Human Rights and United Nations - Conversation with Michael Novak and Richard Schifter 0844734667

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A Conversation with

. Michael Novak and Richard Schifter

Overleaf, Michael Novak Facing page, Richard Schifter

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A Conversation with

Michael Novak and Richard Schlfter Human Rights and the United Nations

Held on April 3, 1981 American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research Washington, D.C.

ISBN 0--8447-3466--7 Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 81-69757 AEI Studies 340 ©1981 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Re­ search, Washington, D.C., and London. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner what­ soever without permission in writing from the American Enterprise Institute except in the case of brief quotations embodied in news articles, critical articles, or reviews. The views expressed in the publications of the American Enterprise Institute are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEI.

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Introductory Remarks Austin Ranney

Our topic today is "Recent Developments in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights." Our two speakers are Michael No­ vak, who is the U.S. Representative to the Commission on Human Rights, and Richard Schifter, the alternate representative. When they are not battling for the cause of human rights, Michael Novak is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute studying the theology and political theory of democratic capitalism, and Richard Schifter is a partner in the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Kampelman. He has become one of the country's leading spe­ cialists on the rights and status of Indian tribes and has represented them often in litigation. Before that, he was for many years the Democratic party of Montgomery County, Maryland; when he could not stand that any longer, he became active in the affairs of the whole state. He has served for many years on the Maryland State Board of Education, including four years as the president of that board. More recently he has been serving as chairman of the Mary­ land Values Education Commission.

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A Conversation with Michael Novak and Richard Schifter Michael Novak Little did I know eight weeks ago when I left this table that I would be gone from it until now. First, a few words about the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). The commission itself was started in 1946. Its first task, when Eleanor Roosevelt served as U.S. repre­ sentative, was to develop the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For the first twenty years of its history, until 1967, the UNHRC basically confined itself to preparing various covenants and draft treaties. There was such a small body of international law on the subject of human rights that the first task was quite general and conceptual. In 1967, for the first time and with some trepidation and mis­ givings, the commission began to approach human rights problems in specific nations. It was unclear to what extent the international body could or should become involved in the internal matters of states. The question of apartheid in South Africa was the very first case. That case has been discussed in every session since. In the next year, the case of Israel and the so-called occupied territories was placed on the agenda, and that question has been discussed every year since. In 1974, the Soviet Union placed on the agenda the case of Chile, and that issue has been discussed every year since. Most of the discussions at the commission are open to the public and to the press. But in 1969-1970, on the initiative of the United States and some of its allies, confidential proceedings, called 1503 proceedings, were instituted. These confidential procedures have two important characteristics. They allow private groups, private individuals, or nongovernmental organizations to register complaints about human rights violations anywhere in the world. When a pat-

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tern of abuses becomes apparent, the violators are placed on the agenda of the Human Rights Commission, and the nation in question has an opportunity to reply to the allegations under conditions of confidentiality. This procedure developed only slowly. In 1980, sit­ uations in eleven nations were considered under the confidential proceedings, which more than doubled the number in any preceding year. This year sixteen nations were considered. Frequently, these cases are discussed and monitored for a year or two, and if the situation warrants, the matter is simply dismissed. Otherwise the procedure continues and on occasion is moved into the public dis­ cussion. The public discussion is important. Although the commission operates in some ways like a judicial body and in some ways like a legislative body, it actually can impose no sanctions other than public condemnations. Its condemnation of a nation's practices can have a very powerful effect on world public opinion. How effective it is can be seen from the fact that there is rather stiff competition for seats on the commission. Two years ago the number of states represented on the commission was raised to forty-three from thirty-two, as some years earlier it had been raised from twenty-one to thirty-two. There are now forty-three member nations. Each is elected to a three-year term by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The agenda is in large part ritual; that is, the same cases come up over and over again. A relatively small part of the agenda is open to new matters, the agenda being set in every case the year before and augmented by mandate of the United Nations General Assem­ bly, which requests the Human Rights Commission to undertake certain investigations. The commission meets annually for a six-week period in February and March. The Reagan administration came into office on January 20, and the commission meetings in Geneva began on February 2. There was little time to appoint representatives or to prepare any new approach, even if one wanted to. Mr. Schifter and I learned of our appointments only in the last few days before leaving. In my case, the final clear­ ance to depart came on a Saturday morning, and I was expected to take an airplane to Geneva that night at 6:30. Mr. Schifter's clearance came on a Monday, and he was in Geneva on Tuesday for the beginning of the session. Thus we went with the briefing books and preparations completed by the Carter administration. According to our instructions, there were to be some new directions to pursue, some new agenda items to be raised, and some new methods to be proposed, yet these would be essentially a continuation of American policies of the past.

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Two premises emerged. First, UN Ambassador Jeane J. Kirk­ patrick and Assistant Secretary Elliot Abrams, the officers to whom we are directly responsible, pointed out that every American admin­ istration is necessarily concerned with human rights. All our families have come to this country because of human rights; the issue is essential to .,our national identity and national purposes. Second, a great nation changes its real interests only slowly and thus changes directions only slowly. Therefore, while all foreign policy issues were under review by the new administration, we could expect a certain predictability and consistency with the record ·established by previous American administrations. On the very first night in Geneva, I was invited to a reception at an ambassador's home for delegates from all the Western nations. After dinner, following an ancient Jewish-Christian custom of burn­ ing a live offering at a communal gathering, I was placed in the corner for two hours, as the solitary Reaganaut in captivity in all of Europe, and quizzed about the foreign policy-not only the human rights policy-of the new administration. Given the slender briefings that we had, I had to make do with some basic principles. Several weeks later the ambassador who gave the reception told me how helpful that briefing had been. It had enabled him to interpret the administration's actions and not to be surprised by those actions. I might therefore sketch briefly the three basic points that were the essence of our instructions. First, we were to assure all present at the commission's hearings, and through them the world, that the defense of human rights is a permanent tradition of the United States. It would be the policy of this administration to condone nothing. Mrs. Kirkpatrick must have used that expression in her conversations with me at least three times. In her inimitable and forceful way, she told me to condone nothing, condone no human rights violation any­ where in the world. Second, we were to let it be known that there would be, for this administration and for our delegation, no double standard for human rights violations, no singular treatment for cases that are widespread, no exemptions for regions. This, I pointed out, would probably in­ volve us in at least two or three departures from past policies as cases arose. It was hard to predict in the opening days just what those departures might be. But we would, on the one hand, raise some issues not previously considered and, on the other hand, try to redress the balance where we felt some nations or regions were being unfairly or inaccurately singled out for a special treatment that seemed to us to be a miscarriage of justice. Third, we would focus attention on mediating institutions, tak5

