Mandate Review - Comments on broad directions from the Swedish section Underlag till styrelsemöte 1-2 januari 1999

Dear Friends:

Re: MANDATE REVIEW – Consultation on Broad Directions (POL 21/04/98)

At a workshop in early January and at two consecutive Board meetings the Swedish section has discussed the consultation paper from Standing Committee on Mandate. The Board member responsible for the compilation of this document is Christian Gräslund*.

Best regards


*Address: Cedervägen 5, SE-191 44 Sollentuna



MANDATE REVIEW
Comments on broad directions from the Swedish section

Re: POL 21/04/98

1 Summary

Emphasizing the fundamental principles international solidarity, universality, focus on individual victims, global coverage, non-violence, impartiality, independence, indivisibility and activism the Swedish section proposes that Amnesty International´s mandate should be directed towards opposition of grave violations of civil and political rights. Promotional work should be limited to those economic, social and cultural rights that support the civil and political rights. In general Amnesty International's promotional work should receive less prominence. With such a change the ICM could be devoted mainly to setting priorities, the graveness of the violation being the main criterion.

The Swedish section is concerned that Amnesty International places too much emphasis on company approaches. We think that governments should be held responsible. Amnesty International should not make judgements on economic systems, nor should it give the impression that it approves company practices.

In contexts of armed conflicts Amnesty International should oppose the same violations that it opposes in peacetime, be they committed by governments or armed opposition groups. Moreover, Amnesty International should refrain from making military strategic considerations concerning indiscriminate attacks or weapons. Never should Amnesty International call for armed intervention.

The whole movement should be involved in the decision-making process of Amnesty International, which should take place at ICMs.


2 Introduction

Over its existence of close to 40 years Amnesty International has been successful in combating certain grave violations of human rights. The movement has succeeded in gathering active members with diverse political and private convictions to work together for a common and limited goal with a clear focus. In short, Amnesty International is a movement of volunteers who have voluntarily decided on a limited mandate. Through its democratic structure successive International Council Meetings have developed and expanded the scope of violations Amnesty International is to oppose. As a result Amnesty International is now an organization working to uphold a broad spectrum of human rights. The crucial issue is: how and for what ends can this organization with its well-developed structure and working methods be used without losing the commitment of its membership and its effectiveness?


3 Fundamental Principles of Amnesty International

The first question of the consultation paper entails weighing a number of options for Amnesty International's basic principles against each other. The Swedish section has the following comments:

1a: International solidarity. That Amnesty members work for victims in other countries we regard as an important principle, and in general we recommend a strict application of the WOOC rule.

1b: Universality. This is an important principle, since a person whose human rights are violated through imprisonment, execution, torture etc suffers equally disregarding his or her country or political opinion, faith colour etc. Universality is also a fundamental principle of the Declaration of Human Rights.

1c: Multiculturalism and respect for diversity. It follows from 1b that human rights are not relative to a certain culture.

1d: Focus on individual victims. A strength of Amnesty International has been casework. Through this the violations manifest themselves as something concrete, not something one can talk about in the abstract. Admittedly it is not always possible to find individual cases, but it is our opinion that casework is one of the reasons for the success of Amnesty International.

1e: Global coverage. Bearing in mind that our limited resources will always force us to set priorities and that information on human rights violations is sometimes very difficult to obtain, this is an important principle.

1f: Non-violence. Even though Amnesty International has decided to open the possibility of asking for the release of prisoners who are not prisoners of conscience, the step to call for armed intervention is prohibitively large. It is our firm belief that Amnesty International should never call for the employment of weapons.

1g: Impartiality. It follows from 1e that this is an important principle that should not be compromised. It is one of the factors of success of Amnesty International.

1h: Independence. Amnesty International must remain financially independent of donors. In particular no funds may be accepted from governments for any purpose. We are aware that there are many indirect benefits, a fact that we have to live with, seeing that we can not exclude ourselves from the society we live in.

The research capability of Amnesty International has always been limited, so we have had to rely on information from other non-governmental organizations. Nowadays when information technology gives us the opportunity to receive information without time delay, collection of information should be easier than when Amnesty International was founded. We think that it is imperative that Amnesty International always makes its own judgement of the reliability of the information it is to act upon regardless of the source. Reliable research is vital to Amnesty International's good reputation.

