HUMAN DIGNITY AND THE FUTURE OF

GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS
HUMAN DIGNITY AND THE
FUTURE OF GLOBAL
INSTITUTIONS

Mark P. Lagon and Anthony Clark Arend, Editors

© 2014 Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Human dignity and the future of global institutions / Mark P. Lagon

and Anthony
Clark Arend, editors.
pages cm
Summary: The 21st century has witnessed a proliferation of
international institutions, including traditional intergovernmental
organizations, non-governmental organizations, private sector
entities, and other partnerships. The premise of this anthology is
that these institutions need a common, animating principle in the
service of the person, which is the ultimate end of global politics.
The concept of human dignity, the editors claim, serves this purpose
and transcends the seemingly intractable conflicts in human rights
debates: political rights v. social and economic rights. Conceptually,
human dignity rests on two principles: exercising agency to realize
one’s potential, and recognition by society of one’s worth. In light of
this formulation of human dignity, the anthology has two purposes:
First, contributors will examine the degree to which traditional and
emerging institutions are already advancing human dignity as a
central mission. Second, in the spirit of developing best practices
and prescriptive recommendations, contributors will identify
strategies, methods, and modalities to make human dignity more
central to the work of global institutions.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62616-119-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-
62616-120-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-62616-121-4 (ebook)
 1. Dignity. 2. Human rights. 3. Respect for persons—Law and
legislation. I. DeGioia, John J. writer of preface. II. Lagon, Mark P.
editor. III. Arend, Anthony C. editor.
JC571.H76265 2014
341.2—dc23 2014011284

Cover image: Henry Moore, “Draped Seated Woman: Figure on

Steps” 1956. © The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved,
DACS 2014/www.henry-moore.org

∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements

of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for
Printed Library Materials.

15 14 13 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to MSFS students—

past, present, and future—
as they work to set the world on fire.
Ad Majorem Dei Glorium inque Hominum
Salutem
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments

Preface
JOHN J. DEGIOIA

Introduction: Human Dignity in a Neomedieval

World
MARK P. LAGON AND ANTHONY CLARK AREND

PART I. TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS

CHAPTER 1: The United Nations Security Council

NANCY E. SODERBERG

CHAPTER 2: The Responsibility to Respect: Victims and

Human Dignity at the International Criminal
Court
TOD LINDBERG

CHAPTER 3: The UN Secretary-General and Human Dignity:

The Case of Kofi Annan
ABIODUN WILLIAMS

CHAPTER 4: Regional Security Organizations and Human

Dignity
CHESTER A.CROCKER

CHAPTER 5: Inclusive Growth, Institutions, and the

Underground Economy
ANOOP SINGH
CHAPTER 6: The Global Human Rights Regime: Assessing and
Renovating the Architecture
MARK P. LAGON AND RYAN KAMINSKI

CHAPTER 7: The Human Dignity Lens on Terrorism and

Counterterrorism
ANTHONY CLARK AREND

PART II. EMERGING INSTITUTIONS

CHAPTER 8: Transcending HIV/AIDS Social Stigma: Putting

Human Dignity Center Stage in Global
Institutions
ROSALÍA RODRIGUEZ-GARCÍA

CHAPTER 9: The New Global Landscape for Poverty

Alleviation and Development: Foundations,
NGOs, Social Media, and Other Private Sector
Institutions
RAJ M. DESAI AND HOMI KHARAS

CHAPTER 10: Statelessness, Sovereignty, and International

Law: Promoting the “Right to Have Rights”
BENJAMIN BOUDREAUX

CHAPTER 11: Fighting Human Trafficking: Transformative

versus “Cotton-Candy” Partnerships
MARK P. LAGON

CHAPTER 12: Religion and the Global Politics of Human

Dignity: The Catholic Church and Beyond
THOMAS BANCHOFF

CHAPTER 13: Faith-Based Institutions and Human Dignity: A

Growing Presence on the Global Stage
NICOLE BIBBINS SEDACA
CHAPTER 14: Business, Human Rights, and the Internet: A
Framework for Implementation
MICHAEL A. SAMWAY

PART III. INSTITUTIONS AND VALUES: THE FUTURE

CHAPTER 15: Constructing a Dialogue on Dignity: The Path

Ahead
MARK P. LAGON AND ANTHONY CLARK AREND

Contributors

Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Human Dignity and the Future of Global Institutions is a

collaborative project of members of a true community: the faculty,
alumni, students, and friends of the Georgetown University Master of
Science in Foreign Service Program (MSFS). Its evolution and
insights flow from dialogue in that community, a microcosm of the
dialogue we propose in our concluding chapter. As part of this
dialogue, the contributors have been intellectual collaborators in an
ongoing conversation that transcends their individual contributions.
Institutional support for this project has come from both
Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations. We
want to thank the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown, including Dean Carol Lancaster and Senior Associate
Dean James Reardon-Anderson, who provided their enthusiasm and
help with the production of this volume. We wish to thank Kathleen
McNamara and Moira Todd of the Mortara Center for International
Studies and Thomas Banchoff and Erin Coleman of the Berkley
Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown
University for their partnership with MSFS and their support
respectively during the June 7, 2012, and March 19, 2013,
conferences that reviewed draft chapters. Thanks to Gina Hart at the
MSFS Program for administrative leadership in support of the book’s
contributors. And we would offer a very special thanks to
Georgetown’s President John J. DeGioia for his support and his
willingness to write the preface.
We want to thank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where
Mark P. Lagon is Adjunct Senior Fellow for Human Rights, for helping
germinate some of the ideas, notably at the first conference on
contributors and friends we convened on November 16, 2011.
Chapter 6 by Mark P. Lagon and Ryan Kaminski was adapted from
the Issue Brief, “The Global Human Rights Regime,” published by the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in February 2012. The brief is
part of CFR’s Global Governance Monitor from the International
Institutions and Global Governance program, generously funded by
the Robina Foundation.
There are a number of colleagues who offered advice, notional
formulations, feedback on chapters, and presentations and
comments at conferences we held at CFR and at Georgetown
University to whom we want to express our appreciation. They
include: Evelyn Aswad, Mathew Carnes, Samantha Custer, Mark
Dybul, Stein-Ivar Eide, Lee Feinstein, Felice Gaer, Dylan Groves, Ross
Harrison, Ryan Kaminski, Peter Katzenstein, Carol Lancaster, James
Lindsay, Katherine Marshall, Kathleen McNamara, Sarah Moran,
Alberto Mora, Michael Morfit, Kate Potterfield, Pierre-Richard Prosper,
Andrew Reddie, George Shambaugh, Kristen Silverberg, Anne-Marie
Slaughter, Karen Stauss, Fred Tipson, Michael Walzer, Matthew
Waxman, David Watkins, Jennifer Windsor, and Diane Yeager.
We would also be remiss if we did not signal out two MSFSers.
Benjamin Boudreaux, a onetime student and now alumnus who
offered welcome and canny research help earlier in the project. And
in a special category is Mathew R. Caldwell who as an MSFS student
and William V. O’Brien Fellow in International Law played a
substantial role in the revision and integration of the volume and
helped organize a March 19, 2013, conference. His indefatigable
energy, judgment, passion, and spectacular good humor were
essential to this book coming to fruition.
We have been blessed working with Richard Brown and Deborah
Weiner at Georgetown University Press. Their enthusiasm for and
insights on improving this project are deeply valued.
Mark P. Lagon enormously appreciates the enthusiasm, support,
and love of Elena Lagon and Zofia Lagon. Above all, he cherishes his
wife, Susan Sullivan Lagon, for love and emotional backing to the hilt
and sage advice to a fellow teacher.
Anthony Clark Arend would like to thank Jaclyn Halpern Bates,
Spencer Bates, David Gutschmit, Doug Shaw, and Kevin O’Brien for
their support throughout this project.
Finally, we want to thank all our students at Georgetown for
challenging us and helping us develop our thinking on human
dignity. It is to them that we have dedicated this book.
PREFACE
JOHN J. DEGIOIA

Emerging out of the darkest years of the modern era—following a

Holocaust, two world wars, and a one-hundred-year period when
more than 260 million people died at the hands of their own
governments (Rummel 1994)—the greatest contribution of the
twentieth century was the introduction and implementation of a
regime of human rights. Launched with the adoption of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the member states of the
United Nations, this was the first international agreement to use the
words “human rights.”
In the sixty-plus years following its adoption, over forty
agreements were created through the United Nations that deepened
and broadened the regime, addressing issues ranging from the right
to organize to the rights of the child.
A thorny question for the drafters was the matter of justification.
What was the basis for making the claims that the rights identified in
the Declaration’s thirty articles were, in fact, universal? Even though
the drafting committee invited one of the most distinguished
philosophers of the age, Jacques Maritain, to assist in articulating
the justification, ultimately the document was silent on the topic.
The committee’s chair, Eleanor Roosevelt, determined it was more
important to entrench these rights immediately following the war
than it was to offer a justification for them.
In her wonderful history of the drafting of the Universal
Declaration, Mary Ann Glendon provides an important insight into
the document’s underlying logic: “Maritain liked to tell the story of
how a visitor at one meeting expressed astonishment that
champions of violently opposed ideologies had been able to agree on
a list of fundamental rights. The man was told: ‘Yes, we agree about
the rights but on condition no one asks us why’” (Glendon 2001,
77).
In place of a justification, the Universal Declaration posits a
collection of rights, each flowing from the first words of the first
article: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity.” It is
our inherent human dignity that is to be protected and respected by
the concrete rights described in the articles that follow. In turn,
these rights, grounded in a respect for human dignity, became the
starting point for constructing the postwar international system
whose aim was to ensure that the delineated rights did not remain
abstractions. Rather, they would be realized via institutions that,
while international in scope, were national in focus.
Thus, the second half of the twentieth century saw the
development of the World Health Organization (WHO); Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO); United Nations Education, Science,
and Culture Organization (UNESCO); World Bank; International
Finance Corporation (IFC); International Monetary Fund (IMF); and
more recently, the Millennium Development Corporation and the
Global Fund. These—and many more—represent concrete structures
whose efforts aim to realize our commitment to human rights,
making it come alive through their ongoing work. As Robert Bellah
and his colleagues noted, “we live in and through institutions” (1992,
256). Through these international institutions we ideally celebrate
human dignity.
But are the institutions that emerged in the mid-to-late twentieth
century adequate to respond to the challenges of the early twenty-
first? Issues like climate change, human trafficking, water security,
and weapons of mass destruction, to name a very few, are in fact
borderless in origin and impact and are not easily addressed within a
logic that gives primacy to national sovereignty. Yet at the same
time, the twenty-first century offers us digitized tools and the onrush
of social media—plus powerful currents unleashed by a “globalized”
economy. These represent potentially connecting forces whose
effective harnessing depends on revisiting questions about what it
means for us to protect and respect the human dignity of all of our
peoples.

