Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 73: Promoting Human Rights in the Post COVID-19 Era

INTERNATIoNAL

Bola A. Akinterinwa

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) celebrated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 73 with a 3-day programme of public enlightenment activities. On Wednesday, 8th December 2021, a quiz competition for secondary school students in the Federal Capital Territory was held at the Bukhari Bello Auditorium of the NHRC. The quiz competition was on human rights education and sought to catch young people, give them a human right-driven education as a guide to their life, especially in understanding the differences between human rights violation and human rights abuse. The NHRC says ‘human rights violation means the infringement on the rights guaranteed or protected by law of any person by another person, government body or official.’ The NHRC also has it that ‘many people have experienced degrading treatment and denial of services caused by unfair treatment from security agencies or government agencies. These acts lead to various forms of human rights violations.’

On the contrary, human rights abuse, says the NHRC, is an ‘infringement of human rights by persons other than state officials or agencies. This may be private persons. Such violations are still human rights violations, but carry different form of accountability.’ Thus, the differentiation is based on the factors of ‘’who’’ and ‘’accountability’’, that is, who is committing the offence. When it is committed by government agents, it is a violation, probably because governments have participated in human rights negotiations, signed and ratified agreements emanating from such negotiations, and have also translated their international agreements into municipal laws based on the doctrines of the Monism or the Dualist schools of thought.

On Thursday, 9th December 2021, the NHRC also held an end-of-year appreciation event, tagged, ‘’Best Performing Staff Awards and Presentation of Gifts to Retired Staff.’’ The event was chaired by Dr. Salamatu Hussaini Suleiman, FIMC, the chairperson of the NHRC Governing Council. More importantly, the NHRC, on Friday, 10th December 2021, held a human rights day lecture, delivered by Professor Bola A. Akinterinwa, former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, and held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

The issues raised at the event, the good will messages, the induction of the US ambassador to Nigeria, the NHRC Chairperson, and Professor Tony Ojukwu, SAN, Executive Secretary of the NHRC, as Champions in the promotion and protection of human rights, etc generated much enthusiasm and interest in how to deal with human rights abuses and violations.

Human Rights Abuses and Violations in Nigeria

In her opening speech of the chairperson of the Governing Council of the NHRC, Dr. Salamatu Hussaini Suleiman, FMIC, she noted that the commemoration provides opportunities for celebrating the significance of human rights day, which calls for retrospection and self-appraisal. She identified equality and non-discrimination as core principles of human rights, because they underscore the essence of human dignity. More important, she observed that ‘respect for human rights and equality of all persons are key to prevention of conflicts and crises… Societies that protect and promote human rights for everyone are more resilient societies and better equipped through human rights to weather unexpected crises such as pandemics and other natural and man-made disasters.’

While the Chief Commissioner of the Public Complaints Commission, Hon. Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf, noted that ‘effective and accountable institutions are essential to recovery from damages caused by the pandemic and ensure environmental sustainability,’ the Osun State Governor, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola, who was represented by Mrs. Omoworare of the State’s liaison office, argued that ‘the human rights of citizens are not likely to be fully assured in a society where good governance and security are not guarantee for citizens.’ In his eyes, good governance is about the provision of basic services and needs, such as adequate security, roads, food, power, housing, jobs and all that make life meaningful for citizens. He advocated good governance and security, which are critical to enforcing the rights of the citizens. He also called for regular dialogue among government, non-governmental organisations and the people.

US plenipotentiary to Nigeria, Ambassador Mary Beth Leonard, underscored US commitment to a ‘world in which human rights are protected, their defenders are celebrated, and those who commit human rights abuses are held accountable.’ She said that human rights cover gender-based violence, women’s economic empowerment, anti-corruption activities, combating trafficking in persons, and ending gender-base healthcare disparities. Most importantly, she submitted that countries with high levels of corruption are more likely to have populations that suffer from human rights abuses and are less likely to address those abuses. States with endemic corruption are more vulnerable to terrorist networks, transnational organised and gang-related criminals, and human traffickers.

In addressing how to further promote and protect human rights, Ambassador Leonard called for the deepening of partnerships with allies which should be inclusive and expansive when forging the partnerships. The rationale for this, in her thinking, is that ‘no country or society is perfect, and therefore we cannot protect human rights alone. We must work together to create a world where these fundamental rights are not only protected but can thrive.’

‘Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Post-COVID-19 Era: The Challenge of International Cooperation and Reactive Attitudinal Disposition’ was the title of Professor Akinterinwa’s lecture. He did not agree that a post COVID-19 era is foreseeable now, based on the consideration that COVID-19 is manufactured and not natural. When would the COVID-19 pandemic be finally or permanently contained, he asked? Without first providing an answer to this question, it cannot but be difficult to determine when the post-COVID-19 era will begin, he argued. Consequently, in his eyes, a post-COVID-19 era is not foreseeable yet because COVID-19 is militaro-strategic in origin and political in manifestation. It is not naturalo-scientific in containment. And true, the COVID-19 pandemic is gradually becoming a way of life globally and requiring adaptation to mutations or variants of the virus.