1i: Indivisibility. That we support this principle does not mean that specialization is not necessary. In fact, the human rights in the civil and political domain, which are the object of Amnesty International's oppositional work, are basic for accomplishing the other rights.

1j: The legal bases and values of the membership should continue to be the source of the mandate of Amnesty International.

1k: Effectiveness. We think that Amnesty International should not use effectiveness as a determining factor for concentration of its work.

There are other principles, which we think are also important:

Activism. The fact that our members are able to have a personal commitment contributes of the cohesion of the movement. Even though the possible work against human rights violations is unlimited in practice, the morale of the movement is strengthened by success in just a few cases.

The democratic structure of Amnesty International makes the organization unique. This enables the membership to influence the scope of the work.

This question relates to MTO 4.1 in the draft Integrated Strategic Plan 2000 - 2004. In consequence of our comments on 1c and 1h, we wish to stress firstly that human rights should not be regarded as something which is dependent on culture, and secondly that even if we cooperate with other non-governmental organisations, we must never jeopardize our independence, for instance by violating the WOOC rule.


4 What human rights Amnesty International should work on

Questions 2 and 3 in the consultation paper are interdependent. The present situation is that the opening statement of the Statute gives Amnesty International the possibility to work for all human rights. The issue which should be addressed is how we select those violations which we are to oppose and to what extent we shall support others.

The present mandate presents a catalogue of violations that we oppose. We think that it would be more straightforward to state that Amnesty International opposes grave violations in the domain of civil and political rights. Through its promotional work Amnesty should support those economic, social and cultural rights which will help the civil and political rights Amnesty strives to uphold. As has been said above, the Swedish section believes that civil and political rights are universal. In fact, freedom of speech, democracy and the other civil and political rights are necessary if the economic, social and cultural rights are to be upheld. Amartya Sen has pointed to several cases when lack of freedom of expression in a dictatorship has contributed to famine. Further, imprisonment, torture, killings etc are absolute violations. The circumstances leading to violations of economic, social and cultural rights are open to differences in opinion among Amnesty members depending on political valuations. Consequen
t
ly, it is easier to gather wide support against violations of civil and political rights.

In consequence of our proposal that the area for Amnesty International's oppositional work be limited, there will be better opportunity for proritization at International Council Meetings. The Swedish section is critical of the present situation where a number of strategy decisions are taken which at the end of the Council are given such low priority due to insufficient resources that they will never be implemented. Which low-priority decisions may be implemented when funds appear later on is not decided by the members, which is undemocratic. With the above proposal, the larger part of the Council would be devoted to prioritizing. The main criterion should be the graveness of the violation.

None of the options 2a - 2d really correspond to our proposal. We advocate an oppositional mandate limited to the domain of political and civil rights, which is both a limitation and an expansion relative to the present mandate. We do not think that we should drop any of the current areas, because if we stop working against a certain kind of violations that is not so prevalent at present, it might increase again when the pressure from us is decreased. We believe that what we propose will lead to an organization oriented towards those civil and political rights violations which are the most severe and common. Amnesty International will be more democratic, more effective and more flexible. Furthermore, we think that the mandate would be easier to communicate. Of the options 3a - 3d our proposal comes closest to 3b.


5 How Amnesty International should work on selected human rights

We think that questions 4 and 5 in the consultation paper must be addressed together.

Even if AI's mandate is no longer prisoner oriented but human rights oriented, it is important to distinguish between those rights we support by opposing grave violations and those we support by promotion. This gives us a clearer focus, which is necessary for retaining and attracting active members. Having said that we realize that a certain amount of specilization is necessary within the different sections.

It is true that the term "promotional work" has caused considerable confusion recently. The reason is twofold: firstly, the members have no clear understanding of what methods are available and secondly, the scope of promotional work seems to most members unlimited. The issue is not so much to change the vocabulary (option 4a) as to find an operational definition, which is more succinct than the phrasing of decision 20 from the Cape Town Council Meeting.

