This seems more directed towards parts of Silicon Valley than the rest of the world. The EU recognized that technology = politics long ago, and has been in a race with China on defining global norms.
The "GDPR effect" will be seen in many other areas in the coming years, and I (as a EU technology-focused diplomat) feel that most US corps haven't realized the scale of what's lurking around the corner.
I was stationed in Rwanda for several years, and visited your operations centers several times. Truly awesome stuff, that's also helped Rwanda in a bigger way, by giving the country well-deserved recognition for its propensity towards innovation.
Hi. Diplomat working with UN issues here. The issue at hand here is not this resolution in itself. It's the fact that opening up human rights to "new" rights sets a precedent. And that precedent will be used by other countries to shift the language on human rights in a more authoritarian direction - or dilute human rights as such.
So it's basically about using one set of issues, which in substance are hard to fight, to weaken human rights as a whole. But it could just as easily have been about something else, like the "right to development", which has been pushed by authoritarian countries for years.
I'm always curious how diplomats and politicians regard the "rights" in the U.N. declaration of human rights. They don't conform to a defensible set of natural rights (even if it's agreed that such things exist), so are they considered a goal or a declaration of how the UN thinks people should live? Does it matter that few UN members conform to them? Or that they represent quite a specific ideological viewpoint in many cases. Or that some rights seem to conflict with other rights? In short, what's the point of a lengthy declaration of "rights" that almost none of the members seems committed to.
> Does it matter that few UN members conform to them?
Does anything the UN does matter? I don't mean that in a flippant/sarcastic way. The "teeth" of the UN is ostensibly the UN Security Council, which runs on vetoes by interests that are practically never aligned. It seems to provide cover for US policy, and when it can't serve that purpose the US does what it wants anyway either with NATO or by itself.
> In short, what's the point of a lengthy declaration of "rights" that almost none of the members seems committed to.
The stated point of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to prevent the need for constant Declarations of Independence through violent revolution.
Interesting. Can you expand on an example of a 'new' human right that would be authoritarian in nature? I don't really understand the "right to development" example. It looks like it was adopted by the UN already in 1986 and I'm not sure if the authoritarian implications.
The history is that western democracies generally emphasized civil rights while poorer countries social rights. This “evened the playing field” to play off rights against each other. For example one can claim that it’s been necessary to to limit certain civil rights to improve the situation of social rights. (Take away the farms and give them to the workers).
> (Take away the farms and give them to the workers).
Why not just adopt the damn land value tax or just do plain old ground leases? Come on. Why does everything have to be solved with some stupid repossession thing where people get free shit that they don't want to take care of?
> Can you expand on an example of a 'new' human right that would be authoritarian in nature
How about a right to live in a community free of external interference—a stronger version of the right to self-determination? You could argue that it would prevent acts of external aggression, but it could also be used to prevent aid when a nation's people are being oppressed.
It wouldn't be so much about the rights themselves being authoritarian, but that opening up the framework for renegotiation would weaken existing norms. You could, for instance, almost be certain that some countries would like to put more limits to freedom of expression.
I believe the part about authoritarians trying to trojan horse bills that erode our rights disguised as unobjectionable bills. We see it all the time with bills that restrict our right to privacy disguised as anti-child porn legislation. People who come out in favor of the 4th amendment are painted as vile criminals.
That said, I don't see how it works in this instance. Care to elaborate?
Democracies criticize authoritarian country for torture which violates human rights.
Authoritarian country criticizes democracies for environmental “crimes” which violates human rights. Says they have no right to criticize since they also violate human rights.
Massive whatsboutism that detracts from the important issues.
Do you have an example of this? I mean, there's a pretty good case to be made that the US and the companies it supports and enables are guilty of some serious environmental crimes that majorly contribute to climate change and negatively impact people's health. Climate change is an existential issue. How do we decide that other countries are engaging in whataboutism by bringing things like that up as opposed to us engaging in whataboutism to distract from our refusal to take meaningful action on environmental issues that directly impact people across the globe?
You complain to the authorities about your (poor) neighbor because he beats his children in the front yard.
He complains to the authorities that you fly on a jet a few times a year, contributing to climate change. He never flies, you see (because he can't afford it).
He promises to stop beating his children once you stop flying.
The authorities are forced to admit that this is a fair proposal, as both beating children and flying on jets are violations of human rights. No deal is struck, you continue flying on jets, he continues beating his children, knowing that what little leverage the neighborhood had over him has been lost.
It'd be a better analogy to say he complains about you flooding his yard or setting trees in the park on fire. The way you worded it diminished the US' contribution, which is almost 4x the global avg per capita.
That aside, whoever speaks second appears to be the one accused of engaging in whataboutism. Just make the neighbor complain first, and then you're the one doing a whataboutism.
Both of those aside, the authorities aren't forced to conflate two separate issues and begrudgingly support the status quo. Both can and should have consequences.
My thought was that the "right" to a "clean environment" is, itself, a gift to authoritarians who will immediately use it to enact more taxes and restrict movement.
It doesn't mean that they can never be established, it just means that in the current international political climate, there is very little interest from democratic states to open it up, since the consequences could be so vast. If the world was nicer and everyone were friends it would be easy.
It's all wankery anyway. A member of the UN only care about "human rights" (or anything else the UN votes on) until it conflicts with the member's self-interest.
The UN is a diplomatic discussion forum and place to organize joint projects. It's an anarchy, not a not a government.
Sounds like this is why we can't have nice things!
I'm pretty clueless when it comes to diplomacy. What is the drive for authoritarians? How do you negotiate with them, or otherwise limit their influence? (and is that desirable?).
Legitimizing their own models of governance, both internationally and domestically, would be their main driver in multilateral settings. In some cases, such as the ITU, it could also be about getting technical norms approved that mirror their state goals (https://www.justsecurity.org/75741/chinas-dystopian-new-ip-p...)
> The issue at hand here is not this resolution in itself. It's the fact that opening up human rights to "new" rights sets a precedent. And that precedent will be used by other countries to shift the language on human rights in a more authoritarian direction - or dilute human rights as such.
It occurs to me that this same argument can be used against anything that ought to be enshrined at the UN as a human right. An obvious example being loving who you want without regard to sex or gender.
Take the right you just proposed. Why is it limited to a “who”? Why is it linked to sex or gender? Is this a singular love or is polygamy a human right? Does love need to be reciprocated?
What’s the fundamental human right? Shouldn’t we be worried that these so-called human rights are being newly discovered relatively recently?
"Who" implies a human. The topic is human rights. I'm not sure I follow what this particular question is trying to get at.
> Why is it linked to sex or gender?
Pro answer: It isn't. We've known this since prehistoric times.
Con answer: Because only a man and a woman can create a new human life on their own.
> Is this a singular love or is polygamy a human right?
Age differences would have made for a better example here. But my answer would be that this question is that it frankly doesn't matter for my example. I.e., one does not need to answer the question of "how many people should we allow someone to marry" to answer the question of "should people be allowed to marry someone with the same genitals as themselves". Indeed, our global reality reflects that.
> What’s the fundamental human right?
What I previously stated: "loving who you want without regard to sex or gender". Notice that it does not say "without regard to singular vs plural love" or "without regard to reciprocation" or anything else.
> Shouldn’t we be worried that these so-called human rights are being newly discovered relatively recently?
That's... how it works.
We (or at least Western society) don't enshrine rights into laws and constitutions until we realize something we ought to be allowed to do freely is being unduly infringed upon. That's a process that doesn't stop.
We should be worried when we stop "discovering" new rights, not the other way around. Humanity has yet to produce a generation that "has it all figured out" with respect to fundamental rights, and there is no reason to assume we ever will.
You’ve missed the point of my post: the right you proposed has arbitrary limits which don’t seem to be justifiable under any logical framework and defending the position is untenable. Why are these limits here? If an authoritarian regime prefers to say take away or add a limit (“well the real human right is a right to love and I want to love as many people as I can with or without their consent”) then how do we morally justify denying their interpretation of a poorly developed human right while trying to advance our own interpretation?
