On Inside Geneva this week: part four of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Imogen Foulkes talks to Navi Pillay, she served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2008 to 2014, she started life in racially segregated South Africa.
"We grew up under apartheid and we’re realised there’s something very unfair here. Our teachers were afraid to talk about…you know they would teach us democracy in Greece, but not why don’t we have democracy in South Africa."
She became the first woman of colour to have her own legal practice in South Africa.
"It was so lonely, and so scary. I had very little choice, because I went looking for jobs after I’d qualified, at law firms, they were mainly white law firms, and they would say ‘we can’t – you’re a black person, so we can’t have our white secretaries taking instructions from you.’’
She served on the international tribunal for the Rwandan genocide – but hesitated when Ban Ki Moon asked her to become UN Human Rights Commissioner.
"You have to respond to a call that’s made to you, a trust that people place in you. So if you ask me what moved me from where I wanted to go to this, it was the secretary general saying ‘we need you now’.’
Today, she believes the universal declaration on human rights is as relevant as ever – as long as we use it.
"No state has distanced itself from that treaty. So I see hope in that and I feel these are the tools that civil society has. You have the law, now push for implementation."
Join Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast to find out more.
For more insights and discussions from Switzerland's international city, subscribe to Inside Geneva wherever you get your podcasts.
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection.
Get in touch!
Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.
On Inside Geneva this week: part four of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Imogen Foulkes talks to Navi Pillay, she served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2008 to 2014, she started life in racially segregated South Africa.
"We grew up under apartheid and we’re realised there’s something very unfair here. Our teachers were afraid to talk about…you know they would teach us democracy in Greece, but not why don’t we have democracy in South Africa."
She became the first woman of colour to have her own legal practice in South Africa.
"It was so lonely, and so scary. I had very little choice, because I went looking for jobs after I’d qualified, at law firms, they were mainly white law firms, and they would say ‘we can’t – you’re a black person, so we can’t have our white secretaries taking instructions from you.’’
She served on the international tribunal for the Rwandan genocide – but hesitated when Ban Ki Moon asked her to become UN Human Rights Commissioner.
"You have to respond to a call that’s made to you, a trust that people place in you. So if you ask me what moved me from where I wanted to go to this, it was the secretary general saying ‘we need you now’.’
Today, she believes the universal declaration on human rights is as relevant as ever – as long as we use it.
"No state has distanced itself from that treaty. So I see hope in that and I feel these are the tools that civil society has. You have the law, now push for implementation."
Join Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast to find out more.
For more insights and discussions from Switzerland's international city, subscribe to Inside Geneva wherever you get your podcasts.
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection.
Get in touch!
Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.
This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogenfolks, and this is a Swiss info production In today's programme.
Speaker 2:Both my parents felt they have to educate the girls. There was a lot of pressure on them. Why are you sending them to high school? Why are you sending them to university?
Speaker 3:Girls made white people officially superior and the large black majority faced discrimination in every aspect of their lives.
Speaker 2:I went looking for jobs after I had qualified at law firms mainly white law firms and they would say you're a black person, so we can't have our white secretaries taking instructions from you.
Speaker 4:The United Nations top official on human rights says inaction by the United Nations.
Speaker 2:You stick to the UN principles. I would constantly remind them. You passed this international convention and you have undertaken obligations, so you have to carry that out.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogenfolks. In today's programme, we're returning to our special series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our guest today is Navi Pele, who served as Human Rights Commissioner from 2008 until 2014. She was born in 1941 in South Africa, the daughter of Indian immigrants. I began by asking her about her childhood, growing up in a racially segregated country.
Speaker 2:We grew up under apartheid and we realised there's something very unfair here Our teachers were afraid to talk about. You know, they would teach us democracy in Greece, but not why don't we have democracy in South Africa? Because if they did touch on any subject that the regime thought was political, the teachers would lose their jobs. And I know one who was summarily fired and all she did was cut out press cuttings of topical news and put it up on a chart in her classroom. This was in high school. So therefore, the fear about something not right out there and the urge to do something about it. So we were, I think, quite an alert lot there in high school.
