In his inaugural speech in January 1977, US President Jimmy Carter pledged his unwavering dedication of the new Administration to the cause of human rights. Throughout his term of office (though only one), he tried to keep his words. He made human rights a key element of US foreign policy. They became a powerful political weapon in the fight against the communist bloc. But they also provoked the criticism of America’s declared allies, especially in Latin America. It was the figure of Carter that was assumed to be associated with the beginning of the golden age of human rights in international politics.
Carter was a moralist by conviction. The idea of making human rights the axis of foreign policy doctrine (even if it was motivated by purely geopolitical reasons) thus gained a credible patron. The concept of human rights has revolutionized the paradigm of international relations. It expressed utopian faith in the possibility of transgressing the principle of sovereignty and the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of nation-states in the name of the universal guarantee of the fundamental rights of an individual, and the creation of international law and political-international protection for a human being. It imposed on states the imperative of taking care not only of their own citizens, but also of the fate of citizens of foreign countries, and, consequently, of the entire human civilization. It is, therefore, the purest form of a Promethean doctrine.
In political circulation, human rights came with the Enlightenment. The American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the French Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights of 1789 reflected the influx of liberal beliefs about the state (and grew out of mainstream Christianity, whether we wanted it or not). This liberal manifesto was not at that time translated into an active missionary attitude towards other nations. And even if it did, it could quickly become discredited – both in the French version (the pacification of Haiti, the occupation of Spain) and in the American version (expansion to the West violating the rights of the indigenous population, practice of slavery).
The tradition of the fight for human rights, of course, goes back to even more ancient times. Milestones were the Magna Carta from 1215, the Bill of Rights from 1689 in English history, or even Nihil Novi from 1505 and the Henrician Articles from 1573 in Polish history. But these acts were not so much an apotheosis of the concept of the natural rights of the human individual, but instruments of limiting the rights and power of the monarch, ruler, sovereign. The concept of natural rights did not flourish politically until the Enlightenment.
Liberalism, along with the nineteenth-century awakening of ethnic identities, got into a marriage with nationalism. The effect of this ideological contamination – liberal nationalism – was emphatically expressed by Mazzini’s thought that without a nation-state of his own, a human being would be deprived of fundamental rights and freedoms. Italians, pushing strangers out of their lands and uniting the country in the 19th century, fought for human rights.
Socialist and communist movements waged a struggle for power on the platform of emancipating the oppressed classes and guaranteeing basic social rights. A much clearer message of the meaning of human rights flowed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries from the suffragette movements and the struggle for women’s rights. After the First World War, it was the problem of national minorities which occupied the international community most of the time. Human rights as such in the works of the League of Nations, for example, were completely absent.
Human rights entered the agenda of great international politics for the first time during World War II. The Anglo-Saxon allies tried with their help to build an alternative vision of the world and state opposed to fascist totalitarianism. Roosevelt wanted to reflect his vision of the “four freedoms” in the 1941 Atlantic Charter, but – in fairness – though the Charter does refer to the right of nations to self-determination, the term “human rights” is in vain to look for. It appears only in the United Nations Declaration of 1942. But in the United Nations Charter of 1945, human rights, though loudly articulated, played a rather ornamental role. They did not generate any practical effects in the organization itself. However, they mobilized a group of outstanding individuals to draft normative acts that would more than compensate for the weaknesses of the Charter. Thanks to Rafał Lemkin, the Convention on the Genocide was adopted on December 9, 1948, being an obvious reaction to the Holocaust (and inspired by the tragedy of the Armenians in 1915). Thanks, among others, to René Cassin – a day later – December 10, 1948 – Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the idea of the World Court of Human Rights (as proposed by Hersch Lauterpacht) has not been implemented. It was necessary to look for an exclusively European solution. And the work on the Human Rights Pacts continued until 1966.
Human rights quickly acquired an anti-communist connotation. But in the political sense, apart from the discourse on the enslaved world separated from the West by the “iron curtain” politically in the 1950s, they were not an independent issue in the strategic game against the Soviets. They appeared in messages from Western countries (and political dialogue) in the context of the persecution of the Catholic Church in the Soviet bloc countries (the imprisonment of Cardinal Mindszenty, Archbishop Beran and many others), in efforts to enable family reunification, and as criticism for restricting civil liberties (closing independent press, repression for expressing views, practicing election rigging).
