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Australian Journal of Human Rights |
Elizabeth A Watson[1]
The movement to highlight and address the issue of women's human rights has made a significant impact in recent years. In fact, as the 1995 report from Human Rights Watch on women's human rights notes:
Few movements have made so large an impact in so short a time as the women's human rights movement.[2]
This movement has sought both to raise consciousness within the human rights movement and further afield concerning the nature and extent of the abuses against women and to bring pressure to bear on Governments to address these abuses. The abuses include state-directed and state-approved violence against women but also the range of abuses perpetrated by non-state agents, by private actors, both those that remain legally sanctioned and those that are illegal but "tolerated by the state through discriminatory enforcement of the law".[3]
A long with and intimately tied to this activist imperative of the movement there has developed an important philosophical debate. This debate takes the form of a fundamental critique of the very foundation of the human rights movement -- the conceptualisation of human rights and of the human rights system that attempts to monitor and enforce those rights. According to this critique, the current human rights structure and, indeed, our very understanding of what we mean by human rights, is basically flawed and distorted because of the "gendered" nature of both system and instrument. As a result international human rights law and law-making institutions continue "to reflect the experiences of men and largely to exclude those of women, rendering suspect the claim of the objectivity and universality of international human rights law". Thus the argument is that "until the gendered nature of the human rights system itself is recognised and transformed, no real progress for women can be achieved".[4]
This article sets out to examine the implications of this debate for one of the key organisations within the human rights movement, Amnesty International (AI), to look at the response of that organisation and to establish what options lie ahead. The assumption underpinning the argument presented here is that the debate is a critical one for the human rights movement in general and that by examining the way in which one part of that movement has responded to the challenge it represents, we gain insights which are likely to have more general relevance. More especially, the writer would argue that this is a debate which Amnesty cannot avoid and that as the most influential non government organisation in the international human rights field,[5] it has both an obligation to address this issue intellectually and to attempt in organisational terms to resolve it, ie, to decide what it does about it. As Philip Alston has argued,
Amnesty, whether it likes it or not, is the single dominant force in the entire field. It is the single dominant force in the entire field, more representative and more influential than most of the other groups put together.[6]
It is also important to note at the outset that the debate about the gendered nature of human rights is but one of a number of current debates within the larger human rights discourse concerning the principles of "universality" and "objectivity". The other prominent contest, based on the claim that human rights are Western biased in their conception and application, has received rather more publicity than the argument based on the claim of gender bias.7
Amnesty International is the largest of the international non-government human rights organisations with over 1,000,000 members, subscribers and regular donors in more than 190 countries and territories and with over 4,300 local volunteer groups plus several thousand school, university, professional and other groups in 93 countries. Its central body in London, the International Secretariat, has more than 300 staff. The international budget for 1995 was approximately GBP 17,209,000.[8]
Amnesty International has achieved an enviable reputation not only for the quality of its research and reporting on human rights violations but as an effective mass movement able to galvanise its world wide membership into action directed at offending governments (and non governmental entities), calling upon them to end violations and "to respect" and "to ensure" the rights of all individuals within their territories and subject to their jurisdiction (or, as in the case of non governmental entities, all those who live within the territories they control or in which they operate). The basis for this mass action has been a clear, limited and focused mandate. In general, it is argued that it is this clear and recognisable mandate that has been the reason for the organisation's success over the thirty five years since its foundation.
The mandate of the organisation is set out in Article 1 of the Statute of Amnesty International.[9] In 1961, when the organisation was founded, and for some years afterwards, the mandate was relatively simple. Its original concerns were the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience who neither used nor advocated violence, and torture. Its strategies likewise were low key and straight forward -- mobilising its membership in letter writing campaigns and general publicity, based on impeccable research. However, as the organisation grew it became clear that this apparent simplicity was deceptive.
There is an inherent tension between the logic of the movement (ie, Amnesty International) and logic of human rights. The logic of the movement is specificity. The logic of human rights is universality.[10]
Amnesty has always argued most strongly for the universality and indivisibility of all human rights and made clear the impossibility of ranking human rights. Nevertheless, it is fairly obvious that for a campaigning, mass movement it is easier to generate concern about torture and the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience than other violations of human rights. Similarly, the techniques of such an organisation are clearly more appropriately directed to these concerns than other rights.