Speaker 3:Apartheid really began in 1948, but separating black Africans from the white minority had long been a policy aim.
Speaker 1:The policy governed South Africa for nearly 50 years, but racial segregation existed long before apartheid even began.
Speaker 3:Living, doing business or owning land in white areas was banned. There were separate public facilities, transport and schools. Interracial marriage was banned.
Speaker 2:It's in high school that you realize all the inequalities. My father would drive us on Christmas Eve through all the white areas and we'd see the beautiful houses, the lights lit up, a whole culture and the lifestyle that is foreign to us. But it's amazing that amongst all my school friends, both my parents felt they have to educate the girls. There was a lot of pressure on them. Why are you sending them to high school? Why are you sending them to university? Are you pickling your daughters Because they want to introduce bright grooms for us? And we would say no and my parents would respect our wishes, the greed, the no policy change decision no lifting of apartheid.
Speaker 2:Whites only notices seem more sinister than ever In the colored areas. Only the children are unaware of the powder barrel atmosphere. I got to university because my poor community of Clairwood helped collect their pennies and their coins to set up a birthday, and I was the first recipient. That's how I got to university and this slogan we always hear that it takes a village to bring up a child. Well, there you are. They were all poor parents. I bet they would have liked to have had their own children at university and yet they sacrificed for me and that's another area of trust that was placed in me. There's no way I'm going to let them down and not get through my degree and so on.
Speaker 1:You talked about apartheid, segregation, oppression, the danger of being arrested. It were fired from your door and yet you chose, because those things were enshrined in law apartheid you chose to go into the law. You somehow did still see it as something that could be useful for you.
Speaker 2:When I was at university, some of the students engaged in minor sabotage activities, like they would throw off a light pole for which they were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, and of course, they would scorn the rest of us who are not activists. The lesson I drew from there is I'll be more useful outside prison and therefore I should learn the law and see how I can use the law which is there, take the fight to them in the courtrooms. And of course, that wasn't very popular. The idea was you have to boycott the apartheid courts.
Speaker 2:In fact, nelson Mandela, in his first case an earlier case under the Racial Hostilities Act he refused to plead and he told the white magistrate I don't expect justice here in a white man's court. And the magistrate said well, that's all you have, a white man's court. It's as if things will never change. So it's true, do you now go to these apartheid institutions? And I think that over 30 years, as a young lawyer who gained experience, I think it was important that we brought litigation to the courts, addressed such things as torture of victims, addressed conditions in detention, and the one I'm most pleased about is spelling out the rights of political inmates on Robin Island prison, including Mandela. Spelling out their rights and privileges helped them all. They had the right to education, for instance. They loved that. It saved them because they were able to get books, study for degrees.
Speaker 1:You and your law career in South Africa. There were a lot of firsts. You know, the first non-white woman's practice, the first non-white woman judge, was that lonely.
Speaker 2:That was so lonely and so scary. I had very little choice because here I went looking for jobs after I'd qualified at law firms mainly white law firms and they would say, yes, but is your father a businessman? How much work would you bring to the office? And secondly, you're a woman what if you fall pregnant? And thirdly, you're a black person, so we can't have our white secretaries taking instructions from you.
Speaker 2:So each time in life I met with that kind of brick wall, I looked for a crack as to what to do, not only for my own sake, but how do I defend my clients? I couldn't get my husband out of detention under the Terrorism Act, but I did get an order that the security police are not to use unlawful methods of interrogation against him, and I had the affidavits of all the accused persons on how they had been tortured. I went to London, interviewed exiles there. We used those bunch of affidavits to challenge the trial itself. The witnesses whom the state managed to beat up and bring there as witnesses are not reliable because they've been subject to torture. So we lost those cases.
