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NEWS - World leaders gather to char



Subject: NEWS - World leaders gather to chart future of human rights 

World leaders gather to chart future of human rights 

            Conference marks 50th year of U.N. declaration 

            December 6, 1998
            Web posted at: 4:53 p.m. EST (2153 GMT) 

            In this story:

                -'A Magna Carta for mankind' 
                -World's most ignored document 
                -Little to celebrate 
                -Pinochet arrest 'an anniversary present' 
                -'First we must have economic change' 
                -'A distant ideal' 
             

            PARIS (CNN) -- Global fundamental rights come under
            scrutiny this week at an international gathering in Paris to
            mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal
            Declaration of Human Rights. 

                                    Joining U.N.
                                    Secretary-General Kofi Annan
                                    and High Commissioner for
                                    Human Rights Mary Robinson
                                    will be activists from around
                                    the world, including Nobel
                                    Peace Prize winners and
                                    grass-roots campaigners. 

                                    They will spend four days
                                    reviewing the past and
                                    considering the prospects for
                                    justice in an increasingly
                                    multicultural world brimming
                                    with tension and confusion. 

                                    French President Jacques
                                    Chirac will open the
                                    ceremonies on Monday with a
                                    colloquium on human rights in
                                    the 21st century. 

                                    On Thursday, the anniversary
                                    day itself, participants will
                                    gather in the Chaillot Palace --
                                    better known as the Trocadero
                                    museum across the Seine
                                    River from the Eiffel Tower --
                                    to commemorate the original
                                    signing of the declaration
                                    there. 

                                    "All human beings are born
                                    free and equal in dignity and
                                    rights," announced the
                                    declaration, adopted on
                                    December 10, 1948. 

                                    Enlightened philosophers,
                                    priests and politicians had
                                    shared this view for ages, but it
                                    was not until this century
                                    brought two world wars and
                                    the Holocaust that leaders
                                    came together to declare
                                    certain basic rights inalienable.

            'A Magna Carta for mankind' 

            Guided by such personalities as Mahatma Gandhi and
            Eleanor Roosevelt, the United Nations approved the text
            stating that every human had the right to life, liberty,
justice
            and property in what Roosevelt called "a Magna Carta for
            mankind." 

            The declaration, much of which
            has been translated into national
            laws around the world, shuns
            discrimination, slavery, torture,
            arbitrary arrest or exile. 

            That solemn declaration signed in
            Paris in 1948 did not immediately
            make human rights a focal point of
            world politics. Dictatorships
            persisted, some into the present
            decade, and full justice was
            sometimes elusive even in
            democratic societies. 

            World's most ignored
            document 

            The declaration has become both
            the most quoted and most ignored
            international document of modern
            times. 

            Since its inauguration, millions of
            people have been denied their
            most basic right -- that of life -- as a
            result of massacres such as those
            in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia.
            In many other countries,
            inhabitants can only dream of basic
            civil liberties. 

            And the world is far from fulfilling
            the declaration's pronouncements
            on economic rights. "Everyone has
            the right to a standard of living
            adequate for the health and
            well-being of himself and his
            family," states Article 25. 

            According to U.N. figures, 1.5
            billion people must get by on less
            than $1 a day. In South Asia, half
            of all children under the age of 5 are malnourished. Only a
            third of the people in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to live
            past 40. 

            Little to celebrate 

            "I do not see this as an occasion for celebration," Robinson
            said of the 50th anniversary. 

            "Count up the results of 50 years of human rights
            mechanisms, 30 years of multibillion-dollar development
            programs and endless high-level rhetoric, and the global
            impact is quite underwhelming," Robinson said. "This is a
            failure of implementation on a scale which shames us all." 

                                   But, as participants at this
                                   week's ceremonies will
                                   emphasize, the patient lobbying
                                   of rights groups such as
                                   Amnesty International,
                                   landmark agreements such as
                                   the Helsinki Final Act and the
                                   recurrent outbreaks of "people's
                                   power" around the world have
                                   made human rights an
                                   accepted part of politics. 

            Many activists say that despite blatant violations of the
            declaration's principles, it still carries weight and
influence. 

            "Even if it's not implemented, it's THE point of reference
for
            governments and people around the world," said Isabelle
            Scherer of Amnesty International. 

            It also has paved the way for what progress has been made
            in human rights. 

            Pinochet arrest 'an anniversary present' 

            Advocates cited Britain's arrest and possible extradition of
            former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain on
            charges of genocide and torture as evidence of a changing
            international mood. 

            "Pinochet's arrest makes a very nice 50th anniversary
            present," said Kenneth Roth, president of the U.S.-based
            Human Rights Watch. 

            "Twenty years ago, dictators, when deposed, could look
            forward to a happy, comfortable retirement. International
            human rights law has caught up with them," said Peter
            Thomas Burns, chairman of the U.N. committee on torture. 

            U.N. organizations set up to monitor compliance with the
            declaration and related treaties meet frequently in Geneva.
            Although the bodies have little power other than to cajole
or
            rebuke, rights advocates say their pressure makes a
            difference. 

            Many Asian nations have long argued that human rights are
            a purely internal matter, but there are signs of changing
            attitudes. Both Indonesia and the Philippines criticized
            Malaysia's government this year over the detention of a
            former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim. 

            'First we must have economic change' 

            Yet, while China recently signed a U.N. treaty on civil and
            political rights and maintains it respects the Universal
            Declaration, it still punishes anyone who doesn't follow the
            official line. 

            Many Chinese echo the government's position that national
            prosperity takes precedence over individual rights. 

            "First, we must have economic change. As the economy has
            developed over the past 20 years, people have more rights,"
            a Chinese businessman told a reporter. 

            "Twenty years ago, I could not be standing here talking to
            you," he added, but his reluctance to have his name
            published pointed to the distance China still needs to go to
            achieve basic human rights. 

            'A distant ideal' 

            Although U.N. documents have increasingly focused on
            women's rights, they have made little impact on the plight
of
            millions of women in developing countries. 

            In Kenya, for instance, growing economic hardship is blamed
            for a marked increase in physical abuse of women. Women's
            groups there plan to mark the declaration's anniversary by
            putting husbands of battered women "on trial" to highlight
the
            problem. 

            Alexander Podrabinek, 46, who spent five years in Siberian
            exile during communist rule in the Soviet Union, said the
            declaration was long a touchstone for dissidents. He
recalled
            how the KGB routinely confiscated copies of the document
            as "anti-Soviet literature." 

            Conditions are better now in Russia, but widespread
            violations of human rights persist, he said, citing
religious
            discrimination and appalling conditions in prisons. 

            "The broad public is largely unaware of the declaration," he
            added. "But it remains some kind of a distant ideal."