• How best can we ensure we are building institutions that enable

us to live this commitment to foster and protect human rights in
light of “connecting” opportunities?
• What values will guide us as we imagine and re-imagine such
building?
• Can we ensure that among these values is an ever-deeper
commitment to human dignity?
• Are the social practices embedded in existing institutions
sufficient to provide the framework for new types of structures?
Are they, in fact, sufficient for current institutions to ensure a
respect for our shared dignity, manifested in a commitment to
human rights?

A respect for human dignity has origins in religious practices

throughout the world and has been the source of deep philosophical
engagement, notably by Immanuel Kant. There is an abstract quality
appropriate to theological and philosophical reflection, and every
generation lives with the questions thereby. But there are practical
issues as well. It is now our time to examine the nature of the
international order for which we share responsibility and ask whether
our global institutions enable us to respond to the challenges of our
time.

References
Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler,
and Steven M. Tipton. 1992. The Good Society. New York:
Vintage.
Glendon, Mary Ann. 2001. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York:
Random House.
Rummel, R. J. 1994. “Important Note.” In Death by Government.
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Accessed February
20, 2013. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM.
Introduction
Human Dignity in a Neomedieval
World
MARK P. LAGON AND ANTHONY CLARK AREND

What is human dignity? Over the centuries, philosophers,

theologians, pundits, and even public officials have attempted to
employ the term as an idea that unites humanity. More recently,
persons as diverse as Melinda Gates, Jack Welch, Aung San Suu Kyi,
former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Dalai Lama,
George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have referred to the notion.1
For example, in his first inaugural address as president of South
Africa, Nelson Mandela said, “We enter into a covenant that we shall
build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will
be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their
inalienable right to human dignity” (Mandela 1994). Similarly, the
Aga Khan IV, the hereditary iman of Ismaili Muslims and major
philanthropist, said in an address in 2006 in Evora, Portugal: “The
search for justice and security, the struggle for equality of
opportunity, the quest for tolerance and harmony, the pursuit of
human dignity—these are moral imperatives which we must work
towards and think about on a daily basis” (Aga Khan IV 2006). Here
are two prominent thinkers who recognize the centrality and vitality
of human dignity as a touchstone for action. Yet what does human
dignity mean? And what role should it play in guiding the mission of
international institutions? Despite spanning cultures and continents
and providing great potential for building a consensus, human
dignity lacks a common definition. This book will offer just such a
working definition designed to animate the work of increasingly
complex, heterogeneous international institutions. In this
introduction, we will, first, explore the context of those
heterogeneous institutions in a changing international system.
Second, we will lay out a picture of the near paralysis of human
rights discourse today. Third, in light of several major historical
understandings, we will offer our conceptual formulation of human
dignity, situating it in concepts of the agency and recognition of the
individual person. Fourth, we will offer a roadmap of how this book
will employ that formulation to explore both how international
institutions have increasingly served this concept and how they
might better order their work based on this central norm.

Institutions in a Neomedieval World

Students of international relations have typically claimed that the
birth of the modern international system took place with the
conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Westphalia was seen
as enshrining the recognition that the territorial state was the
primary actor in the international system and the principle that these
states enjoyed “sovereignty.” Sovereignty meant, in a nutshell, that
states were autonomous; they were the legitimate governing
authorities over what took place in their territories. States were
juridically equal and could thus not be subject to any higher
authority or bound by any higher law without their consent. What
this principle meant was that for any international institution to
possess political and legal legitimacy, it needed to be created by
states. Accordingly, as states began to perceive the need for
international organizations—first specific-purpose organizations, like
the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, and later
more general-purpose organizations, like the League of Nations—
they created intergovernmental organizations through treaties
requiring the consent of each member state.
But new developments in international politics have raised
questions about these assumptions. As early as 1977 in his classic
work, The Anarchical Society, the late Oxford Professor Hedley Bull
speculated that one possible future for international systems was
what he called a “neomedieval” structure. Under such an
arrangement, Bull explained, states would still exist as important
actors in the international system, but alongside those states, there
would be a variety of other dissimilar actors that would also play
critical roles in international affairs. As Bull notes, the central
element of such a neomedieval system would be “overlapping
authority and multiple loyalties” (Bull 2002, 245). In other words,
states would “come to share their authority over their citizens, and
their ability to command their loyalties” with other actors (246). And
as such, states would not be sovereign in the Westphalian sense of
the term.
In The Anarchical Society, Bull suggested five trends that point to
the possible emergence of a neomedieval system: (1) the Regional
Integration of States, (2) the Disintegration of States, (3) the
Restoration of Private International Violence, (4) Transnational
Organizations, and (5) the Technological Unification of the World.
Today, over a third of a century since Bull’s publication, these trends
have continued and seem to strongly suggest a movement toward a
neomedieval world (Arend 1999, 171–85). First, it is commonplace
to point to Europe as the primary example of regional integration. In
the years since 1977, the European Economic Community has
become the European Union (EU), more states have joined, and the
depth of integration has increased. Whereas the recent economic
crisis in the Eurozone has caused some observers to speculate about
the progress of European integration, it could certainly be argued
that the transformative effect on the concept of state sovereignty
has continued. Bull suggested a critical juncture would exist when
there would “be real doubt in theory and in reality as to whether
sovereignty lay with national governments or the organs of the
‘community’” (Bull 2002, 256). In the world of the twenty-first
century, the institutions of the EU clearly enjoy the ability to make
decisions that are binding both upon the governments of the
members and, in some cases, directly binding on individuals or
corporations within member states. It may not be correct to say that
the organs have “sovereignty,” but it certainly seems accurate to say
that in some cases the organs have independent authority that was
traditionally held only by states. Moreover, there seems to have also
been a transformation of the loyalty of individuals; persons still have
loyalty to their state, but there also seems for most to be an
undefined loyalty to Europe. It should, of course, be noted that while
the European experience has not led—in any real sense—to other
such tight integration in other regions of the world, the very
existence of even one such powerful regionally integrated actor in
the international system challenges the notion of Westphalia.
Second, there have been dramatic disintegrative tendencies. But,
as Bull notes, for the state system to be fundamentally changed, it is
not enough that there simply be new states emerging from larger
ones, but that substate actors emerge with a level of autonomy that
challenges the sovereignty of the larger state. Bull explains: “If these
new units were to advance far enough towards sovereign statehood
both in terms of accepted doctrine and in terms of their command of
force and human loyalties, to cast doubt upon the sovereignty of
existing states, and yet at the same time were to stop short of
claiming that state sovereignty for themselves, the situation might
arise in which the institution of sovereignty itself might go into
decline” (Bull 2002, 257). Clearly, since the end of the Cold War,
small states emerged from larger states—witness the breakup of the
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and more recently Sudan. But at the
same time, we are seeing a variety of substate groups that both
exercise control over people and receive their loyalty. Hamas,
Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and
even criminal groups in parts of Latin America and elsewhere are
increasingly providing service and social welfare assistance to
individuals and are capturing a large measure of their loyalty.
Third, while one of the touchstones of sovereignty is the state’s
monopoly on the use of force, there has been a resurgence of
private international violence in recent years. The most obvious
manifestation of this nonstate use of force is by transstate political
groups like al-Qaeda and its various progeny. The significance of the
power of such groups can be seen in the days following September
11, 2001, when the United Nations (UN) Security Council
acknowledged that these nonstate actors can be held accountable
for engaging in an armed attack in violation of the UN Charter, and
can be the subject of international sanctions, a penalty typically
reserved for states. But what Bull notes as a particularly significant
aspect of this increase in the use of violence by these nonstate
actors “is the fact that their claim of the right to do so is accepted as
legitimate by a substantial proportion of international society” (Bull
2002, 259). As far back as the mid-1970s, there were elements of
the international community that accorded a certain legitimacy to
liberation movements and other groups seeking to fight so-called
colonial, racist, and alien regimes. Indeed, the Definition of
Aggression Resolution adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly in 1974 specifically mentioned “peoples under colonial and
racist regimes [and] other forms of alien domination” and
acknowledged “the right of these people to struggle to that end
[self-determination] and to seek and receive support, in accordance
with the principles of the [UN] Charter and in conformity with the
above-mentioned Declaration.” Even though this right is couched in
terms of the UN Charter, it seems clear that this resolution was
seeking to lend great international legitimacy to substate actors
using violence. Of course, the Soviet Union and its allies were well-
known for supporting the use of force by substate groups fighting
“wars of national liberation” (Arend and Beck 1993, 41). Indeed,
under the so-called Reagan Doctrine, even the United States
recognized the legitimacy of violent antistate actors in the 1980s,
such as those in Angola, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Cambodia
(Lagon 1994).
Since the 1970s, a wide variety of groups have continued to gain
international support, but more importantly, domestic populations
have often accorded such nonstate actors with legitimacy. As noted
earlier, groups like Hezbollah, the FARC, and others have been
providing goods and services to individuals in circumstances where
states have been unable to do so, thereby empowering these actors
to gain loyalty traditionally reserved for the state.
Fourth, there has also been a proliferation of transstate
organizations, what Bull calls “transnational organizations.” For Bull,
these organizations run the gamut from transnational corporations
(TNCs) to transnational political movements (including those that
use violence) to professional associations to religious organizations
to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to traditional
intergovernmental institutions (IGOs). In recent years, the number
and diversity of these organizations have grown and they have
increasingly gained real power in the international system. The
effects of some of the transnational political movements have
already been noted above, but other organizations have also been
playing critical roles. Despite the Westphalian turn away from a
secular role for the church, religious organizations have increasingly
commanded the loyalty of people. And even transnational
corporations have gained inroads on states. As the late Susan
Strange wrote in her 1996 book, The Retreat of the State: The
Diffusion of Power in the World Economy, “we can conclude that
while TNCs do not take over from the governments of states, they
have certainly encroached on their domains of power.” “They are,”
she notes, “increasingly exercising a parallel authority alongside
governments in matters of economic management affecting the
location of industry and investment, the direction of technological
innovation, the management of labour relations, and the fiscal
extraction of surplus value” (Strange 1996, 65).
Finally, even in the late 1970s, Bull could write of the
“technological unification of the world.” In medieval Europe,
Christianity served as a unifying force for people. In a secular
neomedievalism, Bull opines, perhaps technology could serve to
provide a similar unifying role. He observes that “[i]t is sometimes
contended that the demise of the states system is taking place as a
consequence of the technological unification of the world … which is
bound to lead to the politics of ‘spaceship earth’ or of the ‘global
village’ in which the states system is only a part” (Bull 2002, 236).
Without doubt, the internet and social media tools such as Twitter,
Facebook, and YouTube have been able to link people in disparate
parts of the world. They also have been able to allow people to gain
access to information in ways that the state can regulate only with
great difficulty and at the risk of international condemnation. While it
cannot yet be claimed that technology has brought about a “global
village,” it seems certain at the very least that the technological
revolution has challenged the ability of states to maintain control in
the same ways they had in the past. And undoubtedly, the
information gained by citizens has in some cases contributed to the
delegitimization of some of the traditional instruments of state
power.
If we accept the proposition that the international system is
becoming something akin to what Bull called neomedieval, what
does this mean for human dignity? At some level, it means that the
traditional system of accountability is being loosed from its
moorings. In a system where states have legal and moral legitimacy
because they are accountable to their citizens, intergovernmental
organizations have legitimacy because they are creations of states.
In other words, the legitimacy of IGOs is derivative of that of states.
But when we suddenly fast-forward to a world where states are
losing some of their monopoly of legitimacy through the presence of
powerful nonstate or nonstate-created actors, it becomes a
challenge to find such accountability. Perhaps it lies somehow in the
concept of “human rights”?