ing the line from James Madison that human rights exist not on parchment nor in words, but in institutions; indeed, not solely in institutions, but in free and independent associations of individuals able to make those institutions work. Keeping our eyes on that, we would strive, during this administration and during our tenure at the commission, to focus on building up and improving the quality and solidity of human rights institutions in the nations of the world. We would do that on the grounds that, where these institutions are healthy, where there are institutions of due process, human rights are bound to show improvement. Taking a cue from some comments made by Secretary of State Alexander Haig, I suggested that we would also call attention to the new phenomenon of international terrorism. This new terrorism is not the random act of terrorists, as in the novels of Dostoevski. It is not simply the use of terror by states against their own peoples, as it was under Stalin and Hitler. The new terrorism is a well-organized, well-financed activity, designed by groups of terrorists who operate on an international scale and with various forms of international support with the intent to injure and to destroy human rights. That is, today's terrorists characteristically take as their targets diplomats, public officials, legislators, professors, union leaders, and sometimes marketplaces and bus lines, to disrupt the institutions of daily life and of due process so as to make people lose faith in human rights institutions. They commit, therefore, a double depredation-they kill or maim or kidnap individuals, and they also attack human rights institutions, knowing that if they can destroy those institutions, they can destroy all possibilities for human rights. We took a certain amount of satisfaction, by the end of the six­ week session, from hearing these various themes echoed by other delegations, notably in the speeches by the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and others. So we have some con­ fidence that the intellectual themes we introduced did take root.

Richard Schifter I would like to build on what Michael Novak has said. We might want to keep in mind a distinction, for purposes of analysis, between the U.S. human rights policy on the one hand and the role of the UN Human Rights Commission, or for that matter any UN institu­ tion, on the other hand. During my weeks in Geneva, one thought that came back to my mind again and again was the fairy tale of the emperor and his clothes. I was imagining the Human Rights Com6

mission in that context. My conclusion at the end of the session was that this particular emperor was at best only scantily clothed. The fact is that the Human Rights Commission is a UN insti­ tution. It suffers, therefore, from all the deficiencies inherent in the United Nations as a whole. In this particular context, one must keep in mind that, first of all, we had the rather effective presence of the Soviet bloc. We are dealing with a group of countries that simply has never defined human rights issues the way we define these issues and that does not think in human rights terms the way most of us do. When I first got there, Michael Novak, who had arrived earlier, pointed out to me the chairman of the Soviet delegation, Valerian Zarin, affectionately known as the "butcher of Prague." This sobri­ quet refers to his presence in Prague in 1948 as the engineer of the Communist takeover, which, among other sad events, resulted in the death of Jan Masaryk. The Byelorussians, a separate delegation, sit on the other side of the room, operating independently. The Bulgarians and the Poles operate dutifully under orders from the Soviet Union. The Cubans (a very effective group), the Mongolians, and sundry others-Ethiopia for example-tend to go along with this bloc. The third world countries in conversation with us take the position that human rights, as we define the term, are a luxury of the developed world. As far as they are concerned, the issue is primarily what they call the right of development, which is the human rights aspect of the north-south dialogue and the transfer of capital and wealth from the developed world to the underdeveloped world. When it is all added up, there is not a majority at the UN Human Rights Commission that defines the term "human rights" the way we do. There is nothing unique about the U.S. definition; this is the way the term is generally defined in the West. What we have, there­ fore, is an institution dealing with human rights whose participants do not agree on the real meaning of the term. That is an inherent problem. It makes the institution one from which no great positive contribution to the cause of human rights can be expected. The question that arises, therefore, is what, under these circum­ stances, the United States can do. We can use this particular forum to present our point of view on the issues, and it is most important to present it in an unabashed form. That is precisely what Mr. Novak and I did. We just did not worry about who might be offended by one phrase or another; we simply told them what we thought; and that was a healthy exercise. There is also the opportunity outside the plenary sessions to deal with other countries, particularly our allies, and to exchange

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thoughts on what we have in common. We can work with them, we can make them understand our positions, as they can make us understand their positions. It is important that one not assume that there is value in the declarations adopted by the UNHRC. Let me illustrate this point. The so-called Byelorussian delegation introduced a resolution dealing with fascism. We felt that this draft resolution enabled the Soviets to define problems in the world their way; and we felt there was really no point in our negotiating with them or disrussing the pos­ sibility of finding a common way of dealing with this question. That was the U.S. position. Some of our Western colleagues thought it was a good idea to negotiate with the Byelorussians to see whether they could reach a common understanding. They did negotiate with them, and they thought they had reached a common understanding. They were very proud of the fact that they succeeded in introducing into the antifascist resolution a condemnation of all forms of totali­ tarianism. A few days later the amendments were formally intro­ duced. They were introduced by the Byelorussian delegate. Parenthetically, let me say I wonder whether they really come from Minsk or whether there is somebody in the foreign ministry who tells some official that he is the Byelorussian for the next six weeks. Be that as it may, the Byelorussian representative led off in support of his amendments with a speech condemning all forms of totalitar­ ianism. The question is: What have we won when they are prepared simply to tum a word that we use to describe their system in such a way that it does not apply to them and then they go along with the resolution? The point is that one should not expect much from the UNHRC, which is, as a good many other people described it, just a mini­ General Assembly. The same politics that is played at the commission is being played in the General Assembly. We found ourselves rec­ ognizing the reality, not having exaggerated hopes about what could be accomplished in that setting, but using the forum to present and to advance U.S. thinking on these matters. To the extent to which we could join with our Western friends, we attempted to cooperate in presenting our positions and the philosophy of life to which we subscribe. This is what we tried to do; both of us finally felt that in working with the Western caucus, we had made closer friends and had come together in an unusual fashion. We were quite happy and our colleagues from other Western countries were equally happy about the way we were able to work together. That is what we were able to do there. If one sets limited goals, one is not disappointed.

