Speaking at Knight Law School on Thursday evening, Dr. Mark Gibney discussed preventing human rights violations by reforming international law to put greater culpability on wealthy democratic countries that support third world regimes.
“No matter how much human rights law you have, it is built upon the idea that states who violate human rights will prosecute themselves for human rights violations,” Gibney said.
Gibney is a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and has received two Fulbright fellowships and the North Carolina International Human Rights Award. The lecture he delivered Thursday was titled, “Ending the Nightmare: How to Save the World in Four Easy Steps,” which shares the title with his forthcoming book, due to be released in a couple months.
Gibney used several examples to demonstrate points in recent history where he felt the international law failed to uphold human rights. The U.S. supplied Israel with cluster bombs that he said were used against civilian populations in the 1980s and again recently in Lebanon. Gibney said that the U.S. should bear some legal responsibility for civilian deaths caused by its weaponry, even if it was used by another country.
“I would argue that a country that supports a regime that is committing human rights violations is itself committing human rights violations,” Gibney said.
As another example, he addressed interpretation of U.S. refugee law, as applied to Haitian boat immigrants in the 1990s. A boatload of immigrants was sent back to Haiti, because the refugee law was interpreted to only apply to refugees that actually were on American soil.
“They’re saying, ‘Human rights are only applicable here, but not here,’” Gibney said. “I don’t understand how territory works as a demarcation for human rights.”
Gibney did not single out the U.S. as a passive accomplice to international human rights violations, but rather said that the same was true for all western countries. He also discussed transnational corporations and their common practice of operating factories in third world countries to profit under abusive, authoritarian regimes.
“If a transnational corporation is complicit in human rights violations, the home government should be responsible,” Gibney said. Speaking in Knight Law Center, which was funded by former Nike CEO Phil Knight, Gibney said the Nike corporation is one of many companies that profit from working with oppressive governments. Nike could not be reached for comment.
“I think people 50 years from today will look back and think we’re barbarians.” said Gibney. “I’m looking for a way to prevent human rights abuses before they happen.”