Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism by Medea Benjamin & Jodie Evans

Author:Medea Benjamin & Jodie Evans
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Social Issues, Activism, Writing, Politics, Essays, War
ISBN: 9781577317401
Publisher: New World Library
Published: 2005-02-09T13:00:00+00:00

“It’s time for greatness, not greed. Idealism, not ideology. It’s a time not

just for compassionate words, but compassionate action.”

—Marian Wright Edelman

WHAT WE EXPECT

FROM AMERICA

MARY ROBINSON

Mary Robinson is the former president of Ireland and the former UN high Commissioner for human rights.This essay appeared in a slightly different form in The American Prospect.

U.S. leadership was critical in building the global human-rights agenda from the ground up, beginning with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. More than half a century later, that agenda and the movement it inspired urgently need renewed U.S. leadership at every level, from grass-roots activism to government policy and actions, nationally and globally.

The reluctance of the United States to embrace fully the international human-rights system it did so much to establish has weakened efforts to promote democracy and social justice in the United States and abroad. Witness what has happened following the terrorist attacks of 9/11: since then, the U.S. government has decided to hold detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without Geneva Convention hearings; to monitor, detain, and deport immigrants against whom no charges have been made; and to restrict visitors and immigrants alike from many parts of the world.

In lowering its own standards, the United States has, often inadvertently, given other governments an opening to ignore international rights commitments. I saw this firsthand as the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights. A number of countries have introduced repressive laws and detention practices, all broadly justified by U.S. actions and the international war on terrorism. I will never forget how one ambassador put it to me bluntly: “Don’t you see, High Commissioner? The standards have changed.”

We must challenge this view and do everything possible to maintain the integrity of international human rights and humanitarian-law norms in light of heightened security tensions. Yet we must do more. We must also win the war of ideas and make the case that true security is possible only when the full range of human rights—civil and political as well as economic, social, and cultural—is guaranteed for all people.

This thinking isn’t new. In fact, it draws on the best traditions of U.S. leadership, epitomized by president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s celebrated 1944 State of the Union address. But succeeding U.S. administrations have rejected the idea that education, health care, adequate housing, and food are rights citizens are entitled to, sometimes contending that these are aspirations, not justifiable rights. Some of our leaders have voiced fears that U.S. sovereignty and states’ rights would be put at risk by ratifying international human-rights agreements. These philosophical and legal issues have long been debated. But we’ve spent far less time considering the advantages of committing ourselves to human rights around the world: namely, that the vision, legal framework, methods, and strategies of the human-rights movement could support and strengthen U.S. efforts to promote democracy and social justice today.

I am encouraged by the emergence of a U.S. movement that advocates the rights of people across the globe. For example, a growing number of academics at U.S. medical

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