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by Vladimir Danilov

 

It will hardly be a revelation for anyone that the United States, being historically the “stepchild” of Europe from where the mass-scale population of the New World began, has always manifested a jealous attitude towards their Alma Mater. This process has especially aggravated in the recent decades when America entered the path of severe competitive struggle with Europe in economics, trade and for global domination.

By pursuing the policy of weakening of the national elites and economy of the European countries, the United States managed to remove Europe from among its competitors.  In striving to become the sole “owner of the world”, Washington managed to destroy the old Europe and, leading the new political elite, with a focus solely on the White House to take its place there, to eliminate the then existing balance of opinions, finally weakening the European states. As the result, today both the European Parliament and the laws adopted by the US proteges in the EU are aimed at absolute abiding to the instructions coming from the White House. These instructions do not reflect even a visible European sovereignty and many of them are quite contrary to the interests of the residents of Europe. Regretfully, these new “American wave” politicians are those who play the first fiddle in the European policy. Washington stops at nothing in planting such obedient puppets with the EU decision-making bodies. To confirm this, it is enough to recollect the former head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was slandered when he tried to make decisions that were disadvantageous for the US. Yes, later it was found out that he had been slandered and that he was innocent, however the White House managed to remove the unwanted politician. Unfortunately, this is not a single case; apart from Strauss-Kahn, very many European politicians have been subjected and are subjected to similar pressure.

After the Ukrainian crisis, generated by Washington by bringing to power in Kyiv a manifestly Nazi regime, the US demands the European Union to impose numerous anti-Russian sanctions. Washington is far less affected by these sanctions as compared to its European partners, as the US is lenient to itself and tries not to be active in those spheres where its own economy may be seriously affected. Europeans especially suffer from such policy pursued by Washington in order to weaken the European Union as its competitor. As emphasized by the President of Russia Vladimir Putin at the 2022 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, we see against this background how the economic and social issues in Europe have worsened, the prices for goods, food products, electric energy and motor fuel are growing, the quality of Europeans’ life is decreasing and enterprises lose their competitiveness. According to experts’ estimates, only the direct losses suffered by the EU as the result of the sanctions may exceed $400 billion in the next year. These costs are born directly by the European Union population and companies, the inflation growth in some of the Euro region countries has already exceeded 20%.

The US needs a half-starved and intimidated Europe, obedient to any signals from Washington. This is what the politicians, implanted by the US into various EU structures, are doing. Now, the most complicated situation is forming in the energy sector.

As you know, the reallocation of the hydrocarbon market has long been the main driver of the US geopolitics. The US has unleashed several wars, provoked coups and other conflicts in order to control this market.  In view of the fact that the prospects for the growing share of gas in the energy business have significantly increased, the interest of the US in obtaining the global domination in the gas market (promising, according to Washington’s plans, the possibility of increasing domination, as it happened back in the day with the US’s winning of the global oil market) has increased too. Based on the significant role played by the European market in this area, the White House, under purely artificial pretexts, started – via its controlled European politicians and media – the struggle against the alleged threat of the EU’s energy dependency on Russia; as the result, artificial hindrances for supplies of Russian gas to Europe started being created. The European Union, that has fallen into vassal dependence of the US, due to the policy pursued by Washington’s minions in Brussels, such as President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Council Charles Michel, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, has found itself in the conditions of gas and overall energy crisis.  After announcing the decision of the American Baker Hughes to stop servicing all Russian LNG projects the European market was thrown into particularly great disorder, as the US has wuthdrawn its service engineers from the Russian gas projects related to Europe. After promising to Europe to compensate the losses from reduced supplies of the cheap Russian pipeline gas with the American LNG, and thereby trying to become the main supplier of this energy resource to Europe, the US puts forward the hard terms for the European Union. According to Forbes, Europe should pay extra charges for energy resources in order to break the demand by the Asian consumers.

However, Washington did not cope with this task in practice, devoting Europeans to even greater misfortunes in July. Thus, due to an accident at the Texas Freeport LNG plant, the export terminal that provided for 68% of the LNG from the plant to Europe will not be operating for about three months. The situation in the European gas market was worsened by Ottawa’s disruption of the repair, maintenance and return of gas turbines for Nord Stream and the corrupt sanctions conspiracy of the US and Canada, which resulted in the forced reduction of Russian gas supplies to Europe.

All these have even more accelerated the growth of the stock exchange gas prices in Europe almost by 25%. Consequently, the stock exchange prices for gas have grown many-fold leading to increasing social tension in the EU countries. Thus, according to reports in the German media, gas prices for consumers in Germany may grow threefold, many enterprises are closed and go bankrupt.

