The Human Rights Dilema: More Questions Than Answers

by Michelle Consorte

Sanjar Umarov, leader of an opposition party called Sunshine Uzbekistan was released early from a 14-year prison sentence in late November of last year. His original sentence would have kept him locked up from 2005 until 2029. His case is one which points to the enormous amount of human rights abuse and torture cases that, have not gone unchecked, but which have not been stopped or reduced either. At least, not to a level where we can claim sustained 'improvement.'

In fact, Human Rights Watch, a prominent NGO, was so concerned about treatment of prisoners in Uzbekistan that it published a report on 2007 on torture and abuse of prisoners in that country. The report includes an appeal to the Uzbek government to abide by the standards that it had agreed to uphold.

But Mr. Umarov, after his almost two years in solitary confinement, had a novel idea: what if we were to install video cameras in the prisons to monitor them for torture and abuse?

According to an article by the New York Times, Mr. Umarov was held in multiple sites during his incarceration. Where there were cameras, he said, his guards never beat him. Sometimes they were even well mannered. Gasp!

My only concern with this concept is: who would subsequently monitor the cameras? After all, if the system is as corrupt as we envision, is it not possible that whoever is watching the footage could be paid off, or otherwise convinced, to keep knowledge any 'illegal' activities quiet? But, then again, as Mr. Umarov claims, just the threat of punishment for, well, overt punishment might be enough to keep the guards, etc in check. In which case, Mr. Umarov may have struck Human Rights gold.

But the question still remains of who will supply consistent, reliable, and just force behind the threat of the cameras? For, on a macro level, we have no supranational governing body; our international mode of governance has been solely through nation-states since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. On a micro level, unless governments are willing to undergo major reforms and start enforcing the (apparently arbitrary) treaties that they signed, another governmental force needs to step in, and due precisely to these sovereign nation-states, most ruling bodies would be rather unwilling to let another authority step in and take the human rights reigns.

Forgive me for beating a liberal's dead horse, but is it really too much to ask for a simple promise to abide by a set of human rights? Didn't most countries sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or similar treaties meant to steer countries away from such human rights abuses?

Could it be that the definitions provided within these documents are not satisfactory to all parties involved and therefore they are unwilling to abide by the stipulations of such documents? Or, is that just the post-modernist in me talking?

Does it really take a watchdog wielding his own weapon to keep us from using ours? Apparently, and unfortunately, it seems so. In this case, are we really a species full of power-hungry cut-throats, as some realists, like John J. Mearsheimer, often make us out to be? I'd like to think that we had evolved past the cannibalistic phase.

Indeed, I am asking far more questions than I attempt to answer. This is because I am incapable of giving a reasonable answer to the majority of these questions. Still, hopefully, I have started some form of a dialogue which can lead us in the right direction to find these answers, now that the questions have been raised. For, we cannot set our course for universal human rights installment if we have not yet plotted a course. And maybe, that is exactly the problem we've been facing.