or not, their newfound censorship powers.

In conclusion, bills such as PIPA and SOPA are too risky.  The potential for grave and far greater abuse of our Art. 19 and Art. 27-1 rights, rather than protecting violations of our Art. 27-2 rights, justifies the overwhelming protest over the bills.  For now, the bills have been tabled, but not thrown out.  The risk of falling into a censorship system eerily similar to China’s and Iran’s, is not worth the minor potential protection of IP these bills have.  In fact, many critics of the bills believe they are far too focused on enforcement.  The Internet is too dynamic and ever changing to think that DNS blocking and some fear is powerful enough to sufficiently protect IP rights.  Many think that the fix to IP violations over the Internet is to be found in the business realm.  The true path is to focus on user friendly, clean, and intuitive services, such as Netflix and Spotify, that give users incentives to pay for content at a reasonable price.  There seems to be a disparity in how much money proponents of the bills, such as the movie and music industry, want out of their products and what the consumer is willing to pay.  But, from a human rights perspective, the risk seems too great to justify the benefit.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Elizabeth Hebert, M.A. Conflict and Dispute Resolution, University of Oregon

If you do a quick Google search about Bhutan, you may quickly discover that it has been rated as one of the world’s happiest countries. In 2006 they were chosen as the happiest Asian country and the 8th happiest country worldwide. Business Week notes, “The small Asian nation of Bhutan ranks eighth in the world, despite relatively low life expectancy, a literacy rate of just 47%, and a very low GDP per capita. Why? Researchers credit an unusually strong sense of national identity.”

However, this happiness and strong sense of national identity does not include the thousands of Bhutanese who were imprisoned, tortured, or forced to flee and who have been living in refugee camps in Nepal. Forced to leave Bhutan in the 1980s-1990s, groups of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees have been living in limbo with uncertain futures.

History
Bhutan has many different ethnic groups, including the Lhotshampa, people of Nepali origin whose ancestors came to Bhutan in the 1890s as government contracts to cultivate Southern Bhutan farmland. The Lhotshampa stayed in Southern Bhutan and were given citizenship in 1958, which was later revoked in the 1980s under the guise that they were participating in anti-national movements. Tens of thousands of Southern Bhutanese were imprisoned, tortured, or fled the country. Some of them were arbitrarily expelled, while others fled in order to escape imprisonment. (See HRW “Last Hope, The Need for Durable Solutions for Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal and India” May 2007)
Although many fled to India, they were not allowed to set up permanent camps and therefore either stayed without documentation in India or moved to East Nepal, where the United Nations Higher Council for Refugees (UNHCR) established seven refugee camps. It is estimated that nearly 105,000 Bhutanese refugees were living in these camps in Nepal, which is approximately 1/6 of Bhutan’s actual population. (See “Bhutanese Refugees – A Story of Forgotten People”)

Bhutanese Refugee Journey:  From a Refugee Camp in Nepal to Freedom in Seattle

Resettlement
As of 2008, nearly half of these hundreds of thousands of Bhutanese refugees have been resettled to third countries, including the United States, Australia, Britain, and other European countries. Resettlement to a third country is considered to be one of three viable solutions for refugees, the other two being returning to their country of origin or settling in their second country (i.e. Nepal and India). In the beginning of 2011, the United States had resettled nearly 35,000 Bhutanese refugees and promised to resettle up to 60,000. However, nearly 71,000 Bhutanese are still awaiting resettlement in the camps in Nepal.

Although there has been inter-camp strife about whether refugees should resettle in a third country or wait for repatriation, many Bhutanese easily chose to resettle in hopes of a better future for their children and families. However, as Human Rights Watch points out, it is not everyone’s goal. “But it’s not everyone’s dream. For many still in the camps – for older refugees, in particular, who remember their lives in Bhutan and still mourn their losses – watching their compatriots leave has been a bitter experience. About 17,000 of the remaining refugees have not sought third country resettlement, many still holding out for repatriation.”

The fact that the United States and other countries have so generously welcomed the Bhutanese into their countries is indeed admirable. However, that should not overshadow the fact that the Bhutanese, wherever they are, have the right to return to their homeland.

Sources
Amnesty International: Bhutan Human Rights
Bhutanese Refugees: The Story of a Forgotten People
Business Week: The Happiest Countries
Human Rights Watch: Last Hope
Human Rights Watch: For Bhutan’s Refugee, There is No Place Like Home

Popularity: 5% [?]

THRB Contributor, Paul Scrom, J.D. Candidate 2012, Hofstra University School of Law

On October 4th, the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution denouncing the Syrian government’s ferocious oppression of opposition protesters.  Both China and Russia decided to veto the resolution, recalling memories and revealing traces of the Cold War battle between democracy and authoritarianism.  Further, China especially, fears and loathes the interference of the Western world into the internal affairs of other nations.

China and Russia feared the resolution, which condemned “grave and systematic human rights violations,” would allow the West and NATO to use this as an excuse to bomb Syria, as they did with Libya.  The UN passed a similar resolution denouncing Libya.  The resolution proposed tough sanctions on Syria if they failed to end their brutal crackdown on political protesters within 30 days of its passing.  The United States, E.U., and Canada have already imposed unilateral sanctions on Syria and have called for President Bashar al-Assad to give up his authoritarian rule.

This crisis is not the only time where the use of the veto power by one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom), has stymied human rights efforts.