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Questions and Answers OWEN FRISBY, Chase Manhattan Bank: I would like to summarize a factual situation and to ask Michael Novak for his comments on it. David Rockefeller has taken a strong public stance on foreign policy similar to that of your former colleague Jeane Kirkpatrick. He said in Latin America that he generally supports the Argentine govern­ ment actions and positions and their response to terrorism. He was widely quoted in the press; he was criticized by Anthony Lewis and by the president of Amnesty International in rather strong terms in the New York Times. He answered with a letter, which was later read into the Congressional Record by Representative Robert Dornan and Representative Barry Goldwater, Jr., with some rather spirited com­ ments in defense of his position. He took the position that there was a double standard in the Carter human rights policy: the Carter administration was quick to condemn anticommunist or conserva­ tive, authoritarian governments and not very quick to condemn com­ munist or left-wing dictatorships. He argued that whatever is going to be done on human rights ought to be done relatively quietly, behind the scenes, through dialogue rather than through a confron­ tation, which he finds counterproductive, particularly in relations with a friendly government. I would like to ask Mr. Novak what his personal reaction is to David Rockefeller's rather strong public views and what comments, if any, he has heard from representatives of other governments or from other leaders around the world on this subject. MR. NOVAK: The Rockefeller speech was quoted in the United States some time before we left for Geneva. I do not recall its being dis­ cussed at Geneva. As I understand it, Mr. Rockefeller was also some­ what critical of the strong speeches we made in Geneva. In general, we believe in using the full range of tactics open to the United States, acting alone or with other nations, and to the UNHRC. At times, the situation requires public condemnations-in which we actually often participated in Geneva-and, at other times, other forms of diplomacy and action behind the scenes. It is not a case of either/ or; it is a question of results. One cannot help noticing from the UNHRC agenda over the years that only once in the entire thirty-seven years of the commis­ sion's existence has a nation from Eastern Europe been cited. And yet this year alone we had at least eight Latin American nations on the agenda. As a delegate from Africa pointed out to me, it cannot 9

be true that the human rights situation in South America is worse than in other regions of the world; people are still migrating to that continent. He said that human rights are often abused there, but it is worse in many places. Now in this circumstance, what is the most effective position to take? In one of Mr. Schifter's speeches, he pointed out that this administration and our delegation are concerned with results. In four or eight years from now, we would like to see the human rights situation, be it in Argentina, Brazil, or any other part of the world, better than it is today. That is the standard by which we would like to be judged. How does one go about making a situation better? We raised this question in several different forms. There do seem to be times when public condemnations by organizations such as the Human Rights Commission have helped, particularly in the case of individuals. That is, we do have evidence that the Working Group on Disappearances, for example, has been able to get satisfaction on particular cases from the government of Argentina-that is a worth­ while function. This was due partly to the publicity given to the working group and partly to the fact that the working group operated confidentially, discreetly, and privately. This working group uses both the techniques described in our general view. It must choose the technique most likely to bring about the desired results. In a case in which a government is faced with severe terror, such as one case in Latin America in which as many as 300 or 400 peJsons died in a week, according to the information that we had, condemnation seemed in order. We felt that a human rights commission must condemn the terror aimed at the institutions. If the response to terror is without due process, then the commission must condemn that too. Both are part of a complex phenomenon, and both kinds of abuse must be reduced simultaneously. I read through the materials on the matter of disappearances in several countries, one of which is Argentina. Some of the materials are enough to stand one's hair on end. Many of the things that happen are simply gruesome. One important fact brought to the attention of the commission is that the number of those who have disappeared in Argentina has diminished dramatically since 1976-1977, when terrorism was at its worst. The number of cases was something on the order of fifty in all of 1980. So the methods used have made some improvement. Our question was, What method would work best now to reduce the number to zero? In general, that is the view by which we operate, focusing on the results and thinking of a whole battery of methods. In some places, we believe we can do better by bringing the offending nation back into the UN circle 10

so that more and more international contact takes place. In that way the climate within a particular country may be improved. Methods are to be judged by results obtained. WALTER BERNS, American Enterprise Institute: A short question to Mr. Novak. You said there are forty-three member countries, and they are elected. Are there no permanent members on the commis­ sion? MR. NOVAK: No. DR. BERNS: So our appearance there is sporadic, depending on when we are elected. MR. NOVAK: We have been consistently elected. There was a question last year whether we would be reelected, but we were. Members are elected for a three-year term. There is always a possibility that a member will be bumped off or will not even apply for membership. DR. BERNS: One suspects that if we are outspoken, we may be kicked off the commission, I suppose. MR. NOVAK: This could happen. There are many people who want us there for various reasons, however. JOHN KILEY, writer and professor of philosophy at the Naval Post­ graduate School in Monterey, California: I was very much heartened and in some respects amazed that a bona fide theologian was ap­ pointed to the Human Rights Commission. I am wondering whether you put any conscious restraints on your theologizing. There is much in your speeches that one might call sociology, rather than theology. If that is the case, I am sure you had good reasons for it. But if we are to survive into the twenty-first century, it seems to me we will need to use the powerful resources of theology in an unmitigated form to address the deepest needs and awarenesses of mankind. And we must address the representatives to the commission, who know one of the most powerful and explosive powers that religion has is to suggest a way, by our concepts, to see more deeply into the unity of mankind. I know you touch on that, but do you see greater potentialities there? If you remain with the commission, would you want to make this first appearance a first camp up the hill to Everest? Would you perhaps establish higher camps in human con­ sciousness? We are talking about human rights, which is of a com11