In selecting two rights, somewhat arbitrarily, from the whole range of human rights it is inevitable that inconsistencies and contradictions will emerge. This has, indeed, been the experience of the organisation and it is in debate about the mandate and demands for its extension to cover this area or address this specific violation that much organisational energy has been consumed over the last 30 years or so. This debate has largely taken place in and been shaped by argument within the International Council Meetings of Amnesty (ICMs), the supreme decision-making body of the organisation, and in the deliberations of the Standing Committee on Mandate, the Mandate Review Committee and their predecessors, the expert committees which have advised the International Executive Committee (IEC) and assisted the ICM in its decision making on mandate issues.
Expansion of the mandate has been inevitable. There is an inherent and inescapable logic in this process. Needless to say, this has created problems for and, at times, division within the organisation. Yet it has also contributed to a vigour in the debate about human rights within Amnesty. In such debate, Amnesty's particular concerns are placed in that wider context and the linkages between the organisation's concerns and "the whole panorama of human rights violations"[11] are underlined and illuminated. Debate of this kind is, as well, an important reminder that "prisoner work is not the essence of Amnesty. It is a strategy or a tactic ... . The essence is securing observation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights".[12]
It is within this organisational framework and history that the debate about women's human rights has taken place. While it has its antecedents, it is a relatively new debate within Amnesty and one that presages dissent and disillusionment. It would not be inaccurate to say that it has already lead to both of these responses among members. The debate is essentially about whether and to what extent the organisation should respond to the argument that human rights and the human rights system are fundamentally gendered. If the argument is judged to be sound then the implications for mandate reform apply both to work within the present mandate and to a necessary expansion of that mandate. The fear of many in the organisation is that the incorporation of more inclusive definitions of human rights will "blow open the mandate" with the consequent dilution of the original formula for success, the stretching of organisational resources as the organisation attempts to cover its greatly expanded mandate concerns, a lowering of standards of research, and public confusion about what it is that Amnesty "stands for".
The debate about women's rights begins with and questions the traditional distinction between public and private spheres. International law has traditionally rested upon the dichotomy between the public and private spheres and, until recently, international human rights law has duplicated this dichotomy. More profoundly the public/private dichotomy represents a division of the social and political world into two realms, one which is regarded as the province of men and the other which is viewed as the domain of women. The workplace, politics, economics, the law and intellectual and cultural life constitute the public part of life; the family, household and children comprise the private sphere. In other words, the dichotomy is based on gender.
One of these realms is privileged over the other. Greater significance is accorded to the public or male world than to the private or female. This is reflected in traditional international human rights law as in other arenas. Human rights have been limited to the public sphere and, as a result, issues of concern to women have been effectively ignored, especially those that concern women alone. This has meant that the sphere in which the most pervasive harm to women tends to occur is outside the scope of both national laws and international human rights law.
The traditional canon of human rights law ... does not deal in categories that fit the experiences of women. It is carved in terms of discreet violations of rights in the public world and offers little redress in cases where there is extensive structural denial of rights in the private sphere.[13]
It has meant that women's concerns have largely been banished from international law. The effect of such an exclusion can be seen more clearly in particular cases. In one of the critical Amnesty documents discussing the debate on women's human rights, the particular case of torture is used to illustrate the general case.[14] The prohibition of torture is generally seen as "a paradigmatic civil and political right and a norm of jus cogens".[15] The basis for this prohibition is the concept of "the inherent dignity of the human person". It is broadly conceived. It refers both to the act and to the result of the action. In relation to the victim, it covers both mental and physical suffering. In relation to the perpetrator, it includes behaviour even if it has been inflicted "at the instigation of or the consent or acquiescence of a public official".[16] Arguably, sexual violence and psychological coercion, if perpetrated by someone with official standing, should be included as well and organisations such as Amnesty International have adopted and, indeed, advocated this position. Another organisation, the International Human Rights Law Group, based in Washington, DC has publicly criticised certain United Nations officials such as the Special Rapporteur on torture for their failure to investigate adequately and condemn many well documented instances of systematic torture and ill treatment of women and, in particular, their failure to investigate the disproportionate use of rape and sexual ill treatment of women.[17]
Nevertheless, the conceptualisation of this human rights violation, torture, relies on the public/private distinction and, as a result, obscures injuries to their inherent dignity typically sustained by women. Violence against women while it causes severe pain and suffering and constitutes an assault upon the dignity of their person, does not qualify as torture. Some such acts, such as female genital mutilation, are classed as cultural practices. Generally there would seem to be little recognition of the link between women's status in society and their vulnerability to violence.[18]
Further, despite the widely known and significant catch cry of second wave feminism that "the personal is political", and despite the impact of the feminist critique in many arenas of political and social science discourse, the notion of what "political" means remains limited and distorted in the human rights field.