Human Rights Discourse and Beyond

In the world of 1648, sovereignty meant that states had complete
authority over their citizens. As such, under international law, states
could treat their citizens essentially as they chose. There were no
international legal obligations on the part of states to behave in a
particular fashion toward their own citizens; there was no
international human rights law as the term is used today.
 This state of affairs did not really begin to change until the post–
World War II period. With the revelations of the Holocaust and other
cases of inhumanity that took place during the war, the founders of
the UN resolved to make human rights a critical goal of this new
global intergovernmental organization. And so, the preamble of the
UN Charter boldly declares the determination of its members “to
reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth
of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women.” This
was the first time in history that a general purpose, global
intergovernmental organization declared the promotion of human
rights as one of its goals.
Not surprisingly, over the course of the next several decades, the
UN supported the development of multilateral agreements that
sought to establish legal obligations on the part of states to uphold
the rights of their citizens. These agreements included such
noteworthy treaties as the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the Genocide
Convention; the Torture Convention; and the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Taken as
a whole, this panoply of international agreements, together with
emerging customary international law, gave rise to a human rights
regime and the accompanying “international human rights discourse”
that have predominated in the post—World War II era.
This human rights discourse has greatly advanced the idea of
state responsibility to citizens and has transcended older notions of
sovereignty. It has helped empower intergovernmental organizations
to break through the veil of state sovereignty to support individuals.
But while the existing human rights regime has established an
essential foundation to help people to flourish, it does not seem
adequate to fully address the challenges to the human person in the
contemporary international system. This seems to be true for several
reasons.
First, there is far too often an impasse in human rights discourse
due to the sterile debate between political and civil rights on the one
hand and economic and social rights on the other. Even as the
creation of a new postwar human rights regime was proceeding, the
Cold War and the rise of the developing world were challenging the
ability of states to achieve a consensus on human rights. While some
common human rights treaties were produced, the negotiations that
produced those instruments were often fraught with disagreement.
It was not uncommon for Western states to reject the notion that
economic and social rights were truly “rights.” And at the same time,
it was typical of states from the Soviet sphere to claim that the
granting of economic and social rights was necessary before the
states needed to advance civil and political rights. While the intensity
of this debate may have moderated since the end of the Cold War,
there continues to remain divisions about efficacy of these different
types of rights.
Yet these divisions may represent a false dichotomy. For example,
American NGO leaders Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros on the one
hand and Amnesty International’s former global chief Irene Khan on
the other argue that there is a link between political and economic
rights. In particular, they both stress that guaranteeing access to
justice—a political right—is vital to economic empowerment (Haugen
and Boutros 2010; Khan 2009). Moreover, confounding expectations
it would dismiss economic and social rights, the presidential
administration of George W. Bush—whatever its failings—embraced
major efforts to globally combat HIV/AIDS and human trafficking,
both dilemmas in which marginalized groups’ access to economic
opportunity, basic social protections, civil rights, and justice were
inextricably intermingled. Focusing solely on traditional human rights
discourse could prevent a movement beyond this conundrum.
Second, frequently the rights discourse stops with the assertion
of the “equality of persons” and misses the importance of
acknowledging and recognizing “difference.” In the initial phases of
rights movements—whether it is women’s rights movements, civil
rights movements, gay and lesbian rights movements, and so on—
there is a tendency to make a claim for equal treatment. A woman
should be treated just like a man. The claim was for equal political
rights under the law. Clearly, these rights claims were critical to put
disenfranchised groups under the protection of the law. Yet, as many
of these movements developed, they began to adopt a “postrights”
discourse. That is, they began to argue that while certain basic
rights were fundamental, and equality under the law was a critical
starting point, different people are in fact different. And a legal
system, while recognizing the primary imperative of the equal value
of each person, must also properly acknowledge difference and
accord the correct respect due this difference. An example from
feminist literature may serve to illustrate. Women bear children. Of
course, women should have equal political rights to men, and they
should receive equal pay for equal work, but the legal system must
also acknowledge that only women bear children, and it must give
them the appropriate treatment in light of that fact. In other words,
they must, in some cases, be treated differently than men, precisely
because of this difference. It is not clear that the current human
rights regime adequately addresses the problem of difference.
Third, another challenge of contemporary human rights discourse
is that because of the need for human rights agreements to spell out
precise rights, legal discussions can frequently fall into technical
discussions of definitions and miss the big picture. Following the
attacks of 9/11, for example, government officials in the United
States and elsewhere engaged in lengthy debates about the precise
meaning of “torture” and other potential legal terms. While these
discussions are not insignificant, it was interesting to note that the
deeper philosophic question of how persons should be treated—
irrespective of whether the treatment is torture or not—was often
ignored. Otherwise, one could make the mistake, in that case, of
parsing a case for applying cruelty short of torture as being justified.
These challenges—and others that could also be noted—suggest
that existing human rights discourse might need an augmentation.
As noted earlier, while the contemporary human rights regime has
moved the international system in important, positive directions,
another concept may be needed to both strengthen and better equip
the existing state of human rights in its effort to affirm the value of
individual persons. We propose to build on the essential foundations
of the human rights discourse in a way that frees it from some of its
paralysis.

The Concept of Human Dignity

To advance human dignity as the guiding principle for contemporary
international institutions, a working definition is crucial. If this
concept is to transcend an arguably exhausting, if not exhausted,
debate about human rights, it must be built upon the human rights
tradition rather than casting it aside. One way to successfully win
consensus on a definition of human dignity as the touchstone for
global collective action is to weave together critical threads of
related thought through the ages: (1) the Ancients, (2) the Judeo-
Christian tradition, (3) Kantian liberalism, (4) secular universalism of
mid-twentieth century human rights norms, (5) jurisprudential social
science, (6) thought on capabilities and development in the last
quarter century, and (7) a rich post–Cold War vision of identity that
ties Ancient and German modern thought. Needless to say, there are
innumerable historical approaches from other world faiths and
traditions that are centered on human dignity (Yadollahpour 2011;
Lo 2009). This nonexhaustive exploration, however, reveals the
essence of human dignity applicable to international institutions
today.

The Ancients
Among the ancient philosophers, self-worth is a crucial notion. Plato
observed in The Republic that a person only lived well when the
three parts of his soul were properly in balance—the rational,
appetitive, and spirited. Spiritedness, or thymos, is associated with
feeling valuable, not just insularly but relationally—valuable in the
eyes of others in society (Bloom 1991). We will return to the
importance of this element of dignity.
In addition to self-worth, “potential” plays a key role in the
thinking of the Ancients. Aristotle believed the ultimate goal that is
unique to human beings is the realization of human potential in the
form of what he called eudaimonia—human flourishing.
Foreshadowing a modern notion of responsibility necessarily
accompanying freedom, this value is not a state of mind or thinking
but is developed and exercised in ongoing activity. It involves
developing character traits that fuse reason to virtue (Bartlett and
Collins 2012). This lofty conception of human potentiality is to be
distinguished from that of Epicurus, who associated achievement of
eudaimonia with maximizing hedonistic pleasures.

Judeo-Christian Thinking
The dignity and worth of humankind is a primary focus of the Judeo-
Christian faith traditions. In these traditions, every human is made in
the image of God. Genesis 1:26 holds, “And God said, Let us make
man in our image.” This opening text from the Hebrew scriptures
goes on to say human beings were given dominion over all other
creatures and resources—fish, fowl, cattle, and the Earth. Genesis
2:19–20 suggests, no less, that the Creator brought all beasts and
fowl “unto Adam to see what he would call them” and he named
them. An animal rights or environmental activist today might resist
these notions at a literal level, but the implication that human beings
all have a special status and role is central. George Kateb’s quite
secular 2011 study, Human Dignity, adopts this “breed apart”
formulation about human beings, based on their level of
consciousness. Moreover, beyond naming other creatures, that each
human has a distinct name implies value in each. This idea echoes
Aristotle’s view of the unique function and value of human beings.
The innate value of human life is, of course, embodied in one of
the great Ten Commandments given to Moses: Thou shall not kill. Or
to provide a more literal translation of the Hebrew: You shall not
murder. In the Torah, this commandment is established as a law: No
human being has the standing to kill unjustifiably.
Within the Jewish tradition, human dignity is also affirmed in the
injunctions to provide special care for those possessing special
needs: the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger (e.g.,
Deut. 26:12; Zech. 7:10, Jer 7:6). Isaiah, for example, issues a
strong condemnation to those who do not tend to the
disenfranchised:

Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,

and the writers who keep writing oppression,
to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil,
and that they may make the fatherless their prey! (Isaiah
10:1–2)

The Christian scriptures continue to affirm the belief in the innate

value of the human person, perhaps best encapsulated in the Golden
Rule. And much like the words of Isaiah, the Gospel affirms a vision
of human dignity that requires active service to each individual,
including those with special needs. In the parable of the Great
Judgment, for example:

the King will say to those at his right hand, “Come, O blessed of
my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world;
for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you
gave me
drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I
was in
prison and you came to me” (Matt. 25:34–36).