mon stock and is susceptible and sensitive to the great intuitions of religious truth and human knowledge, whether it be Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or another. All men have something in their souls that resonates with the deepest intuitions about being, about God. MR. NOVAK: One instance in which the difficulties at this level are brutally apparent comes to mind. A Declaration on Religious Intol­ erance has been in the works for twenty-one long, painful years. This year, almost by a miracle, it was passed by consensus-although the Soviet bloc had tried every device to block it. It was brought to completion because the chairman of the working group, who was Senegalese, was afraid of no one. He simply brought vote after vote after vote, which he carried in his working group, and when they presented it to the whole commission, the whole document was accepted. The declaration passed above all because the Islamic na­ tions and the African nations very much wanted it. This very dec­ laration, however, raises a difficulty-just as there is a difficulty about the semantics of human rights, although one would think human rights were universal and understood by all. Consensus simply does not exist, and in the same way religious language is much disputed and often polarizing. Much of what I said was difficult for various persons from other cultures to understand. People immediately be­ gan to think in the light of their own particularities, as well they should. It is not as easy to hit common ground in tl}-is area by direct appeal as one might think. There are indirect ways of doing it, of course. And one tries. ARTHUR BURNS, American Enterprise Institute: How is the Human Rights Commission financed? MR. NOVAK: The Human Rights Commission is financed through a separate line of the UN budget. Contributions are made to the United Nations, which allocates money to the Economic and Social Council. The council then reallocates a portion to the UN Commission on Human Rights. It is an important question for this reason. Every time a new initiative is taken, it is imperative beforehand to check the financial implications. We are dividing a fixed pie, or a relatively fixed pie, in ever new directions, some of them more and more remote from the business of human rights. The document on the right to development, for example, speaks implicitly of nations or of peoples as bearers of rights. Our understanding is that individuals are bearers of rights. Besides, the issues of development are treated by a long list of UN organizations. They do not need to be treated, 12

we argued, by the Human Rights Commission. Nonetheless, one of the provisior:i s of this declaration was that there would be a working group established to meet for a month. It would have to be financed out of some portion of the budget. DR. RANNEY: If I may step out of my chairman's role for a minute, I would like 'to know by what process an item gets on the agenda. Has the United States or the West frequently tried to raise questions about violations of human rights in the Soviet Union, famous ex­ amples of which exist by the dozens? Have we somehow failed to get those items on the agenda? How do you get on the agenda, what have we tried, and what has happened to our initiatives? MR. SCHIFTER: There are two ways of getting on the agenda. First of all, there are the specific items, and then there is the broad, catch­ all category "question of the violation of human rights and funda­ mental freedoms in any part of the world. " The agenda is prepared by what is known as the "bureau." The bureau consists of repre­ sentatives of the five regions. Our own region is "West European and others." There is a Latin American region, an African region, an Asian region, and an Eastern European region. The bureau puts together the agenda, which is then put before the commission and approved by it. Under each of the specific items, any delegation may introduce a resolution that has some bearing on the issue. The broad agenda item, the catchall, is one that really permits a resolution to be introduced on almost any issue. What is important, for reasons suggested by the question of Dr. Burns, is that the commission must adjourn on a certain day because the money runs out. What that means is that if an item is farther down on the agenda, it will be compressed. The Soviets, for example, have for years wanted this catchall item to be farther down on the agenda. So the debate begins with a week on the issue of Israel, another week on the issue of South Africa, then a few days on Chile, and so forth. The West is essentially outmaneuvered on this. Year after year, the question has been raised, Why do we not do better with the agenda? DR. RANNEY: Is it outmaneuvered or outnumbered? MR. ScHIFTER: Outmaneuvered. The conclusion I reached is that with greater effectiveness on our side, substantially more can be accom­ plished in getting issues raised. There really is no overarching plan, either on the part of the United States or, for that matter, on the part of the West generally, on how to deal with this commission and

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its agenda. There has been no such plan at any time within the past ten years. We must be able to do more than go to Geneva and deal with each of the issues as they come up, do better with the issues than simply reacting to an agenda that has been prepared by others. Given the great numbers of Soviet representatives there and their experience-Mr. Zorin is eighty years old, but even the younger ones are veterans of the UN Human Rights Commission-I was amazed that they could not accomplish more than they did, having the mechanical advantage. It tells us that there is something inher­ ently wrong with their message. It also tells us that they are rather wooden in dealing with these matters in parliamentary forums. Not only do Mr. Novak and I agree on this point, but when we talked to our Western European friends, they all agreed on it. We need much more coordination on our side. DR. BERNS: Mr. Schifter, would you elaborate on the lack of agree­ ment as to what constitutes a human right? Last week an expert on all the written constitutions in the world (there are approximately 160 of them now) informed me that in one constitution there is a declaration affirming the right to life, as it is understood by pro-lifers in the United States, whereas in another constitution the right of abortion is described as a human right. What does the Human Rights Commission do with a disagreement of that magnitude? MR. ScHIFTER: You are adverting to one example of what really is a problem throughout. By and large, the vocabulary of the commission is the vocabulary of the West, just as the Stalin constitution used the vocabulary of the West. While there is agreement on vocabulary, there is no agreement on definitions. The fundamental problem is, as my example of the Byelorussians and the issue of totalitarianism demonstrates, that we are not prepared even on the most elementary issues to think along the same lines as countries that subscribe to Leninism. The gulf is just too deep to be able to bridge it in this forum. I had some discussions with delegates in Geneva in which I made the point that on disarmament, on the allocation of rights to the seabed, or on outer space we could reach agreement, but on highly ideological questions, at least at this particular juncture in history, the gulf is too wide. Other nations have different priorities in valuing human life, the relationship between the individual and the group. As a matter of fact, this is a point that Mr. Novak made. The Soviet bloc thinks in terms of group rights on many issues. The Soviet bloc has been able to persuade a good many of the third world 14