In this matter, the idea that a person is violated for engaging in "political" activities has greater currency in the human rights movement than the idea that a person is violated for reasons of gender. Yet, "political" has included race, ethnicity and other `status' categories, while gender-based behaviour and discriminatory legislation have not been adequately addressed.[19]
There is yet another manifestation of this unquestioned acceptance of the public/private dichotomy, of the ascendancy of the public arena and the pre-eminence of the male experience of the world as the archetype or model for human experience. As one of Amnesty's internal documents states:
... in the assertion of the equality of men and women based on non-discrimination by reason of sex, violations of the rights of women have succumbed to the prototype of violations that men experience. Although in defining "discrimination against women", international human rights law has gone further than requiring equality of opportunity by justifying affirmative action programs and protection against indirect discrimination, nevertheless, in this underlying assumption of equality, and except in special circumstances such as pregnancy, the male standard is applied.[20]
The argument is thus that human rights law is based upon, perpetuates and, indeed, promotes the public/private dichotomy and as such is gendered. The outcome of this bias is that much of the abuse that women suffer is cordoned off from international scrutiny by the acceptance that international law:
traditionally involves national states dealing with other national states and by conditioning that the brutal treatment of women be afforded by the state. Where the chief abuses of women are not state actors, human rights law offers inadequate protection to women.[21]
Abuses that are gender-specific tend to be over looked. They are still in large measure not treated as an integral part of the human rights discourse nor are they fully integrated into human rights jurisprudence. One writer on women's rights in international law, Donna Sullivan, speaks of this as a "silence". She points to such factors as the focus within international law on violations committed directly by the state against individuals. This is also a fundamental premise of Amnesty International's mandate. Sullivan writes that:
within this conceptualisation of the law as a constraint on the power of the state, many abuses against women have not been acknowledged as human rights violations because they are committed by private persons rather than by agents of the state ... Civil and political rights remain at the forefront of efforts by intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations to protect human rights and of efforts by major human rights organisations to expose violations. The liberal ideology underlying much of civil and political rights discourse views the law principally as a means of regulating state intervention in private life, generally without acknowledging the role of the state itself in constructing the separation of public from private life.[22]
There are additional factors which compound the problem. The system to monitor and apply international human rights standards is dominated by men as are many of the decision bodies making and research departments of the international human rights movement. Hilary Charlesworth, whose areas of expertise are international and human rights law and feminist legal analysis, has argued that:
the structure and institutions of the international legal order set up under the United Nations reflect and ensure the continued dominance of a male perspective. In the primary subjects of international law -- nation-states and, increasingly, international organisations -- the invisibility of women is striking.[23]
She documents the absence of, or only very minimal numbers of, women in positions of influence in the Secretariat of the United Nations and its specialised agencies, for example, the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee, the Human Rights Committee and the Committee Against Torture. The only exception is the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women which is comprised entirely of women. The invisibility of women in the very bodies charged with creating and progressively developing international law is also noted. There has only been one woman who has sat as a judge on the International Court of Justice and no women have been elected to the International Law Commission.
Why should gender imbalance of this magnitude and in these institutions be considered so problematic? Why should there be a concern to right that imbalance and ensure that women are properly represented in these bodies? Charlesworth argues that;
long-term male domination of all bodies wielding political power nationally and internationally means that issues traditionally of concern to men are seen as general human concerns; "women's concerns", by contrast, are regarded as a distinct and limited category. Because men generally are not the victims of sex discrimination, domestic violence, or sexual degradation and violence, for example, these matters are often relegated to a specialised and marginalised sphere and are regulated, if at all, by weaker methods.[24]
She goes on to argue that:
unless the experiences of women contribute directly to the mainstream international legal order, beginning with women's equal representation in law-making forums, international human rights law loses its claim to universal applicability: it should be more accurately characterised as international men's rights law.
There is evidence that slowly but surely the issues related to violence against women are being taken up as a general human rights concern. In both the Vienna Declaration of 1993 and, in the same year, the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the dichotomous public/private divide is breached. In 1994, the appointment by the UN Commission on Human Rights of a UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women signalled a recognition of the need to integrate gender-related rights into the present human rights framework. A 1995 Amnesty International document sees these developments as of the greatest significance in the campaign to gain recognition for women's rights as human rights.