Such thinking has reemerged often over the centuries and in

contemporary religious guidance, such as Pope John Paul II’s 1993
encyclical on human dignity.

Kantian Idealism
A slightly different tradition, that of modern German idealism, also
places special emphasis on human worth. Immanuel Kant justifies
the claim that humans have intrinsic dignity by pointing to the fact
that humans are agents: They must choose their own actions and
give themselves goals. Humans, therefore, are not just beings with
value but also the sort of beings that create or construct value to
begin with. It is their capacity to give things value that implies they
are, more precisely, “above all value.” Kant’s admonition to never
treat another human being as a mere means is based on the equal
value of all human beings. Kant argues that humans only act freely
(and actually live a life of dignity) when they act on a law that
requires that they give of themselves. The law that persons must
give of themselves to be free must take a form such that it applies
to everyone, no matter who the person is or what the person
desires. This categorical imperative of acting as if an action could be
generalized into a universal principle implies that other people and
their worth must be treated with consistency rather than
capriciously. No one can make an exception of themselves, including
autocrats.

Postwar Secular Universalism

Kant’s Perpetual Peace called for universal law and a “league of
nations.” It inspired the establishment of the League of Nations in
1919, although it foundered. After World War II, the world took
another run at forming a global organization to sustain peace. The
UN Charter invokes “the dignity and worth of the human person”
within its first forty-five words. Peace could not be detached from
respect for dignity. When in its infancy the UN set about elaborating
norms on human rights in the Universal Declaration on Human
Rights (UDHR) of 1948, extensive soundings were taken by the UN
to establish a common basis for the document. Harvard Law School
scholar Mary Ann Glendon notes in her treatment of Eleanor
Roosevelt’s role in shaping the UDHR, A World Made New, that
 where basic human values are concerned, cultural diversity
has been exaggerated. The group [of United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization philosophers]
found, after consulting Confucian, Hindu, Muslim, and
European thinkers, that a core of fundamental principles was
widely shared in countries that had not yet adopted rights
instruments and in cultures that had not embraced the
language of rights.… The philosophers concluded that even
people who seem to be far apart in theory can agree that
certain things are so terrible in practice that no one will
publicly approve them and that certain things are so good in
practice that no one will publicly oppose them (Glendon 2001,
222).

Dignity was not the result of rights but an a priori imperative

undergirding rights. Following some objections about the language
of dignity, Glendon observes: “Mrs. Roosevelt, when her turn came,
said that the word ‘dignity’ had been considered carefully by the
Human Rights Commission, which had included it in order to
emphasize that every human being is worthy of respect. In the
scheme of the Declaration, Article 1 did not refer to specific rights
because it was meant to explain why human beings have rights to
begin with” (Glendon 2001, 146).
Glendon observes that the UDHR “was far more influenced by the
modern dignitarian rights tradition of continental Europe and Latin
America than by the more individualistic documents of Anglo-
American lineage” (Glendon 2001, 227). Hence, Eleanor Roosevelt
forged a meeting of the minds with other delegates by implanting
into the UDHR all of the Four Freedoms her husband had hailed (of
expression and worship, and from want and fear), thereby bridging
political and economic rights.

The New Haven School

Soon thereafter, one sees the concept of dignity emerge in a rich—if
now underappreciated—intersection of the law and social science.
Yale University’s Myres McDougal and his intellectual partner Harold
Lasswell shaped a jurisprudential framework, sometimes referred to
as “the New Haven School” (see Reisman et al. 2007). It offered
analytical tools drawn from the social sciences aimed at
strengthening a world order rooted in human dignity. McDougal and
Lasswell identify a transcendent consensus as the justification for
dignity’s centrality: “All systems proclaim the dignity of the human
individual and the ideal of a worldwide public order in which this
ideal is authoritatively pursued and effectively approximated”
(McDougal and Lasswell 1959, 24).
They define human dignity as: “a social process in which values
are widely and not narrowly shared, and in which private choice,
rather than coercion, is emphasized as the predominant modality of
power” (McDougal and Lasswell 1959, 19). While some serious
thinkers and practitioners claim otherwise (Tipson 1973; Reisman et
al. 2007), this definition may not be tangible enough to individual
human beings’ needs to be of great operational use to contemporary
institutions and this project. However, regarding the values to which
it refers—harking back to the Ancients’ view of facilitating people’s
potential—the school identifies eight value categories human beings
seek: power, enlightenment, wealth, well-being, skill, affection,
respect, and rectitude. A world order favoring human dignity
facilitates people pursuing these values through choice. (Later we
will see a special role of respect among these values, though it is not
central to the school’s own vision of world order.) The school’s real
significance is as a major post—World War II jurisprudential
approach for international governance and institutions explicitly
fashioned to normatively advance dignity. As a result, this school
made the intellectual move to find the ultimate touchstone of
international law not in the claims of states enjoying sovereignty but
rather of the individual person.

Capabilities-Based Development
Contemporary thinkers about human development have picked up
on the ancients’ concept of tapped potential and thriving and echoed
the New Haven School’s focus on catalyzing people’s ability to freely
pursue values of choice. As the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) administrator Helen Clark of New Zealand
observed on March 9, 2010:

[T]he human development paradigm championed by UNDP

for two decades [is]very much inspired by India’s Nobel
Laureate, Professor Amartya Sen. Human development is
about placing people at the centre of development, enlarging
their capabilities, and expanding their opportunities and
freedom to lead lives which they value.

Sen helped fashion the Human Development Index for UNDP’s first
Human Development Report in 1990 with the late economist
Mahbub ul Haq, the series founder. He and American scholar Martha
Nussbaum have elaborated on an approach to development based
on enabling the capabilities of individual human beings. Nussbaum
identifies ten crucial capabilities: life, bodily health, bodily integrity,
senses (imagination, thought), emotions, practical reason, affiliation
(community, association, social basis of self-respect), other species,
play, and control over one’s environment (political participation,
personal property). In Women and Human Development, she argues
that each of these capabilities is needed in order for a human life to
be “not so impoverished that it is not worthy of the dignity of a
human being” (Nussbaum 2001, 72).

The Fukuyaman Synthesis

One of the more provocative broad-gauged social science thinkers in
the United States, Francis Fukuyama, offers some crucial insights on
dignity applicable to institutions—himself a political theorist reaching
back to the Ancients. He is known for having broken with
neoconservatives over the invasion of Iraq, contradicting their own
professed skepticism about social engineering, and especially for his
earlier exploration of whether the passing of the Cold War presaged
an “end of history.” On the latter claim, more people have fixed upon
his 1989 National Interest article than his 1992 book, The End of
History and the Last Man. Thymos is the engine of his vision of
history steadily driving toward the elaboration of human freedom
and democracy. Recall that Plato in The Republic argued that a
person only lived well when there was a proper balance among the
three elements of the soul—Reason, the Appetites, and Thymos.
This third element, thymos, is sometimes translated as “spirit” and
encompasses a sense of honor and self-worth. Fukuyama writes:
“Thymos is something like an innate human sense of justice: people
believe that they have a certain worth, and when other people act as
though they are worthless—when they do not recognize their worth
at its correct value—then they become angry” (Fukuyama 1992,
165).
Yet even more than the Ancients, he draws from the thinking of
another German idealist, Hegel, for whom “the primary motor of
human history is not modern natural science or the ever expanding
horizon of desire that powers it, but rather a totally non-economic
drive, the struggle for recognition” (Fukuyama 1992, 135).
Fukuyama applies this idealist—vice materialist—view of dignity to
explain twentieth-century struggles from that of Vaclav Havel against
Communist repression, to that of Americans for racial equality.

The indignity of racism in modern America lies only partly in

the physical deprivation brought on by poverty among blacks:
a black is (in Ralph Ellison’s phrase) an “invisible man,” not
actively hated but unseen as a fellow human being.… Virtually
the entire civil liberties and civil rights agendas, while having
certain economic components, are essentially thymotic
contests over recognition of competing understandings of
justice and human dignity (Fukuyama 1992, 176).

In short, Fukuyama observes, “[t]he ‘struggle for recognition’ is

evident everywhere around us” (145).
His interpretation of Hegel pinpoints a human being’s “own sense
of self-worth is intimately connected with the value that other people
place on him” (Fukuyama 1992, 146). Dignity is hence something
necessarily established within a community or a social context. While
Fukuyama has an uncommon interpretation of Hegel drawn from
Alexander Kojeve, this socially grounded basis for human thriving
represents a tradition running from ancient thought to the birth of
modern international law. Grotius writes, for instance, “among the
traits characteristic of man is an impelling desire for society, that is,
for the social life—not of any and every sort, but peaceful, and
organized according to the measure of his intelligence, with those
who are of his own kind; this social trend the Stoics called
‘sociableness’” (Grotius, in Beck, et al., 1996, 40).

