Human rights action plan needed

After coming to power, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) ranked improving human rights as one of his administration's top priorities. To achieve this goal, Chen has promised to establish a national human rights commission (國家人權委員會), to incorporate the International Bill of Rights (國際人權法典) into Taiwan's legal code, to hold a "human rights wedding" (人權婚禮) at the Taipei Guest House (台北賓館) and to grant amnesties on International Human Rights Day (國際人權日).

Although all these events have raised the visibility of human rights on this island, the public expects the government to implement new human rights policies now. As these events and the policies are not really connected, I suggest the government integrate them into a more complete "National Plan of Action for Protection and Promotion of Human Rights" (國家人權行動計劃) for Taiwan.

The "National Plan of Action for Protection and Promotion of Human Rights" was a product of the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria in 1993. According to the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action (維也納宣言), every nation in the world is expected to initiate its own national action plan (NAP) on human rights in order to protect and to promote human rights worldwide. Since then, many countries have drawn up their own NAPs on human rights and have revised them frequently when improvements were needed.

After analyzing the action plans of other countries, we have found that they usually contain three major steps: first, review current domestic human rights conditions; second, discover problems that need to be solved; third, actively solve all the problems.

Generally speaking, each government needs to promote human rights from two angles. Domestically, the government has to review current law and regulations on human rights, establish government human rights organs and work closely with human rights groups, as well as promote human rights education. Internationally, governments need to scrupulously abide by international declarations of human rights, to work with international human rights organizations, and to provide foreign aid to the international community in order to safeguard international human rights.

Take the Netherlands, for example. The government has recently proposed 10 major points in its NAP on human rights:

* To protect children's rights, to end gender discrimination, and to ban torture;

* To review domestic administrative procedures in order to cope with the international human rights system.

* To draft a law against racial discrimination.

* To establish a national human rights commission.

* To provide human rights information and education.

* To establish a human rights center for aborigines.

* To help other nations, such as China, Turkey and Cuba improve their human rights conditions.

* To establish human rights protection standards for industry.

* To protect international refugees.

* To promote human rights in all aspects.

Thus, both internal and external aspects need to be included in an action plan to promote human rights.

I believe all the advanced countries' NAPs are worth studying. When starting to draft our own action plan, Taiwan may well want to borrow from the experience of South Africa. To reach a consensus on its NAP, the South Africa Human Rights Commission, along with the country's Department of Justice, formed a NAP Steering Committee (監督委員會), led by the minister of justice, in October, 1997. The committee members were drawn from the human rights commission, coordinating government organs, civil groups, and the congress, and members were divided into three discussion groups -- human rights evaluation, strategies, and resources. A series of consultative workshops were held throughout the nation, and an official NAP for human rights was passed on Dec. 10, 1998 based on the consultations and collaboration between government and civil society.