Issue 43 November 2008 - Introduction from the Editor: 60th Anniversary, Human Rights Day

This December 10 is the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Many varied events are taking place around the world to mark this occasion and there is much to reflect upon. Whilst there has been undoubted progress over the past 60 years there remains much to be done to fulfil its true potential. 

Human rights have certainly won recognition as part of the formal international and national legal frameworks but, in reality, do not effectively reach the majority of humanity who struggle to survive from day to day in the informal sphere unaware of their rights or the means to realise them. 

Even within those institutions and countries where there is a formal recognition of human rights current events show us that nothing can be taken for granted. The 2003 invasion of Iraq has contaminated the global and domestic landscape in ways which may have been thought unimaginable. 

The UN Charter itself was challenged by the US and its "coalition of the willing", led by the UK whose Prime Minister declared that "the rules of the game have changed" as part of the "war on terror". 

The internationally outlawed practice of torture was brought in from the cold and given a veneer of legitimacy. The spectre of "disappearances" returned in the so-called civilised world. 

Such really pressing global challenges as the UN Millennium Development Goals and climate change consequently lost ground. 

Within the UK the survival of the Human Rights Act 1998, which had finally incorporated the European Convention of Human Rights of 1953, is at stake with the Labour Government seeking to weaken it and the Conservative opposition committed to its repeal should it gain power. 

The Convention had been drawn up post-World War Two to ensure there was no return to fascism and it is the Convention's absolute prohibition against torture -which now prevents the UK from deporting individuals to countries where there is a real risk that they would be tortured-which is now proving problematic for our government and possible government-in-waiting. 

Of course some of the above negative developments may now be about to be addressed by an Obama US presidency although the challenges cannot be underestimated. 

Nor, however, can the need and appetite for change around the world be underestimated, as has indeed been evidenced by the overwhelmingly positive response to Obama's historic victory. 

It is set against this background that we need to be realistic but nevertheless justifiably proud of how December 10 is to be marked in Scotland. There is to be a debate within the Scottish Parliament in support of the realisation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the evening the Presiding Officer is hosting a public reception to celebrate the 60th Anniversary and he has invited the Scottish Human Rights Commission to attend and present a report on preparations for its draft Strategic Plan for its first four years. 

The newly created Commission is in fact to become operational on December 10 itself January to March of 2009 will then see a public consultation about the draft Strategic Plan. Thereafter the Strategic Plan will be laid before Parliament. 

It is anticipated that the consultation process will have as a central point the elaboration of a "rights based approach" which is to be promoted by the Commission. 

This elaboration will seek to begin to demonstrate the public benefit of taking human rights as a means to finding solutions to problems and bringing about social progress and not just as an end in itself which experience has shown us can all too easily be reduced to merely an aspiration which can remain unfulfilled. 

So, if last century produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can this century fulfil its potential- as a means of helping solve both our local and global problems and moving all of us forward together to build a better world? 

There is no denying that "yes, we can" has a powerful resonance.