Therefore an epiphany for Europeans about Washington’s blatantly provocative and anti-European policy in the “gas war” it has unleashed is inevitable.

The recent depreciation of Euro, on which the world has placed great hopes and which was regarded by it as the main rival of the US Dollar, became evident competitive struggle between the US and the EU. This has already produced a serious impact on the European countries, and the global economic development will result in failure, as written by Lyan Yabin, professor of the International Strategy Institute of the Central Party School of the PRC.

In the recent years, migration flow has turned into another theater of war between the US and the Old World. However, if earlier this was formed by thousands of refugees coming to Europe from the countries and regions subjected to the US military actions (in the first turn, in the Middle East and North Africa regions), in the last months this is formed by Ukrainian refugees. According to the data provided by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, their number exceeded 8 million due to the situation with the neo-Nazi rampage in Ukraine, inspired by Washington; as the result thereof, Russia was forced to begin the special military operation to counter the policy pursued by the current Kyiv authorities. It is worth reminding in this connection that as far as in 2017, when Europe was swept by a huge stream of refugees from Syria, the European Union, under the pressure from the public opinion, was for a long time refusing to host hundred thousands of immigrants from the Middle East. However the American consulting company McKinsey, closely connected to the CIA, crushed the European officials and developed the logistics for hosting and placing a whole million of new migrants in Europe. A similar situation is taking place now with the Ukrainian refugees: the EU have to spend significant funds at the expense of resolving the social problems of their countries.

 

 

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

 

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https://journal-neo.org/2022/07/24/how-the-us-is-killing-its-principal-competitor-the-eu/

 

 

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Human rights industry – plea against power politics with human rights Alfred de Zayas: The Human Rights Industry: Reflections of a Veteran Human Rights Defender

 

by Professor Dr Dr h.c. mult. Hans Köchler*

 

 

The Human Rights Industry is the most comprehensive and honest assessment and critique to date of the performance of institutions the international community has set up to monitor respect of those principles that underlie justice and the rule of law at the global level. Whether domestically or in relations between sovereign states, politics must conform to human dignity, and the authority of the state must only be used to enforce the law, but not to subvert it just for the sake of mere power. This is the rationale of all international instruments and institutions established under the Charter of the United Nations and particularly in response to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the organization’s General Assembly in 1948. 

 

Meticulously documented

The author of this richly sourced volume has made us aware of how important it is to understand the procedures and often hidden mechanisms by which these institutions exercise their mandate. He does so with utmost authenticity, having served in the United Nations for several decades and in different capacities, such as, from 2012 to 2018, as first UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. In view of his first-hand experience and involvement with the human rights “industry,” the focus of his investigation may aptly be described by Juvenal’s dictum, as also quoted by the author, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard the guards themselves?). The result of the author’s query is a diagnosis without illusions, which will nonetheless help the reader to grasp some of the intricacies of international diplomacy at the intersection of law and power.
  The book investigates the “human rights industry” in some of the major undertakings, both under UN auspices and outside that organization’s institutional framework. The author gives a detailed assessment and analysis of the work and modus operandi of the United Nations Human Rights Council (until 2006, Commission on Human Rights) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). He also deals with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and, briefly, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), pointing to cases of political interference in the work of these two institutions that are vital in terms of the enforcement of international humanitarian law. He critically addresses the voting record of states in matters of human rights as well as the role of civil society – non-governmental organizations and the media – in their promotion. The work concludes with a wealth of specific recommendations, aimed at improving human rights monitoring and enforcement, but also at better defining human rights doctrine in the context global power relations.

“Priority of peace
as conditio sine qua non”

In conformity with the UN Charter’s philosophy, the author emphasizes the priority of peace as conditio sine qua non for the realization of human rights. He strongly criticizes the watering down of the Human Rights Council’s 2016 “Declaration on the Right to Peace” and draws our attention to that fact that the document – in spite of the text having been watered down to a degree that made the Declaration almost non-consequential – was rejected by all Western member states of the Council. This, in the author’s assessment, raises the issue of credibility of those that see themselves as the principal defenders of human rights in today’s global system.

Imbalanced statements of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights

In regard to peace, he also points to imbalanced statements by the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, deploring what he calls “judgemental naming and shaming,” without addressing the real issues. His frank assessment, on the basis of first-hand experience as human rights officer, makes him doubt the integrity of the office’s approach. Commenting on a further statement of the Deputy High Commissioner on the Ukraine conflict, he describes the Office’s handling of the matter as an “exercise in the reaffirmation of Western prejudices.” Deploring the UN practice of placing political appointees in senior posts, the author points to the “growing politicization” of the OHCHR and criticizes the selectivity of investigations initiated by the Office. He also states that there is abundant evidence that the OHCHR “yields to political pressures by governments and donors.” In his assessment, “there is little doubt that in the hybrid war being waged by the US to maintain a unipolar world, the OHCHR has been assigned a supporting role” (p. 30). As regards the independence and integrity of human rights work, the author repeatedly emphasizes that the Office of the High Commissioner should not accept any “voluntary contributions.” 