A Working Definition of Dignity

Drawing from many traditions and of course on Hegel’s view of
synthesis driving history, the Fukuyaman synthesis helps form a
working definition of dignity operationally applicable to international
institutions. This definition best rests upon the concept of agency.
From the Ancient Greek and Judeo-Christian view to Kant, human
beings are set apart as special. From Kant to the rich perspective on
enabling capabilities of Sen and Nussbaum, the modern view of
what is special is their role as agents. Dignity lies not only in
preventing denials of agency but in unleashing humans’ agency to
achieve their potential and thrive. This contemporary version of
eudaimonia—human flourishing—requires that people as agents
exercise their muscles of responsibility. Yet Fukuyama’s socially
based notion of recognition adds a missing piece to a useful, applied
definition of dignity. The worth of all human beings does not exist in
isolation. In his recent volume, Dignity: Its History and Meaning,
Harvard political theorist Michael Rosen observes the import of the
recognition of others’ dignity: “Our duty to respect the dignity of
humanity is—on this I agree with Kant—fundamentally a duty to
ourselves.… In failing to respect the humanity of others we actually
undermine humanity in ourselves” (Rosen 2012, 157). More broadly,
people must be recognized, by society and in working governance
structures, as equally worthy—human beings in full. Here one of the
eight values McDougal and Lasswell identify but do not singularly
emphasize—respect—is of special importance. The quest for
recognition or respect can of course take pernicious pathological
forms (e.g., dictators or groups asserting dominance over or
committing violence against other groups—what Fukuyama calls
“megalothymia”). Yet in its positive form, the claim to recognition
offers a secondary pillar to a definition of dignity.
A definition based on the pillars of agency and recognition can be
illustrated in positive empowerment and negative denial. Girls who
are given an opportunity to get an education to equip them to have
more choices about their future are an archetypical example of
dignity catalyzed. So too would freedom of assembly and association
for factory workers in China.
In the obverse, mass murder, displacement, or sexual violence
against a particular class or category of people—whether sponsored
by or merely left unchecked by authorities—is an obvious case of
dignity vitiated. Human trafficking as acute sexual or labor
exploitation to the point that categories of people (children, women,
minorities, migrants) are turned into mere commodities is another
example.
And so, we offer the following working definition: Human dignity
is the fundamental agency of human beings to apply their gifts to
thrive. As such, it requires social recognition of each person’s
inherent value and claim to equal access to opportunity. To be
meaningful, human dignity must be institutionalized in practice and
governance.
The purpose of this book is not to settle for the ages on this
definition as the touchstone of the work of international institutions,
as even its contributors will offer varied elaborations and
applications. Its purpose is to launch a normative agenda to deepen
and refine this notion, always with an eye to applicability to actual
institutions, and all the more to the actual human beings they are
ostensibly devoted to help.

Overview of the Book

Purposes and Challenges

This book has two purposes. First, it will seek to examine the degree
to which several prominent traditional and emerging institutions are
already advancing human dignity as a central mission. For example,
Tod Lindberg’s chapter 2 on the International Criminal Court (ICC), a
traditional institution, explores the role of the ICC in providing
restitution to atrocity victims and thus affirming their dignity. Rosalía
Rodriguez-García’s chapter 8 examines a hybrid institution, the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and discusses
how it advances dignity by helping HIV-positive populations
transcend social stigma.
Second, in the spirit of developing best practices and prescriptive
recommendations, the book examines how to make human dignity a
greater focus of international institutions’ work. It seeks to identify
the strategies, methods, and modalities to make them all the more,
as it were, agencies for agency.
These aims entail several challenges. One challenge is to develop
a method to build on the achievements of the human rights tradition
while detaching a dignitarian agenda from stale and stalled debates,
such as those between political-civil rights and socioeconomic rights.
One must take care that breaking through stalled debates and
stalled implementation is not a rupture. The answer lies in viewing
human dignity not as a newer successor concept to human rights
but as an older foundational concept upon which the rights tradition
was erected. In order that norm-creation more often becomes norm-
implementation, we propose this “back to basics” approach.
Another challenge is to take full advantage of the great potential
for consensus across countries, regions, cultures, and faiths human
dignity offers. McDougal and Lasswell saw that potential fully six
decades ago. How can it be realized in practice?
There are clearly numerous paths to establishing human dignity’s
centrality. Drawing inspiration from the historic 1945 San Francisco
Conference on International Organization where the UN Charter was
adopted, some might suggest that it is time for a new “San
Francisco moment.” Yet, in a neomedieval world or what one might
call a state of “mosaic multilateralism,” there could not be an actual
new San Francisco Conference to redirect institutions or create new
ones. A conference or summit would not be a feasible vehicle to
realize consensus in a neomedieval context precisely because of the
multiplicity and dissimilarity of the actors. Moreover, the process of
establishing the centrality of human dignity cannot be reduced to a
“moment.” Instead, it should be an ongoing dialogue. The dialogue
this book offers is meant to hasten the social construction of
consensus (Wendt 1992).
A final challenge remains: Once consensus is built, who will
organize the mosaic multilateralism of today to privilege dignity
above other goals? Needless to say, there will be numerous actors
who will play an organizing role. But, we believe the United States
ought not to be coy. While it does not have the hegemonic power it
enjoyed seventy or even twenty years ago, it has a special role to
play as catalyst. Like no other longstanding or rising power, the
United States will remain a leading player to most of the institutions
and partnerships in question. Its role will not be hegemonic norm-
setter and guarantor. Nor will it solely be that of convener in formal
organizations. Not least because of the way in which ideals are
intermingled with interests in US statecraft, the United States has a
special role to play in making a consensus on dignity an
implemented reality. To succeed, the US approach must not be “our
way or the highway,” but it can fruitfully enable this agenda in
varying roles as thought-leader, coach, quasi-pastor, co-opter, hub of
networks, and partner to other actors. Without the United States, it
is less likely to become implemented in reality.

A Roadmap for the Book

In addressing how institutions already serve to promote human
dignity and how their role might be increased, this book explores
two types of institutions that exist in a neomedieval world. Part I
explores the first type: traditional IGOs, which, however imperfect,
remain crucial vehicles for promoting dignity. In this part, three
essays look chiefly at institutions within the UN—the heart of
traditional IGOs. Based in part on her experience as a diplomat at
the UN Security Council focusing on Africa, Nancy Soderberg
explores how the UN Security Council has grappled with the most
critical and violent human rights problems since the 1990s. She
examines evolving Council practice regarding the Responsibility to
Protect doctrine and the need for the Council to reform to enlarge its
legitimacy for action on behalf of people’s dignity. Tod Lindberg’s
unique contribution on the International Criminal Court suggests that
its little-appreciated mechanisms for victim assistance and restitution
have a potential impact on restoring the respect and recognition
victims are due and are as vital as the perpetrators’ prosecution.
Former UN Secretariat official Abiodun Williams offers a rich
appraisal of the UN secretary-general as a norm entrepreneur
advancing human dignity, examining in vivid detail Kofi Annan’s self-
conscious effort to link security, development, and human rights
holistically through new norms and institutional arrangements.
Three further chapters in part I address traditional institutions
beyond the UN proper. In chapter 4, former assistant secretary of
state for African Affairs Chester Crocker examines the considerable
role of regional organizations in managing violent conflict as the
highest-order threat to people’s dignity. He demonstrates that the
impact in practice that respective organizations can have on people’s
dignity on the ground depends on how each resolves tensions
between their member states’ perceived national security interests
and that organization’s increased focus on human security. The
director of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Asia and Pacific
Department, Anoop Singh, illustrates the dignity-enhancing role the
IMF plays by helping national governments build stronger rules of
law and governance, reducing the size of informal economies, and
enlarging social inclusion in the fruits of economic growth. Mark P.
Lagon and United Nations Association fellow Ryan Kaminski
comprehensively assess the efficacy of global, regional, and national
architecture devoted to human rights. They identify best practices
and innovations to advance dignity by shifting from norm
promulgation to implementation and by holistically bridging civil-
political and socioeconomic rights. Finally, Anthony Clark Arend
addresses how terrorism by its very nature violates innocents’
dignity. He argues that counterterrorism measures must not violate
the dignity of those who are alleged to have committed terrorist
acts. He makes several recommendations for institutional action to
address the challenges of counterterrorism and the root causes of
terrorism.
Part II of the book treats another type of institution—emerging
hybrids and partnerships. Having worked for the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund); the World Bank;
and the International Labor Organization assessing impacts on
communities of HIV/AIDS investments, Rosalía Rodriguez-García
examines the need to transcend social stigma against groups
vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. She compares how UNAIDS and the Global
Fund developed policies to surmount social stigma as a barrier to
their interventions’ effectiveness. Raj Desai’s and Homi Kharas’s
essay looks at new partnerships and actors promoting poverty
alleviation and economic development, notably private sector actors
who use social media to mobilize micro-lending to developing
countries. They highlight institutional arrangements that not only
advance the agency of loan recipients in developing countries but
also harness the sense of agency of private sector actors moved by
a dignity-based rationale to invest in them. Benjamin Boudreaux
explores how and why stateless people lack standing with or support
from public institutions and offers conceptual and institutional
reforms so they are no longer rendered less than human. Based on
leadership roles in government, NGOs, and corporate coalition
realms, Mark P. Lagon examines in another essay when and why
multistakeholder institutional partnerships succeed in enlarging the
dignity of actual or potential human trafficking victims. Chapter 12,
by Georgetown University vice president for global engagement and
Professor Thomas Banchoff, focuses on the Catholic and other faith
traditions as nonstate forces engaged in advancing human dignity.
Board member of two leading faith-based NGOs, Nicole Bibbins
Sedaca treats why and how various faith-based institutions have
emerged as major actors that advance peace, pluralism, and
prosperity and have a surprising potential not only to partner with
secular institutions but to operate in countries with majority
populations of a different faith. Founder of the Business and Human
Rights Program at Yahoo! Inc., Michael Samway offers a practice-
oriented treatment of information technology companies’ legal and
ethical obligations on human rights and provides methods for
assessing how their operations and relationships with suppliers and
governments impinge on human dignity.
Part III of the book consists of our closing chapter, which offers a
path for a constructivist dialogue on human dignity as the principle
to guide the work of global institutions. A dialogue on dignity as the
central ordering idea in an increasingly fissiparous neomedieval
world would address: (1) the extent of consensus on first principles,
(2) how to operationalize dignity in practice, and (3) the priorities
and trade-offs in implementation by global institutions. Norm
entrepreneurs could spur an authentic discourse in traditional IGOs,
hybrid institutions, the digital realm, and elsewhere that is designed
to welcome challenges and incorporate refinements to the concept
of human dignity based on agency and recognition of each human
being. To avoid being either too didactic or too aloof, the United
States should and can help cultivate the dialogue in a post-unipolar
era. Based on a robust consensus with an even broader reach than
similar liberal and human rights norms, traditional and hybrid global
institutions could go beyond serving as fora for this dialogue. These
institutions could be leading implementers—agencies of agency and
recognition, as it were. The future of global institutions would be to
help empower not states but people to realize the fullest fruits of
their potential.

