2021 can and must be a year of human rights transformation
Safe to say, most of the words that come to mind in describing 2020 are not particularly uplifting. Death. Illness. Racism. Disproportionate. Loss. Uncertain. Anxious. Isolation. Unexpected. Fragile. Conflict.
It has certainly been a year during which the elusive promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” was, to put it mildly, shaky.
As we move into the new year, we all desperately hold on to hope that 2021 will be ever so much brighter. Mostly that is keyed to the expectation that vaccines will essentially conquer COVID-19. And that brings the prospect that lives will be saved, and restrictions that have kept us apart and so many of us largely confined to home lifted.
That is of course crucial. The development, availability and delivery of the various COVID vaccines is a vital step forward in addressing the pandemic’s devastating human rights toll.
But it is not enough to assume that if we meet that urgent need to vaccinate people around the world (and that must mean rich and poor, North and South), we will have turned the corner and can move on. It may seem odd to say so, given the enormity of the task, the huge sums of money being spent and the staggering logistics involved, but that is the easy and obvious part.
What truly matters and will make a lasting difference is turning the corner on human rights. There is both necessity and potential to do just that.
With all the ugly, inequitable and racist human right truths that have been laid bare by the pandemic.
With attention to the unprecedented threat to human rights posed by the global climate crisis largely distracted by COVID, but still very much existentially and ominously in front of us.
With new possibilities, one hopes, ahead as the full out Trump assault on human rights winds down and a new administration comes to power in the United States.
With the passionate and visionary demands for human rights that have been taken with courage and imagination to streets, plazas and digital spheres, everywhere.
With remarkable human rights change that has been pushed through, often against seemingly insurmountable forces, by collective determination and people power (so grateful today for what the women of Argentina have shown us all to be possible).
With all of that and more, this must become the moment for true human rights transformation.
That has of course been urged and professed so many times at so many other decisive junctures in history. Be it in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the end of the Cold War, the dismantling of apartheid, the wake of the Rwandan genocide or so many other change moments; so often the call and expectation has gone out. Let the future now be different.
And it has been. Despite the agonizing human rights shortcomings that disgracefully haunt society everywhere, there has indeed been steady progress.
Progress, yes, but not transformative change that confidently puts universal human rights at the heart of this unequal and straining world of ours. A world that heaves with cruel injustice and palpable fear but is so filled with beauty, mystery and promise.
So what will take us beyond progress and into transformation? In 2021 we must press governments, and also challenge ourselves, on four key fronts: accountability, equality, universality, and defending human rights.
First, no more easy rhetoric. It is time to actually implement and be truly accountable for all human rights.
Far too many leaders know how to spout the feel-good easy stuff when it comes to human rights. And they very often are adept at sounding like they mean it. But look and think again. The stirring references to rights and justice in government speeches and affirmation of the importance of UN human rights standards in ministerial press releases are seemingly limitless. More often than not, however, the rhetoric is not matched with specific action that truly implements human rights in our laws and policies.
Witness the failure of governments across Canada to take up a call from over 300 organizations and experts to take concrete steps to put human rights at the heart of their COVID response. And the federal government backing away from promises to grant the newly established Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise the powers needed to carry out effective and independent investigations of allegations of human rights abuse against Canadian companies operating abroad. More encouraging is the tabling of Bill C-15 which, if adopted, stands to create a legislative framework for domestic implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Almost without fail, government platitudes do not uphold and recognize -- as enforceable human rights -- critical economic and social rights such as health, housing, safe water and education. And their lofty aspirations fail to ensure that human rights violators, no matter how powerful or wealthy, whether a large corporation or a head of state, will actually be held accountable and face justice when they violate or fail to uphold binding human rights.
In 2021, we must be vigilant and make our expectations clear. Where is the specific law to back up the human rights promise? If it does not exist, enact it. Where is the commitment to economic and social rights, as rights? And the accessible remedy when those rights are violated? What steps are being taken to bring all human rights violators to justice?
Without accountable implementation of all rights, we will never get beyond the empty promises.
Second, human rights mean nothing in a world awash in racism, sexism and discrimination. It is time to deliver true equality.
In the United States, in Canada and around the world, demands to end the systemic racism — including unrelenting police violence, workplace discrimination and entrenched inequalities — that Black, Indigenous and People of Colour face every day, grow stronger and increasingly impatient. More than 18 months after the release of the ground-breaking final report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, there is as of yet no sign of the promised national action plan to take up the commissioners’ 231 Calls to Justice.
And COVID-19 has made visible and, often, amplified the many dimensions of inequality that run deep through our societies, with disproportionate impacts on women, Indigenous people, racialized communities, refugees, migrant workers, people living with disabilities, older people, LGBTIQ2S people, sex workers and others.