countries that the group rights approach is the correct approach, rather than that of individual rights. That is the reason why we are here dealing with a situation of ships passing in the night. MR. NOVAK: May I give a vivid example of that? At one point this year-I was amused to read that exactly the same thing had hap­ pened last year-several nations raised the issue of Andrei Sakharov in quite moving speeches. One delegate of the Soviet Union took the microphone to ask who Sakharov was. He asked why the Human Rights Commission always discussed Sakharov so much. He is an individual; he is happy working in the village of Gork'iy. Why does the Human Rights Commission concern itself with an individual; what does an individual have to do with human rights? I had heard him make a similar argument the night before at a reception, when he was arguing that human rights are something states have. It is a different cast of mind. DR. BERNS: If I may pursue that a bit: it is not simply that the Soviet Union ought to find it difficult to talk about human rights as we understand them, for the same reason that it is difficult for a pros­ titute to talk about chastity. Marx himself denounced the idea of rights in the Western sense. Is there not something inappropriate about Marxists participating at all in such a body, talking about something that they denounce as nothing but bourgeois sentimen­ talism? MR. SCHIFTER: Yes. That is why I said that one of the inherent flaws of this particular institution is that only about 40 percent of the countries represented will, in one way or another, share our con­ cepts. Not much can be expected in terms of resolutions passed by majority vote. We simply ought to recognize that the UNHRC is a place where we make speeches if we think it is appropriate. On balance, it is appropriate for us to participate and to say our piece. In some of the discussions in the Western working group, we made the point that it does not really make any difference whether we lose by a vote of 21 -1 7 or whether we win by a vote of 21-17. If seventeen delegates speak up on our side rather than twenty-one, all right; so be it. LOBE, International Press Service: I have several questions. Con­ sidering the changes in the human rights situation and in the case of disappearances both in Chile and Argentina over the past several years, to what do you attribute the improvement? Could it be that

JIM

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the governments have run out of victims? Or that they are pained by international isolation and this kind of censure and that they want to be regarded as internationally respectable again? Or have the military groups that run the countries, includi�g President Viola, had a change of conscience? Do they no longer believe these methods are correct and now believe in human rights? That is the first ques­ tion . The other question may be too broad to deal with in this group. It is the question of using the distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian . A State Department spokesman said' that Yugoslavia, which is a Marxist-Leninist state, is not totalitarian . On the contrary, Secretary of State Alexander Haig argued that it was totalitarian. Guatemala, if one is to believe the most recent Amnesty International report, is totalitarian in the sense that the government cannot tolerate dissent in any respect. Dissenters either leave the country or die . What use are these terms except as code words to designate blocs to bring them into an international forum? The people I serve are concerned with human rights, especially in Latin America, especially in the remaining states that are democratic there . They are frightened by the change in the U . S. position . They were hopeful, and now they are frightened by these East-West distinctions, which they feel have no validity to their lives, except for the fact that they have been killed for dissent. MR. NOVAK: To answer your first question first-·to what do we attribute the very marked improvement reported by the investigators in Argentina and in Chile? I am not an expert on either place. I would hesitate to venture a theory about what brought about the change . What does interest me, though, in a forum like the UNHRC, is the results . The motives are not quite so interesting to me as the results . In Chile, for instance, there has consistently been a remark­ able improvement since the early days of the Pinochet regime and a remarkable improvement from the 1976-1977 days of what Argen­ tina's General Viola himself has referred to as that "mud we had to crawl through, " that "worst period" in Argentine history. Improve­ ment has occurred. Now some want to argue that this is because of publicity. That is possible, but it seems to me unlikely. It seems unlikely that people who were capable of taking the extreme meas­ ures that were taken would be moved by publicity. Possible, but not so likely. Much more likely is the explanation that their traditions led them to desire a speedy conclusion to a practice that they re­ garded as an abominable thing. The provocation had been seriously reduced; the degree of terrorism had been substantially reduced. It seems plausible that those things had a big effect on what they did . But I do not actually know the motive. 16

The important thing for us is the results. Our question now is, Given the reduction, how can we get abuses down to zero? How can we encourage the establishment of human rights institutions that function daily, efficiently, and in behalf of everybody in those coun­ tries? That is the goal. I judge that a combination of methods will work best. Free institutions, free newspapers, nongovernmental or­ ganizations, the Ford Foundation, which supports human rights ac­ tivists there, international associations of philosophers and lawyers and poets, and the churches-let all these institutions cry out against injustice. All that helps. Governments alone are not the only voices. Nongovernmental institutions also play a great international role. Let the nations of the world, through diplomatic and every other kind of proceeding, make their claims on these nations. We have available many methods, some silent, some public, by which to favor due process, the regular functioning of basic institutions of law. A full arsenal of methods, each used appropriately, is likely to bear good fruit. I received no indication from anybody from South America at the Geneva conference that they were unhappy with our emphasis on human rights and our way of approaching the issues. Quite the opposite. With respect to the distinction between authoritarian and total­ itarian, Anthony Lewis has warned that it is a "theological" distinc­ tion. It is only the most important distinction of the twentieth century, and it was best formulated by Hannah Arendt in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism. I commend to you chapter 13, especially the open­ ing paragraph, in which she points out that totalitarianism-by which she means at that period Hitler and Stalin and their regimes-is unlike any form of authoritarianism ever before known or anywhere else experienced on the planet. Authoritarianism can be cruel and exceedingly repressive. It can be Idi Amin. It can be whatever horrible example you want from the whole history of humankind. Totalitar­ ianism goes still further. Authoritarianism wants complete political control. Totalitarianism wants total control of everything, including the minds and the souls of people, in areas far beyond politics. It wants to revise human nature. That is Hannah Arendt's point. To­ talitarianism promises to create a "new man" and a "new woman, " and it will do anything necessary to accomplish that. It has the means to enforce its ambition. It sets itself against any moral code, natural law, or legal tradition that stands in its way. MR. KILEY: I was thinking of the first chapter in Whittaker Chambers's book Witness, when he was about to give up his job at the Communist Daily Worker. He reported that his eye fell on the ear of his baby daughter sitting in a high chair, and suddenly he saw that there was

