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Anti-Colonialism and the transnational system of human rights treaties in the post war-era

By Alice Routledge [Edited by Saundarya Mitter and Claudia Brooker]


Post-World War Two, an emergence of a new wave of human rights is said to have interacted with the increasing wave of anti-colonialism. There is reason to suggest an inherent link between these movements, as Roland Burke believes “anti-colonialism was in part conceived as a struggle for human rights”, however, the impact these two sets of ideas had on each other was neither consistent nor often mutually beneficial.[1] This is seen by how Louis Henkin states that “the politics of anti-colonialism both advanced and obstructed the progress of international human rights”.[2] This involvement and potential advancement/obstruction was done through the steering of human rights debates that continued within this post-war period, especially as self-determination became a main topic of debate. The prioritisation of national self-determination over individual rights within the anti-colonial movement demonstrates why Samuel Moyn suggests that the human rights advancements up until the 1970s were simply another wave of the Wilsonian Movement.[3] Nevertheless, Burke debates this timeline, instead claiming that “the 1970s saw the virtual abandonment of universality in a profoundly undemocratic UN”.[4] With universalism being a key advancement in the rhetoric of human rights, he alternatively suggests that this came immediately after the war. Additionally, Burke believes the lasting and immediate impact of anti-colonialism on human rights was immense, but vastly different than what Moyn claims. Despite this, both do agree that at varying points anti-colonialism allowed or indeed halted the spread of human rights.

The tensions between these two different timelines and opinions seem to be the result of an unclear definition of human rights. The Cambridge Dictionary defines human rights as “the basic rights that it is generally considered all people should have”.[5] Unfortunately, this is too simplistic and does not take the breadth nor depth of the movement into consideration. Yet, Moyn remains limited for the opposite reason, focusing on the idea of a movement rather than the gradual shift in ideas behind it. Furthermore, both Moyn and Burke fail to understand the lack of cohesion in the anticolonial movement, which is crucial to why their interpretations differ so widely.

This draws on my first point that the emerging human rights movement had an occasionally beneficial relationship with the anti-colonialist movement. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights meant anti-colonial movements could “demand a rapid implementation of the newly codified universal basic rights.”[6] This led to Burke and many colonial powers at the time suggesting that human rights could thus be used “as a weapon for expediting the end of colonialism.”[7] This can be seen through the Women's International Democratic Federation, the anti-colonial feminist organisation which from the 1940s onwards urged the end of colonialism by “issuing appeals and lobbying the UN throughout the decolonisation wars in Vietnam and Algeria”, thus “pressur[ing] European powers to uphold the new human rights standards agreed upon in the founding United Nations (UN) Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.[8] Moreover, the anti-colonialist movement also used these new rights to condemn the apartheid in South Africa, resulting in the International Labour Organisation setting up an “investigative committee which would carry out its analysis of the human rights situation in South Africa” and international sanctions from the UN[9] Therefore, emergence and encouragement of a universal set of human rights benefitted the anti-colonial movement in some ways.

Despite this, and contrary to what Burke suggests, most anti-colonialists did not believe in human rights as a concept. This can be seen through the word of Frantz Fanon, “leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder Men everywhere they find them.”[10] This not only establishes the historical context of the modern human rights movement, but also condemns it as a Western concept which even the West themselves did not adhere to, reflected in the British treatment of the Mau Mau in Kenya or the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria. Furthermore, although human rights could impact the success of the anti-colonial movement, their mistrust of it was still well-founded. One example was the proof of a “Fox-Movietone cameraman captur[ing] a French gendarme gunning down a prisoner in Algiers”, which was “illegal by any standard— the French Penal Code, the Universal Declaration of human rights, [and] the 1949 Geneva Conventions”, yet the French still managed to dismiss this as a “response to rebel crimes”.[11] The relationship between these two movements was not one of consistent advancement.

So, when Burke states that “there is no debate more persistent or more fundamental to the study of human rights in the Third World than that between cultural relativism and universality”, he is well-founded.[12] Though he is not when he states that “in the late 1960s, a more radical attack on human rights began to emerge” as there are “contested claims to universals in any human experience.”[13] As Moyn highlights, mistrust of the emergence of human rights was more consistently present in the anti-colonial movement, but it was not cohesive.