Speaker 2:As my client said, remember this is a political fight. And after that application the killing of Stephen Bico happened and the anti-apartheid movement then at the UN for the first time had real evidence is all these sworn affidavits that torture on that scale was going on. And they asked for two things One, sanctions against the apartheid government, which we didn't get because Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan used the veto. But they did get their second request, which is we need a convention against torture. And that's how we got convention against torture where victims all over the world benefit.
Speaker 5:The Arusha Tribunal was set up to try cases related to the Rwanda genocide in 1994, a killing campaign that saw the massacre of the Tutsi ethnic group by the majority Hutus. Some 800,000 Rwandans were killed in just a hundred days.
Speaker 1:You served on the international tribunal for Rwanda. I imagine if I can imagine it all that doing that kind of work must undermine the faith in humanity, the energy that you were bringing, for example, to your work in South Africa, the idea that things can get better when you're confronted with that.
Speaker 2:Well, it was the Rwandans who asked for the tribunal because they wanted justice, and President Mandela was the one who appointed me as the first black woman to act as a judge. And so you are right, imogen. This is totally new to us. Very few lawyers know about international justice. The first six who were elected, I was one of them. I was the only woman. Actually, none of us had studied international law. So what moved us? I thought I was staying for one year and returning. Why did I stay on is because you listen to what the witnesses say happened to them and it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2:So we had to work very hard to come up with the elements of the crime for genocide. It had not been done before. We went over to Rwanda and saw for ourselves. There were still bodies in the churches just lying there when we first saw that. So I would say it was a challenge, not only because none of us had done international before, but secondly, it was so vast and we received criticism from inside Rwanda because we were treating these inmates so well.
Speaker 2:These are alleged rapists they meaning the people of Rwanda for whom we were doing this. But they were very courageous. They were getting nothing out of this horrendous experience of reliving the experience and being subjected to cross-examination by defense counsel. This was all new to them. So every step of the way it was a challenge. And of course the challenge also was to come up with the definition of rape and sexual violence under international law. There was no internationally accepted definition. You see all the cultural challenges as well, and they would repeat hearsay evidence as if they were present. We had to sift through all that, but all six of us in the first lot and then we became 18 judges knew why we were there. We were there to render justice. We were there to acquit where there was insufficient evidence of guilt.
Speaker 1:You didn't know too much international law, you said, or human rights law, perhaps before Rwanda. But then you were asked to be UN Human Rights Commissioner. Some people, including people who've done it, say it's the hardest UN job. So did you want that job? Had you set your cap at it, or did you have to think long and hard about taking it on?
Speaker 2:At the time I was headhunter, shall I say. I still had time left on my six year term at the International Criminal Court and then I heard these calling the room, as everybody else seemed to think that I'm being sought. So I said no, because I had already packed my winter coats away. I was coming back home to sunny South Africa where I would have had the opportunity to serve on the constitutional court. That was my plan, and when Bankimoon, the secretary general interviewed me, he said no, no, no, we need you now. And I didn't even know much human rights law because I'm a common law lawyer and that's how I argued cases. But you have to respond to a call that's made to you, a trust that people place in you. So, if you ask me. So what moved me from where I wanted to go to this was the secretary general saying we need you now. So I actually resigned and then read Louise Arbor's. I had a conversation with her, so she gave me an account of how complex it was to be secretary to the Human Rights Council. However, she you know it was helpful. She wasn't putting me off, but she gave me an idea that she had no time from morning to night. She's got this schedule and I said to her I will never let that happen, and I made a public statement to the staff when I first met them that I am not going to be like my predecessor and travel around to every country. I'm not doing country visits, I'm going to see to the office and do our work here, and there was such a. They could have booed me for that. That's how cross they were. And so I learned.