Notes
1. Melinda Gates: “For far too many women with HIV: they take
the blame for this disease, even when they’re blameless. We can’t
cure these women, but we can help them live with dignity.” The
World Economic Forum, Davos, January 25, 2007.
Jack Welch: “Dignity is not only ‘the right thing to do’ from a
moral perspective, it invariably makes companies more competitive.”
With Suzy Welch, “The Difference Dignity Makes,” Business Week,
June 2009.
Aung San Suu Kyi: “A most insidious form of fear is that which
masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as
foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of
courage which help to preserve man’s self-respect and inherent
human dignity.” Accepting the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of
Thought, July 10, 1991.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams: “Shared
dignity is the condition for what you could call ‘civic warmth’—the
sense of being able to trust not only immediate neighbours but the
wider social fabric. If government is visibly working for dignity in
citizenship, trust will follow.” Sermon for the New Parliament,
Westminster Abbey, June 8, 2010.
The Dalai Lama: “Buddhism too recognises that human beings
are entitled to dignity, that all members of the human family have an
equal and inalienable right to liberty, not just in terms of political
freedom, but also at the fundamental level of freedom from fear and
want.” Buddhism and Democracy, Washington DC, April 1993.
George W. Bush: “No nation owns these aspirations, and no
nation is exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our
culture, but America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable
demands of human dignity.” State of the Union Address, January 29,
2002.
President Barack Obama, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: “Only
a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every
individual can truly be lasting.” Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2009.

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PART I

TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS
When one reflects upon institutions poised to promote human
dignity, the work of traditional institutions comes most readily to
mind. As the term is used in this book, “traditional institutions” refers
to intergovernmental institutions—international organizations that
states join in their official capacity. Part I of this book explores
several such institutions, including the United Nations Security
Council, the United Nations Secretary-General, the International
Criminal Court (ICC), regional organizations, and international
financial institutions.
Not surprisingly, one of the main roles these institutions play in
promoting human dignity is norm creation. In chapter 1, Nancy
Soderberg discusses the role of the Security Council in promoting
and developing the norm relating to the “responsibility to protect.”
Similarly, in chapter 3, Abiodun Williams explores how Secretary-
General Kofi Annan acted to advance both that norm and others in
service of human dignity. In a slightly different direction, Tod
Lindberg, in chapter 2, explores the unique role of the ICC in
developing what he calls the “responsibility to respect” the victims of
atrocities by providing them with restitution. Likewise, in chapter 6,
Mark P. Lagon and Ryan Kaminski examine a broad range of norms
developed by a variety of global institutions that form the “human
rights architecture.” And, finally, in chapter 7 Anthony Clark Arend
discusses the need for clearer norms relating to the treatment of
terrorism suspects.
But these chapters also explore another critical role of traditional
institutions: norm implementation. Not only is it necessary to
develop norms, human dignity demands that norms be made real in
practice. Lagon and Kaminski stress the gap between rights norms
and implementation. Soderberg, Williams, Lagon and Kaminski, and
Lindberg explore in detail the implementation of several norms
aimed at advancing dignity. Chester Crocker in chapter 4 pays
special attention to the role of regional organizations as norm
implementers in the area of conflict resolution. And in chapter 5,
Anoop Singh examines the vital role of international financial
institutions—including the International Monetary Fund—in
promoting strong domestic institutions needed to realize the
economic opportunity that is critical to human dignity.
CHAPTER 1

The United Nations Security Council

NANCY E. SODERBERG

In August 2000, I sat in the informal Security Council room at UN

headquarters in Turtle Bay pressing my colleagues for broader
language in a draft UN resolution establishing a war criminals
tribunal for Sierra Leone. Serving as the Alternate US
Representative, I wanted to make sure that the war crimes tribunal
we were authorizing could target the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor.
Since 1991, through the sale of blood diamonds, Taylor had
supported a ruthless rebel force fighting the democratic government.
These rebels were responsible for tens of thousands of random
killings, mutilations, rapes, and recruitment of child soldiers.
Chopping off hands and eventually limbs had become a particularly
sadistic practice, initially designed to scare people from voting as
their fingers were dipped in indelible ink. The war had killed an
estimated 50,000 out of a population of six million.
Talking back and forth by phone with then assistant secretary of
state for African Affairs Susan Rice, we agreed to keep pressing
Russia and China to accept language that would go beyond citizens
of Sierra Leone. They and others had concerns over sovereignty and
legitimacy for prosecuting foreign war criminals. The resolution
formally requested the creation of an independent special court to
bring to justice those responsible for the horrific war crimes
committed during the civil war. With strong support from Britain, the
former colonial power in Sierra Leone, I secured language that
included “crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law committed
within the territory of Sierra Leone.” That would include Charles
Taylor. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1315
passed 15-0 on August 14, 2000 (UNSC 2000).
This was personal to me. The summer before, I had traveled to
Sierra Leone and visited a shelter for victims of the war. One of the
most searing moments in my nearly thirty years in conflict
prevention was holding a two-year-old girl—wide grin, sparkly eyes,
a pretty flowered dress—missing both her arms. What kind of human
barbarity could propel another human to chop off both a little girls’
arms? I vowed then to do all I could to bring the perpetrator to
justice. I had regretted not acting more forcefully to stop the 1994
genocide in Rwanda while serving as the third-ranked official on the
National Security Council. The scene I visited in December 1994 in
the western village of Nyarbuye in Rwanda still haunts me. Entering
a church, there were still bodies everywhere of men, women, and
children strewn over the floor. Little girls in dresses, men in suits, still
lying where the killers had struck them down with machetes. An
estimated 800,000 men, women, and children had died from April to
July 1994.
Thus, it was particularly gratifying when in April 2012 former
Liberian president Charles Taylor was finally brought to justice for his
role in the Sierra Leone civil war—the first former head of state since
Nuremberg to face such justice. The Special Court for Sierra Leone
found Taylor guilty of eleven counts of war crimes and crimes
against humanity, including murder, rape, and conscripting child
soldiers. Expressing no remorse for his role in the atrocities, Taylor
was sentenced on May 30, 2012, to fifty years in prison—essentially
a life sentence for the sixty-four-year-old former dictator.
Others, too, have been brought to justice through courts set up
by the UNSC. Have these prosecutions saved lives? No. They all
occurred after the killings. Are they a deterrent to future killers?
Probably not, yet. In fact, in the short term, the indictments might
push leaders to cling to power longer, as may well be the case today
in Syria. But in eventually bringing justice, they have helped support
reconciliation and the peace processes that follow the violence. This
represents real progress for the UNSC in standing up for human
rights and dignity around the world. Its words do matter.
While the process of justice is important, so is actual intervention
to stop the killing. But the UNSC has failed to prevent the slaughter
in Syria, the killings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in
Somalia, the crisis in Mali, and other conflicts around the world.
What more should and can the UNSC do to protect lives and
maintain human dignity in the twenty-first century?
The UN was set up in 1945 to maintain international peace and
security and is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all
its Members. The Security Council’s purpose is to determine the
existence of any threat to the peace and to make recommendations
to maintain or restore international peace and security. The
protection of human dignity does not appear in the Charter as a
function of the Security Council. And yet today, we look increasingly
to the UN—and especially to the Security Council—to do just that.
This chapter explores the state of play in the role of the UNSC in
promoting human dignity and offers recommendations on how to
improve its capacity and performance in that important realm.

The Security Council

After two world wars that witnessed the greatest human tragedies
the world has seen, the global powers met in 1945 to establish an
institutional structure to prevent another such war. Previous
attempts to institutionalize global peace and security after the First
World War, such as the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand
pact, proved to be failures when World War II broke out in 1939.
The UN was founded to replace these efforts with a lasting structure
to prevent another world war.
The UN Charter—created in 1945 and amended in 1965—
established a fifteen-member Security Council, the principal organ of
the UN charged with maintaining peace and security.1 This body is
charged as the premier international watchdog and guarantor of
global peace with the authority to impose binding decisions on all UN
member states. The great powers that were the victors of the
Second World War received the most coveted positions as
permanent members on the Security Council, with the all-powerful
veto. The Charter designates five permanent members, the P-5—
China, France, the Soviet Union (with Russia as its successor), the
United Kingdom, and the United States—which were seen as the
primary guardians of global security.
In addition to the permanent members, ten additional members
are elected for two-year terms based on their contributions to peace
and security and regional representation. While the Charter does not
designate seats on a geographical basis, in practice the
nonpermanent seats have been divvied up among regional blocs
(McDonald and Patrick 2010). The regional groups include Asian,
African, Latin American and Caribbean, Eastern European, Western
European, and Others (which includes the United States and Israel).
Once established, the Security Council quickly got wrapped up in
the great power politics of the Cold War and often became a
showcase for the US-Soviet rivalry. Today, however, the debate is
more diffuse, often focusing more on the question of sovereignty
than on some ideological debate. The P-5 largely have the power to
block any issue of their choosing. Thus, today when the P-5
disagree, the UNSC is hamstrung and largely ineffective. That means
Russia will block interference in the crisis in Chechnya, China will do
the same regarding human rights in Taiwan and Tibet, and both will
water down any efforts to sanction their allies, such as Sudan, Syria,
and Iran. The United States uses the veto to protect Israel from
unbalanced resolutions, and disagreements continue on the issue of
terrorism, where some members continue to defend the use of
terrorism by Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel.
The principle of sovereignty on which the UN is based has come
under increasing challenge, however, through the development of a
new norm in 2001 called the Responsibility to Protect (dubbed R2P
or RtoP). Led by then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, it was a
response to the genocides of the late twentieth century, which
resulted from internal conflicts not interstate conflict. There was a
growing recognition that the world had a responsibility to intervene
to save lives if a state failed to do so, and a groundbreaking report
by the International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty (ICISS) argued that “the principle of non-intervention
yields to the international responsibility to protect” (International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty 2001). In 2005,
due in large part to the persistence of one of the ICISS co-chairs,
Gareth Evans, the UN General Assembly finally agreed to the
principle, although in a watered-down version, pledging to take
collective action to help a population at risk (UN General Assembly
2005). In the end, many member states accepted the language only
grudgingly. But, in some ways, this proposed new norm can be
considered a neomedieval revival of a world in which borders are no
longer sacrosanct.
Putting it into practice, however, demonstrates that we are still
very much in the Westphalian phase of international norms in which
the protection of sovereignty is placed above all other interests. The
Responsibility to Protect has yet to be institutionalized or
systematized at the UN or even within member states. For instance,
it failed to overcome objections by Sudan to stop the genocide in
Darfur. Thousands continue to die each month in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. It failed to intervene to stop the crisis in Mali,
which erupted in the spring of 2012. The UNSC authorized the
protection of civilians in Libya but has largely stood by while over
100,000 have died in the crisis in Syria since 2011.
How can we address this inconsistency and better institutionalize
the protection of human life and dignity by the UNSC? First, it is
important to understand the challenges of legitimacy, legality, and
sovereignty in protecting human dignity.