Moreover, Burke only mentions a change in the 1960's due to his reliance on the support for human rights at the 1955 Bandung conference through delegates such as Malik and Romulo, however, Moyn clarifies that although these delegates did support individual human rights, “they were minor figures,” that “their positions clearly isolated them from the prevailing drift of the conference as well as from anti-colonialism.” and in “the major speeches […] at Bandung, human rights did not figure significantly”.[14] Furthermore, Robert Vitalis found that the Bandung conference as a point of reference is wholly unreliable due to incorrect reports of it throughout history.[15] Thus, Burke’s analysis is flawed. The tension of universalism and cultural relativity between the two movements was prominent throughout the post-war period. Although, the argument Burke makes over the two strands within anti-colonialism having separate opinions seems to be valid, as it reflects the incohesive nature of the movement's reaction to human rights and further explains the existence of Malik and Romulo. The relationship between these two movements seemed to benefit anticolonialism somewhat but human rights did not impact anti-colonialism as much as anti-colonialism did it. This established lack of true belief in the emerging form of human rights from anti-colonialists and the in-cohesion within that movement can be seen to lead on to the next aspect of the relationship. Due to these factors, there seems to be a key aspect of tension between the two movements that directed human rights but also impeded its growth.

The involvement of anti-colonialism within the emerging post-war human rights movement overarchingly concentrated the discussion towards self-determination. This can be seen in effect through the 1965 Declaration of the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of their Independence and Sovereignty or the 1966 Human Rights Covenants hold of self-determination as the first article. This demonstrates an impactful relationship for the human rights movement yet also reflects the previous commentary about the lack of belief in human rights. The perception held by anti-colonialists led to the nation being repeatedly put before individual human rights. This could simply demonstrate a new direction in human rights.

Unfortunately, the treatment of women’s individual human rights, for example, would suggest an in-cohesion in the relationship. In 1979, Mavis Nhlapo, representative of the African National Congress Women's Secretariat, insisted that: "in our society women have never made a call for the recognition of their rights as women, but always put the aspirations of the whole African and other oppressed people of our country first.”[16] The implementation of these human rights that the anti-colonial movement was employing was not as important as sovereignty. This is exemplified by human rights abuse within the anti-colonial movement itself as “anti-colonial African women combatants suggest that military life often […] increased vulnerability to gender-specific human rights abuses perpetrated by enemy troops as well as by their own comrades. These abuses include rape, torture, brutal abductions, forced pregnancies, forced sex work.”[17] This is not to mention the dictatorships which also emerged under leaders of this movement, human rights were being obstructed by this aspect of the relationship. This hypocrisy also shows the real concern behind the anti-colonialist movement and the inconsistencies within the movement. The relationship between the two movements lacked impact on anti-colonialism but still impacted human rights even if it did not consistently advance it. However, this was not a symptom of later years as Burke suggests as by 1955 “the appeal to UN principles meant an appeal to a concept of human rights that had gone through a conceptual revolution, with self-determination becoming the chief and threshold right.”[18]

This leads on to the last aspect of the relationship, how anti-colonialism impacted human rights. As despite a lacking belief in the movement, the intention behind the anti-colonial movement did not result in lacking outcomes, although Moyn may suggest that “the hard fact to contemplate is that human rights experienced their triumph as a widespread moral vernacular after decolonization, not during it”.[19] He presents the relationship as simply stalling the advancement of human rights which is due to his limiting definition of what human rights are. He cannot completely dispute the impact anti-colonialism had on human rights even though it did slow some of its advancements. Similarly to Klose, who believes “human rights did not simply become enormously important overnight in the 1970s”, agreeing more with Moyn’s suggestion that anticolonialism did endow “the tradition of the connection of rights and sovereignty in modern history.”[20] Moyn also states “that the loss of empire allowed for the reclamation of liberalism, including rights talk, shorn of its depressing earlier entanglements with oppression and violence abroad.”[21] This could suggest the obstruction to the advancement of human rights came more from the European reaction to anti-colonialism than the movement itself. It solidly does show that anti-colonialism not only impacted human rights but advanced the movement in ways it wouldn't have been able to in its absence.

Additionally, anti-colonialism expanded the universal aspect of universal human rights throughout this period and thus caused advancement, not just some change. Moyn himself even admits this; “the anti-colonialist interlude after World War II […] forces a new perspective on the relationship between Western universalism and global struggle” when thinking of human rights.[22] This impact and advancement are on top of the other aspects of convention that anticolonialism encouraged such as the codification of racial oppression as a human rights abuse. Finally, the long-lasting impact and advancement of human rights by anti-colonialism was acting as “a catalyst for the new human rights regime after 1945”, a period in which “vast shortcomings were being relentlessly exposed, while at the same time crucial lessons were being learned for the future.”[23] This period of anti-colonialism demonstrated how “the provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 were far too insufficient to offer adequate protection” as seen through the countless atrocities committed. This was not only realised after this post-war period but during, “as the expert commission of 1955 revealed.”[24] Showing immediate advancement as well as long term. This realisation led to the United Nations General Assembly demanding in 1968 “that international humanitarian law be revised in cooperation with the ICRC” and two additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions being passed in 1977.[25] The relationship between these two movements is not consistent in its impacts but they are considerable.