 

“Hostile takeover” of many human rights organizations

Evaluating the state of the human rights industry in its entirety, de Zayas diagnoses what he describes as “hostile takeover” of many human rights organizations by governments, intelligence services and (hidden) corporate interests. He particularly alerts us about the penetration of the ICC, but also mainstream and social media by intelligence services. This all has contributed to the political instrumentalization and “weaponization” of human rights, which, in the present global constellation, has increasingly meant a binary approach of “good” versus “bad,” undermining efforts at dialogue and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

 

“Saboteurs of human values”

Particularly revealing, as regards the role of power politics in today’s global discourse on human rights and the rule of law, are the statistics given in Chapter 8 of the Book, “The Voting Record of States.” Whether the issue was the “right of peoples to peace” (UN General Assembly, 1984), the already mentioned “Declaration on the Right to Peace” (by the Human Rights Council), a resolution on the “Promotion of peace as a vital requirement for the full enjoyment of all human rights by all” (2022), or the repeated resolutions of the Human Rights Council on “The negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights”: Those states, especially from the West, who see themselves as vanguards of human rights enforcement either voted against or abstained. In the author’s analysis, however, these states are better described as “saboteurs of human values” or “vandals of human rights” (p. 252).
  De Zayas’s no-frills description of the status quo of human rights in today’s international system serves a constructive purpose. He reminds the reader that one first has to identify the problems in order to be able to correct them. Describing his position as that of “survivalist humanism,” he addresses a “significant enforcement gap” in terms of human rights covenants and resolutions due to international power politics and the resulting practices of double standards.

 

Specific recommendations

On the basis of his decades-long involvement with the UN human rights apparatus, he presents a number of precise recommendations aimed at a more credible and efficient commitment of the international community to human rights and the rule of law. He identifies, inter alia, “world peace,” the transition from “military” to “human security” economies, the abandoning of the practice of unilateral coercive measures (which he considers as an element of hybrid war), the full recognition of the right of self-determination, and a holistic approach to human rights as priorities for global policy. On the basis of these criteria, the author draws a “plan of action” which includes, among other measures, ratification of core UN human rights treaties by all states, the adoption of an international treaty on corporate social responsibility, and the strengthening of regional and international human rights courts. As regards the operation of the UN Council on Human Rights, he introduces the idea of “preventive rapporteurships,” the establishment of procedures to prevent mobbing and ad hominem attacks against human rights officials and activists, and the adoption of a “Charter of Whistleblowers’ Rights.” He also suggests that the Council should put the right to self-determination as permanent item on its agenda, and that it should specifically address the dangers of war propaganda. As regards the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, measures need to be taken, in the author’s opinion, to completely avoid so-called “voluntary” funding and to end the practice of appointing former politicians as High Commissioners.

Special responsibility
of the UN-General Assembly 

In the author’s overall assessment, the General Assembly of the United Nations bears special responsibility for ensuring the credibility of global human rights policies. Member states should reject persistent attempts to divide the world into “good” and “bad” countries. Furthermore, the Assembly should make better use of Article 96 of the UN Charter authorizing it to request advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice, and it should grant special status to representatives of indigenous peoples in the sessions of the Assembly. It should also consider appointing a Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General on the right to self-determination. In the author’s opinion, the principle of territorial integrity is not absolute and must be interpreted in relation to the right of self-determination.

The role of international civil society

As regards the involvement of international civil society in the human rights work of the UN, it should be ensured that powerful countries do not exercise undue pressure to grant or block consultative status for non-governmental organisations. Also, academe and media must not give in to “cancel culture” or dogmatically enforce “political correctness.” They should be committed to give room to a plurality of views. Referring to the internet and social media, the author suggests, inter alia, that private-sector censorship and the manipulation of public opinion via search engine algorithms be penalized.
  The wealth of analyses and critiques, in combination with specific proposals for reform, makes the ideas collected in this volume a genuine antidote to the self- righteousness of the “narrative managers” (so labelled by the author) who all too often have been distorting and manipulating the global human rights agenda for narrow political interests. The work is indeed a convincing plea to the international community to return to what de Zayas describes as the “spirituality” of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  •

 

https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2023/nr-18-22-august-2023/menschenrechtsindustrie-plaedoyer-gegen-machtpolitik-mit-menschenrechten

 

 

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