Full title: Use the debate between Samuel Moyn and Roland Burke a jumping off point for your research on the relationship between anti-colonialism and the emergence of a transnational system of human rights treaties and norms in the postwar era.
By Jessica McDonald [Edited by Jonathon Whinney & Carla Norman]
The world in which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was ratified was one of uncertainty and change. World wars had altered perceptions about institutions, especially empire, leading to a new wave of anticolonial movements throughout the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, there is significant debate on how the human rights movement related to the force of anticolonialism. One such case is Roland Burke’s argument that human rights boosted the anticolonial cause, directly opposed to Samuel Moyn’s contention that these are separate phenomena and should be treated as such.[1]
This essay will argue that anticolonial movements were able to successfully utilise human rights treaties and norms to legitimise their cause on the global stage. First, this essay will examine how anti-colonial movements were able to successfully frame the fight for self-determination as a human rights issue. Second, this essay will convey that the human rights movement provided the means to gain support for anticolonialism on an international level. Finally, this essay will explore the limits of the relationship between human rights and anticolonialism to conclude that while they were reciprocal movements, they were not co-dependent.
Anticolonial movements utilised human rights in order to consolidate their argument that self-determination belonged to this paradigm. A contentious issue within the debate on the place of anticolonialism in human rights history is the divide between individual and national rights. The core aim of the UDHR was to ensure the security of the rights of the individual. [2] Yet nationhood was a central element to the UDHR because, as Hannah Arendt has examined, the nation remained the highest authority on the law. [3] It was thus necessary for the Declaration to be enshrined in national law to have legal significance. Additionally, as Burke conveys, one thread of the anticolonial movement wanted to explicitly shape the self-determination debate in the language of democracy, and consequently make it a precursor to the right to participate in government.[4] Anticolonialism was therefore able to justify its cause within the new language of human rights talk.
Where self-determination was presented as intrinsic to participation in government, it incited ‘Third World’ enthusiasm for human rights. Burke emphasises the importance of human rights to the 1955 Asian-African conference in Bandung.[5] He argues that sovereignty and rights were initially regarded as mutually supportive projects.[6] Moyn, however, counters that because the UDHR had omitted the self-determination issue the declaration was not relevant to the primary goal of Bandung.[7] The central concern at Bandung was not only decolonisation, but also the post-colonial settlement.[8] The passing of Resolution 1514 exemplifies the influence the Bandung Conference had on the discourse on the place of self-determination in human rights. The Resolution stressed that colonialism was fundamentally against the values of the United Nations (UN) and thus human rights.[9] Consequently, the Resolution demonstrated the collaborative relationship between human rights and anticolonial movements.[10]
The suppression of human rights by colonial powers is another reason why the forces at Bandung were able to frame self-determination as a human right. As Fabian Klose examines, colonial nations like France and Britain had a contradictory relationship with human rights; they praised its institutions but deliberately restricted their extension to the colonies. [11] While this was portrayed as an issue of security, with the colonial powers not wanting to impose the “curse of independence” on “underdeveloped nations”, it was actually in the interests of maintaining control.[12] It was the colonial powers who abstained from voting on Resolution 1514, which explicitly granted the “right to self-determination.” [13] This constituted an explicit denial of empire and set an anticolonial precedent in the UN.[14] It is also significant that the period of the late 1950s to early 1960s constituted a deficit in U.S diplomatic efforts in the human rights realm, which emphasised the importance of the Asian-African collaboration in Bandung to the self-determination resolution.[15] Human rights gave the anticolonial movement a legitimate ground on which to base their drive for self-determination, and a common cause in which to unite the individual projects.
