Posts by Transitionland
Human Rights in Eric Posner's Lawless World
Published October 26, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Conservative legal provocateur Eric Posner has an article titled "Think Again: International Law" in the most recent Foreign Policy. If you are involved in human rights work, it won't make you happy.
Posner writes:
"Academic research suggests that international human rights treaties have had little or no impact on the actual practices of states. The Genocide Convention has not prevented genocides; the Torture Convention has not stopped torture. The same can be said for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a host of treaties meant to advance the rights of women and children. States that already respect human rights join human rights treaties because doing so is costless for them. States that do not respect human rights simply ignore their treaty obligations."
What is Posner's argument here? That laws that aren't followed 100 percent of the time should be disposed of? That genocide and torture shouldn't be illegal? If that is, in fact, what Posner is saying, his complaint isn't with international law, but law in general. After all, murder is illegal in every society, yet murders are still committed everywhere.
Posner goes on to explain:
"The evidence shows that human rights are best in those states that are wealthiest, leading many scholars to speculate that the best way to promote human rights is to promote growth."
Wealthier states are, on average, more likely to respect human rights, but Posner is assuming that economic growth causes states to respect human rights. There is a huge body of literature, including, most famously, Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom, that concludes the exact opposite, that respect for human rights -especially freedom of expression- enables disaster-prevention, poverty reduction, and economic growth.
Then, there are the glaring examples of developed and wealthy countries showing little respect for the rights of people residing within their borders. Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore might all be developed, but they're hardly paragons of good human rights policy. Economies can boom and skylines soar on the labor of exploited, brutalized underclasses, and in spite of authoritarian denials of civil and political rights.
However, countries like Singapore, representing the so-called "authoritarian development" model, and rentier states like Saudi Arabia -regimes that survive on income from natural resources- are exceptions globally. Most undemocratic countries are dismally poor.
As law, human rights have instrumental value to people campaigning for equality, exposing cruelty, and taking cases against their abusive and feckless governments to national and international courts.