Background: Syrian Dissidence

Syrian dissent began to emerge in March of 2011, following in the footsteps of other Arab Spring uprisings throughout the Middle East.  Beginning with Egypt and Tunisia at the end of last year, the Arab Spring, or the Arab Revolutions, involve civil strikes, demonstrations, rallies, and protests of a multitude of grievances including dictatorship rule, human rights abuses, unemployment, and corruption.  In Syria, the movement began in March when protests erupted in major cities.  In reaction to the protests, President al-Assad sealed off the city of Deraa after five citizens were reportedly killed by state security forces.  The protests continued amid government concessions and reform of the President’s cabinet and high ranking officials, as the President failed to lift an emergency ban on protests and pointed the blame of the deaths on alleged violent participants and foreign influence.  The President further cracked the whip and deployed soldiers to take over cities in which the protests continued. 
Security forces have continually fired upon protesters and the UN reports that over 2900 citizen protesters have been killed since March.  Teachers, civil workers, hospitals and colleges have all been targeted in attempt to squash the protests, including the beheading of a Syrian woman searching a morgue for her activist brother.  The protests have continued to grow despite the reactive human rights abuses by the Syrian government.  The opposition even created the Syrian National Council, a representative body comprising of 115 different dissident groups.

The sanctions implemented against Syria have crippled its economy, specifically its tourist sect, which has become virtually non-existent.  But, the Syrian President holds steadfast and refuses to concede his power.  The UN resolution was an attempt at a potential final blow to the President’s unwavering will, but Russia and China have blocked the proposal.  In fact, Syrian officials have issued threats of suicidal attacks, claimed to be already in place, on the homelands of any Western nation, which tries to physically interfere with the internal affairs the nation.  Similar threats were made to those who choose to recognize the Syrian National Council.  Although Russia claims the veto was used to give the Syrian government a last straw ultimatum, the Russian and Chinese vetoes will have the effect of prolonging human rights abuses in Syria.

The Veto Power and its Use During Human Rights Crises:

Article 27 (3) of the UN Charter gives the Security Council P5 members the power to veto any Council resolution. This power arose out of a concern for protecting the major world powers’ sovereignty and a fear of the world powers abstaining from UN participation.  The power also causes a threat to resolutions before they are even voted on as the draft of a resolution must also be approved by the P5 and other security councils must often politically concede points in hopes of passing a proposed resolution.  Proponents of the veto fear a world without it: the international community would be free to act unpredictably and stomp on the sovereignty of nations.  But this criticism ignores the fact that the other 10 members of the council are elected and serve only two-year terms.  Also, if the veto power was eliminated the resolutions would still only pass with a majority vote.  Historically, the predecessor to the UN, the League of Nations, failed, among other reasons, for the lack of permanence and assurance of participation of the main world powers, specifically the then Soviet Union.  Both the modern and historical reasons for the veto power are obsolete, yet it has had the unfortunate consequence of delaying the prevention of human rights abuses.

Besides the current situation in Syria, the veto power has thwarted attempts at improving human rights in Burma, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Zimbabwe, Kosovo, and Rwanda, among others.  In 2007, China and Russia also vetoed a resolution, which sought to release thousands of political prisoners, stop the use of sex as a tactic of suppression, and slowly implement democratic reforms.  Although the Burmese Military Junta held power since 1962 and perpetuated such abuses since, China and Russia felt the UN had no say in the internal affairs of the country and it did not pose a direct threat to world peace.  It is important to note that the resolution managed a majority of votes from the Council at the time.  Also, the U.S. has continually used its veto powers to prevent investigation into alleged human rights abuses occurring in the contested areas of Palestine and Israel.  For example, in 2001, the U.S. vetoed a resolution, which sought to deploy un-armed, neutral monitors to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were then occupied by Israel.  Despite reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the U.S. refused to abstain or vote in favor of the proposed resolution for a neutral investigation because of biased politics.  China and Russia also vetoed a resolution proposing sanctions on Zimbabwe for their human rights abuses in 2008.  Lastly, the threat of a veto has also been cited as the cause behind the inaction of the Council during the genocides in Sudan, Darfur, and Rwanda.  It has been a common theme that the world often regrets its inaction after the fact, and yet the veto power persists.

Eliminating the Veto:

The veto power has often been criticized and many have proposed alternatives to it, and even supported its destruction.  The veto represents an old, arbitrary, and unfair imbalance of power, which exists only because of the way in which the UN was formed.  The world powers following World War II knew their presence was necessary and was offered permanent placement on the council, along with the veto power, as a result.  Some argue the 1950 UN General Assembly resolution, “Uniting for Peace,” which grants the immediate review of matters in which one of the five members exercised their veto power.  Uniting for Peace has been claimed to fix the veto problem, but it has been used only 10 times, causing most proposed Security Council resolutions to die when vetoed never to be resuscitated.

Unfortunately, the veto power has yet to be eliminated, most likely due to the incredibly difficult procedural obstacle to do so.  The Security Council can only be reformed by a UN Charter Amendment, which requires a 2/3 super-majority vote of all members of the UN, including all P5 members.  The P5 members have the power to veto the elimination of their own veto power, an unlikely scenario.  It seems as though only outside pressure and influence could be the only hope to overcome the difficult hurdle to lessening the significance of the veto power.  The delay in and lack of action against human rights abuses begs for a reevaluation of the Security Council, which is most recently evidenced by the situation in Syria.  This is not a new idea, but one that deserves reconsideration as protesters and civilians in Syria are persecuted by their strong hand government.

Popularity: 6% [?]