By framing their cause in the language of the human rights movement, anticolonial projects were able to gain international public and political support for their cause. Though speaking not of anticolonial efforts but the drive for civil rights in the United States, Malcom X made a crucial point that if an issue is internationalised it cannot be so easily ignored.[16] Robert Skinner’s study of the anti-apartheid movement—again different from anticolonialism, but closely related in aims—equally demonstrates how the drive for human rights on a global scale inspired transnational protest and grass-roots activism.[17] The aforementioned suppression of human rights by colonial forces constituted an explicit breech of the UDHR, as Article 2 states that there should be no distinction in the granting of rights because of a state’s “limitation of sovereignty.”[18] Colonial forces could not therefore escape scrutiny from the UN for their actions within the colonies, which further promoted the idea that self-determination constituted a human right. In addition, further violent violations of human rights by colonial forces, such as the 1959 Hola Camp incident in the British-controlled Kenya, delegitimised the imperial argument of paternalistic protection in the international perspective. [19]
When anticolonialism was presented as part of the human rights movement, it gained international recognition and support. For instance, the Algerian independence movement was able to successfully use human rights as a justification for their cause, winning over global opinion during the war against the French. Matthew Connelly talks of the ‘Supreme Paradox’ of the war in Algeria, in that though the French technically won they had to cede the territory on account of international pressure.[20] This pressure was amounted by the Algerian campaign’s use of media to establish that their cause was for human rights, and not simply a dispute over sovereignty.[21] While Moyn counters that movements like that in Algeria were not in the interest of individual rights but a collective liberation from empire, it remains that these movements deliberately placed their desires in the human rights paradigm.[22] Where colonial powers then continued to fight against independence movements, they were accused of hypocrisy for selective support of rights.[23] As Skinner has argued, it is not so easy to detangle anticolonialism from human rights.[24]
The internationalisation of anticolonial movements in the context of human rights allowed the formation of anti-colonial ‘blocs’ in global institutions like the UN. The common drive for self-determination, especially with the distinct lack of Western leadership in the UN at this time, allowed states with anticolonial desires to combine their efforts on the world stage.[25] For example, an anticolonial bloc was able to oppose the French government at a UN Convention in New York over the issue of the policy of annihilation towards the Algerian ‘Front-Libération Nationale’.[26] These ‘blocs’ are especially important in the context of the Cold War. While both the U.S and U.S.S.R were advocates for anticolonialism, their support came with the precondition of loyalty to that respective side.[27] The fear of “intellectual slavery”, in particular from Communism, drove the unaligned ‘Third World’ states to make their own collaborations within the UN. [28] The international context is essential in the debate surrounding human rights and anticolonialism because they were both movements with supranational aims. Their strive for existence outside of the Cold War dichotomy placed their interests in similar areas.
While it is evident that human rights treaties and institutions were greatly beneficial to the anticolonial movement, it is also essential not to conclude from this that anticolonialism was dependent on human rights, or vice versa. While the self-determination debate allowed the anticolonial cause to be enshrined in human rights doctrine, the ‘collective’ rights stance strays from the individualist basis of the human rights movement. Burke suggests that self-determination was interpreted in different ways, with a democratic approach driven by the individual’s right to participate in government, and a sovereignty approach with the more limited goal of freeing the collective from empire.[29] Figures like Carlos Romulo at the Bandung Conference fought for both self-determination and individual rights, on the grounds that the post-colonial settlement must not constitute “the transposition of an indigenous ruling elite for a foreign one.”[30] Yet as Resolution 1514 evidences, it was the sovereignty approach that prevailed.[31] Though an achievement for the anticolonial cause, this is somewhat limited by the fact that individual freedoms after decolonisation were not protected as they might have been if the democratic interpretation of self-determination had been adopted.
Anticolonialism as a movement predates the creation of official human rights doctrine, so it is crucial not to overstate the impact of human rights treaties and norms on decolonisation. Anticolonialism was not a product of human rights discourse.[32] Two early twentieth century doctrines of anticolonialism, Leninism and Wilsonianism, do not concern themselves with an idea of international human rights, rather national sovereignty and independence.[33] This feeds into the wider historiographical debate of both Skinner and Moyn that decolonisation was a “necessary precursor” of the human rights movement.[34] The human rights movement, however, co-existed with that of anticolonialism in the 1950s and 1960s, even if the latter was much more developed. Human rights institutions like the UN helped to consolidate hostility to colonialism in the “climate of international life” that had circulated since before its creation.[35] Human rights did not create anticolonial sentiment but enhanced its cause with its complimentary structures and beliefs.