17

,1 ,t1d. Ht' s,1w bl',rntv and truth and honor in a flash of intuitive insi�ht. l krt' w,1s a man, Wl' would think, who was a thoroughgoing Ct1mmunist, whose whole soul was asphalted ewer. And yet, the 1..�,1 11 brt',11' through. So when we Vp·o to these commissions with fo::ht " ...._ ,1 F't.' S:-imism that l detect, and when we speak of flaws, we must nc,t n1-1kt' our own silent and unwitting contribution to the intran­ si�t' ncy of tht'St' peo ple. We must go with hope--not an exaggerated ht"'F't', but ,1 t k-1.st the expectation that the light ca �1 suddenly dawn i.n tht.' ht'Mt of the most thoroughgoing represser or totalitarian or wl1.1 t1..' \"1..' r. \\'t' han' to take that position; if not, we might as well 1u�1..'h't'S st,1Y . . ,1wa,·. � lR. � ("\\'A}.;.: \\'e could not agree more. Eldridge Cleaver, by the way, rtT1.." rts tht' sune example of looking on the face of his daughter, whkh t,rou�ht about his conversion. !vlihajlo Mihajlov, who spoke ht.' rt' ,1t AEI, reported in his U11dcrsro1111d Notes the same sort of t.' \.}"'"t.'rit'nCt', and so did Solzhenitsyn. I wished every day that Sol­ zlwnits,·n might enter that room. I wished everY dav that Solzhenits�,1 mi�ht c,111 the roll of the abuses of human rights in the part of tht' world known to him. I do believe that that light breaks through r,n 111,1 11�· people . Yet we are faced now in the Human Rights Com­ miss1t1n with another problem. It seems to me possible, but not likely, tlut tht'rt' wi.11 be dramatic conversions among the forty-three dele­ �-1fa1ns g,1thered there for six weeks' business to accomplish. �

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DR. R.-\ :--;":--;"EY: I am now going to give you a working example of 1wnt1.1 t,1lit.1 ri,1 n authoritarianism. Dick Schifter is going to comment 1.111 yt1ur qnestion. You may make a further comment, and then we "ill ht',lf further questions. � 1R. 5CHlHER: On this last point, let me try to respond as follows. If we c0uld only rt'ach people with our point of view, o,·er the long h.rnl Wt' could co1n-ert them to our positions. I do belie,·e in that. I ,1lso l't'lit:-,·t:-, howe,·er, that it does not help one bit to com·ert some of tht"'se officials who represent their countries in the UNHRC, be­ c-.1 ust:> they will Yote according to their instn1c:tions from back home. I d 1."' m1t e,�...ect to be able to get t he Soviet Union or Ethiopia to Yote 1n the t-..,1sis of our ha,·ing converted their representath·e s right then .1nd then'. I srent a great deal of time \\ith the head of one of the 5o,it.' t bloc dl'legations. I f I had reall\' tried to influence him I mioht h.n-t' succt>t'dt'd on a personal level. He would have been just the k.ind of ft:' rson who would h,we fit in with us. But he has his career, his family, wh,1 tever else that is o,·er there. I am sure he was not \..

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going to break with his government. He was going to vote the instructions that come to him directly from his capital or i n d irectly from Moscow. There is that reality. At the same time, we were trying to use the opportunity there to speak to people beyond the group assembled in that room. The group in the room would not be casting their vote in Jight of whatever we might say; at least a good many of them would not. I would also like to comment on Argentina. In the early 1970s, Monteneros and Trotskyists began terrorist attacks on institutions of the state. There was a response to that, a violent response from the groups on the other side of the pol itical spectrum, and there was violence on both sides. There is no question that the junta that took over in 1976 at a minimum permitted the violence from the right to go on and perhaps encouraged it. It is also a fact that, by about 1978, following the repression of the leftist terrorist groups, the rightist terror substantially subsided. It has not only significantly declined, but within the junta the people identified with moderation have come forward. One of them is the new pres­ ident, General Viola. My impression is that the influence from the outside in that regard was not a significant factor, nor was it a significant factor in Chile. The principal reason for change lies in the changes in these countries themselves, in Argentina, in Chile. With regard to the point that you made concerning authoritar­ ianism and totalitarianism, I do want to say that Mr. Novak and I have had some discussion on this question. I prefer the distinction to be made between countries in which human rights violations take place that are not part of the Soviet sphere and those that are. I would suggest that Yugoslavia is basically a totalitarian country, more so perhaps than Hungary. The fact of the matter, however, is that Hungary is in the Soviet sphere and Yugoslavia is not. What we must recognize is that the Soviet Union is the single most significant threat to human rights, simply because it has the power to extinguish human rights and, when necessary, it has the inclination to do so. Under those circumstances, looking at the human rights causes throughout the world, we have to determine which is the greatest threat by virtue of its overall impact. In this context, we must note that as brutal and repressive a society as Haiti, for example, may not present as overarching a problem to the world as would, for example, a Soviet takeover of Haiti, which would establish another base near the United States that could threaten the heartland of the democratic world. This has been to me a satisfactory definition of the problem. I want to add one last point with regard to changes in U.S. 19