In response, some governments make encouraging promises but fail to follow up with the hard work and bold leadership that will propel real change. Other governments insist that racism in their societies is sporadic and refuse to acknowledge that it is in fact systemic, evidenced in Quebec’s decision to stay away from a recent ministerial-level federal, provincial and territorial human rights meeting for that very reason. And, of course, far too many leaders everywhere, perhaps most notoriously US President Donald Trump, have deliberately fueled racism, sexism and bigotry as part of their political brand.
We need to see inequality, expose it, confront it and end it. At its core that means uprooting both the legacy and the reality of debilitating structures of oppression, including white privilege, patriarchy, colonialism and ableism. Those should be the first and last expectations we look for in any new law or policy. Those should also be the guiding considerations in our own lives.
No matter how big or small it may seem, there can be no more indifference and inaction, and there is no space for disingenuous excuses and delays, when it comes to doing whatever it takes to end racism, misogyny and all discrimination.
The universality of the human rights promise rises or falls on equality.
Third, this planet’s disgraceful chasms of wealth and well-being must be bridged. It is time to embrace universality and bring down the walls of global inequity, including when it comes to climate justice.
The wrenching disparities between uber-wealth and extreme poverty -- a consequence and cause of grave human rights violations – have been glaringly magnified by COVID. Jeff Bezos has famously amassed an even greater fortune as online Amazon sales have skyrocketed, while his workers have been barred from unionizing in many countries and have faced exploitative and dangerous working conditions in delivery vans and the company’s sprawling warehouses.
Countries in the global north have moved rapidly to start widespread vaccination programs, while the prospect of vaccine roll-out in the global south remains a much more distant prospect. In fact, as things stand, in 70 countries it is likely that no more than 10% of their populations will be vaccinated in 2021.
Finding it difficult to cope with protecting one million Rohingya refugees, with the international community’s efforts to effect real change that will facilitate safe return to Myanmar dismal at best, the government of Bangladesh pursues a troubling initiative to send refugees to an isolated, flood prone silt island in the monsoon-prone Bay of Bengal.
All the while, countries, including Canada, continue to fall far short of agreed goals of setting international cooperation budgets at .7% of gross national income.
These vast wealth gaps play out as well when it comes to the global climate crisis, overwhelmingly caused by countries with the world’s biggest economies, but felt more harshly and directly in countries that have far fewer resources to cope, let alone to mitigate the impact.
We need a People’s Vaccine in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. Climate action in Canada and other countries that have been and still are the disproportionate source of the world’s carbon emissions needs to go much deeper and further. International cooperation in general must be expanded. And solidarity in sharing the responsibility to protect refugees must be strengthened.
Universality is not just an aspirational adjective; it is a core human rights imperative.
Finally, follow the people’s lead, that is where the change agenda is most powerful. It is time to lift up human rights defenders and journalists, everywhere.
Real change does not come from far away. Transformation that is meaningful and sustainable is not top-down. Frontline human rights defenders lead the truly transformative change that responds to local realities and takes root in ways that will endure. Journalists courageously expose and publicize the corruption and injustice that stand in the way of that change. Yet governments everywhere viciously deride defenders and journalists, subject them to harassment and arrest, and fail to intervene when they are threatened, attacked and killed.
This past week alone, Indigenous land defender Félix Vásquez was shot dead in Honduras, courageous women’s rights defender Loujain al-Hathloul received a partially suspended prison term of five years and eight months in Saudi Arabia, Ugandan human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo was arrested and released on bail on outlandish charges of money laundering, exiled Pakistani human rights activist Karima Baloch was found dead in Toronto (in circumstances that remain unclarified, though in the wake of recent threats against her), and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years imprisonment for “picking quarrels and causing trouble” related to her crucial reporting of China’s COVID-19 response. Some governments responded, generally mildly, to these cases of concern; most remained entirely silent.
In Canada too there have been growing concerns about threats and violence and also of government measures, notably in Alberta, against human rights defenders, particularly Indigenous and women defenders actively campaigning with respect to land rights, the environment and the climate crisis. And a widespread pattern of intimidation and interference against human rights defenders in Canada engaged in efforts to address human rights violations in China has failed to garner a meaningful response from Canadian authorities.
Yet despite the many dangers and challenges, human rights defenders, grassroots organizations and social movements the worldover do not relent. Distanced, masked and determined, people everywhere continue to power the change needed to address racism, inequality, the climate crisis, corruption and other pressing concerns.
Human rights defenders should be celebrated, not vilified. They should be protected, not abandoned. No matter what.
A tough year behind us. An uncertain and, hopefully, promising year ahead.
Amidst all the talk of recovery and of building back better, we have in front of us an unprecedented opportunity to advance the promise of human rights. It rests on implementation and accountability, delivering true equality, committing to universality and empowering frontline human rights defenders. We must make it clear that is what we expect of our leaders. And it is certainly what we must demand of ourselves.