Speaker 2:I learned from these experience highly experienced, highly committed human rights stuff why we do have to go to the ground and why I shouldn't use this power. I have this unique power to confront governments, to go and see presidents and raise the matter with them. Yes, I would say it is one of the hardest jobs, but I imagine I feel the hardest job is a secretary general's job, because I can tell you now as an insider, how much interference there is direct line to him, even on who he should hire. Traditionally, they bowed to that, especially if the request came from the biggest funder, the US, which funder constantly threatened to withdraw or reduce their funding if this or that wasn't done. So I considered that a hard job. At least I was left free, and who left me free is the secretary general, you know he raised his arms to show I can go all the way, whereas he is constrained.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the programme. Well, for the next hour, we are joined by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pile. She's going to be here to answer your questions.
Speaker 4:Well, Navi Pile, the UN Commissioner on Human Rights, joins us now from the UN in New York.
Speaker 1:Are we, as a global society, in fact making progress in protecting human rights? Perhaps no one is better equipped to answer this question than this woman, navi Pile. What, what? Looking back, what were your biggest challenges, or do you have standout successes? I mean, this is a hard job in the sense that you have to tell governments they're behaving badly.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what they said to me ambassadors and you know, politicians, heads of state and so on. They respected that I was a judge and, as a judge, that I listen. So even Israel complimented me in bringing a balance, meaning I included their point of view in my report. That's what you have to do, you, you know you stick to the UN principles. I would constantly remind them. You pass this international convention, yeah, and you have, you've undertaken obligations, so you have to carry that out Some, you know some meetings. Of course you have to be very careful, make sure that you have the facts right, but most times I, very carefully, would raise issues I think you wrote somewhere. Imagine that I seem to have operated by using humor as well. So sometimes, yeah, I would do that. So here I was meeting the prime minister of Central African Republic, and my colleagues and his entourage were all seated there, and then he turned towards me and he said why you don't speak French? And I said because I was colonized by the British and you were colonized by the French. That's why you are speaking French. He burst out laughing and this whole whole wondered what, what the joke was about. But thereafter we communicated very well.
Speaker 2:I went to one of the Caribbean islands and said you know, this is the first time a high commissioner for human rights has come to the Caribbean. And she said the minister, yeah, that's because we don't have any human rights violations. Why do you think all the tourists come here? Because we are happy people. We smile all the time. And I said if that's the case, why do you beat your children? And she said oh, oh, that's an old Caribbean custom, she said. I said it's not, it's a 50-year-old British law. You need to change that, and we did. You know she's asked for help. I sent colleagues over to help them change the law.
Speaker 1:Did you feel because other people have said this to me, not former human rights commissioners, but human rights activists the big powerful countries we could say China, russia, the United States, israel, which has a lot of support do they escape scrutiny because of their power?
Speaker 2:They do. They do. They're from. The United States has not ratified the convention on the rights of the child or CEDAW Convention against discrimination of women, and they told me that's because they're a democracy. They have their own institutions, but they do escape international skill to need that they push for in respect of other states.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is some double standards there, it happens, and they never invited me. The US never invited me, even after many, many requests addressed directly to Hillary Clinton, whereas you know I was invited by Russia. President Medvedev was there in power. They let me see and talk to anybody. Very interesting meeting with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court.
Speaker 1:So certain countries do escape China is the one that is causing headaches. Now for human rights commissioners they are. We're seeing some people say a complete shift of interpretation about what human rights actually are.
Speaker 2:The Chinese ambassador actually came to see me when I was completing my service as a judge and they were urging me to Visit China. They said come to China. They told me your predecessor, mary's Robinson, has been there six times, so you have to come. I Told them well, it's not proper for you to come talk to me. I'm not a high commissioner yet, silly judge. But when I took up the position Over six years, I asked to make a formal visit and they never found the appropriate date for me to do so.