Because of these, the universality and inalienability of human rights as they apply to women have been recognised. The UN Declaration definition of "violence against women" has effectively done away with the public/private distinction altogether.[25]
Over the last five years or so, Amnesty International has devoted more resources and organisational attention to the violations of women's rights that fall within its mandate. This is evidenced in two specialised campaigns (in 1991 and 1995) and in the featuring of greater numbers of cases involving women in country and theme campaigns and in specialised campaigning techniques such as the Urgent Action network. In examining the current state of the debate within Amnesty I want to focus on the most recent International Council Meeting, in Ljubljana, Solvenia in August 1995.[26]
The Ljubljana ICM reflected a movement at a time of significant change and prepared to engage in some re-thinking of its role:
One change was an integrated planning approach, incorporated in the ISP (Integrated Strategic Plan), now to be known as the LAP (Ljubljana Action Plan). The other change was reflected in the mandate discussions, where there is considerable debate about the way in which AI will conceptualise its human rights work in a world where the human rights discourse is changing. It is safe to say that the ICM was able to reach more focus and consensus on the former of these (the plan) than it was on the latter (the mandate). The final version of the plan, as adopted by the ICM, represents a clear statement of the movements priorities for the immediate and mid-term future, and provides a set of criteria for allocation of AI's necessarily limited resources. The discussion of the mandate, however, reflected a high degree of perplexity about the role of AI within the broader human rights agenda.[27]
The Ljubljana Action Plan and the Decisions of the ICM (the resolutions adopted by the Council) represent the outcomes of the meeting and provide guidance for the organisation for the next two years and beyond. Both have implications for the discussion here. However, in any examination of the organisation's attempts to confront the question of the human rights of women, it is to the resolutions that we must turn. It is the discussions of these in the working parties and in the plenary, and the outcomes in terms of decisions taken, that best reveal the problems that confront the organisation.
The resolutions which came before the Ljubljana ICM included a number that had immediate bearing on the debate concerning the human rights of women. The relevant resolutions were initially debated in two of the working parties. These are Working Party A which deals with strategy, with philosophical and mandate issues and Working Party B which concerns itself with questions of "action", the means and techniques by which the organisation does its work. (There are a further two working parties, C which deals with organisational issues and D, which covers financial decisions and the budget.) Roughly speaking, of the particular resolutions we are here concerned with, those which came before Working Party A were in some sense suggestive of the need to extend the mandate, while those in Working Party B dealt with work within the current mandate.
The resolutions that dealt with the current mandate addressed the question of how to increase awareness of violations against women in all research and planning, how such awareness could be more effectively translated into action and how to adequately "resource" this action. Alongside this debate was a debate about the role of women within the organisation and how the organisation ought to respond to the perceived gender imbalances within AI. The former debate became Decision 20: Work on Behalf of Women. It is an amalgam of three resolutions, presented by five sections. It thus represented a considerable area of agreement even before it reached the working party. The argument was that the 1991 campaign on Women in the Front Line was an important, yet isolated, campaign that has not addressed the overall gender imbalance in the violations with which AI is concerned. Further, it was argued that while the definition in AI's mandate of "prisoners of conscience" includes those who have been imprisoned because of her/his sex (gender), there is no available evidence which indicates that AI has ever adopted anyone who has been imprisoned because of her/his sex (gender). The resolution called for an explanatory leaflet on the human rights of women as covered by the mandate, for the incorporation in all aspects of AI's work of women's human rights using the considerable experience and expertise within the movement, for sufficient human and financial resources to initiate and monitor this work, for AI to urge governments to ratify the relevant international and regional instruments and for there to be greater collaboration with NGOs working on women in their respective countries. The resolution was adopted by consensus.
The second debate concerned the role of women in Amnesty itself. Resolution B.4.4 (from the British Section) called for a movement wide gender analysis of AI's structure as well as its research and campaigning activities and for using this analysis to develop a gender policy for the whole of the movement. The argument for such an analysis was placed squarely in the context of wider issues concerning women's rights and AI's role in working for women. The resolution was defeated in the working party, 16 for and 26 against (on a 1 vote per section basis). It was re-introduced in plenary and defeated, 47 for and 70 against. In the view of the writer and of other members of the Australian delegation, the quality of the debate in both the working party and the plenary was extremely disappointing and showed a lack of understanding of the issues and of feminist analysis. The debate was superficial and simplistic and this was evident even in the interventions from countries in Europe and North America where one would have expected a more sophisticated comprehension of what a gender analysis might imply and the benefits that might flow from it. In an ironic twist, the elections for the International Executive Committee, demonstrated not that women will not get elected, it confirmed the more profound problem of just how difficult it is for women to be able to stand for such demanding and time consuming positions in the first place.