Legitimacy of the UNSC

One key challenge for the members of the UN is the increasing lack
of legitimacy of the UNSC. How is it today that the P-5 retain a
privileged role among nations, both with permanent seats and a
veto? How is it that France and the United Kingdom (UK)—which
contribute far less to the global institutions than do Japan and
Germany—retain their permanent privilege? How can Africa, Latin
America, and the Arab states remain on the sidelines? When the
current system was established six decades ago, 142 of today’s 193
member states did not yet exist and were either under colonial
control or considered part of another state. Today’s Security
Council’s decisions increasingly lack legitimacy in the eyes of many
of those member states that are denied a voice in the process.
Certainly, the UNSC remains the most authoritative international
institution on international peace and security issues, although states
often defy the sanctions against rogue regimes (McDonald and
Patrick 2010). The lack of a more representative Security Council
offers an excuse to those seeking to avoid implementing fully the
Security Council’s decisions. A better balance would help get other
nations invested in tackling today’s global challenges.
The institution has failed to adapt to changes to the postwar
global order that occurred either concurrently with or following the
Cold War, such as decolonization, the rise of the BRICS (Brazil,
Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and globalization. As such,
the Security Council today represents an outdated structure that is
not responsive enough to the concerns of peace and security in the
twenty-first century. As the role and mission of the Security Council
have grown more important in meeting today’s challenges,
modernizing its structure will be an essential part of improving its
ability to protect and defend human dignity through increased
legitimacy.
It is well past time to bring the Security Council into the twenty-
first century and recommendations on how to do so are offered
below. But even with such institutional changes, the challenge of
deciding whether and when to intervene to protect civilians will
remain.
Peacekeeping-When to Intervene against
a State’s Will to Protect Civilians
For the UNSC’s first four decades, state-to-state relations dominated
the Security Council agenda. The Council’s defining actions included
the authorization for and conduct of the Korean War—a conflict
between the United States with allied forces under UN auspices and
North Korea with Chinese support—and the coalition forces against
Saddam Hussein in 1991 following his invasion of Kuwait. The UNSC
authorized just under twenty peacekeeping missions between 1948
and 1989, largely between states; a peacekeeping observer force
has been in Kashmir since 1949 and a truce supervisory force in
Israel since 1948. But the rise of intrastate conflict following the
collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989 posed new challenges for the
Security Council, which has authorized nearly fifty peacekeeping
operations since 1989. Each has struggled with the challenges of
threats to human dignity not just from states but also from nonstate
actors. The UN has gotten better at combatting nonstate actors—
more, better trained forces, security sector reform, better policing,
and better intelligence on the ground. But the UNSC remains
reluctant to challenge the sovereignty of a state abusing its
population. The issue remains one of the most divisive issues in the
UN today.
Therein lies the major dilemma faced today by the UNSC: how,
when, and whether to intervene in the internal affairs of a state to
protect civilians. In the two decades since the end of the Cold War,
the UNSC has done so rarely and largely poorly. The UN Charter
authorizes the use of force in only two instances: Article 51 for self-
defense and Article 42 to address threats to international peace and
security, both under Chapter VII. Since the end of the Cold War,
preventing atrocities has been of increasing concern to the Security
Council, but the Charter is silent on the issue. As threats to civilian
lives came increasingly to the attention of the Council after the Cold
War, the P-5 nations have often disagreed on the appropriate course
of action. Differences in the willingness to intervene in the affairs of
other states have driven the UNSC to make inconsistent decisions in
its interventions to protect life and human dignity.
From Kosovo to East Timor, atrocity prevention has become one
of the primary functions of the Council. Recent developments in
Libya and Syria have brought this role to the forefront. A short
review of some of these interventions can illuminate lessons for
improving the response of the UNSC to threats to civilians and for
addressing the challenges of legitimacy, legality, and sovereignty.
The case of Côte d’Ivoire offers key lessons on how to conduct an
intervention in a civil war.

Kosovo: UNSC Legitimacy versus Legality;

the Role of Regional Organizations
In early 1998, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic accelerated a
policy of repression and intimidation of Kosovo-Albanians in Kosovo,
a province that had enjoyed large autonomy until the end of the
Cold War. During the 1990s, Belgrade’s violent measures in the small
province fueled aspirations for independence and fostered the
emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a small insurgency group.
Serb forces drove some 300,000 Kosovar Albanians from their
homes, and refugees began pouring over the borders as Serb forces
ethnically cleansed the province. As the Serb obstruction continued,
one Serb diplomat even joked, “a village a day keeps NATO away.”
On January 15, 1999, following three days of artillery shelling, Serb
forces entered a village in southern Kosovo, Racak, and executed
forty-five people.
In September 1998, as a response to the violence in Kosovo, the
Security Council passed Resolution 1199, which recognized that the
situation constituted a threat to regional peace and security. It
demanded a ceasefire, a withdrawal of Serb forces attacking
civilians, and a negotiated solution to Kosovo. The vote was 14–0,
with China abstaining, fearing a precedent that might lead to
international interference in its own affairs. Russia was wary but
voted yes. The resolution contained the Chapter VII reference and
defined the situation as a “threat to peace and security in the
region.” However, in an example of how detailed the negotiations in
the UN can get, Russia had refused a reference to “international”
threat and blocked the inclusion of an authorization of “all necessary
means,” to counter the threat, UN-speak for the authorization of the
use of force (UNSC 1998).
Having dithered in stopping the violence in Bosnia, President Bill
Clinton took the lead in the fall of 1998 in threatening Milosevic with
NATO air strikes against Serbia proper if he did not halt the atrocities
in Kosovo. NATO announced on January 1999 its intention to use
force to compel compliance should either the Serbs or the Kosovars
reject the proposals. Despite the strong opposition of China and
Russia, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged NATO to endorse the
approach, declaring that the wars of the 1990s had not “left us with
any illusions about the need to use force, when all other means have
failed. We may be reaching that limit, once again, in the former
Yugoslavia” (Annan 1999).
Russia had endorsed the political strategy but strongly opposed
the use of force and indicated that it would veto any Security Council
resolution authorizing the use of force. Hence, to avoid a situation in
which the Security Council explicitly rejected an authorization to use
force, NATO members in the Council did not seek authorization for
its use of force. Instead, it used NATO to provide authorization to its
action, circumventing the Council in an action that would save lives—
but undermine the UN’s authority as the sole arbiter in international
law of the authorization of the use of force.
Although the United States and its NATO allies anticipated that a
short, intense bombing campaign would quickly coerce Milosevic to
the negotiation table, Belgrade instead hastened its ethnic cleansing
of Kosovo, expelling most of the Kosovar Albanian population from
their homes. In all, nearly three-fourths of the prewar population of
1.8 million ethnic Albanians were driven from their homes. Eight
hundred thousand were forced out of the country; another 500,000
were internally displaced.
 By late May, NATO launched Operation Allied Force, which
included as many as 300 strike sorties a day against the Serbs’ air
defense network, infrastructure, command centers, airfields, main
army units and heavy weapons. While NATO expected a short
campaign, it instead lasted for seventy-eight days. NATO conducted
38,400 air sorties, including nearly 10,500 air strikes against Serb
targets. Not one NATO fatality occurred.
While the campaign initially failed to deter Milosevic’s ethnic
cleansing of Kosovo, in the end it succeeded in reversing the ethnic
cleansing when the Serb troops withdrew. On June 12, peace-
enforcing troops from NATO and non-NATO countries entered
Kosovo. Within five days, 20,000 troops had been deployed as part
of the force that would eventually reach 46,000 from 39 countries,
including the 12,000 European Rapid Reaction Force troops and
25,000 US troops.
Thus, NATO’s war in Kosovo was initiated without explicit UNSC
authorization, although the military action was endorsed by NATO,
the UN secretary-general, and a large part of the international
community. In addition, the campaign’s political goals were
supported by a series of previous UNSC resolutions and by all the
key leaders in Europe, thus guaranteeing strong international
support for the policy’s implementation once the military campaign
ended. Today, 760 US troops continue to serve as part of the NATO
force of 5,600 in Kosovo.
Unlike the 2003 Iraq War, also undertaken without an explicit
UNSC resolution, the operation in Kosovo is viewed as largely
legitimate because it saved lives and had regional European buy-in,
as well as authorization by NATO. Therein lie three key lessons going
forward. First, in cases where any one of the P-5 is prepared to veto
an operation, the UNSC is powerless to act. Russia and China
successfully blocked the UNSC from supporting the intervention in
Kosovo and, later, any forceful intervention to stop the Darfur
genocide throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century. The
UNSC, in fact, let the government of Sudan dictate the UN’s efforts
to stop the very genocide the government was orchestrating in
Darfur—a dismal failure. The UNSC has never intervened in
Chechnya, despite the immense toll of the war on civilians there over
the last two decades. That means the veto power of the P-5 can
undermine the positive development of international norms on
atrocity prevention that has occurred over the last two decades.
Essentially all that a human rights-violating regime has to do for self-
preservation is to become allies with one veto-wielding member of
the Security Council—most often that will be Russia or China.
Second, the key validator in the absence of any UNSC action is a
regional organization. While still considered “illegal,” regionally
authorized missions can serve as key validators to an operation
designed to save lives. Norms have shifted in recent decades, from
the public and policymakers alike both in the United States and
abroad, towards less tolerance of human rights violations (Council on
Foreign Relations 2011). With it must shift the legitimacy of
operations to protect lives that do not have UNSC authorization. In
addition, regional organizations will be key to securing the
postconflict reconstruction investment essential to maintaining peace
as neighboring nations have the most at stake in ensuring peace.
Third, one of the P-5 nations must be prepared to act and usually
that means the United States. Had the United States not been willing
to lead in the decision to use force, even with NATO authorization,
more lives would have been lost.
In the case of Libya, the UNSC did authorize intervention, but the
divisions remained throughout and the escalation to a regime-
change mission will haunt future efforts to secure UNSC
authorization.