The anti-colonial and human rights movements and ideas intertwined in this post-war period, (although, this did not occur consistently and sometimes to the detriment of both movements but especially human rights). As Burke suggests “decolonisation’s impact on the human rights enterprise cannot be captured in a single historical moment” hence Moyn’s suggestion that this relationship was simply reminiscent of previous human rights claims to nationhood.[26] Despite the complex history of the relationship between theses sets of ideas, the importance of such remains within the lessons the international community drew from it. As can be seen through Klose’s suggestion that “loopholes in international humanitarian law that had become so sorely evident in the wars of decolonisation were thus closed.”[27] In light of this, how important it is to not solely focus this idea of human rights simply around areas deemed the ‘Third World’ is reflected. Flagrancies of such international law by European countries such as Britain and France were demonstrated during the period and their refusal to follow such rules due to anti-colonialism is what Moyn suggests held back the movement so considerably.

Notes

[1] Roland Burke, Decolonisation and the Evolution of International Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), p. 14. [2] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 6. [3] Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 78. [4] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 4. [5] “Human Rights Definition in The Cambridge English Dictionary”, Dictionary.cambridge.org, <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/human-rights> [Accessed 02 December 2020]. [6] Fabian Klose, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 2013), p. 233. [7] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 34. [8] Katharine McGregor, “Opposing Colonialism: The Women’s International Democratic Federation and Decolonisation Struggles in Vietnam and Algeria 1945-1965”, Women’s History Review, 25/6 (2016), pp. 925-944. [9] Daniel Maul, Human Rights, Development and Decolonisation: The International Labour Organisation, 1940-70 (United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 243. [10] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Gove Books, 2004). [11] Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 131. [12] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 112. [13] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 112. [14] Moyn, Last Utopia, p. 107. [15] Robert Vitalis, “The Midnight Ride of Kwame Nkrumah and Other Fables of Bandung (Ban-doong)”, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 4/2 (2013), pp. 261-288. [16] Anne McClintock, “No Longer in a Future Heaven: Women and Nationalism in South Africa”, Transition, 51 (1991), pp. 104-123. [17] Aaronette White, “All the Men are Fighting for Freedom, All the Women are Mourning their Men, but Some of Us Carried Guns: A Raced-gendered Analysis of Fanon’s Psychological Perspectives on War”, Signs, 34/4 (2007), pp. 857-884. [18] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 56. [19] Moyn, Last Utopia, p. 117. [20] Klose, Colonial Violence, p. 239; Moyn, Last Utopia, p, 113. [21] Moyn, Last Utopia, p. 117. [22] Moyn, Last Utopia, p. 86. [23] Moyn, Last Utopia, p. 86. [24] Moyn, Last Utopia, p, 86. [25] Klose, Colonial Violence, p. 238. [26] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 12. [27] Klose, Colonial Violence, p, 239.



Bibliography

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Chadya, Joyce M. “Mother Politics: Anti-Colonial Nationalism and the Woman Question in Africa." Journal of Women's History 15/3, 2003

Connelly, Matthew. A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove, 1963

“Human Rights Definition in The Cambridge English Dictionary”. The Cambridge English Dictionary. <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/human-rights> [Accessed 02 December 2020].

Klose, Fabian. Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013

Jensen, S. In the Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016

Maul, Daniel. Human Rights, Development and Decolonization: The International Labour Organization,1940-70. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

McGregor, Katharine. “Opposing Colonialism: The Women’s International Democratic Federation and Decolonisation Struggles in Vietnam and Algeria 1945–1965.” Women's History Review 25/6, 2016

McClintock, Anne. “No Longer in a Future Heaven: Women and Nationalism in South Africa.” Transition, 51, 1991

Moyn, Samuel. The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2010

Vitalis, Robert. "The Midnight Ride of Kwame Nkrumah and Other Fables of Bandung (Ban-doong)." Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 4/2, 2013

White, Aaronette M. “All the Men are Fighting for Freedom, All the Women are Mourning their Men, but Some of us Carried Guns: A Raced-gendered Analysis of Fanon’s Psychological Perspectives on War.” Signs 32/4, 2007

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