Seminar Two:  Incorporating Human  Rights Values in
Educational Institutions in Countries of the Middle East

November 30, 2004

Morton Sklar

Experience: He has organized human rights trainings and teachings after the fall of the Berlin wall, and he has trained refugee women.  Based on his experience on human rights teaching and as a human rights activist, especially human rights issues, he discussed basic ideas he thought were important for teaching human rights in foreign countries.

Human Rights

ð      One of those ideas is that it is impossible to teach human rights in the countries where human rights is not discussed or reflected in the country itself.

ð      Another key thought is that it is essential as you develop the course work that you will give that a heavy emphasis is placed on knowing the people of local concern who you are dealing with at the time.

ð      There have to be large issues addressed that have to be a major element of your development of the coursework, such as women rights.  That will make the training and the coursework more interesting.  It will more likely have an impact in the country.  Must link teaching with substantive human rights issues

Approach

ð      It is important not to impose the US or western democracy approach in the country.  Must be respective of the culture and social norms that the people bring if you are going to have any impact at all.  To the extent possible take the time to be involved in the local process as much as possible.

ð      Involve local teachers in the process as much as possible.  It is one thing to teach or train in a country for two or three weeks and another to help local people to develop the capacity to continue what you teach them.

Teaching techniques

ð      Importance of using an interactive approach.  involving the local people as much as possible, keeping in mind the respect you must have for the local culture etc.

o       interactive approach is not used often.  lectures etc are most often implemented in countries outside of the US

ð      developing your programs with a view to a long term involvement., long term training, so that what you do has a long term effect.

ð      That is a quick snapshot to what you should do.

Rodriquez-Pinzon:

Experience

ð      We [ with Martin] work in the American University Washington College of  law, so our approach has been focusing on the use of law.  We have developed partnerships abroad, with other universities and our peers (other lawyers, professor and legal scholars).

ð      Quickly my experience.  I studied law in Colombia, so I was trained in the continental system, lecturing etc. there was not much interaction with the professors. So coming here (the US) was an exciting experience for me as a student and as a professor.

ð      I feel qualified to discuss my experience in Colombia but here in the States also.  As I was able to explore the techniques that we are advocating to use [in comparison to the techniques] that I was taught by.

ð      As a young lawyer I worked in international negotiations.  I was able to learn re international human rights standards in negotiation law in Colombia. [And I realize that] it is even more important now then 15 yrs ago

Approach taken in the Academy

ð      We began a series of projects in the Academy with several peer universities abroad:  Ecuador , Colombia, Argentina trying to foster linkages across borders.  We saw that human rights was a separate part of universities especially in law schools.  They were not involving themselves, as lawyers, in  the protection of human rights.

ð      I was never taught human rights in law school though my country has had internal conflict for decades

ð      Colombia:  is a difficult country to work in because it is not a transitional country but it has an ongoing conflict.  So each city in different regions has a different university that approaches human rights in different ways.

o       no capacity was ever left during trainings.  they would come 2 or 3 weeks and leave. we  wanted to engage with universities on  a long term strategy, 2 or 3 years.

o       So we decided to create a link with a private university.  A private university in the context of Colombia made sense.  In a situation of conflict, a society polarizes and neutrality dissolves so people are viewed to be taking one side over the other when they associate themselves with particular institutions.  So by pairing up with a private university it was perceived to be a neutral space by the community.  It seemed more than a political discourse.  We achieved one of the objectives of our program because many lawyers joined the training because they felt protected, that they would not be identified with either the left or the right [of the political situation in Colombia]

§         they (the lawyers that attended the training)identified public officials that should be involved:  public defenders office

§         we have en extended source of lawyers exposed to methods of training human rights.

§         we have a compiled digest to which lawyers could refer to

o       it is important to involve individuals at the local level as this will help contribute to creating a culture of human rights  values

Martin:

Experience

ð      I went to law school after the dictator was disposed in Argentina.  So  we were the first lawyers who were exposed to human rights law.

ð      Mexican experience:  dictatorship in Argentina and Chile was different from Mexico as in those countries there was intense violence and violations of human rights.  [However, changes needed to be made regarding the way the society viewed human rights]

o       Because Mexico ratified international treatises regarding human rights, they thought they didn’t have to change anything.