The most significant of the resolutions for the debate about women's human rights were those debated in Working Party A and most particularly the resolution concerning Government Inaction and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This resolution was an International Executive Committee enabling resolution arising out of a study commissioned by the previous ICM. A study of government inaction was established as a result of Decision 10 of the 1993 ICM in Boston and a consideration of the specific issue of FGM was placed in that context. The study was commissioned to examine "inaction by governments where human rights abuses are inflicted by individual citizens on each other". While issues of government inaction are of importance in both the public and private spheres, and "although there is a link to governmental responsibility in this area", the study was premised upon the assumption that what was to be examined was an area in which "the primary abuses or violations are committed by private actors, and not necessarily with a political motivation".[28] It is important to note that over the last twenty years, AI has demonstrated that it has begun to confront the issue of "governmental responsibility for omission or inaction" in a number of significant mandate areas, for example in decisions concerning extra-judicial executions, "disappearances" and non-government entities. In that sense the organisation is at a point where a move into the field of governmental responsibility for inaction could be seen to be "the logical next step" and to be consistent with previous mandate decisions. The specific issue of FGM, however, implied not simply "a new direction for mandate development"29 but a very significant expansion into the private sphere. Further there was the real possibility that having made that move, AI might well have found itself facing the need to reconceptualise the whole notion of what is meant by "civil and political rights". The meeting was thus confronted with a major dilemma with implications for the very character of the organisation and its capacity to research and campaign effectively on all areas of the mandate.
The original resolution on government inaction and FGM had been drafted in such a way as to present delegates with three options. The first represented a conservative, "no change" position, the third a full incorporation of FGM into the mandate, including campaigning on individual cases. The in-between position was a proposal that the organisation work on FGM but only within its promotional and educational activities, rather than as an explicit focus for its action, its campaigning work. This resolution and its three options were very widely discussed in the organisation. In the Australian Section it was a focus of debate at the 1995 Annual General Meetings of the State branches and the ACT region and at the National Annual Meeting prior to the August ICM. As a result, the Australian Section had adopted a position somewhere between options 2 and 3. While there was a wide range of views, the weight of opinion seemed to favour adopting option 3 without the individual case provision but incorporating as well the explicit promotional emphasis of option 2. This represented a complete break with tradition for the Australian Section which has a long standing reputation within the international movement as a "mandate conservative" section.
The debate on FGM in the working party and in the plenary, had two main foci. The first was an emphasis on the horror of FGM and the need to do something at the international level to support those organisations working within the countries where it is practised. In relation to the question of just how AI could most usefully engage with the issue and what particular type of support it should offer, there was a range of positions. The second was an argument about the impossible burden it would place upon the organisation if it was to expand the mandate to incorporate non state actors in the private sphere. This argument emphasised the need for AI to retain a focused, manageable and recognisable mandate for its work or face a real dilution of its formula for success.
The final form of the resolution which was debated in the working party was a new IEC resolution which represented a mid position on the issue, a compromise of sorts. It was this middle way that was finally adopted. The middle position proposes that AI include FGM in its promotional work on human rights by:
The issue of governmental responsibility for inaction will continue to be a focus of the work of the Standing Committee on Mandate. The organisation has not resolved this issue. The outcome of the debate indicates that the organisation did not consider it was able at this point to take an explicit decision concerning the issue of non government actors and the private sphere. The resolution notes that "a more comprehensive discussion on governmental responsibility for failure to act regarding actions by private individuals which affect the rights of others, or `governmental inaction', as a possible new mandate area is necessary for the organisation".[30]
As I point out above, in terms of an argument based upon the need for consistency, expanding the mandate to incorporate non state actors and the private sphere could be viewed as the next logical step. Consistency has, needless to say, been an important principle in fine tuning the mandate and clearly is one that enhances the organisation's credibility. However, it is a difficult principle and poses some significant problems for the organisation not the least being where do you "draw the line". As many within the organisation and without have argued
consistency should ... never become an aim in itself and serve as a trap, forcing the organisation to adopt positions which it does not want to adopt. Consistency both in the development and in the application of the mandate is important as an aiding device, contributing to the overall credibility of the organisation. If carried too far, it could serve to paralyse its development.[31]
It is not possible to say with any precision what position the organisation wants to adopt in relation to women's human rights. However, the debate at the Ljubljana ICM on all the resolutions that related to women would suggest that the wider issue of reconceptualising traditional notions of civil and political rights to incorporate non government actors in the private sphere and to accord the violations that concern women alone equal standing with traditional public sphere violations is not a position that Amnesty International is able to adopt at the present time.