We should be worried about certain societies “discovering” new rights and attempting to impose them on the rest of the world who may or may not share that viewpoint. This is true of “enlightened” societies like in the West just as much as other societies.
Where are there any reports that discuss concerns such as these? E.g. why is it hard to find the argument for why environmental rights could be at odds with civil rights?
> Hi. Diplomat working with UN issues here. The issue at hand here is not this resolution in itself. It's the fact that opening up human rights to "new" rights sets a precedent. And that precedent will be used by other countries to shift the language on human rights in a more authoritarian direction - or dilute human rights as such.
Maybe also working for the US or the UK? If everyone in the UN is in agreement what is the problem? If In the future you don’t agree with other human rights then don’t approve them but don’t claim that you’d love to vote for this resolution but that would somehow force you to also vote for another one down the line, that is not how it works.
We could vote against another proposal, but opening up the framework of human rights for renegotiation would be a substantial thing to do, and would set a precedent. Not working for the US or the UK.
I do not understand this framing. Not joking, it's just... how exactly does proposing a right to not live drenched in poison present a slippery slope like the one you're proposing?
Procedurally, I mean. Presumably the same mechanisms used to vote for/against this could be used to prevent terrible people from pushing for terrible things?
Hey I'm not a diplomat but I believe the problem with this specific problem is that in the the case of 'right to clean environment' how to you protect your rights? Do you sue your neighbor for litter or the company down the street for emissions? How do you prove that emissions are out of control? Also how do developing nations who may not have the legal strength who are just as affected by pollution from developed nations exercise their rights?
Now the question of a slippery slope could be that with a right to clean environment developed nations could stifle growth and innovation in developing nations citing clean environment worries (maybe Nigeria and oil). This could go way deeper than oil however as any country trying to harvest any sort of natural resource can face scrutiny and potential action. In an extreme example developed nations could then say 'we will mine these resources because we can do it less intensively' robbing nations of potential nation building revenue. How would you combat this? Maybe a 'right to develop' and boom rights dilution and authoritative in nature. Perhaps am extreme example but extreme isn't too far with people involved.
This being the UN, I don't think there's going to be many legal intricacies because it's mostly a debate forum with little to no strings attached. Even ICC rulings serve more of a ceremonial/PR role than an actual court ruling: The world has judged you and very publicly found you guilty of stuff, but it's really up to the Security Council countries' own governing bodies to do something about that.
As things stand, what this decision does is make it look like the UK has a vested interest in polluting the world, which makes exactly 0 sense to me from a foreign policy POV: this is not something countries want to look like they stand for.
Hence my asking, I just can't make the decision or the arguments behind it make sense?
There are horizontal issues to every resolution, and every resolution is written in a context. If you open up for environmental crimes, then some country will want to open up for "illegal speech" directed towards the state.
Yes, just like HN wants you to write content in the form of comments for free. I get your point, but this is an overly simplistic economic reduction of the incentives and value propositions.
Yes, Twitter wants you fact check for free. They also want you to write Tweets for free. In return, the hypothetical value proposition is that the tweets you and others read are more likely to be factual. If this is successful at scale, it means that the voters in the hopefully democratic place you live will be more informed and more likely to vote for reality based policies.
So, sure, they don't give you a nickel when you fact check. But that doesn't mean it doesn't (possibly) provide sufficient value to you to be worth doing.
This seems like it would be very vulnerable to people supporting a viewpoint (whether true or not) brigading the heck out of posts about the other viewpoint.
It's also the case that there are a lot more people living in undemocratic countries than in democratic ones. I understand the need to have multiple solutions to this problem, but this can never become an alternative for platforms taking more responsibility for content themselves. And, for democratic countries to create a grand coalition to set norms in this space.
Actually no, it's the opposite. It's governments regulating companies, and thereby taking responsibility. Going a step further would make governments actively intervene in day-to-day-operations.