policy. As Mr. Novak has pointed out, there is no change in our fundamental commitment to human rights. The change is in the way we achieve the desired result. The position of this administration appears to be that we shall not engage in a public relations campaign against country X or country Y, but that we seek results in terms of the commutation of a death sentence or the release of certain people who are unjustly imprisoned. The practical result is what we are looking for. We ought to keep the human beings in mind, the people whom we are trying to help, rather than satisfying ourselves with slogans and with general declarations that ultimately mean very little. MR. LOBE: You said at the outset, Mr. Novak, that you did not want any double standards. We have a problem if we say that we want to choose authoritarianism over totalitarianism and distinguish be­ tween the two, if we want to put special emphasis, as you indicated, on the Soviet bloc. Does that not immediately appear to the rest of the world as a double standard? MR. NOVAK: We do not desire any special emphasis on the Soviet bloc. We desire only that they get what is coming to them-nothing special, no more emphasis on human rights than they deserve. We ask no more than perfect honesty. Solzhenitsyn has tabulated that 65 million persons were killed by the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin-65 million persons, yet they have not been cited on those cases by the Human Rights Commission in thirty-seven years. We have a long way to go before there will be uncalled-for emphasis on the Soviet Union. MR. LOBE: I understand that in terms of the speeches that have been made in the State Department, where they made the distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes . . . MR. NOVAK: You have in your hand the text in which we referred to authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Not a whole lot hangs on that distinction. Political scientists have written in detail about that distinction since the mid-1930s. It is a basic, fundamental distinction. Still, in practice, the utility of the distinction, while important, does not cover everything. We condemn all human rights violations, whether by totalitarian regimes or by authoritarian regimes. Totalitarian re­ gimes have the capacity to be much more efficient and thorough in their abuses of human rights. Moreover, in the case of the Soviet Union, it has the power of extending an empire of darkness over place after place. That is why it is the greatest menace to human

20

rights, as Solzhenitsyn has pointed out. We are saying nothing that is not common knowledge. MR. LOBE: Perhaps I just do not understand. MR. NOVAK: )'ou do not grasp what is special about totalitarianism? MR. LOBE: I think I understand it. I have read Arendt, and I think I understand what she said. She said that there has to be an element of genocide, of political genocide; that is implicit in her discussion. MR. NOVAK: That is not required by the definition in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism. MR. LOBE: When we talk about human rights, we talk about indi­ vidual human beings. Now the question is, Is someone who disa­ grees with the policy of the state safer today in Hungary than he or she would be in Guatemala or Argentina? I am thinking in terms of the individual human being who lives in those societies. Neither country is particularly desirable, but statistically, such a person is in much greater danger in Guatemala, v.1hich is an authoritarian regime by your standards and not totalitarian. MR. NOVAK: If that is your interpretation of the facts, then you should condemn both nations. It is not my interpretation of the facts, ac­ tually, but if that is your interpretation, you should condemn them accordingly. If you think that people are freer in Hungary than in Guatemala, then you should condemn Guatemala more. MR. LOBE: I did not say freer. Based on the right to dissent without risk of life or permanent exile, people are in much greater danger in Guatemala. The vice-president of Guatemala took asylum in the United States last spring because he was a Christian Democrat. MR. NOVAK: I understand that things are bad in Guatemala. They deserve to be condemned where they are bad. We would be happy for the Human Rights Commission to launch an examination of the relative state of dissidence in Hungary and in Guatemala, to judge both exactly, and to use the same standard for both. That is our argument. DR. RANNEY: Let me ask a factual question. Has Guatemala been on the agenda of the Human Rights Commission?

21

MR. NOVAK: Yes. DR. RANNEY: Has Hungary? MR. NOVAK: No. MR. LOBE: May I speak one more time on the question of Chile and Argentina? General Pinochet just gave a speech; and when General Viola was in Washington recently, he told Argentine reporters here that winners are not expected to give explanations. This was in response to whether the government would provide lists of the per­ sons who had disappeared. If Germany and Italy had won World War II, the Nuremberg trials would have been held in Virginia. DR. RANNEY: Do you agree with him? MR. LOBE: I do not agree with him; we are talking about a certain mentality that is very similar. MR. NOVAK: Those recent statements of Pinochet and Viola came after our work at the Human Rights Commission. The discussion of authoritarianism and totalitarianism deserves more time than we have. It really is not a distinction that covers all the issues before us. It is useful for pointing out why information about Chile and Argentina is easier to amass than about the nations covered by the Helsinki accords. But we approve neither authoritarian nor totalitar­ ian practices. MR. SCHIFIER: The points the questioner is raising do not contradict what we are saying. BEN WATTENBERG, American Enterprise Institute: I was taken by your anecdote about the meeting with some of the Western nations and your statement that it does not matter whether a vote is won by 2117 or lost by 21-17. I also note your other comment, which stands in opposition to that, that we do not want a public relations cam­ paign, that we want simply to deal with people, with actual cases. My own inclination is that human rights activity ought, in fact, to be a public relations campaign. It is a very important tool in the arsenal of the West to wage such a public relations campaign in the field of human rights. If we are attempting to find the moral high ground when dealing with the sorts of Orwellian inversions that you describe, suppose the United States just pulled out, saying that the 22

commission is corrupt and bankrupt. Given what most human beings on this planet understand about human rights, might that not be a higher ground from which to wage this public relations campaign than nit-picking? I do not recommend it; I ask for an impression from you. MR. ScHIFTER: Your initial point is entirely valid, and I ought to amplify it. In dealing with a country like South Korea or Argentina, quiet diplomacy is more likely to produce a useful result. At the same time, my hunch is that quiet diplomacy falls on deaf ears with the Soviets. Stating what we believe in is at least a way to give heart to some people in Siberia who may get the message through the Voice of America. My answer should really be that one has to identify what is most productive in a particular setting in obtaining the result that we are looking for. As far as your second point is concerned, my debriefing memo says that a good case can be made for withdrawing from the UNHRC. A better case, however, can be made for staying. Withdrawal is like firing your last bullet-it is the end. We would make our public relations case then. At least in the UNHRC we have a forum from which we can make our case on a continuing basis if we just do it effectively. Our concern has been that it has not been that effective, but it can be done more effectively. Furthermore, any UN forum does give an opportunity to talk to people from other parts of the world, including, first of all, our friends, with whom we can coor­ dinate, and some people who might be in the middle, who could over a period of time be persuaded to an understanding of our point of view. MR. WATTENBERG: Suppose some of our friends pull out with us­ that would be one public relations salvo, admittedly-doesn't that almost entirely abandon those people in the middle? In other words, if there is a forum on human rights, and the United States is not in it and Great Britain is not in it, does it mean anything to anybody? MR. ScHIFTER: Let me go beyond that. Certainly, if all the others were to pull out, it would make a difference. One of the things that we ought to think through is how we can best handle coordination. MR. WATTENBERG: In the International Labor Organization, isn't that what we did at one point? MR. ScHIFTER: We pulled out.

