Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
Inside Geneva
Europe, the UN and the battle for human rights
Is the world still committed to human rights? Our Inside Geneva podcast is in Strasbourg, where the Council of Europe is discussing how to defend the fundamental principles we agreed upon after the Second World War.
“We can’t just say, ‘Do it because it’s a human right’ or ‘Do it because it’s in a treaty.’ We have to demonstrate: ‘Do it, and this is how it will make your society better and stronger,’” says Michael O’Flaherty, Human Rights Commissioner at the Council of Europe.
With autocracies in Russia and China and uncertain times ahead in the US, can Europe hold the line?
“If Europe doesn’t get this right, I can guarantee you it will not be good for Europe. It will be worse in the rest of the world as well, so it’s a vicious spiral,” continues Peggy Hicks, UN Human Rights.
But even in Europe, the commitment to human rights is sometimes weak.
“For many, human rights are a bit of an afterthought in our policy. It’s something to make us feel good about ourselves,” says Olof Skoog, the EU’s Special Representative for Human Rights.
We also talked to Sofia Moschin, student and human rights defender, who said that “inside Europe, there are constant violations of human rights, so I don’t agree with the narrative that Europe is a human rights champion.”
We also talked to Sofia Moschin, a student and human rights defender, who said, “Inside Europe, there are constant violations of human rights, so I don’t agree with the narrative that Europe is a human rights champion.”
How should Europe stand up for its values?
“I’m not going to accept defeatism. Get furious – that’s what we need to do now. Don’t throw in the towel, don’t surrender. Get indignant, get furious and fight back to save this astonishing achievement,” says O’Flaherty.
Join host Imogen Foulkes on the latest episode of our Inside Geneva podcast to listen to these interviews in full.
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, imogen Foulkes, and this is a production from Swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's programme.
Speaker 1:We can't just say do it because it's a human right, do it because it's in a treaty. We have to show, do it, and this is how it will make your society better and stronger.
Speaker 3:If Europe doesn't get this right, I can guarantee you it will not be good for Europe, because it will be worse in the rest of the world as well. So it's a vicious spiral.
Speaker 4:For many, too many, the human rights is a little bit of an afterthought, you know, in our policy. It's to feel a little bit good about ourselves.
Speaker 5:Inside Europe there are constant violations of human rights, so I don't agree with the narrative. Europe is a human rights champion.
Speaker 1:I've been in the work of human rights my whole adult life. I've never seen it more precarious. I've lived through horrors, so I've seen the worst a human can do to a human. But I haven't seen the challenging to the system and the extent to which the challenging is coming into the mainstream, respectable centre. That is the case, I would say almost, you know, in recent months, never mind years.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen Fowkes. Today, as you may have guessed from our introduction, we're focusing on current challenges to human rights and to international law, and today we're not actually in Geneva, but in another city in Europe well known for its focus on exactly those two things. We're here in Strasbourg, home to the Council of Europe.
Speaker 6:The fighting has stopped, but the dangers have not. If we are to form the United States of Europe, or whatever name it may take, we must begin now, and the first practical step would be to form a Council of Europe.
Speaker 2:Now, just for those who sometimes get a bit confused about all the Euro terminology, the Council of Europe is not the European Union. In fact, it's a much older institution founded in 1949 with the aim of creating a peaceful, rights-respecting Europe in the wake of the terrible bloodshed of the Second World War.
Speaker 7:Mr Bevin presided over the conference at St James's Palace held for the establishment of a Council of Europe. This statute undoubtedly marks a real advance towards European unity and augurs well for the future.
Speaker 2:The Council has 46 member states and is currently celebrating not just its 75th anniversary, but the 25th anniversary of one of its key officials, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights my name is Michael O'Flaherty and I'm the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe.
Speaker 1:Commissioner for Human Rights.
Speaker 2:My name is Michael O'Flaherty and I'm the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, so my first stop in Strasbourg was with the current holder of that position, michael O'Flaherty, and my first question with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, a possibly turbulent few years ahead in the United States East, a possibly turbulent few years ahead in the United States and the apparent growing popularity of opinions in Europe itself that question our fundamental rights, around immigration, for example, what is there to celebrate?