What are the pressures which might move Amnesty International to reflect in more depth on the debate about the gendered nature of human rights and how it should respond, and what are the counter pressures? There are, presumably, countless arenas in which a more considered response to this complex debate may develop in what is after all a large and very diverse organisation. I mention here two areas which build directly on the decisions taken at the last ICM. The first relates to the very nature of the promotional and educational work which AI is now pledged to undertake in relation to Female Genital Mutilation. The second concerns the implications of working more effectively and self consciously on the violations of women's rights within the current mandate.
To work effectively on the issue of FGM in its promotional and educational activities will require that members and staff confront the question of why such practices have persisted and have been difficult to eradicate. While there is no simple answer to this question, it would be hard to imagine any analysis which did not attempt to understand the particular vulnerability of women and young girls or to explain the "subjugation and denigration of women and children that the practice supports".[32] Good educational materials and techniques are based on good analysis. In the case of FGM, they will need to be based on an in-depth understanding of a complex practice. Further, it is in the nature of promotional work that it can be difficult at times to mark out clearly where promotion ends and action or advocacy begins. Promotion can readily "spill over" into action. To find oneself always having to hold back from responding with the full force of strategies available to the organisation, may prove more difficult than anticipated. Good analysis will necessarily involve examining what are the most effective ways to act and this may sit ill with the requirement not to act or not to take the action beyond a certain point. In addition, working with organisations which are themselves committed to action, as the decision advocates, may further underline this difficulty.
The increased emphasis upon more effective work within the current mandate may produce a similar outcome. While this position may be characterised as the conservative response, the status quo, it is potentially very far from conservative in its impact. Again the pressure to undertake good research and to understand why in the past the "usual" research approaches and categories have not "turned up" significant numbers of women, may bring about its own kind of feminist critique within the organisation. It is entirely plausible that the very attempt to address Decision 20 of the Ljubljana ICM will produce a re-thinking of the issues concerning the nature of women's human rights and the reasons why it is that these rights have been "cordoned off" in a separate category. Again, this decision requires that there be collaboration with other non government organisations, in this case local women's organisations. That collaboration may well prompt AI officials and members to engage in a more thorough going analysis of present conceptualisations of human rights and of the consequences of bias in these instruments and their application. There are as well the changes in the larger human rights picture. International developments such the Vienna Declaration and the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (both in 1993), and in the 1994, the appointment by the UN Commission on Human Rights of a UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women were welcomed (and, indeed, worked for) by Amnesty. This has created a new international context in which work on women's human rights is to be undertaken.
What, then, of the counter pressures in the two areas discussed. It is, of course, quite possible that the research department within the IS and other elements of the organisation will not respond in the way suggested above. The research department has been dominated by male researchers and there are claims that they have not been particularly receptive in the past to the criticism that their research strategies have at times been blinkered in ways that mean that women, and the abuses suffered by them, are not readily uncovered. And although there has been improvement, the "product" of their endeavours, ie, the actual numbers of cases of women victims of human rights violations documented and used in campaigning, would seem to be evidence that this in-built bias (if it is such) continues. In addition, it would seem unlikely that Hilary Charlesworth's criticism of the dominance of a male perspective in the structure and institutions of the international legal order would not apply equally here as there. A "gender audit" of the organisation has been deemed unnecessary. That in itself is not a hopeful sign.
In addition, and most worryingly, the organisation is facing critical financial constraints at the present time. Money has always been an issue for an organisation which, by dint of its own mandate, cannot seek financial support of a kind open to other similar bodies, eg, from government sources. It is entirely dependent upon individual subscription and donation. The central executive body has made it clear in recent discussions with women's networks (in this country and elsewhere) that there is no possibility of funding new initiatives in the area of women's human rights and that decisions taken at the last International Council Meeting will also be constrained by the pressing financial situation within the international movement.
With the exception of the financial situation and the constraints it imposes, the arguments presented here remain speculative arguments but that is where the debate stands at the present time. The next several years should reveal whether and to what extent, Amnesty International responds to the critique that the concept of human rights is fundamentally gendered. It will also become clear why or why not.
There remains the central problem of the organisation's "self-imposed limited mandate" and the implications of any expansion, and most especially any substantial expansion, of that mandate. Resource concerns cannot be dismissed and as pointed out above, these have become even more pressing. The organisation has been successful in dealing with the limited task it has set itself but has become increasingly conscious of just how stretched its resources are in attempting to work effectively even in this "self-limited" arena. It cannot do everything and, as the argument goes, there are other organisations addressing the wider concerns outside the range that Amnesty has set itself.