Methodologies that we used to teach lawyers

o       We trained in Mexic  no law school wanted to participate so we worked with a human rights program that was created within the university [by an outside organisation].  [Thus] it is important to have a domestic partner.  Through the domestic partner we identified other human rights professors and we put together a  diagnostic report.  We found that universities were not teaching human rights law.  They were confusing human rights law with constitutional law.

o       We followed an interactive approach.  We organized teams in DC [that would be part of conducting trainings]

o       We had to identify a professor [ from the Mexican university] and that professor had to be trained

o       We asked them to put together a team to compete a moot court competition.  They came the states and observed the first year, and they will participate in the year to come.  [The process of training to compete in a moot competition]  will teach them jurisprudence as well as the possibility to meet other individuals who are working in human rights, not in the United States but from countries around the world.

ð      Don’t take things lightly, put things in writing.

Results:

ð      they have a law course, and a professor trained in human rights law.

ð      the mentality in Mexico is not necessarily changed, but Mexico is involved in amending the constitution by including human rights treatises into their Constitution. [which signifies that lawyers will be bound to following that amended law.]

Haynes Approach

ð      I endorse many of the comments that have been made so I will make some observations based on my experience

ð      In any kind of transitional government, you can only work on these issues if you can secure certain needs and rights:  food, water and security

ð      There may or may not be stages that you go through in nation building it might include peace keeping, protection, development of prospective rights,  and human rights institution building.

ð      Women.  How do you include women and minorities in all parts of the system?

ð      Transitional justice: addressing any violations that may have been incurred in the past

ð      Don’t run to the money, don’t let your donor dictate what you should do.  Develop a plan with your local partners that will allow you to carry out your goals without being chained to the agenda of the donor institution.

ð      I no longer endorse running into the battle.  If the time is not right , don’t go.

ð      Creating a culture of human rights, or of anything, is really hard but very important.  The personal investment of the people is key.  Teaching is one aspect, but there are many other ways of approaching things as well.  You don’t want to go overboard, [for example creating odd ad campaigns].

Paoletti:

ð      I will take a slightly different direction but it is similar ideologically

ð      My experience in international human rights largely comes from teaching a human rights clinic at the Washington College of Law [at American University].  I had done human rights stuff before law school and then I attended WCL.

ð      I was part of conducting a study and [participating in a awareness program] individuals in Honduras under the  Honduran human rights commissioner.  Historically, people were not involved in this concept.  Once we left, we realised that the individuals knew what their rights were, but they did not know how to access the system to implement those rights.  In our country we have this system [that is fairly accessible], but that is not so in many other countries.

ð      Farm legal services stuff:  migrant workers, being free from slavery was not recgonised

ð      The importance of clinical education:  [questions that should be asked by the clinical instructor and the student or trainee]What does it mean to be a human rights lawyer and to train people to be human rights lawyers?

ð      How do we identify our client?  What is our objective?

ð      Often we make decisions absent our client.  So we must look at the role of the client and how to empower them.  Getting the client to be invested in the whole process is important.

ð      I see my students as my client.  How to encourage them  to do this?  Must think creatively on how to get beyond the roadblocks.  A large part of this is confidence building.

ð      My female clients(students) felt that they did not have the confidence to think outside the traditional box.

ð      Whether your client be an NGO, lawyer etc clinical education can help implement human rights ideas and train lawyers to go out in the world to advocate human rights

Comments, Questions and Answers

ð      Question:  Guantanomo Bay article [re the prisoners], once identify issue what do you do?

o       Paoletti:  are students getting their  information from the media about their client?  The role of the media is important.  It is  a tool to getting information but also advancing their client’s cause.

o       Sklar:  a lot can be done via litigation.  Lawyers can challenge us government regarding these types of abuses.  What is the impact of seeing these kind of revelations in other countries.. it undercuts our efforts.  We [the US] have become one of the major human rights violators.  This has crippled our ability to work with other countries regarding human rights

ð      Comment:  we have enough laws and regulations to safeguard human rights here But you mentioned the problem of credibility.  We have a double standard when we deal with our friends and another friend whom we believe are against us in some form or another.  No mass media talks about human rights violations in the occupied territories in Israel.  Government closes its eyes to it.