The Swedish section realizes that human rights education can contribute to the respect for human rights in general, and we do not advocate option 4c. However, we propose that the resources devoted to promotional work be scaled down. We believe that the promotional work should be limited to those economic, social and cultural rights that have a bearing on the civil and political rights that Amnesty International has included in its oppositional work. This limitation will demand a prioritization process taking into account which rights are more basic and indisputable than others. In the draft Integrated Strategic Plan 2000 - 2004 MTO 3.1 and MTO 3.2 relate to this issue. The Swedish section supports the proposed efforts although we are concerned that Amnesty International may be building structures which in the future will consume too much of our resources. However, as we emphasized when discussing option 1h, we are concerned that Amnesty International locally may be accepting funds from governments.

In consequence of the comments above on promotional work for economic, social and cultural rights, the Swedish section proposes a combination of options 5a and 5c. This means that Amnesty international should give less prominence to these rights than has been the case recently. However, option 5c gives Amnesty international the opportunity to lobby others to safeguard economic, social and cultural rights and not only civil and political rights.

The expanded reporting on the social and economic context of human rights violations proposed in the draft Integrated Strategic Plan 2000 - 2004 is of concern to the Swedish section. We run a risk of judging economic/political systems instead of opposing violations.



6 Which actors Amnesty International should address

In its oppositional work Amnesty International addresses not only governments but also non-governmental entities such as armed opposition groups (options 6a and 6b). Unless companies really assume a role similar to those categories, Amnesty International should be careful to hold them accountable (option 6c). The reverse side of the coin might be that those companies we do not criticize would consider themselves as having been approved by Amnesty International. Under no circumstances should Amnesty International act in a way which may be construed as certifying a company's human rights position. As pointed out above option 5c gives Amnesty International an opportunity to address companies through lobbying. However, discretion is called for, and the Swedish section does not support the increased prominence given to these matters in MTO 1.3 of the draft Integrated Strategic Plan 2000 - 2004.

Amnesty International gave high priority to its work with intergovernmental institutions at the 1997 International Council Meeting. The option 5c above seems to correspond to decision 22 on IGO work. A consequence is MTO 2.4 in the draft Integrated Strategic Plan 2000 - 2004. The Swedish section does not think that this means that intergovernmental institutions are to be held accountable. We think that campaign work should be limited to those violations of civil and political rights and related rights, which Amnesty International opposes. The working method seems more promotional than oppositional. Hopefully the end result will be conventions against human rights violations, which are respected by the world community.

The Swedish section is against holding non-state actors accountable by addressing them directly (option 6e). We think governments (and in consequence armed opposition groups) have the responsibility to safeguard the human rights of the citizens.


7 Amnesty International's role in armed conflicts

In recent years the atrocities which have taken place in the context of armed conflicts have dominated the news media. The Swedish section thinks that Amnesty International should always rely on international human rights law when possible. However, the organization has found that in certain instances it might be effective also to refer to humanitarian law. From this Amnesty International has proceeded to oppose indiscriminate killings and indiscriminate weapons. The Swedish section is concerned about this development. We think that Amnesty International should oppose violations in armed conflicts corresponding to those it opposes in peacetime. There is a great danger in taking standpoints on military strategy. In summary we think that Amnesty International should work on human rights violations in armed conflicts, but that its effective role should be more clearly defined. This corresponds, in principle, to option 7b.


8 Decision-making in Amnesty International

The Swedish section is of the opinion that the whole movement should be involved in the decision-making process of Amnesty International. As we have said in our response to DAWG enquiry last year, we want to maintain the present system. We want the International Council Meetings to decide the course of action, which should be undertaken. As we have stated above we would like to see that a larger part of the Council Meetings were devoted to prioritization.

In consequence we do not support the notion in MTO 4.2 in the draft Integrated Strategic Plan 2000 - 2004 that overall cost of decision-making could be decreased.


9 Criteria for mandate development

The criteria are useful as a checklist, but they do not solve the conflict of our contrasting valuations on mandate development. We suggest that the criteria be supplemented by Amnesty International's fundamental principles, for instance. This proposal is close to option 9b, or possibly 9a.


10 Presentation of the mandate

The Swedish section proposes, in consequence of what has been said above, that the statute be as short as possible, with fundamental principles and clear reference to international human rights law. A possible formula could be that Amnesty International opposes grave violations of civil and political rights, at the same time maintaining the universality and indivisibility of all human rights. We should be restrictive with enumerating all the categories of victims we work for and all the violations or abuses we oppose.
1999-01-18