Speaker 1:We don't have much to celebrate. We're at a precarious time for human rights. Not only are the violations deplorable in so many different places, but there is a repudiation of rights today. There's an increasing willingness, even in this let's call it the respectable political space, to say if this human rights gets in my way, it has to get out of my way. This is very worrying. We're at an inflection moment where the very future of the system is at stake. That's not to say we haven't had some astonishing achievements at the extent to which we have embedded standards of human rights through treaties, built institutions to support and uphold them and, increasingly, that we see a kind of an architecture for human rights protection at the national level. This is very, very precious, but it's also very fragile.
Speaker 2:There's a certain amount of cynicism that I encounter among countries from the global south about what they see as double standards, and I think the two that are featuring always in conversations now are Ukraine and Russia's violations there, which have been talked about a great deal, and then what's happening in the Middle East.
Speaker 1:No, I agree with you about the problem that double standards is creating in terms of belief in willingness to commit to the human rights system, but we've always had double standards. 25 years ago, I was running the UN human rightsme in Sierra Leone. Every night I would put on BBC World Service. I would only ever hear about one conflict, the one in Kosovo. It's so upset me, it's so upset my colleagues, it's so upset the half of that country that would listen in to the World Service in the evening. So my point here is that it's always been a problem and it should not be the basis on which we judge and somehow reject the human rights system. The system, the standards, the achievements should not be made hostages to the hypocrisy of global politics.
Speaker 2:Well, since you mentioned global politics, let's have a look at where we are. Here is Europe, you're in position. We have the European Convention on Human Rights, but we have, over at the United Nations, three permanent members of the Security Council who don't get on very powerful members but also have, I think, less commitment to fundamental rights and principles than you might like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there isn't the degree of strong political support for human rights to be seen around the world. I call on politicians repeatedly to speak up for human rights. If they believe in them, if they consider them important for their societies, their countries, our world, they've got to say that, they've got to challenge the pushbacks. And there isn't enough, and we have to instill a sense of urgency, a sense of risk of collapse, of a very different future, a dystopian one that none of us want to be part of. So there's still plenty of goodwill out there in politics, international politics, but I want to see it more engaged, more determined, more brave. We have to resist the voices against human rights, the counter-human rights voices, be they about specific details in some narrow context, like trans identity, or be it in a much bigger situation of promoting social and economic rights to combat inequality in our societies. Taming of artificial intelligence, the human rights respectful managing of migration situations, the climate crisis the list is a very long one.
Speaker 2:Well, to try to address that long list and to unite human rights defenders across Europe, the Council of Europe brought together an impressive group of people. Former human rights commissioners were there, as well as representatives from the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union's Agency for Fundamental Rights, the United Nations and young human rights defenders from across the continent. They're tasked to assess the challenges and discuss how to work more closely together. Olaf Skoog, the EU's Special representative for human rights, was under no illusions.
Speaker 4:Are we worried about the situation? Yes, very much so, but I think there are ways we can step up and remedy it if we work together. I think it's very important for us Europeans to just take a step back and look a little bit, even beyond the quarter century. That has been the theme of today's conference, because, if you think about it, much of the calamities, the most massive human rights violations, emanate from Europe, starting back with slavery, the way that we have exploited people around the world, following with the Holocaust, now Islamophobia, and we saw the whole Iron Curtain and all the violence, the massive human rights violations that took place behind that wall for many, many years in a divided Europe. So it's quite remarkable of how far we've come based on what we have experienced.