ð      Comment:  in middle east their is a lot of respect for human rights. But  what we need is monitoring of the school curriculum.  When we give a lot of money to these programs, teachers should respect the program before it is brought to the students [or else the goals or objectives of the program will not be taught.]

ð      Question:  We should identify 2 or 3 issues that we will not compromise on eg torture, freedom of expression; women’s rights re voting.  Respect culture yes, [but keep these universal human rights concepts in mind].  How can you handle human rights issues with political issues?  How do you make human rights groups active politically? Because many governments say human rights groups should not be involved in politics.

o       Haynes:  political parties sometimes co-opt human rights groups to meet their agendas.  What do we call Iraq?  We can call it nation building, peace building or an invasion.

o       Keaney:  Dina your point is you can’t go too far too fast

o       Haynes:  not just too far and too fast.  There is difference between protection and development of prospective rights

o       Klar:  there is a danger to the concept of universality because western democracies tend to put rights in a hierarchical order.  But many countries are increasingly not accepting that.  We cannot ___ourselves with the social and political issues.

o       Haynes:  my point was, when I have been on the ground,  when there is still fighting going on, it might not be the right time to send untrained people in with a million dollars who might be unprepared and in harms way.  There are certain basic rights that need to be met, but not necessarily before social and economic rights.  But in a war situation certain rights must be put ahead of [other types of rights].

o       Rodriguez-Pinzon:  there are certain rights that are derrogable (?).  Torture, the right to life, non discrimination (women, minorities) can be applied to the realities of the region.  Freedom of expression is a key one.  There are rights that are  guaranteed spelled out in conventions like the Universal Declaration of Human  Rights.  International rights standards in law give you some guidance as to the ____.  Civil and economic rights need to be adjudicated.  In Colombia, there been have mass violations, but in regard to some civil, economic and property rights there are some very strict protections of these rights.  Each setting is different so may require a different approach.  You must deal with those differentialities.  But there are some minimums in international law, like torture, right to life, and due process that protect these rights

o       Martin:  the proper standard.  this goes very much to the education of the people.  You must convince people that they have the right to certain rights.  And  as long as those rights are respected within their own countries, what the US and other countries do, does not matter.   Think about Pinochet., he is not the only dictator that has ruled in the world, but look at the political consequences that he had in the UK.  It is very important to acknowledge that there is a double standard but as long as your rights are protected within your own country that is what is important

ð      Question:  First Female Judge in Iraq:  after the ethnic cleansing against the  Kurds in Iraq, 1800 females between 12-28 had been transferred by the___ services to Egypt to work in night clubs.  Now we have, with the overthrow of Saddam, 75 of them want to come home with children who they  do not know who are the fathers, they are scared to be killed when they return.  Who will guarantee the human rights of these women will not be violated?  These people need to be trained in the universal rights standards.  Who will guarantee these rights?

o       no response.  Keany reminds audience that this is about teaching human rights.

ð      Question:  We can come to an agreement on a core set of human rights, but [the question is],  how do we approach it?  But as far as advocacy, for example when talking about the Middle East, why can’t the advocate find the human rights value within the culture i.e. in the Middle East you can’t divorce the people from Islam.  So why can’t the advocate look within Islam and find the human right value within Islam?

ð      Question:  many people feel that the human rights infringements are deeply rooted in Islam, so how can any framework to teach human rights in the  Middle East take into account these feelings?

Responses to both questions

Martin:  credibility and human rights should not always be looked at together.  The values that are important to people are not necessarily that of the West.  But I am sure the women in the Middle East do not want to be tortured.  You must look at the political context.

Paoletti:  it goes to the importance of local partnerships.  How do you work to empower the local human rights system and lawyers recognizing  universal human rights

Sklar:  can’t teach human rights without an emphasis on their own perspectives so in the context of the Middle East you must be cognizant of the importance of the Koran and Sharia.  So most Americans who are not familiar with these things it seems foreign.  The way we are doing it [what we are doing in Iraq] is not correct.