23

MR. WATTENBERG: And we came back on different terms? MR. SCHIFTER: Not that different. I had a conversation with a Western representative in Geneva who said the logical place to talk about human rights is NATO. If you think about it, he has a point. He was trying to say that there, at least, we speak the same language. MR. NOVAK: On the matter of the general absurdity of the level of discussion at times, I said at one point to a deleg-ate from another nation, late in the evening, weary: "I'm going to go home and read the drama of Eugene Ionesco with more appreciation. " She said: "Oh no, UNESCO is worse!" On the question of effectiveness, I happened to be reading through the report of last year's delegation. One of the things they congrat­ ulated themselves on was that they had a breakthrough in the third world. A delegate from Iraq helped greatly in getting support from the nonaligned nations for the Working Group on Disappearances. A year later, one reads this with enormous sadness: the delegate from Iraq, when he went home, disappeared and has never been heard from since. Another point they made last year was that the situation in Iran showed improvement in human rights because the shah was gone. But this was before all that is known about human rights under the mullahs came to our attention. A third point was that Somoza was gone. Yet we had reports before the commission of hundreds of persons who had disappeared in Nicaragua, of more than 4,000 political prisoners, of torture admitted by Minister Tomas Borge. In talking about double standards, we do not always mean that nations like Hungary and Guatemala should be compared. We would argue that even within regions there should be comparisons. One should compare Guatemala with Cuba and Guatemala with Nica­ ragua. One should compare all the states with one another, as Free­ dom House does. In the Freedom House rankings, Cuba is near the bottom of the list in civil and political liberties. Finally, on whether or not it is a good idea to be at the Human Rights Commission, Mr. Schifter and I, and every other delegate we talked to, and all the press veterans, often speak with pessimism and depression. There are so many lies; there is so much double talk. We learned, for example, that the greatest source of anti-Sem­ itism in the world is Israel and that the main force for anti-Semitism in the world is Zionism. The world is turned upside down. Sometimes the rhetoric with which China attacks the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union attacks China seemed like a diatribe out 24

of the fifteenth century. The observer from the Arab Brotherhood used much caustic language to say that he wished that Syria had not attacked Egypt-and then could not resist kicking Egypt a few times himself while he was up. I could not believe the level of rhetoric. Every time that the issue of Kampuchea came up, as though jerked like puppets the whole Soviet delegation, including the Cuban delegation, would stand and leave the room. Somebody would men­ tion Kampuchea again, and they would have to get up. It was the only light moment we had in the whole session. The absurdity of it is sometimes overpowering. Yet, on the other hand, the Declaration of Human Rights was written at the high­ water mark of Western preeminence in the world, in 1949, when there were only forty-nine nations in the United Nations. The Dec­ laration of Human Rights was taken almost entirely out of the best of the Western traditions. There are now 160 nations in the world, many of which do not have the institutions, do not have the legal systems, the court systems, with which to provide our notions of due process. Human rights must be mere words without the appro­ priate institutions (as some of the delegates have pointed out). But there is a chance. Here is the one place in the United Nations where all are obliged to meet day after day, sharing in the language of human rights. All find themselves wrestling with this language, and some find themselves at times argued into positions they might not have gotten into any other way. The odds are better. There are ten or eleven Western nations out of the forty-three delegations. In the General Assembly, the odds are more like 20 to 30 out of 160. We think we could create a majority of the forty-three-you only need twenty-two-and we do think that if we work at it better and with more intelligence and more prepa­ ration, we might some day do a lot better than we are doing now. We might some day gradually gain some control over the agenda, instead of finding most of the items brought before us so exaggerated and so outlandish that it is hard for decent people to vote for them. We could put more and more issues on the agenda ourselves. God knows, there are enough things wrong with human rights around the world so that we will long have a full agenda. DR. RANNEY: I think I will claim the last word after all. An adviser once consoled Charlie Brown, "You win a few, and you lose a few. " And Charlie Brown said, "Gee! that would be great. " We all thank Mr. Novak and Mr. Schifter.

25

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A Conversation with Ml.chael Novak ar , ,..,. . , ,

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Human Rights and '

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In this edited transcript of their conversation with the scholars and guests of the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Novak and Rich­ ard Schifter discuss their roles as U.S. representative and alternate representative to the thirty-seventh session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, from February 2 to March 14, 1981. They discuss the highlights of the meeting of the forty-three-nation commission and the challenges of formulating a reasoned and effec­ tive human rights policy and of achieving U.S. human rights objec­ tives in the international community. Among the topics they address are the necessity of confidential procedures within and between del­ egations, the reactions of other nations to their pronouncements, and the difficulty of being understood in a global forum. Michael Novak, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and adjunct professor of religion at Syracuse University, has taught at Harvard, Stanford, and the State University of New York at Old Westbury and has published widely. His books include Belief and Unbelief, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, Choosing Our King, The Joy of Sports, The American Vision, and The Guns of Lattimer. Richard Schifter is a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., whose principal area of practice has been representation of the in­ terests of American Indian tribes. He has served as president of the Maryland State Board of Education and chairman of the Maryland Values Education Commission. ISBN 0-8447-3466-7

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American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W. , Washington, D.C. 20036