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HISTORIC HUMAN RIGHTS EVOLUTION

15/10/2017 05:55:00 By Jan Sithole

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From the biblical times, the modus operandi of countries’ sizes and boundaries was determined by either the last conquer or the last defeat that country has had over its neighbours’ or enemies. During that era, there was no consideration of human rights or human dignity. During that era there was no word like decent work or labour rights.

Again, during that period, there were no workers or even servants but slaves and there were no Human Resource Managers but slave-drivers who were reporting to their masters. Furthermore, there was no democracy but rulers and dictatorship was the novelty of the time. This was the time where the wealth of a country was determined on the basis of what they have acquired from the conquered States. This was happening from all sectors of society, from tribal levels and eventually national scales.

During this era, there was nothing like international agreements, countries survived by the strength of their military might or got swallowed due to lack thereof. During those times, there were no multilateral international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), Commonwealth, European Union (EU), African Union (AU) and there were no regional bodies such as SADC, ECOWAS and many more, let alone trade agreements such as AGOA, COMESA and SACU to mention a few. There were no global institutions designed to deal with all what the United Nation’s different and specialised agencies designed to have a global approach in dealing with global issues.
Thanks to philosophers and visionaries of the time such as William Wilberforce born in 1759 and died in 1833, which successfully campaigned to outlaw slavery in Great Britain. He died three days after the enactment of the law abolishing slavery, and thanks to the many anti-slavery movements that supported campaigns against slavery.

An English adage that says: ‘in every dark cloud there is a silver lining’ holds true of the First and Second World Wars, because it was after the pain suffering loss of innocent lives and forceful capture of nations and fatigue endured by all and sundry, that eventually resulted in the formation of organisations like the League of Nations, which eventually became the United Nations in 1948, following the ILO which was formed in 1919 after the First World War, which later became and remained the only tripartite body among all UN agencies.

After a few decades after the establishment of the UN and the adoption of the Universal Charter for Human Rights, countries that had colonised others started the process of giving back independence to those countries and those countries were also guided to become members of the UN. After the broad independence era across the world, different regions of the world also formed their own regional structures and institutions that would assist them regionally to work around issues of common purpose in the sphere of governance and established their own instruments that would guide them.

In Africa, the Organization of African Unity, the then (OAU) was formed which has since become the African Union (AU). The AU also produced its own charter the – the African Charter for Human and Peoples ‘Rights’. Immediately thereafter, Africa formed itself five regional blocks which are all affiliated to the AU and these are; East African Community, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the West African, the Central African and North African communities. These continental bodies and together with all countries that formed them are members of the UN in their own rights and are recognised as such.

These international, continental and regional structures have got guidelines, protocols, treaties, covenants, conventions which assist to maintain order, respect and acknowledgement of each country’s sovereignty without overlooking issues that touch on the universality of the different agreements between countries and multilateral international organisations. These bodies have been able to congregate and aggregate international standards and their definition to some form of uniformity, to ensure that human rights are standard and the same irrespective of the country’s geographical position, size or wealth status. This also goes to the definition and attributes of the over used and sometimes misused word – Democracy. Every country want to define itself as democratic, even the worst dictatorships still call and regard themselves as democratic. What helps determine the proper definition of these standards is the bottom-line and the lowest common denominator that you should find in a democracy.

The global democratic principles include but not limited to genuine consultation and dialogue, respect for the doctrine of the separation of powers, citizen/stakeholder participation in policy formulation, free, fair and regular elections, tolerance to dissenting views, good governance, free economic activity, equality before the law, accountability, transparency, respect for fundamental human rights, especially freedom of association, assembly expression and movement and no discrimination of any form.

It is good that such attributes and definitions of democracy and good governance were adopted and embraced by all continental, regional and other United Nations multilateral bodies, including the African Court of Justice and the International Court of Justice and of course ILO and the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA). Universal Fundamental Human Rights are a One Size fit all, which means if you conform to one, you conform to all, and if you violate one, you violate all.

That is why conformity is important. Conformity in this case is not only having these attributes enshrined in policies and documents, but conformity does not exist unless in practice, the citizens enjoy the rights enshrined in the good laws. This is where Swaziland has been lagging behind. It is the duty of all of us to assist the country to conform in law and in practice; ILO and AGOA also happen to have a supervisory mechanism that ensures that there is compliance and regularly have reviews based on the performance of a member State.