Ehh one of the major complaints about EU legislation is it's left intentionally vague and relies on the companies to guess what the goal is, which of course misses something, take their yearly fines and tweak their system after each round of fines.
This is just not correct. Governments are acting on this throughout the world. Don't conflate governments with politicians. For well-functioning states, state agencies are dealing with this through well-established protocols that don't need political clearence. This means that the countries where politicians are the most visible and calling for action could very well be the ones that have prepared the least.
Exactly. In many countries it's down to the city or county to act and federal government can only take over as last resort. We're not there yet. Not all cities are equipped equally and it's frustrating that they don't have a common policy but they all seem to act. For them that's also the first time they are confronted with a pandemic and there's a lot at stake. Under these circumstances, I'm actually somewhat surprised how quickly certain policies are enacted around the globe. A week ago, banning large public events was a novelty, now they're basically banned in most of Europe and parts of the US.
The quarantine in Italy seemed extreme a week ago, now several countries are heading towards the same measures.
In democracies, curtailing peoples' rights is always tricky, it's the first time I've seen bureaucrats take away individual rights daily without backtracking on decisions.
This is even more obvious when you consider what the economically-optimal thing to do would be: Shut down nonessential travel to other countries and enact quarantine protocols for essential travel between countries, before you have community transmission. Then test heavily, for cheap.
Trump shut down travel just as doing so became pointless, the USA is barely testing people, and the CDC is resisting drive-through test centres because they are (actual quote) “trying to maintain the relationship between individuals and their healthcare providers.”
I'm jealous, I haven't actually made it out myself yet! I've got a little baby to come home to. It's been a very supportive company in terms of work/life balance as well.
Totally understand. I have to say that watching the drones getting captured when landing is one of the most futuristic things I've seen. You guys have done some great things in Rwanda - I lived there over the past 4 years, so I have firsthand knowledge.
I'm a diplomat working on international norms for cyber and information warfare. I'm trying to get countries to agree on how to use and not use their capabilities, the influence on global democracy, the connection to armed conflict and the future of interstate relations. In practice, this means meeting a lot of people and spending a lot of time negotiating with other countries in scrappy conference rooms in the UN and elsewhere, sometimes in weird anonymous locations.
On the side, I'm an advisor to an impact investment foundation that is expanding their operations to East Africa. They're setting up an investment fund and accelerator programs to help companies tackle development challenges.
I'm also involved in a startup that is working to develop a new fintech app to create more data and access to credit for small-scale businesses in East Africa. It's a basic PWA app, not released yet, which has some real potential of scaling up and addressing some pretty substantial development challenges. (If anyone is really good with writing a bare-bones PWA based on Gatsby optimised for speed and low-bandwidth environments, please give me a shout).
I've had a weird career. Started out as a programmer in the late 90's, did my own startup in the mid 00's which was a half-baked success, moved to Africa for a few years and worked for the UN, moved back home and had kids, moved back to Africa and worked as a diplomat covering lots of conflicts in the Great Lakes region, moved back home again, worked for the impact foundation for a year and then rejoined diplomacy to do cyber work.
> I'm a diplomat working on international norms for cyber and information warfare.
I didn't know any such norms existed. What are some of the existing agreements, and if you can talk about it, what are some of the new ones you're trying to push forward?
Your career sounds crazy...in a good way! Was your initial involvement with the UN in a technical role?
There are several negotiations ongoing in various committees of the UN, where the issues that surface in the "real world" are negotiated: information warfare (such as election interference), responsibility for information across borders etc. https://www.cfr.org/blog/united-nations-doubles-its-workload...
Basically, it's about trying to defend international norms from an onslaught of attempts to make states the primary defender of the informational realm, and thereby legitimise opression.
Yeah, first job for UN was coding a shitty CRUD system in order to keep track of HIV infections in East Africa.
I’ve spent a long career in tech (20+ years and one day hope to fuse that with public service (both elected and foreign such as yours). Would you mind if I were to get in touch to inquire more based on your experiences?