Speaker 2:I Made it clear that I'm not prepared to do what my predecessor may have done, which is help them with training workshops, do all that educational help on human rights there. Without having the power to be critical, I said this this is the job of the high commissioner. We have to go and see ourselves and raise issues that you may not like. That was my response to them. The answer from each and every of their representatives whom I spoke to is they delivering on economic rights and so they don't want an overthrow of the government while they delivering on economic rights. And actually I I acknowledge that they. They were delivering on economic rights, right, good jobs and so on, but they have signed up to do it in this way, internationally acceptable way. They have to allow dissent. But you are quite right, that is, was, was and still is their traditional answer. They applied in the fact that They've managed to feed, clothes and find jobs for one and a half billion people as we mark the 75th anniversary, how do you think we should celebrate it?
Speaker 1:or what do people need reminding?
Speaker 2:Do you think People need to be reminded that they have a role to play. So if a good law is passed, a Nationally or internationally, it's not going to be implemented. It's not governments who woke up one day and decided, oh, we got to do more for human rights. No, it's really skewed. It's bad in the lack of accountability by politicians as soon as they get into power. I often wonder, for instance, why do they need so much security For themselves against us, the people? It should be the other way around. You don't need to surround yourself with security as if we, the people, are going to attack them. I think, then, for after 75 years of this, there has to be a Revolutionary change where people should realize their own power and worth and Reassert and demand that they be included in all discussions.
Speaker 2:When I first attended my first international conference in Vienna on human rights Actually, prison Mandela encouraged all of us to go, and it was very new to us because South Africa had been out of the UN and that was my first experience and I saw how strong civil society was. Using the language, women's rights are human rights. Demanding that there be an office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, I right, that's one aspect. The other is the people's actions against Smoking, that it was dangerous and that this knowledge was kept away from us, and the collective opposition to apartheid. I see all these as victories of having this Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a common standard that every state actually has agreed, no status, distanced itself from the from that city. So I see hope in that and I feel these are the tools that civil society has. You have the law. Now push for implementation. Ask your governments the difficult questions.
Speaker 1:And you're still doing that. Yes, I'm doing it no retirement for you. Ask your governments the difficult questions. Those wise words bring us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to Navi Pile for such an inspiring interview. Just before we go, here's some news about the next podcast, which is Inside Geneva's 100th edition. To mark it, we'll be revisiting some of our highlights from debates about killer robots.
Speaker 3:It's about the risk of leaving life and death decisions to a machine process. An algorithm shouldn't decide who lives or dies.
Speaker 2:What if a weapon is used and developed without the means for human control? What are the consequences of it?
Speaker 1:Do you hold the commander responsible? Who activated the weapon system? There's what we call an accountability gap when it comes to killer robots, to a decade of war in Syria.
Speaker 4:Syria was a real setback where these besiegements, the bombing of hospitals, the bombing of schools, the bombing of bread lines, it was horrific.
Speaker 3:In recent history. I don't think there is something comparable to the disaster in Syria. What you see, it's apocalyptic.
Speaker 1:To the human rights investigators who bring their evidence to Geneva.
Speaker 3:I still know that the Myanmar butchers, who are responsible for what happened, may never individually be brought to justice, but I certainly live in hope that one day they will.
Speaker 5:Is this possible? How human being can do such horrible things to other human being?
Speaker 1:The idea that somebody has listened to your story and you have taken your case to the United Nations is incredibly important. Or efforts to decolonize humanitarian work.
Speaker 4:The headquarters trusted me to come out and, within 72 hours, produce a document that will decide the expenditure of several million dollars, but never asked anyone of the people who have been day in, day out in that hospital.
Speaker 5:If we were to think of aid as a form of reparation, as a form of social justice for historical and continuing harm. You want me to pay reparations.
Speaker 1:I wasn't born in the 19th century. My background is not in empire. That's available on September 19th on all your favorite podcast platforms. Do take a listen and between now and then you can catch up on our series of interviews with those who have led the UN Human Rights Work over the years. As well as Navi Pile, we've talked to Louise Arbor, mary Robinson and Jose Ayala Lasso. Please do review us if you like what you're hearing and drop us a line on inside Geneva at Swissinfoch. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks again for listening.