In international fora, especially at the United Nations, a pattern of debate became established in which Western states focused on political and civil liberties (and criticized the Eastern bloc for limiting them), while socialist states proclaimed the priority of social and economic rights (and boasted of their achievements, criticizing the West for its inability to guarantee the right to work, etc.). It was like endless deliberation about the superiority of Easter over Christmas. It had no influence on the domestic politics of oppressive states.
The sixties of the twentieth century was the decade of decolonization. Experts say that decolonization promoted human rights in a regressive way, because it strengthened the principle of sovereignty. In fact, it was not about the rights of the individual, but all about the self-determination of nations. And it is no coincidence that the 1960 UN Declaration on the Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples made no mention of human rights at all.
Human rights were on the far periphery of international politics. In 1968, the international community decided to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights, in no less, no more – Tehran, to be hosted by Shahinshah Pahlavi.
Meanwhile, the end of the 1960s was the period of the formation of dissident groups and the committees for defense of human rights in the Soviet bloc. The Polish March of 1968 and the Prague Spring of 1968 were the catalysts for increasing public awareness of the repressive nature of the Soviet system. In the USSR itself, the dissident movement had already begun to solidify.
The era of détente facilitated the inclusion of human rights on the agenda of East-West relations. The Helsinki process played a crucial role in this. The socialist bloc sought to sanction the territorial and political post-Yalta status quo. Satisfied with the provisions that indirectly legitimized the socialist system in eastern countries, the bloc agreed to include respect for human rights as one of the ten principles of the Final Act of the CSCE of 1975. The third basket of the CSCE was established, which included commitments to facilitate people-to-people contacts (as well as access to information, access to cultural goods and values, exchanges in the field of education, etc.).
Initially, the West’s modest priority was merely to facilitate contacts (even by mail and telephone) and family reunification. The CSCE was not associated with the possibility of systemic changes in socialist countries: free elections, freedom of speech or assembly. The original motives for the human dimension discussion at the CSCE forum were obstacles to migration by the Eastern regimes in the context of family reunification, the emigration of Jews from the USSR or the departure of people of German nationality from Poland. Even in 1974, the United States adopted the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which made the most-favored-nation clause dependent on the liberalization of emigration practices in the USSR. In this way, attempts were made to create a lever of influence using the East’s interest in economic contacts, loans and Western technologies.
Hardly anyone, both in the West and in the East, assumed that the provisions of the Final Act would become such a strong inspiration for opposition movements in the Eastern bloc. Even such strategists as Kissinger. He disregarded the CSCE negotiations. He publicly announced that for him, the provisions of the “third basket” could be drawn up in the Ki-Swahili language. He agreed in 1975 to establish the State Department Human Rights Bureau, but reportedly he did not even want to see the papers it produced. He later changed his mind about the CSCE, but quite reluctantly.
The simple strategy of the democratic opposition turned out to be extremely effective. It was not about proving that socialism was bad, but about insisting that the authorities fulfill their voluntary obligations. Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, KOR and ROPCiO in Poland could refer to specific provisions of CSCE documents. Helsinki committees began to mushroom everywhere.
And the West made it clear at the review meeting in Belgrade (1977-1978) that it would hold socialist states accountable for the fulfillment of these obligations scrupulously. The meeting ended without adopting the final document, and the signal was clear: détente without liberalization of the regime in socialist countries did not make sense.
Ronald Reagan (with the support of Margaret Thatcher) buried the detente. He took a decidedly anti-communist course, put the promotion of democracy to the fore, and stopped scolding his allies for human rights deficiencies. The CSCE process became an arena of sharp confrontations (the harsh climate of the Madrid meeting was influenced, among others, by the introduction of martial law in Poland).
In January 1987, I came across with the issues of human rights and the “third basket” for the first time. I was urgently included in the Polish delegation to the CSCE review meeting in Vienna. The delegation was severely incomplete, as three of its key members refused to go to the next round of the meeting. The reason for this “strike” attitude, unheard of in rightly bygone times, was the critical assessment of the qualifications and commitment of the head of the Polish delegation. Instead of playing intrigues, the members of the delegation put the matter straight. The boss was summoned for consultations, the members of the delegation were right, so the boss was quickly dismissed, but this caused confusion in personnel matters. I was on my way home from the Salzburg Seminar session when I found out on the platform of the Westbanhof station in Vienna that I was staying in Austria for longer and would be responsible for the ‘third basket’ at the review meeting. My previous experience with the CSCE was related only to the issue of military confidence-building measures.