The UN is the central body for human rights discourse, and at its creation its intention was not decolonisation but the preservation of these universal rights.[36] This is evident in the fact that imperial powers played a central role within the UN, although by 1948 much of their overall authority had been ceded to the United States and Soviet Union. The presence of colonial forces at the UN means there was always a counterforce to anticolonialism present in debates. For instance, Moyn uses the example of a Belgian representative who believed nations under colonial rule were not advanced enough to be independent, a similar argument to that used to deny human rights to the colonies.[37] This attitude within the UN led to what historians like Mary Ann Glendon argue was an ‘anti-Western element’ towards Third World discourses on human rights.[38] Within this mentality, anticolonial activists such as Frantz Fanon disputed the idea that it was for European powers to “rehabilitate mankind” with their institutions and beliefs.[39] What is crucial here to understand is that while they were able to collaborate to mutual ends, the human rights and anticolonial movements were not co-dependent.
The anticolonial movement was able to set a precedent within the scope of human rights on the matter of self-determination, even if this was a more limited form of self-determination than the democratic model. Additionally, human rights institutions and beliefs gave anticolonialism the means to internationalise its cause and invoke a popular public backing for its goals. Though it is important to establish that human rights and anticolonialism were separate movements, they were able to collaborate to the ends of decolonisation. Thus, anticolonial movements were able to successfully utilise human rights treaties and norms to legitimise their cause on the global stage. While it may not have been until the post-colonial 1970s that human rights truly flourished as a movement, its role in anticolonialism was crucial for its development as a cause.
Notes
[1] Roland Burke, Decolonisation and the Evolution of International Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), p. 4; Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 86. [2] United Nations, ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, 10 December 1948. [3] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt, 1951), p. 298. [4] Burke, Decolonisation and International Human Rights, p. 39; UDHR: Article 21. [5] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 13. [6] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 26. [7] Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 88. [8] Roland Burke, ‘“The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom”: Human Rights at the Bandung Conference’ Human Rights Quarterly, 28/4 (2006), p. 961. [9] United Nations General Assembly. ‘Resolution 1514: Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’, 14 December 1960. <https://undocs.org/A/Res/1514(XV)> [Accessed 2 March 2020]. [10] Fabian Klose, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria (Pennsylvannia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), p. 225. [11] Klose, Human Rights, p. 5. [12] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin Books, 2001), pp. 76-77. [13] Resolution 1514. [14] Klose, Human Rights, p. 222. [15] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 10. [16] Malcom X: Expanding Civil Rights to Human Rights, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQwG8l52PKw.> [Accessed 2 March 2020]. [17] Robert Skinner, ‘The Dynamics of Anti-Apartheid’: In Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa (London: University College London Press, 2017), p. 111. [18] ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’: Article 2. [19] Klose, Human Rights, p. 198. [20] 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. 4. [21] Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution, p. 4. [22] Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 85. [23] Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 251. [24] Skinner, ‘The Dynamics of Anti-Apartheid’, p. 114. [25] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 8. [26] Klose, Human Rights, p. 210. [27] Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 91. [28] Burke, Decolonisation, pp. 27-8. [29] Burke, Decolonisation, p. 38; p. 44. [30] Burke, ‘“The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom”, p. 959. [31] Resolution 1514. [32] Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 90. [33] Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 88. [34] Skinner, ‘The Dynamics of Anti-Apartheid’, p. 113. [35] Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution, p. 279. [36] Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 92. [37] Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 96. [38] Burke, ‘“The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom”, pp. 949-50. [39] Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 84.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Malcom X: Expanding Civil Rights to Human Rights, n.d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQwG8l52PKw. [Accessed 2 March 2020]
United Nations General Assembly. ‘Resolution 1514: Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’, 14 December 1960. <https://undocs.org/A/Res/1514(XV)> [Accessed 2 March 2020]
United Nations General Assembly. ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, 10 December 1948. <https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html.> [Accessed 2 March 2020]
Secondary Sources
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt, 1951
Burke, Roland. Decolonisation and the Evolution of International Human Rights. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013
Burke, Roland. ‘“The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom”: Human Rights at the Bandung Conference’. Human Rights Quarterly 28, no. 4 (November 2006): 947–65
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. London: Penguin Books, 2001
Klose, Fabian. Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013
Moyn, Samuel. The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Harvard University Press, 2010
Skinner, Robert (eds.), ‘The Dynamics of Anti-Apartheid’: In Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa: Future Imperfect? London: University College London Press, 2017
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