"A word means whatever I want it to ... if it does double duty I pay it more." That line from Alice in Wonderland comes immediately to mind when considering the use of the term "human rights" here in Taiwan. The term has been abused to such an extent that it has become quite meaningless. It has become a term that has come to mean "anything I don't like" or "anything bad that happens to people." As I have pointed out before, a word that means everything, in fact means nothing.
"Human rights" has achieved that status here in Taiwan.
That fact is well illustrated by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights' (TAHR) newly released report on "human rights" in Taiwan (Human rights get mixed report card, Dec. 2, page 4). The report presents a "Top 10" list of human rights events and areas that TAHR claims represent advances in human rights or areas that are of concern. I do not mean to make light of any of the items presented. They are all serious and meaningful. Many of them however, have nothing to do with human rights if that term is to be used in a meaningful way and it is nonsense to discuss them as if they were rights problems.
Turning to the "Top 10" list, four items that reflect, in TAHR's analysis, change for the better are: 1. The Hsichih Trio granted a retrial. 2. New government takes action to protect human rights. 3. Maximum workweek shortened. 4. Formation of gay and lesbian organizations and gradual recognition by the community.
I will agree that the granting of a retrial in the Su Chien-ho (蘇建和) case is important and it directly and clearly involves core human rights. That does belong at the top of the list. As to item two, the idea that "the new government takes action to protect human rights," -- in fact the government has taken absolutely no meaningful action to protect rights. Forming a bunch of committees, naming advisors and giving speeches is not "meaningful action."
As to the length of the work week, the difference between having to work half-day Saturday or not having to is not a core human rights issue. To call it such is, at best, silly. The fourth "change for the better" is, at least as stated, too vague to comment on.
As for causes for concern, the TAHR list six areas: 1. Kao-ping River polluted by toxic waste. 2. Four workers killed at Pachang Creek. 3. Implementation of restraining orders fails to deter domestic violence. 4. Taichung City crackdown on the homeless. 5. Discrimination by society against the mentally handicapped. 6. Foreign women married to Taiwanese men refused the right to work.
Item one is an environmental and/or criminal justice issue. It has nothing to do with rights unless you stretch that phrase to the point of insignificance. The same can be said for item two. I think those two events are sad, I think they should be remedied but they are not rights issues. Item three is more of a criminal justice issue; the cause for it is simply that the cops won't bother. It is not really a human rights issue as it currently stands. Items four, five and six are again sad situations but they are social problems, which have only a tangential relationship to core rights.
I may be accused of having too narrow a definition of "human rights." As a practicing attorney I look at how a problem is labeled as a reflection on what type of mechanism can be or will be used to solve it. I define human rights issues as those which some international agency, be it the UN or some NGO, would act to solve. If the issue would be solved through some other mechanism then it is not a human rights problem.
Let me close on a positive note. For better or worse TAHR has been and remains Taiwan's strongest advocate for human rights. TAHR is clearly the leading domestic human rights NGO. Some of the finest people I have met in Taiwan I have met through their work with TAHR. Like any NGO they face pressures and struggle to survive. As a result of these pressures they sometimes lack a focus, lack a direction and have to "be all things to all people." Be that as it may, their Top 10 "human rights" events are a strange brew of sense and nonsense.
Brian Kennedy is an attorney who writes and teaches on criminal justice and human rights issues.
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