The style of discussions in the “third basket” working group was clearly different from the military debate. The discussions about confidence-building measures (or disarmament) were much calmer and to the point. Simply, each of the parties showed that the proposals submitted by the opposing side were unacceptable, because they would bring unilateral benefits to its authors, would weaken the defense capabilities of our side, cause the opposing side to build an advantage, and would disturb the balance. And it was necessary to present real (or imaginary, but impossible to verify) facts, figures, data and parameters. Discussion in the human dimension (as it was later called) resembled then (even in a closed format, i.e. without the participation of NGOs or the press) eristic exercises, advocate performances, and competition in the Oxford debate. It was, however, a time of new thinking, glasnost and perestroika, so the USSR softened its position on many issues. The GDR diplomats, Romanians and Czech-Slovaks were looking with ever-growing horror at the Soviet flexibility. And Poland and Hungary at that time already did not participate in the confrontational polemics.
The West fought with particular emphasis to reaffirm the principle of freedom of movement, the right to leave one’s own country and the right to return, and even freedom of movement within one’s own country. “Why are you not allowing your citizens to leave your own country? Why are you denying them a passport? Why don’t you let them come back when they want? ”
The West fought for freedom of religious practices. “Why are you not allowing Bibles and religious publications to be brought in? You confiscate even holy pictures at the border. Why are you not allowing churches to be built? Why don’t you even allow Mass to be celebrated in private homes? Why are you persecuting people for their religious beliefs? ”
The West fought to protect human rights defenders and to fairly defend citizens’ rights. It fought for free access to information. “Why are you jamming Radio Swoboda, Free Europe, BBC, Voice of America?”
You sit, listen and think: why?
Why, for example, cannot I have my passport at home? You hear an allied diplomat at that time explaining into the microphone: “Why should we give people passports, if you don’t give them visas anyway?” And the debate begins for hours. The one, the other. And you stubbornly think: well, why? Let alone your passport, but why can’t you even listen to “An Hour Without a Quarter” on the radio?
The West patiently watched the progress of perestroika in the USSR, prolonged the Vienna meeting, and implemented most of its postulates in the final document adopted at the beginning of 1989. It was under the influence of the factor of human rights and democracy that the Warsaw Pact began to break, even before June 4, 1989. and subsequent revolutions.
The fall of communism changed the human rights paradigm in international politics. The West declared that liberal values became universal, and it was only necessary to help states that had liberated themselves from the legacy of totalitarianism to “operationalize” human rights in legislation, institutions and legal culture. “End of History” was announced. Everything good was supposed to come by itself. It was naively believed that in China, economic development and prosperity would bring democracy. And the victory of democratic value in the post-Soviet space was irreversible. Those were hopes.
In 1994, at the CSCE summit in Budapest, the previous (very political) model of reviewing the implementation of obligations under the Helsinki process was abandoned. The OSCE (since 1995) was pushed on the so-called institutional tracks, according to which the organization would help and facilitate specific actions, and not condemn and criticize. NGOs were allowed to dominate the discussion on the state of human rights and democracy.
Today it has been widely understood what a challenge to the OSCE’s credibility has been posed by, in particular, the oppressive practices in Russia and its aggressive policy. But it was not possible to rebuild the importance of the OSCE as a forum for discussion, or to create sensible levers of influence on the behavior of Russia, Belarus or other states that have repeatedly violated the spirit and letter of obligations in the field of human rights. And Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022 became a violation of the most basic OSCE standards. Russia has met all the requirements for its exclusion from the organization. The OSCE has lost its raison d’être in its current form. Like the League of Nations in 1939, a new organization must be built on its ruins.
The credibility of the Council of Europe as the guardian of human rights, democracy and the rule of law has been further compromised. In 2019, the symbolic sanctions against Russia (deprivation of voting rights in the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE) introduced after the annexation of Crimea and the secession of part of Donbas were withdrawn. For years there has been no response to human rights violations and the repression of NGOs in Russia. An iron argument was the preservation of the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Tribunal over Russia. Although Russia paid modest fines and damages, it ignored decisions that were inconvenient for it, including those concerning, inter alia, Navalny. Western diplomats explained that Eastern Europe (and Turkey under Erdogan) requires a more flexible approach, an understanding that Western-style democracy cannot apply there, and that it is not Russia that should be treated as the main geopolitical opponent of the West, but China. Russia’s exclusion from the Council of Europe in 2022 was a delayed action.