Speaker 4:But that experience, I think, is also the root, the origin of the human rights agenda, in a way. That's why I think it's extremely important now to first of all understand how our adoption to the human rights has served us extremely well, both in terms of maintaining peace between countries and inside countries, but also in promotion of economic rights and social and cultural rights, and the prosperity that the European Union countries experience has been remarkable. So I think we are advocating and defending a system that has proven itself to be the best system. So when we now see clouds on the horizon questioning many of these achievements, I think we need to be vigilant. My plea to all, especially the youth here, is to really keep our feet to the fire, protect the privilege that we all have in living in democratic societies and stop this backsliding that we're seeing.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, peggy Hicks of United Nations Human Rights stressed that the laws we have created to uphold human rights are, in theory, robust, but their benefits may not always be communicated effectively. So, in the face of sometimes hostile narratives about human rights, do the institutions tasked with upholding them need to be more populist aggressive even in their messaging?
Speaker 3:I think we have to start out by just recognizing how resilient the human rights framework is. We had our big 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration last year and you know we don't need new rights. We have the rights we need. They matter to people in their day-to-day lives, but I think we have we've dropped the ball at times in terms of how we've delivered on that message. And I agree, we have the institutions, we have the laws, but are they really delivering for people in the way that they need to? And I think part of what we need to do better is making those connections, and it goes both to how we talk about rights like which rights are we talking about? How do economies deliver human rights? And really looking at issues like employment and taxation and budget in a different way as avenues of human rights delivery that have sometimes been overlooked and Imogen. You had asked as well about is the moment to be aggressive?
Speaker 5:Do we need to do something better.
Speaker 3:I think it's not about being more aggressive. I think we need to understand better why we don't have the support that we need to. We need to deal with and analyze what is driving some of those forces and take them on in an evidence-based way. But it's also just about investment as well. But I really wonder whether states really see investment in those areas as a priority. I think those who want to push back on rights do see it as a priority and they will invest. So the question is will we put the political capital, will we put the resources that we need in this challenging period forward to protect human rights in the way that we need to? The UN as an institution, I think, is a vital bridge. Europe has so much to offer. We need to work both within and also use European commitment and values and engagement globally to make progress on human rights so the world can come together to push for human rights, and we just have to make the commitment to invest in it, both politically and with the resources necessary.
Speaker 5:Can you guys hear me? My question will be for Mr Vrob. According to the 2024 World Justice Project, With young people and human rights groups.
Speaker 2:In the audience, questions to the EU and UN officials came thick and fast. How well do they work together? How much support do they get from their own governments? And what about duplication? Olaf Skog again.
Speaker 4:Look, I think first of all, I think in the area of human rights I think it's better that there is a certain duplication than that we leave anything undone. You know I'd rather have that too much action than too little, especially now. You know we exchange a lot very regularly, sometimes very informally. I don't go anywhere without first having checked with what the High Commissioner for Human Rights, volker Turk, has been doing with our country so that I can sort of support and come in. But you also asked about how do we sort of keep this high on our agenda? And I have to be very honest with you that I also struggle internally in the EU to have this conversation because for many, too many, the human rights it's a little bit of an afterthought in our policy. It's to feel a little bit good about ourselves and to be able to say that well, we brought up this case or whatever.
Speaker 4:But I'm trying to persuade people that actually this is a strategic interest for Europe. The human rights and democracy promotion agenda has to be central to everything we do in our foreign relations. And if the people of the world are able to choose freely which of course they're not in many countries, but if they are, they will choose the model that we represent. Therefore, it's so important that we hold on to that model, but also that we keep promoting it globally. I think that's the hope, and I have high expectations with the youth to keep our feet to the fire. But also I think that the light of democracy and human rights is something that most people in the world want and aspire to.
Speaker 2:Listening to that was Italian student, human rights defender and member of the European Students' Parliament, sofia Mosin With her to Strasbourg. She brought a healthy dose of scepticism about Europe's commitment to human rights.
Speaker 5:Europe has always been one of the leaders in human rights shaping in terms of international law. Right now, I think two key elements should be underlined. First of all, inside Europe, there are constant violations of human rights, so I don't agree with the narrative according to which Europe is a human rights champion.
Speaker 2:When it comes to human rights in Europe. Of particular concern to many in the audience, including Sofia, is Europe's current policy and heated debate about immigration.
