Human Rights

HUMAN RIGHTS

Middle East states and international human rights conventions.

The term human rights refers herein to the human rights norms established in the international system in and following from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR). The poor (indeed, often critical) state of the protection of these rights is one of the major features of the human rights debate in the region, which continues to challenge the regional human rights movement, despite recent progress toward reform in certain states; the contestation of the universality of certain of these rights is another feature.

All states in the region are party to two or more of the United Nations human rights treaties. A number are not yet parties (as of 2004) to either the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights which, together with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), make up the International Bill of Human Rights; these include Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). All are parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), but Iran, Iraq, Oman, Syria, and the U.A.E. have yet to sign the Convention Against Torture. A similar number of states (Iran, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, and the U.A.E.) have not yet become parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Many Middle Eastern states that have signed CEDAW, along with many states elsewhere in the world, have attached reservations to their ratification of this treaty. Certain of these reservations have attracted attention because of their broad nature; they purport to subject compliance with the Convention to the principles of Islamic shariʿa;. Arguments continue at the UN over the compatibility of such reservations with the intentions of CEDAW, and arguments continue in the region as to the universality of the norms provided in this particular treaty. There have been a few ratifications of the Optional Protocols to the ICCPR, CEDAW, and the CRC, enabling the appropriate monitoring committee to hear complaints from individual citizens against the state party.

Domestically, it is rare that individuals realize human rights protections through directly invoking international human rights instruments in the national courts, even though there may be constitutional provision for the incorporation in national legislation of international instruments to which the state is party. Furthermore, in many states in the region, weak and unempowered national judiciaries are unable to assert their independent will against the executive to secure effective judicial protection of human rights, even though the rights enshrined in the international instruments are also guaranteed in the texts of most of the constitutions of the region.

A number of states in the region are also party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and Turkey has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights. There is also the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which was adopted in 1994 by the members of the League of Arab States. The original text has been criticized by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists as "a fatally flawed instrument, containing significant gaps and elements which run contrary to fundamental human rights principles." In the years following its adoption, no member state ratified the charter, and in 2003 a process of review for the "modernization" of its contents was initiated.

Another set of standards proclaimed by all states in the region (except for Israel) is contained in the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. The declaration was adopted in 1990 by member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to serve "as a general guidance for member states in the field of human rights." The rights elucidated in the declaration differ in certain significant respects from those set out in the international human rights treaties to which many of the states in the region are parties, and resolutions from OIC summits have consistently asserted the significance of cultural relativity in response to the demands of the international human rights norm of universality. Thus, a 2003 resolution from the OIC foreign ministers recognizes "the obligations and endeavours of the member states to promote and protect the internationally recognized human rights while taking into account the significance of their religious, national, and regional specificities and various historical and cultural backgrounds, and with due regard to the 'Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.'" The arguments over universality versus cultural relativity of human rights norms revolve particularly around the rights of women and minorities, and freedom of religion.

Concern is articulated by many states and citizens in the region over the exploitation of the international human rights discourse for political ends. There are evocations of a larger context of colonial and neocolonial agendas, cultural imperialism, and hostility to Islam. Although these states have political interests in seeking to divert and undermine criticism of their human rights records in international forums (as, in a different discourse, does Israel), among civil society these evocations have a popular resonance, and there is widespread criticism of selectivity in the application of human rights discourse and principles by powerful Western states. This criticism has traditionally centered on the question of Palestine in light of the absence of enforcement action against Israel for its violations of the human rights of Palestinians. It has expanded to include a perception of a lack of attention to the human rights of all Muslims by the major Western powers. These issues have been heightened in the aftermath of the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001.

These real political issues have immediate impact on the work of nongovernmental domestic, regional, and diasporic human rights organizations (NGOs) established since the late 1970s to challenge widespread, egregious, and systemic human rights violations. These organizations have had critical influence in establishing and maintaining the human rights debate and discourse in the region. Regional networking has increased significantly over the last ten years, with a number of formal regional programs and less formal networks established. The NGO human rights movement in the region is also critical of selectivity in the approach of powerful Western states (and in some cases, international human rights organizations), and of Western influence over the agenda of the international human rights movement. Activists may find themselves caught between hostility at home and indifference to regional concerns in the international arena. Regionally, there is general consensus on the need to increase the popular resonance of universal human rights norms and discourse, as well as focusing on national and international state law and policy in order to increase the prospects for implementation of international human rights.

See also organization of the islamic conference.

Bibliography

An-Naʿim, Abdullahi. "Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective." Human Rights Quarterly 23 (2001): 701–732.

Azzam, Fateh. Arab Constitutional Guarantees of Civil and Political Rights. Cairo, Egypt: Centre for International Human Rights Studies, 1996.

Bowen, Steven. Human Rights, Self-Determination, and Political Change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1997.

Cotran, Eugene, and Yamani, Mai, eds. The Rule of Law in the Middle East and the Islamic World: Human Rights and the Judicial Process. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.

Dwyer, Kevin. Arab Voices: The Human Rights Debate in the Middle East. London: Routledge, 1991.

Rishmawi, Mona. "The Arab Charter on Human Rights: A Comment." INTERIGHTS Bulletin 10 (1996): 8–10.

paul martin
updated by lynn welchman