DEBATE: “Why has Foreign Minister Stubb forgotten justice?”

Frank Johansson

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By Frank Johansson
     
      The prison camp at Guantánamo, the symbol of the moral shipwreck of the West, will be seven years old in January. It symbolises political choices, where narrow security thinking has overcome the goal of global justice. In Finland, speeches by Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb, in particular, reflect this way of thinking.
      President-elect Barack Obama has promised to close down Guantánamo, and to end torture, which has been approved by the Bush administration. Hopefully, the promise will hold.
      Unfortunately, there are no signs in the European Union of similar openings or political reassessment.
      Climate change, the food crisis, and the financial crisis that is rolling over us, have - with good reason - overtaken the threat of terrorism, and have sparked extensive debate on the goals and means of global governance. However, if we forget and accept the excesses in the fight against terrorism, the foundation of this debate will crumble.
      The division into “us” and “them” will remain.
     
Unfortunately, Stubb is doing this very thing. In November, in his speech given at the London School of Economics, he said that global problems can be solved only through global organisations, but that existing bodies, such as the UN, the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank do not work, and they need to be reformed.
      This is true, but why did Stubb specifically mention the EU and NATO as examples of functioning organisations that are undergoing renewal? And why did he not mention the word “justice” in his entire presentation? Or why did he not make any reference to the excesses in the war against terrorism?
      In interviews and other comments, most recently this week at the Institute of International Affairs, Stubb has repeated the views he gave out in his speech in London. On the basis of these, there is reason to suspect that Stubb’s point of view on renewing the system would not be aimed at global justice, but rather at a narrower, West-centred view, with a starting point in security. For Stubb, crises can turn into security risks if they are not dealt with. Stubb forgets that from the point of view of justice, security exists today only in the prosperous West.
      Stubb points out that the EU and NATO are composed exclusively of Western democracies. However, if we look at the politics of these countries from the point of view of human rights, the recent failures easily exceed the successes.
     
The torture pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the orange prison overalls of Guantánamo are but the tip of the iceberg of a deliberate policy that the United States and its allies have been carrying out these past years. They have allowed kidnappings and torture, approved of illegal arrests and eroded the legal protection of those who are arrested. Many of those who have suffered inhumane treatment have been completely innocent.
      The United States has shown itself to the whole world as an example of this kind of politics. It has thumbed its nose at protests by UN rapporteurs. It has not wanted to join the International Criminal Court.
      And the EU has been compliantly silent about all of this. And what is worse, EU member states have virtually denied their own central role in prison transports, kidnappings, and the sanctioning and implementation of secret detention centres. Amnesty International has repeatedly raised these problems, but we have not received any direct responses. No EU country wants to do anything about it, because it is not customary to criticise members of one’s own club.
     
At the same time the EU has closed its own border. EU border patrol boats turn people away in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, sending them back to poverty. Thousands drown during the trip. Those who return become victims of human rights violations. Those crossing the border between the United States and Mexico are pursued with loaded guns.
      The message is equally clear on both sides of the Atlantic: human rights, fair treatment, and especially the right to prosperity and security do not belong to everyone.
      But Alexander Stubb remains silent about all of this. On the other hand, he praises NATO’s operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
      In Afghanistan there is a war, corruption prevails, and there are numerous people among the rulers of the country who have committed serious human rights violations. In Kosovo NATO peacekeepers have been accused of both taking advantage of victims of trafficking in women, and of failing to punish those committing the violations.
      The EU’s own crisis management operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo are security and defence policy missions, Their goal is to prevent the spread of violence, not to solve the factors behind the crises. This is not a way to create a more just world.
     
The poor of the world suffer from a lack of security every day. This is caused by hunger, homelessness, non-existent health services and education, discrimination, and the lack of a political voice: the lack of all types of human rights.
      To alter their situation, we do not need more patrol boats on the Mediterranean, or more soldiers in Afghanistan. We need, as the UN Declaration of Human Rights promises, social order, in which the rights of all people can be implemented.
      When the international architecture is refurbished, the starting point should not be the security of the West, but rather global justice. That is why the EU and the United States should investigate the human rights abuses of the war against terrorism, and to bring those guilty to court.
      This is something that Finland and Stubb should promote within the EU.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 21.12.2008
     
The writer is the executive director of the Finnish section of Amnesty International.

More on this subject:
 “Biased and misleading claims”, answers Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Stubb wants to get OSCE to agree on political declaration (21.11.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat