A shoddy human-rights record won't necessarily disqualify countries from receiving foreign aid from Taiwan.
A measure requiring that all foreign-aid recipients have clean human-rights records was a part of an unprecedented bill governing official foreign-aid programs.
But a legislative committee considering the bill yesterday rejected the clause.
Still, in the final version of the bill, the committee added language stating that part of the goal of Taiwan's foreign-aid programs should be the promotion of human rights.
The bill is the first comprehensive proposed law governing official foreign-aid programs. It streamlines and clarifies the way foreign-aid programs will be administered.
The bill requires that future aid -project proposals stipulate their purpose, principle and scope.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been designated the overseer of foreign-aid programs.
The law also stipulates that the execution of these assistance programs, except for "confidential projects," be put to the Legislative Yuan for approval.
The completion of the bill, even at the legislative committee level, marked what officials dubbed a milestone in correcting longstanding pitfalls in the nation's foreign-aid programs, which have been the target of much criticism.
The heated debate over whether to include the so-called "exclusion clause" into the Cabinet's draft bill, called the International Cooperation and Development law, took place in the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee of the Legislative Yuan yesterday.
The "exclusion clause" that appeared in another draft, called "Foreign Aid Assistance," rejects assistance to governments that violate human rights, sponsor terrorist activities, traffic in drugs, seize the assets of the Taiwanese government or its citizens without offering adequate compensation, or discriminate against Taiwanese citizens. In the final bill, only the exclusion for committing or sponsoring terrorism survived.
Lawmakers and foreign ministry officials were stymied in trying to define what a minimum standard for human-rights policy should be.
"There is no objective standard defining whether a certain country has reached sufficient human-rights protection. So to state that countries that violate human rights should be excluded from aid can only cause more trouble," said KMT lawmaker Douglas Hung (
Hung also doubted the feasibility of the "exclusion clause," taking into account the shabby human-rights records of some of Taiwan's allies.
Foreign ministry officials said they only supported the exclusion of foreign aid from going to countries that support or commit terrorist acts.
But DPP legislator Parris Chang (張旭成), who proposed the foreign-aid assistance law with KMT legislator Chen Shei-saint (陳學聖), had a different view. Chang argued that the insertion of the "exclusion clause" should demonstrate what he termed the "ideals" of Taiwan, and should encourage related countries to improve their domestic situation to meet the standard for receiving foreign aid.
"I think it's insufficient if we only include the exclusion of terrorist countries," Chang said.
"Taiwan's human-rights record in the past has been severely criticized by the US. And Taiwan has thus endeavored to improve its human-rights record in order to win recognition from the US," Chang added.
RSS