Montag, 21. Januar 2008
“No place for complacency about Human Rights”
thopo, 12:52h
Presentation by Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights at the European Policy Centre, Brussels 24.10.2007
Human Rights are not only about the law and its implementation. Human Rights are also about ethics, they have a moral dimension. This is what makes the discussion about rights particularly interesting – and sensitive.
The norms of human rights have been agreed in international bodies like the United Nations and the Council Europe. This makes them part of international law. But what has given them the deeper legitimacy is the response they have received from the broader public in country after country.
There are civil society groups all over the world working for their implementation. The Universal Declaration and the Human Rights Conventions have created hope for many. They have made clear the distinction between right and wrong.
Read the entire presentation here.
Die allgemeine Analyse des derzeitigen Standes der Menschenrechte ist durchaus zutreffend:
West European governments have tended to see human rights as a foreign policy issue. The ministry in charge has been the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - as if the problems in this field could only be found in other countries. They have ratified the international treaties as an act of good will, rather than recognizing that these norms would be relevant and useful in their own country too. They have reacted with surprise when criticized by European and international human rights mechanisms and sometimes in response attempted to undermine these very mechanisms (instead of strengthening them).
However, there are improvements in this area. Governments in Europe do now recognize that there might be human rights problems also on our continent. There are now Ombudsmen or similar structures for human rights monitoring in most European countries. However, almost no European country has still responded to the recommendation at the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights about a comprehensive national plan of action for the implementation of human rights.
Man hätte sich gewünscht, dass Herr Hammarberg in dem Bericht über seinen Deutschland-Besuch ebenso deutlich auf die schwerwiegenden Menschenrechtsverletzungen durch die Jugendämter eingeht. An Informationen hat es ihm jedenfalls nicht gemangelt.
Human Rights are not only about the law and its implementation. Human Rights are also about ethics, they have a moral dimension. This is what makes the discussion about rights particularly interesting – and sensitive.
The norms of human rights have been agreed in international bodies like the United Nations and the Council Europe. This makes them part of international law. But what has given them the deeper legitimacy is the response they have received from the broader public in country after country.
There are civil society groups all over the world working for their implementation. The Universal Declaration and the Human Rights Conventions have created hope for many. They have made clear the distinction between right and wrong.
Die allgemeine Analyse des derzeitigen Standes der Menschenrechte ist durchaus zutreffend:
West European governments have tended to see human rights as a foreign policy issue. The ministry in charge has been the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - as if the problems in this field could only be found in other countries. They have ratified the international treaties as an act of good will, rather than recognizing that these norms would be relevant and useful in their own country too. They have reacted with surprise when criticized by European and international human rights mechanisms and sometimes in response attempted to undermine these very mechanisms (instead of strengthening them).
However, there are improvements in this area. Governments in Europe do now recognize that there might be human rights problems also on our continent. There are now Ombudsmen or similar structures for human rights monitoring in most European countries. However, almost no European country has still responded to the recommendation at the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights about a comprehensive national plan of action for the implementation of human rights.
Man hätte sich gewünscht, dass Herr Hammarberg in dem Bericht über seinen Deutschland-Besuch ebenso deutlich auf die schwerwiegenden Menschenrechtsverletzungen durch die Jugendämter eingeht. An Informationen hat es ihm jedenfalls nicht gemangelt.
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