Speaker 5:It's such a divisive topic and I think some strategies should be learned about the way in which we communicate about that.
Speaker 5:For example, speaking about migration as an economical opportunity just plays with people's fear, so that's not useful. For example, when you speak with a very polarised group of people who actually have intense fearful emotional response, you cannot actually speak in this scientific, data-driven way. So what? The work that the European Students' Parliament has been doing so far is to create events in which people from different backgrounds people also with migratory backgrounds gather together training workshops, not just for two hours there is no time there to get to know each other, but to really experience something longer together. Because in the moment in which you get to know the person, there is a chance to change this view. And I know that this is a very precise and detailed work that has to be done person by person, like it's. It's a very delicate, hand crafted work, but I think that this is the only way in which we can change the perception, because just speaking of general narratives doesn't work when people are driven by fear.
Speaker 2:The work Sofia and her colleagues are doing around immigration is, as she so well described it, as she so well described it, delicate, handcrafted. It takes much time and effort. But up against that work are fear-mongering and over-politicised slogans on social media, in the mainstream media and coming out of the mouths of politicians. So how do human rights leaders counter that? Peggy Hicks again.
Speaker 3:Too often human rights is seen as a barrier, a hoop governments have to jump through. One of the things we're really stressing now is human rights as a tool. This is something that can be useful to governments in delivering better results across their agendas, and we have proof of that being the case that if human rights are not taken into account, the results are unstable and unsuccessful in many senses. So we need to be able to deliver that message, because if Europe doesn't get this right, I can guarantee you it will not be good for Europe because it will be worse in the rest of the world as well. So it's a vicious spiral that will happen if not more isn't done.
Speaker 3:Michael alluded to Eleanor Roosevelt's quote about human rights happening in the small places close to home. They certainly do. They happen in those places and in the dark places in which people are faced to live and work and challenged to their lives and security, and those are people that we also need to protect, to their lives and security, and those are people that we also need to protect. And we need to find a better way to have that conversation, where migration is not instrumentalized and used as a tool to allow leaders to be elected who ultimately will not just bring in bad policies on migration, but will also have a negative impact across the human rights agenda as a whole. So just a plea to everyone to come together, think much more deeply about how we can address the issue of migration in a way that's human rights respecting.
Speaker 2:An appeal, then, to her own colleagues to think long and hard about making the debate about human rights relevant to ordinary people, to not get sucked into the argument. We sometimes hear that rights for some mean losses for others, and it's me or it's them equation. Olaf Skog had a timely reminder that human rights are not things we generously bestow on others. They are standards we must live up to.
Speaker 4:Human rights were constructed to protect ourselves from aggressors and persecutions, but they're also there to protect ourselves from ourselves. So again, Europe has been the origin of so much disastrous human rights violations in the world, so let's not forget that those human rights are also about holding ourselves to account.
Speaker 2:At the end of that discussion, I went to find Sofia again. What did she think about what she'd heard? I was surprised to discover that, however dismaying the global upheaval is for young people, whether it's war, climate change or repression of free speech, she also believes it can motivate them to work as she does for something better Right now.
Speaker 5:For the last five years at least, there has been this shaking, at least on the surface, on human being conscience about the need to protect human rights. With these conflicts I think people who have never experienced war before kind of woke up, at least on the surface, to understand that human rights protection is and should be an ongoing process, a constant process, and it's not something that should be ended just because we were living in a small bubble of peace. That's not anymore the case and we should address that. And I think right now young people who are living those conflicts and those global earthquakes, at a very young age they can be for real the motor of action to push more for the respect of human rights inside and outside the European continent.
Speaker 7:As the ink dries upon the signatures of the ten ministers, a centuries-old dream is fulfilled. This lays the foundations of something new in European life. It is an epoch-making event, for the Parliament of Europe can open an age of hope and reason in the history of the world.
