Hi,
Alex taking your advice to move this off email I am not actually sure if I am in the right space now but anyways. Firstly I want to apologise for not being able to attend the webinars so far internet and power supply presenting major problems and when those two coincide staying awake until 4am proved a little difficult, sorry everyone for that.
I think the webinars are very thought provoking thanks for that but I cant help but think we're still giving human rights a bad wrap and to that I wolud like to raise some points, perhaps for discussion.
1) Peace Agreements as human rights texts. I can understand the premise for stating this though I do have my doubts as to whether compromised documents, political documents by nature can truly be human rights texts. They can speak to human rights and often contain instructions as to how processes like transitional justice are to be framed but they represent nothing more than a comitment of the parties at the time. Nepal being one example where 8 years after the signing of the peace agreement the Parties enacted the Truth and Reconcilation Commission included in the 2005 Peace Agreement yet that very law contradicts international human rights standards. Northern Ireland in a sense deals not only with rights but establishes two watch dogs... one dependent of UK national funds-NI Human Rights Commission and the other supranational, The European Court of Human Rights... given the UK governments treatment of the irish I wonder who pushed for what and whether both were included through a process of horse trading. Does any one know? To me the idea that peace agreements are HR documents could then imply that HR are there to be traded much like poltical wins and losses in a sense polticising what should be the overarching framework of any deal.
2) The other point speaks more to the disparities between local agreements and international standards and the example of Sharia Courts. I think we need to be careful not to assume that Sharia doesnt speak to human rights. Sharia is a form of jurisprudence influenced by culture much like our judeo-christian legal frameworks. (statements on separation of church and state have always tickled me). Poltically motivated local interpreations of Sharia may seem to the western eye to be rather unhumanrightsy but several states in the US continue with the death penalty. Many Nation-States such as the philippines prohibit divorce and have criminalised aspects of reproductive health. The Philippines is predominatly catholic. i live in the Autonomous Muslim Area of Mindanao that does have a Reproductive Health Act (2013) and where divorce is permitted under sharia civil law. i digress the point i am trying to raise is that Sharia and the four schools of jusriprudence under Sharia are incredibly respectful of human rights and Islamic nations themselves have produced a series of declarations that link the teachings of islam with human rights. See the Islamic Declaration (http://www.alhewar.com/ISLAMDECL.html) and the Cairo Principles on Human Rights in Islam.
A US diplomat told me in Iraq that part of the policy of the US was to erradicate Sharia from the statue books and implement a US system. The British Government was working with the US on this but the differences in practice between civil and common law was seemingly giving them a headache. solid human rights ideas were often rejected by progressive iraqis and Kurds not because they couldnt see the benefits but because human rights were caught up in the afront to the very soul of the nation, the jurisprudence of the land. Try telling Texas it cant kill people.
The point about untrained judges is key... training sharia practioners in human rights, jursiprudence and ADR practices in support of local demands is where the international should focus their efforts. It is on that same point that the EU's Rule of Law programme in the Philiipines has still to get back to me about whether muslim tax payers in the EU are happy with the EU actively promoting Judeo-Christian Law at the expense of Islamic Law even despite the expansion of sharia both geographically and competence being part of the peace deal here. My guess is the tax payers dont know and there arent many muslims involved in the design of the Rule of Law Programme.
The EU also just gave 30 Million Euros onbudget support to the filipino department of health. The same department of health that challenged the constitutionality of the reproductive health bill that would have decriminalised and brought into sanitory and medically supervised arenas the terminations of pregnancies. Worse they stood with the Catholic church against women having a choice over their own bodies saying that women had to consult with husbands (sex doesnt exist outside the instituion of marriage for the church and state it seems -separation?) before being allowed contraception. No one goes to war for women's rights so maybe am off topic but I think when we look at actions of the international community with regard to local solutions then we also have to look at what they do do that doesn't comply with their own "moral" standards and not just what they don't. Sorry if that turned into bit of a rant.