THE FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS;

THE HUMAN rights movement will go on the offensive 154 in the new

millenium, writes Geoffrey Robertson in Crimes Against Humanity. No more

pleading with tyrants, writing letters and begging despots not to act

cruelly154. There will be less mealy- mouthedness about behaviour which

cries out for condemnation 154. Human rights discussion will be less pious

and less "politically correct' 154. We will call a savage a savage 154.

If so, the next century will finally retire the joke epitomising human

rights enforcement in the last 50 years. The joke is that the man who kills

another goes to prison and the man who kills 20 goes to an insane asylum,

but the man who kills goes to Geneva for peace negotiations.

Is the world ready for effective human rights enforcement? Recently there

have been encouraging signs. Two years ago, the Hague Tribunal sentenced

Dusko Tadic to 20 years in prison for torturing Muslim prisoners in a

Serbian concentration camp. Today, General Augusto Pinochet awaits

extradition to Spain for crimes committed during his dictatorship of Chile.

But Tadic's conviction pales when judged against the Serbian officials and

generals who still walk free and Pinochet may still escape justice. More

importantly, Slobodan Milosevic will not face a tribunal. And certainly, no

NATO commander or leader will be called to account for NATO's bombing of

civilians in Serbia. Victors do not commit human rights violations.

That has always been the case. The Nuremberg Tribunal only held Nazis

accountable for violating rearmament proscriptions, although France, too,

violated those proscriptions. Only Nazis were charged with waging

aggressive war, though the Soviet Union overran the Baltic States. A German

admiral was to be convicted of waging unrestricted submarine warfare until

the Tribunal decided to admit evidence that the US also waged unrestricted

submarine warfare in the Pacific against the Japanese. Nazis made easy

targets, of course. The gas chambers marked them as butchers and Germany's

military defeat stripped them of protectors. The same cannot be said of

most human rights violations. In the absence of world war and the

polarisation of world opinion, most killers still have friends willing to

offer safe haven. Idi Amin, butcher of Uganda, lives comfortably in Jeddah

courtesy of the Saudi government. Haiti's Baby Doc154 Duvalier enjoys the

wine and hospitality of south France. Haile Mengistu, Ethiopia's mass

murderer, resides in Zimbabwe under the personal protection of President

Robert Mugabe. Robertson deplores this coddling of killers, looks forward

to the day when an International Criminal Court will be willing and able

to prosecute them.

That day remains a long way distant. Many states, including the US, oppose

any international criminal court with extensive power and jurisdiction to

prosecute human rights violations. They are too concerned about being

caught up in the net. The US, in particular, will use international law to

clobber and cajole others but flouts those same laws when they become

inconvenient to US foreign policy. For example, the US mined Nicaraguan

harbours during Ronald Reagan's years in office and then ignored

Nicaragua's appeals to the International Court of Justice.

Likewise, Israel opposes an international court, and is guilty of human

rights abuses. Just recently, Israel released a Palestinian arrested on

suspicion he belonged to a terrorist group who had been held in

administrative detention for six years. Administrative detention is a

euphemism for prison without trial.

This illustrates a particular problem with human rights activists. Almost

universally, human rights violations occur in other154 countries. The

Australian government, for instance, might make a representation to

Indonesia about human rights. But the Australian government is unlikely to

appreciate or act upon the same representation made in reverse.

Robertson largely ignores this problem. Instead, he derides the UN for

failing to act more forcefully against human rights violators. But the UN

remains a club of states and can only do what its members authorise and pay

for.

The situation is improving. Pinochet is only the first dictator to be

detained during international travel. Hopefully, Britain's action will

constrain the activities of other dictators, prompting them to reconsider

their methods. More likely, however, it will only force them to think more

carefully about their travel plans.

Curtailing their ability to move freely represents a victory for the human

rights movement. Not a huge victory, nor even a significant one. But human

rights law has always been an area of high ideals and incremental gains. It

has taken the world 50 years to come this tiny distance.

No small feat, given that many architects of human rights conventions never

intended those conventions to be enforced at all.