Howard Burton - Improving Human Rights: A Conversation With Emilie Hafner-Burton

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Ideas Roadshow conversations present a wealth of candid insights from some of the worlds leading experts, generated through a focused yet informal setting. They are explicitly designed to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldnt otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks.

Over 100 Ideas Roadshow conversations have been held since our debut in 2012, covering a wide array of topics across the arts and sciences.

See www.ideas-on-film.com/ideasroadshow for a full listing.

Copyright 2015, 2020 Open Agenda Publishing. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-77170-058-0

Edited with an introduction by Howard Burton.

All Ideas Roadshow Conversations use Canadian spelling.

Contents

A Note on the Text

Introduction

The Conversation

I. Forging a Path

II. Shifting Perspectives

III. Who Decides?

IV. Going Public

V. Fundamental Questions

VI. The International Criminal Court

VII. Norm Saturation

VIII. Reform

IX. Getting Concrete

X. Stewardship

XI. Reactions and Responses

XII. Public Engagement

Continuing the Conversation

A Note on the Text

The contents of this book are based upon a filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Emilie Hafner-Burton in San Diego, California, on September 23, 2014.

Emilie Hafner-Burton is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of International Justice and Human Rights and Co-director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at UC San Diego.

Howard Burton is the creator and host of Ideas Roadshow and was Founding Executive Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Introduction

Making a Difference

To many observers, the ten core international human rights instruments and global monitoring bodies represent nothing less than a triumph of modern civilization: a rigorous, hard-fought, collection of moral norms and laws that rigorously apply to all peoples, independent of nationality, gender, ethnicity, religion, language or any other distinguishing characteristics.

It is hard not to be impressed by what has been accomplished and actively maintained by an extensive collection of diligent and dedicated international bodies, NGOs, and government agencies that make up the global human rights community.

But the key question is: does the system actually work? Are human rights really more protected on the ground now than they were twenty years ago? Are human rights abusers being punished, or at least significantly deterred from inflicting further harm?

Thats where it gets tricky.

Into this murky water boldly steps Emilie Hafner-Burton. Professor of International Justice and Human Rights at UC San Diego, she is nonetheless hardly mired in a detached ivory tower. After an enlightening stint at the United Nations Office at Geneva where she had an inside glimpse at how international policy was really developed, Emilie returned to pursue advanced degrees in political science, strongly motivated by the prospect of rigorously applying newly evolving social science techniques to concretely measure impact in these vital areas of human flourishing.

Twenty years later, as Co-director of UCSDs Laboratory on International Law and Regulation, the passion burns brighter than ever as she enthusiastically marries her statistical expertise to get a better picture of what is actually happening on the ground:

Its astounding to think that weve invested, for almost 70 years now, in this system without really asking whether these institutions and these structures are working. Part of that has to do with the fact that its really hard to answer that question. You can do it with anecdotes, by cherry-picking examples of success and failure, and weve been doing that for 70 years. But that never gives you the full picture of whats working and what isnt.

Theres been a transformation that has occurred in the social sciences over the last 15 years, where people have begun to move beyond interviews and select instances, instead collecting big data sets that will allow you to ask and answer that question a little bit more systematically: not just one particular example, but by looking at the experience of all countries over decades.

So what has she found? Well, there has definitely been progress in some areas, but the plain truth is that we still have a very, very long way to go. Why?

What the human rights system does so well is articulate a notion for human dignity that nobody can really argue with. We know now fundamentally what human rights are, and articulating and pursuing that, philosophically, is a very noble endeavour.

The problem is that its not a guide for how you actually implement these norms. Every actor who participates in the implementation of the system has his own interests in some part of the system, and usually against other parts of the system.

This is the inherent challenge of a system that presents us with these norms without clear indicators of how it is were actually going to get those norms to be taken up in practice. That means the process has to be political: it cant be universal and it has to be divisible. We have to set priorities. We have to make choices. Theres no way to avoid that.

Of course, once we start talking about the specifics of actually making hard choices, were immediately confronted with the question of who, exactly, is going to be making them. From Emilies perspective, a key, often-overlooked factor in the entire human rights dialogue concerns the role of individual states.

The reality is that we have states that, for a variety of different reasons, are engaging in the promotion of human rights. Theyre doing it unilaterally. Theyre doing it in various forms of collectives. Theyre using sanctions and military intervention. Theyre using aid, trade, and diplomacya whole battery of tools. We want to take a step back and ask the same questions that we ask about the human rights institutions at the UN and the regional systems. Does any of this stuff actually work?

Well, sometimes. Sometimes not so much. But the key question, as ever, is, how can we make it work better?

For Emilie, that key question naturally involves taking a brutally honest and pragmatic approach, planting ones feet firmly on the ground and rigorously assessing the status quo. But she is also experienced to recognize that such a hard-nosed approach naturally creates tensions in a community where many people instinctively flinch from any compromise against the fundamental principle of universality.

Many people dont want to think about a joint role for law and power. The human rights system is universal. Its global, and its supposed to be neutral. Its not supposed to be an inherently political process. But that happens to be wrong, because it is inherently a political process.

Focusing on states necessarily means looking at situations from the perspective of their particular interests, investigating how they might be convinced to take a position of international stewardship for the benefit of all, and recognizing that choices in human rights priorities what she calls triageis an inevitable part of our real world with its finite resources and conflicting interests. The good news for social scientists is that, properly focused, they can have an enormous positive impact in all of this.

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