The dilemma in this case is, however, of a different dimension from those which the organisation has commonly faced. The claim that the concept of human rights and the system by which those standards are monitored and applied are flawed and biased, that they do not adequately reflect the experience of women, that they are fundamentally "gendered", is not an argument that can be put to one side. Amnesty is implicated in the criticism. If it is accepted that there is truth in such an assertion and at least one of Amnesty's own documents on the issue has supported the contention,33 then the argument must be that AI's mandate is also fundamentally flawed, biased and "gendered" since it is, in large measure, based upon and is itself a part of the same system. How should Amnesty respond to such a criticism?
In attempting to answer that question, it is difficult not to sound trite. There is no simple answer here. The argument is not going to go away. And Amnesty cannot ignore it. If having examined the question thoroughly, the response is that the organisation cannot take on the work load that would be implicated in so extended a mandate, then, it would seem, that the basis for the mandate framework would need to be re-examined and the logic which underpins it reassessed. It is unlikely that such a course of action would be very appealing to most of the mandate aficionados in the organisation nor, for that matter, would it satisfy most members.
The debate continues. The dilemma remains unresolved.
The above article was written in November 1996. A number of significant developments have taken place since then. Useful progress has been made in relation to a number of the critical decision taken at the 1995 ICM. There is a general view that AI work on Female Genital Mutilation is proceeding well and that work on gender sensitive research methodologies and the "gendered Mandate" are well in hand. The Intersectional Women's Network (IWN) has continued to operate but needs to be given greater support and to extend its reach. The third meeting of the IWN was held in Oslo in late January of this year. (There have been previous meetings, one in Geneva in 1992 and the second in Bonn in 1995.)
The 1997 International Council Meeting is to be held in December in South Africa. Planning for that meeting is well advanced and the range of decisions that will be considered then is already known. Among the resolutions are several which are of crucial importance in the debate about women's human rights and AI's role. There are six resolutions on "government inaction" including FGM and promotional work. There is a resolution from the US Section calling for the full integration of work on gay men and lesbians into AI's on-going research and action. There is also a resolution from the Australian Section which deals with human rights violations against women under the current mandate. (This resolution, while it has been submitted as one resolution, may be "broken up" into a number of separate resolutions. That strategy is being discussed within the Australian Section as I write.) The Australian resolution is concerned with the need to review the organisation's understanding of its mandate and role in the light of the critique that has been mounted concerning women's human rights. It calls for provision of organisational mechanisms and support for the full integration of a gender perspective in all of AI's work on human rights violations. It further emphasises the need to ensure that all staff working in or for the International Secretariat are given the institutional support to effectively implement these mechanisms. Finally, it asks for a gender-based study on AI's research, campaigning, publicity, and organisational structures for deliberation at the 1999 ICM. There is to be a "fringe meeting" (informal session) at this coming ICM to discuss the progress on AI's work on women.
How successful these moves from within the movement will be in bringing about change in Amnesty's understanding of and work on women's rights is, of course, still unclear. What is clear is that there are substantial numbers of members, (just how great the proportion is, of course, unknown), who believe that these changes are sorely needed and, indeed, inevitable. My own view is that if Amnesty International does commit itself to working more effectively on the violations of women's rights which fall within its current mandate, that very attempt, and the re-conceptualisation involved, will "lever open" the mandate and eventually require of the movement that it address the wider and more fundamental issue of the gendered nature of human rights.
Article 1 of the Statute of Amnesty International
As amended by the 20th International Council, meeting in Yokohama, Japan, \t31 August-7 September 1991.
Object and Mandate
1. The object of AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL is to contribute to the observance throughout the world of human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In pursuance of this object, and recognising the obligation on each person to extend to others rights and freedoms equal to his or her own, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL adopts as its mandate:
To promote awareness of and adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other internationally recognised human rights instruments, the values enshrined in them, and the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights and freedoms;
To oppose grave violations of the rights of every person freely to hold and to express his or her convictions and to be free from discrimination by reason of ethnic origin, sex, colour or language, and of the right of every person to physical and mental integrity, and, in particular, to oppose by all appropriate means irrespective of political considerations:
(a) the imprisonment, detention or other physical restrictions imposed on any person by reason of his or her political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs or by reason of his or her ethnic origin, sez, colour or language, provided that he or she has not used or advocated violence (hereinafter referred to as `prisoners of conscience'; AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL shall work towards the release of and shall provide assistance to prisoners of conscience);
(b) the detention of any political prisoner without fair trial within a reasonable time or any trial procedures relating to such prisoners that do not conform to internationally recognised norms;
(c) the death penalty, and the torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners or other detained or restricted persons, whether or not the persons affected have used or advocated violence;
(d) the extrajudicial execution of persons whether or not imprisoned, detained or restricted, and `disappearances', whether or not the persons affected have used or advocated violence.