Speaker 2:Let's remember, then, where we started this episode of Inside Geneva. The Council of Europe was created out of the horrors of the Second World War to be an institution to make sure those horrors never happened again. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created around the same time for similar reasons. So too was the Fourth Geneva Convention. Do we need to make the same violent mistakes to remind ourselves why we need these things? The Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner, michael O'Flaherty, hopes it won't come to that.
Speaker 1:Reigniting that passion for human rights that was so evident everywhere in the late 1940s. It's not impossible. I think we can hold the line. We can hold the line. We're going to have a rocky few years, but with vigilance and with a sense of what could be lost and with a refusal to yield, we can achieve a lot. By the way, another dimension is that we have to do a better job of making the business case for what we're demanding. We can't just say do it because it's a human right, do it because it's in a treaty. We have to show, do it, and this is how it will make your society better and stronger. That's the way I talk to governments about the way we securitise our borders. That's the way I talk to governments about the way we securitise our borders. I say you know, if you have a humane reception policy at your border, you genuinely consider asylum claims, you'll actually have more secure borders. You won't have crazy smugglers doing horrific things. And there's many other ways in which you can make these kind of cases.
Speaker 2:You said you thought Europe was strong and could hold the line. But what do you mean? Do you mean protecting rights inside the Council of Europe members? I mean I agree with the hypothetical. Come February, march next year, say we see continued Russian indiscriminate bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructure. Permanent bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructure. We see mass deportations in the United States, people being rounded up. This is what's being discussed. In China, we see continued repression of human rights defenders, as we've seen in the last few days. What can Europe do about that? I mean, I was in the States just 10 days ago. They're just really not interested in what Europe's got to say.
Speaker 1:Well, the first responsibility in Europe and my job is to work in support of respect for the human rights of the people who are here, and we have to really work very hard to make sure that we don't have our own backsliding, democratic backsliding, human rights backsliding or, where we have it, that we resist it with all of the skill and resources at our disposal. Now I don't like talking about hypotheticals, but Russia's aggression is not hypothetical. The Russian aggression is a war on all of us, not just on Ukraine. I'm not a military guy. I'm in no position to predict what the military outcomes are going to be in the next year or whatever. I don't have that knowledge, but I do know what we're resisting. We're resisting an attempt to destroy our values, the careful, precious investment in decency in our societies that I think is a feature of Europe. We're not perfect, make plenty of mistakes, but these are part of the fundamentals on the continent.
Speaker 2:How worried are you I mean, does it keep you awake at night that we are actually at risk of throwing that all away?
Speaker 1:Yes, of course it does. I've been in the work of human rights my whole adult life. I've never seen it more precarious. I've lived through horrors. You know I've mentioned Sierra Leone. I've lived through the war in Bosnia Herzegovina, so I've seen the worst a human can do to a human. But I haven't seen the challenging to the system and the extent to which the challenging is coming into the mainstream, respectable centre. That is the case, I would say almost, you know, in recent months, never mind years. But I'm not going to accept defeatism. I think of Stéphane Hesel, the great French polemicist who died a few years ago, who wrote that wonderful book Andignez-vous, get Furious. And that's what we need to do now not throw in the towel, not surrender. Get indignant, get furious and fight back to save this astonishing achievement.
Speaker 2:We've heard a lot of ideas in this programme about how to defend the rights so many of us agree are precious. Make them more relevant to everyday life. Invest real time and effort in overcoming division and polarisation here in Europe. Remember our cruel past and how we have tried to overcome it. And that last point from Michael O'Flaherty, which really made an impression on me get angry, get furious and get out there and defend human rights for ourselves and for others. For others. That's it from this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to the Council of Europe for inviting me to participate in that thought-provoking anniversary.
Speaker 2:Next time it's that time of year again we get UN correspondents in Geneva and New York round the table to reflect on 2024. What have the last 12 months been like? How effective has the UN been? How genuine is global commitment to multilateralism, international law and the rule-based order these days, and what are our hopes and fears for 2025? Join us on December 10th for that episode. A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swissinfo production. You can email us on insidegeneva at swissinfoch and subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks again for listening.