I joined the Council of Europe in 2005 as the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland. I did not seek this appointment, although I knew that I should go somewhere, because after the autumn elections of that year, no top position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be for me. Strasbourg was the only ambassadorial role in multilateral diplomacy that my boss could offer me; he did so on his own initiative. I saw quite close the amazing Strasbourg appeasement, especially after 2009, practiced both by diplomats of some European countries and, above all, by the management of the organization’s secretariat. When I took up the post of Head of Political Planning Directorate at the Secretariat, I tried to make my colleagues more principled. Unsuccessfully. “We cannot influence the situation in Russia, Azerbaijan or Turkey anyway. No pressure will help. ” – I heard. But it was not about efficiency, but about the elementary credibility of the organization, its political prestige. All the more, the Council of Europe turned out to be powerless against the anti-democratic practices in Hungary or Poland.
Meanwhile, the Council of Europe multiplied conventions, recommendations and new catalogs of human rights. Interestingly, however, the political centers in the Member States were not the initiator and driving force behind the normative activity. The pace was set by bureaucrats (employees of the Secretariat of the Council of Europe), experts (including academics) from the Member States, and also (or perhaps most importantly) activists from non-governmental organizations, human rights movements and others. The result of this activity is the fact that there are already three hundred conventions in international circulation. But there are still states that feel they do not need international instruments to guarantee the highest standard of human rights. The United States has not acceded to most of these conventions.
And China, in fact, turned out to be an even more harmful destroyer of the liberal order envisioned in the “end of history” utopia than had been supposed. They created a system of surveillance and discipline of society unprecedented in history, the tightest internet censorship, subjected the Uighur to an oppressive re-education program, and in addition – with the West’s powerlessness – showed that civil liberties and democracy in Hong Kong can be effectively rolled over. When the West raised human rights issues in its dialogue with China, it did so with great fear that its economic interests should not suffer. Attempts were made to explain that they were actually more important, because by fostering prosperity in China, we were supposed to promote democracy and human rights there.
And China, Russia and other “spoilers” emboldened dozens of “third world” states that elected to the bodies of the UN system (the Human Rights Commission, and the Human Rights Council since 2006) states that did not show any credibility in this area with their practices (such as Venezuela, sitting with Poland in the 2020-2022 term, or Russia, removed from the Council in 2022). The original instrument, such as the Universal Periodic Review, was eventually reduced to a bureaucratic ritual without much impact on reality.
The West has a clear problem with treating human rights as a foreign policy doctrine. Donald Trump has abandoned the factor of values in foreign policy in a way that was perceptible to the world. The European Union was the last of the Mohicans by consistently adopting its programs of action in the field of human rights. But in its 2016 Global Strategy, the value factor is virtually absent. There are no references to it in the 2022 Strategic Compass. And its credibility was challenged by problems with the rule of law in its own ranks. However, it still tries to promote the prohibition of the death penalty, domestic violence, pushes for women’s rights, and the rights of sexual minorities. If only it would not lose its dedication to the cause.
Human rights policy is a lasting achievement in the development of a culture of international relations. Experts claim that it transformed international law from the law of nations into human rights law. It undoubtedly made the human individual the subject of international law. It was the carrier of the moral factor in international relations. Its rejection would be a return to the era of dominance of the cynical game of interests, allowing rulers to do whatever they please within the borders of nation states.
But it undoubtedly frightened the states that made control over citizens and the so-called social stability the cornerstones of their policies. Russia declared that human rights policy was a cover for the Western strategy of “regime change”. And China that behind Western human rights policy was an attempt to universalize and impose a liberal social model, and but Asia allegedly has its own concept of human rights that gives priority to collective rights and collective identity.
The catalog of human rights will, however, grow because the influence of the individual on international relations will increase. And of course, individual rights will come into conflict with each other, such as the right to freedom of speech and the right to protect religious feelings, and individual rights with collective rights. But if people’s cross-border empathy grows, the doctrine of human rights will remain the driving force of international politics. International tribunals and courts will continue to operate, and sanctions such as the “Magnitsky Act” will put pressure on states.
Apparently, not so long ago in one of the European countries, a diplomat was disciplinarily fired for the fact that he/she posted a link on a social network to a press publication informing that the government of that country opposed the recognition of the right to abortion as a human right. Déjà vu all over again: you sit and read it and you ask: why? In Europe in the twenty first century?