Additionally, he posited that the discussion of promotion and protection of human rights in the post-COVID-19 era necessarily raises the question of ‘’how’’ and ‘’methodology.’’ Put differently, how should human rights be promoted and protected in the future? Will the modalities be distinct from the current protective approaches? Most important is how to understand international cooperation as a notion and as a concept. Several international agreements had been done in the past by most Member States of the international community on the specific question of how to promote and protect human rights. There is the UN Charter which provides for the universal respect for human rights and there is also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), done on 10 December 1948, which has been at the epicentre of various international agreements done to promote and protect human rights.

For instance, Part V of the United Nations 2000 Millennium Declaration (A/RES/55/21), which was unanimously adopted, provided for the promotion and protection of human rights. Other treaties done to protect human rights include the 1966 International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, which entered into force in 1976; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, similarly adopted in 1966 and entered into force in 1976; the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which entered into force in 1981; the 1984 Convention against Torture and other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which entered into force in 1987; the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force in 1990; the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, which entered into force in 2003; the 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which entered into force in 2010; the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force in 2008, etc.

Thus, in the period from 1966 through 2006, efforts were consistently made to legally promote and protect human rights multilaterally, but the outcome has not nipped in the bud human rights violations and abuses. It is not that the signatories to the international instruments have not ratified and domesticated the agreements in their municipal laws based on the principles of Monism or Dualism. For example, Chapters II and IV of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, specifically provide for the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights: right to life, right to dignity of human person, right to personal liberty, right to fair hearing, right to private and family life, right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, right to freedom of expression and the press, right to freedom from discrimination, right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.

Again, the challenge to promotion and protection of human rights is not that there is lack of national and international instruments, but that official attitude is reactive to human rights violations. Interrogatively put, if Nigeria had been faithfully committed to the implementation of her international obligations on promotion and protection of human rights, how do we explain the rationales behind the organisation of peaceful #EndSARS protests and the brutalisation of human lives that occurred at the Lekki Tollgate on 20 October 2020? Can a government propaganda remove what was seen live on various television screens on that day? Does a White Paper obliterate from the minds of the public the belief that peaceful protesters, carrying the Nigerian Flag and singing Nigeria’s National Anthem, were inhumanly massacred? Can brutalisation of the right to protest be an instrument of promotion of human rights?

Considering that the promotion and protection of human rights depend on the whims and caprices of sovereign states, that the present international cooperation is multilateral in character, that it is still difficult to talk about a post-COVID-19 era, that the notion of international cooperation is quite ambiguous, and that government’s attitudinal disposition to the promotion and protection of human rights is unnecessarily reactive there is the need for a re-strategy.

Human Rights Promotion Re-strategy

Importantly, the promotion and protection of human rights cannot be done outside of the environmental conditionings, implying that there cannot be an end to the promotion and protection of human rights because the more the efforts at promotion and protection of human rights, the more also political crises will emerge due to the corrupt foundation on which political governance is predicated. In fact, it is because human rights are being promoted and protected that the humanity and dignity of the human persons is undermined in the same manner that diplomatic agents are being violated because they are internationally protected by the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

In this regard, what is the current situational reality of COVID-19 politics? Dr. Tasuku Honjo, a physician, scientist and immunologist, and a 2018 Nobel Prize winner, recently argued that the corona virus is not natural. As he put it, ‘if it is natural, it will not have affected the whole world like that.’ In his eyes, depending on nature, ‘the temperature is different in different countries. If it were natural, it would only have affected countries with the same temperature as China. Instead, it spreads to a country like Switzerland, the same way it spread to desert areas.’ Dr. Tasuku Honjo added that ‘if it were natural, it would have spread in cold places, but it would have died in hot places.’ And perhaps more interestingly, he swore in the name of professionalism of over forty years of research on animals and virus to have his Nobel Prize withdrawn if he is discovered to be telling lies.

The way he put it is very thought-provoking: ‘based on all of my knowledge and research to date, I can say this with 100% confidence that corona is not natural. It did not come from bats. China made it. If what I say today turns out to be false now or even after I die, the Government can withdraw my Nobel Prize. But China is lying, and this truth will one day be revealed to all.’

If we admit of Dr. Honjo’s claims, there cannot be a post-COVID 19 era in the near future. The challenge is when and the implication is that the status quo will remain in international relations, the quests to promote and protect human rights will also remain a permanent feature, and the operational modalities of such promotion and protection strategies cannot but also remain. However, they will not be good enough to constructively address the deepening challenges and threats to democracy and human rights in Africa.

Secondly, NHRC’s policy re-strategy must include an investigation into why sovereign states negotiate, conclude agreements but remain infidel to their implementation. For instance, the Government of Nigeria, like many others, only respects human rights when it is convenient. The mania of handling the #EndSARS is illustrative of our point. Police brutality still continues, regardless of the change in its operative modality. In the way COVID-19 is constantly mutating, so is police brutality likely to mutate. And in fact, if the brutalisation of human rights in Nigeria is taking the format of military invasion of homes of people perceived to be engaged in the struggle for self-determination or secession, which, again, is a human right of a fundamental nature, it will be self-deceit to expect any honest and credible international cooperation.