Notes
References
Amnesty International, The Decisions of the 1995 ICM, AI Index: ORG 52/01/95, Internal Document (for AI members only), 1995.
Amnesty International, Human Rights are Women's Right, AI Index: ACT 77/01/95, External Document, 1995.
Amnesty International, Report of the Standing Committee on Mandate to the 1995 ICM, Circular VII, AI Index : POL 21/01/95, Internal Document (for AI members only), 1995.
Amnesty International, Facts and Figures about Amnesty International and its Work for Human Rights, AI Index : ORG 10/01/96, External Document, 1996.
Amnesty International Australia, International Council Meeting, Ljubljana, August 1995, Australian Delegation Report.
Amnesty International, Minutes of the 1997 Meeting of the Intersectional Women's Network (IWN), Oslo, Norway, 25-26 January 1997, AI Index: 81/02/97, Internal Document (for AI members only).
Baehr P R "Amnesty International and its Self-Imposed Mandate", (1994) 12(1) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
Charlesworth H Address to the Annual General Meeting of the South Australian Branch of Amnesty International Australia (unpublished, 1994).
Charlesworth H "Human rights as men's rights", in Peters J and Wolper A (eds), Women's Rights: Human Rights. International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York & London, 1995).
Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project (1995), The Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women's Human Rights, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels.
Matas D No More. The Battle Against Human Rights Violations, (Dundurn Press, Toronto & London, 1994).
Sullivan D "The Public/Private Distinction in International Human Rights Law", in Peters J and Wolper A (eds) Women's Rights: Human Rights. International Feminist Perspectives, (Routledge, New York & London, 1995).
Van Ness P "Australia, Asia and human rights diplomacy", (1994) 70(7) Current Affairs Bulletin 27.
[1] Department of Social Policy and Human Services, University of Western Sydney, Macarthur.
[2] Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project, The Human Rights Warch Global Report on Women's Human Rights (New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels 1995).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Charlesworth H "Human rights as men's rights", in Peters J and Wolper A (eds.) Womens Rights: Human Rights. International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, London, 1995) p 103.
[5] Van Ness P "Australia, Asia and human rights diplomacy", (1994) 70(7) Current Affairs Bulletin 27 at 29.
[6] Baehr P "Amnesty International and its self-imposed mandate", (1994) 12(1) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights at 5.
[7] One measure of this is coverage in the media. Refer to media accounts in recent years, eg, in the debate concerning the defence pact with Indonesia (December 1995) and at the time of the release of Amnesty International's Annual Reports in 1994, 1995 and 1996; also, Lee Kwan Yew's article, "Is democracy necessary?", The Weekend Australian, April 24-25, 1993, etc.
[8] Amnesty International, Facts and Figures about Amnesty International and its Work for Human Rights, AI Index: ORG 10/01/96.
[9] See Appendix.
[10] Matas D No More. The Battle Against Human Rights Violations, (Dundern Press, Toronto & London, 1994) p 185.
[11] Ibid, p 195.
[12] Ibid, p 156.
[13] Charlesworth H, Address to the Annual General Meeting of the South Australian Branch of Amnesty International Australia, (unpublished, 1994) p 3.
[14] Amnesty International, Report of the Standing Committee on Mandate to the 1995 ICM, Circular VII, AI Index : POL 21/01/95, 1995, Appendix D.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Charlesworth op cit 1994, p 4.
[18] Amnesty International op cit 1995, p xii.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Sullivan D "The Public/Private Distinction in International Human Rights Law" in Peters and Wolper op cit p 126-7.
[23] Charlesworth op cit 1995, p 104.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Amnesty International op cit, AI Index: POL 21/10/95.
[26] This article will not attempt to address the question of the nature and extent of Amnesty's contribution to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing or to the NGO Forum held at the same time nor will it examine the impact that these forums and the decisions taken have had within the organisation. In outlining the character of the discussions at Ljubljana, I am drawing on personal observations and the comments of other delegates as well as the official record of decisions and other evidence such as the official film documenting the meeting.
[27] Amnesty International Australia, International Council Meeting, Ljubljana, August 1996, Australian Delegation Report, p 1.
[28] Amnesty International op cit AI Index: POL 21/01/95, p 4.
[29] Ibid p 2.
[30] Amnesty International, The Decision of the 1995 ICM, AI Index: ORG 52/01/95, internal document, 1995, p 16.
[31] Baehr op cit p 11.
[32] Amnesty International op cit AI Index : POL 21/01/9 Appendix D, p xiii.
[33] Ibid.
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