A Shared Vision? Human Rights and the Church
From: Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland 2000
At issue here is the judicial usurpation of politics which can take place when contested political issues get translated into the language of human rights and are referred up to a supreme court. This same process can also happen at a regional level. In Northern Ireland this could happen if the NIHRC began to function as a kind of pre-emptive constitutional court, usurping the role of the Assembly. Given that the Belfast Agreement and its institutions depend on popular political legitimacy, if the NIHRC were to make decisions on matters that had not been settled politically, it could be potentially subversive of the Agreement and its institutions.16
The expansion of human rights
The rights enunciated in the major instruments of the post war period are often categorised into three generations of rights. These three broad areas in themselves constitute a very comprehensive list of rights which apply to many aspects of personal and social life. The potential for conflict between rights is always present and has always been recognised. But the more rights there are the more conflict arises.
The problem of rights in conflict was illustrated by the extradition proceedings and court decisions concerning General Pinochet. Proceedings were begun against him on the basis of violations of human rights carried out under the military regime of which he was head. Human rights NGO's and lawyers were at the heart of the legal proceedings and the political debates in the United Kingdom. Yet when the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, made the decision not to proceed with extradition is was done precisely on the basis that to do so would be a violation of Pinochet's right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Note that these difficult conflicts arise already when dealing with some of the most basic kinds of rights.
However, as the scope of rights expands, as rights language becomes more
and more a part of our political and social discourse, as we create a human
rights culture, as we turn needs and desires into rights, the problems arising
will increase accordingly. There are two clear difficulties. First, multiplying
rights will inevitable result in multiplying conflict which will require
the interventions of the law and the courts. Second, core human rights issues
such as the right to life, the right not to be tortured and the right to
freedom of expression are trivialised and devalued. So, as Glendon comments,
"If some rights are more important than others, and if a rather small group
of rights is of especially high importance, then an ever expanding list
of rights may well trivialise this essential core without materially advancing
the proliferating causes that have been reconceptualised as involving rights."17
If everything is a right then the language of rights is a language that
can do very little useful work. |