Explained differently, what type of cooperation is expected internationally with this type of domestic situation? Normally, international cooperation or solidarity can only be meaningful at the level of a faithful implementation of the existing conventions on human rights. The NHRC should therefore take greater interest in assisting the fixing of the domestic saga. Thirdly, the promotion and protection of human rights in international relations is seriously inhibited by international politics, which is a conflict system. International politics, being a conflict system, makes the implementation of the various international agreements on promotion and protection of human rights difficult in the sense that there are also state security rights: the right of sovereign states to use force, especially in cases of legitimate self-defence, and by extension, the legal non-liability of the State when its agents kill allegedly on its behalf. The challenge here is how to deal with, or prevent, killings during peaceful protests. The challenge is also how to prevent senseless killings by government security agents during lawful peaceful protests.

The Lekki Tollgate killings are contrary to the provisions of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna, Austria, which required the ‘solemn commitment of all States to fulfil their obligations to promote universal respect for, and observance and protection, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, other instruments relating to human rights, and international law.’

Fourthly, the NHRC will also need to investigate why the practice of presidential democracy in Nigeria has not enabled the promotion and protection of human rights in Nigeria. Under the various military and civilian dispensations in Nigeria, human rights were flagrantly abused: gagging of the press and brutalisation of journalists under General Yakubu Gowon; banning of the Nigerian Labour Congress, introduction of the principle of ‘no work, no pay’ and the rustication of 13 students in some higher institutions for simply demanding campus reforms and improved welfare and for resisting hike in feeding costs, under General Olusegun Obasanjo. And true enough also, under General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, there were the 1986 Ahmadu Bello University killings, the mistreatment of protesters during the 1989 anti-Structural Adjustment Programme protests; annulment of the June 12, 1993 election results, and the media repression from 1985 through 1993.

And again, under the democratic setting of President Olusegun Obasanjo, there were the Odi Massacre and the Zaki Biam killings. It should be recalled that, contrary to the ruling of the Supreme Court, President Obasanjo refused to release the funds of the Lagos State Local Governments. Under the current administration of PMB, the invasion of the family house of Nnamdi Kanu, the blitzkrieg on Sunday Igboho’s house are examples too current not to be mentioned. It is not simply a blitzkrieg à la Heinz Guderian who invented it, but a consciously planned violation of their fundamental human rights. The invasion and violation of their person as humans is very conemnable.

A better understanding of the dynamics of the different abuses and violations cannot but go a long way in enabling the prevention of such abuses and violations. What the NHRC has been able to do is to react to violations of human right. The NHRC should a priori be proactive in preventing anti-human right attitudes, by particularly making the Government under which it is part regularly accountable, regardless of whose ox is gored. It should relentlessly seek the prosecution of all violators without fear or favour. Without being proactive, the future of promotion and protection of human rights by the NHRC in Nigeria cannot be bright.

The NHRC has not been able to prevent violations of human rights by the law enforcement agents in the country, because the training given to the police has been to no effect. In other words, how do we explain police brutalities during peaceful protests, cognizant of their human right educational background? Shouldn’t the promotion and protection of human rights begin with the development of civility and culture of honesty? If human right is defined from the perspective of humanity, why is humanity and humanism not predicated on honesty of purpose?

Fifthly, greater emphasis should be placed on good governance, without which the promotion and protection of human rights cannot be constructively sustained. In Nigeria of today, justice is consciously perverted. Court justices are recklessly aggressed. In fact, the culture of impunity is also increasingly becoming the order of the day. Professional politicians divert money meant for their communities, and particularly for their constituencies, only to re-donate the money or re-invest the ill-gotten money it in politics or to acquire traditional chieftaincy titles of honour. This is what the political system in Nigeria sustains, but which has not been helpful to the protection of human rights.

Sixthly, and most importantly, international cooperation must address the well-known challenges to the promotion and protection of human rights: the nexus between religion and human rights, especially human rights and Sharia in Nigeria; the impact of lack of superpower consensus on humanitarian questions, as epitomised by the conflict in Myanmar where the great and super powers hold different positions on human rights in the country; the conflict between national security and human rights interests; impact of lack of good governance on human rights protection; the challenge of political dictatorship; the provision of capital punishment in some national laws; the problems of military politicians; the current threats to and declining, democratic values in the world; the need for protection of all human rights violators panel; the implications of international politics of COVID-19 vaccines; and individual and institutional racism or hatred as shown in the case of George Floyd in June 2020 in the United States. Above all, international cooperation is necessarily a function of political will, which is difficult to achieve when national security interests are at stake. True, the Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Professor Anthony O. Ojukwu, and his team, have done well in seeking redress to human rights violations, but their efforts have not deterred human rights abuses and violations. This is an area that requires greater focus at the level of international cooperation in the future: deter rather than only reacting to human rights violations.