Libya: Intervening against a State’s Will to

Protect Lives-the Exception or an
Evolution?
The operation in Libya represents the importance of regional support
as well as UNSC authorization. The UNSC was divided over the initial
authorization and even more so after it became an effort to
overthrow the regime. Whether it sets a new bar in the willingness
of the UNSC to intervene in the internal affairs of a nation remains to
be seen. Early indications are that it will not (Kumbaro 2001).
In late 2010 and early 2011, an entire region was inspired by the
actions of one man. A street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set
himself on fire in Tunisia in protest of being hassled over
bureaucratic violations as he sought to sell his wares. The regime in
Tunisia quickly fell and was soon followed by dramatic street protests
in Egypt, leading to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
International attention soon turned to Libya and the protests against
then president Muammar Qaddafi. However, the Qaddafi regime
proved to be tougher and more violent than what the world had
anxiously watched in Tunisia and Egypt. Attacks on civilians
worsened, and the man once known as the “mad dog of the Middle
East” was making public threats to slaughter his own citizens “like
rats” in the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.
On March 17, 2011, the UNSC took action. The body approved
Resolution 1973, imposing a ban on all flights in the country’s
airspace—a no-fly zone—and tightened sanctions on the Qaddafi
regime and its supporters. The demand was to end the attacks
against civilians, which it said might constitute “crimes against
humanity.” The 10–0 vote with five abstentions authorized the NATO-
led Operation Odyssey Dawn for civilian protection. Those abstaining
included Brazil, India, Germany, Russia, and China.
This was a significant move in the development of the Security
Council’s role in atrocity prevention. Resolution 1973 marked the first
time the Council had authorized the use of force for human
protection purposes against the will of a functioning state (Bellamy
and Williams 2011). There are a number of factors particular to
Libya that led to the international decision to use force. First, there
was a widespread regional consensus for intervention. This support
came from the Arab League, Organization of the Islamic Conference,
and Gulf Cooperation Council. Another significant factor was the
poor international standing of the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi had no
advocates on the Security Council, the way that Serbia did with
Russia in the Kosovo case. There was a clear and immediate threat
to civilians. Qaddafi had publicly announced his intention to
slaughter civilians in Benghazi. Finally, of course, was the fact that
Libya has oil. Rarely is the international community faced with such a
combination of factors in favor of intervention.
But UNSC agreement quickly fell apart as the NATO-led operation
rapidly escalated into a regime-change operation. Rather than only
use air strikes to protect the citizens of Benghazi, NATO began to
attack the regimes’ forces around the country, eventually targeting
Qaddafi’s troops. NATO forces even contributed in the hunt for
Qaddafi as surveillance drones guided Libyan rebels to the former
dictator’s final location where he was captured and killed.
In the end, the operation halted the crimes against humanity. But
its expansion beyond that, to overthrowing the regime, was not
supported by Russia or China and had mixed support in the Arab
world, clearly contributing to the later lack of enthusiasm for action
to stop the bloodshed in Syria. And tragically, a misreading of
support for the United States among the people of Benghazi led to
lax security measures at the US Consulate there, resulting in the
tragic death of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three
other Americans in September 2012.
The Libya case, therefore, is not likely to set a low floor for
interventions in the future. Rarely is the region going to come
together to give the action legitimacy; rarely is NATO going to be
willing to act. Rarely is a leader going to have so few defenders
among the P-5 as did Qaddafi.
The Libya experience points to two additional lessons. First, the
escalation from a civilian protection mission to regime change will
raise the bar for future such UNSC authorizations. Even though none
of the P-5 stood up for the Qaddafi regime, China and Russia
strongly opposed the mission’s escalation. While other factors are
also at play, we are already seeing a backlash in Russia’s strong
defense of Syria’s sovereignty and opposition to UNSC authorization
for intervention.
 The second lesson is that Libya has further devolved the concept
of sovereignty; it is clearly less and less an immutable shield of a
recalcitrant state than it had been. That, in and of itself, is an
important development in the evolution of the definition of
sovereignty at the UN. The operation was designed clearly to defend
civilians—although no such intervention in a state’s affairs is
authorized by the Charter. We do not yet know if the intervention will
prove to be the exception or the evolution. Perhaps the legacy of
Libya in the longer run is to set the bar a bit lower in the willingness
of the UNSC to take on the issue of intervention over a state’s
objections in the effort to protect civilians.
But that is not the case in Syria.

Syria: Reluctant Region, Clear Failure to

Protect Civilian Lives
In March 2011, nationwide protests demanded the resignation of
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the end to the nearly half
century of Ba’ath Party rule. Unlike the efforts in Egypt and Tunisia,
the regime reacted brutally, unleashing a crackdown against both
the rebels and civilians. In August 2011, President Obama called for
President Assad to resign, and the United States imposed sanctions
designed to undermine Assad’s ability to finance his military
operation. He later sent aid to the opposition, at first only nonlethal,
but he eventually agreed to send arms as well. In mid-December
2012, he also joined other European powers in recognizing the
Syrian Opposition Coalition as the legitimate representative of the
Syrian people. The United States also designated the group Jabhat
al-Nusrah as a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq.
But Assad dug in, and by early 2012 nearly 9,000 had been killed,
and human rights groups were demanding action. The United States
and Europeans had rallied behind a diplomatic push by the Arab
League for a peace plan that would have involved Assad yielding at
least some of his powers and paving the way for the creation of a
government of national unity led by an individual with backing from
the government and opposition. Yet, in February 2012, Russia and
China vetoed a Western and Arab League-sponsored resolution
condemning Syria’s violent repression of the nearly year-old
antigovernment demonstrators. This action threw the heft of
Moscow and Beijing behind a beleaguered and repressive President
Bashar al-Assad as he intensified a military operation aimed at
crushing the uprising. At the time, Russia’s envoy, Sergey Lavrov,
underscored the impediment sovereignty represents, saying, “We are
not friends or allies of President Assad.… We try to stick to our
responsibilities as permanent members of the Security Council, and
the Security Council by definition does not engage in domestic affairs
of member states” (Khan 2012).
The UN-Arab League envoy, the distinguished former UN
secretary-general Kofi Annan, resigned in August 2012 after only six
months on the job. He bitterly blamed the lack of progress on Syrian
government intransigence, increasing militancy by Syrian rebels, and
the failure of a divided Security Council to rally forcefully behind his
efforts. His replacement, former UN official Lakhdar Brahimi, has
fared no better.
Over the course of the next year, Assad continued his assault on
the population, including the use of chemical weapons, with over
100,000 estimated by the UN to have been killed by the fall of 2013,
largely by the regime’s forces. The game appeared to change
significantly when Assad’s regime unleashed a significant attack
using chemical weapons on August 21, killing over 1,000 men,
women, and children. Graphic pictures of the bodies of hundreds of
children with obvious symptoms of a chemical attack—foaming at
the mouth and ears, frozen stiff in death—flooded the airwaves.
President Obama, having declared the use of chemical weapons a
“red line,” felt compelled to act. On September 1, he announced he
had decided to take military action against Syrian regime targets to
hold the Assad regime accountable, to deter future such acts, and to
degrade the regime’s capacity.
 However, momentum for military action quickly stalled when
Secretary of State John Kerry casually answered a press question on
what, if anything, the Syrians could do to avoid a military strike:
“Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to
the international community in the next week—turn it over, all of it
without delay and allow the full and total accounting (of it), but he
isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done” (Mohammed and Osborn
2013). The Russians quickly seized on the opportunity to secure a
Syrian agreement to do just that, ending any talk of military
intervention. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons, awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, moved quickly to
secure and eventually destroy the weapons, ensuring the Assad
regime would never again use them against the population. While
denying the regime the ability to use chemical weapons to slaughter
its people is certainly a good thing, it has done little to stop the
broader killing or the civil war. Supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
radical groups, including al-Qaeda affiliates, are now infiltrated into
the opposition, and the Assad regime appears entrenched with
continued support from the Russians and Iranians. Neither the Free
Syrian Army nor the government appears powerful enough to prevail
on the battlefield. Few are optimistic that UN sponsored peace talks
in Geneva will make significant progress.
Throughout the conflict, President Obama has remained at arm’s
length, keeping any US ground troops off-limits. His options had
already been complicated by a vote in late August in the British
Parliament against joining the United States in military action.
Shortly afterwards, President Obama decided to first seek
congressional approval of the use of force but awkwardly made the
case in a nationwide address for military action after he had already
decided to give the Russian initiative on chemical weapons a chance.
The vacillation in the use of force and in seeking congressional
approval sparked harsh criticism of the Obama team’s foreign policy.
By December 2013, 57 percent disagreed with the way the United
States acted in Syria and only 34 percent agreed with his overall
foreign policy (Pew 2013). By April 2014, 150,000 Syrians had been
killed, with 2.5 million refugees and another 9.3 million in need of
assistance (USAID 2014). Assad’s control appears to be tightening.
The tragedy of Syria underscores a brutal lesson in the reality of
protecting civilians and human dignity in the second decade of the
twenty-first century. The UNSC cannot adopt a resolution authorizing
the use of force with the objections of a permanent member of the
Council (in this case two, China and Russia). Unlike NATO, the Arab
League is wholly unprepared to intervene in the region. Despite the
experiences of Côte d’Ivoire and Libya, the world is far from
prepared to act in any consistent and principled way. The people of
Syria are paying the price for this inaction.

Recommendations
These very different instances of UNSC intervention to protect
human life and dignity demonstrate the difficulties of this challenge
in the twenty-first century. Political will is the biggest hurdle,
followed by the lack of regional capabilities. The P-5 play a key but
uneven role in the decision to intervene—and thus interventions will
be inconsistent and sporadic. From the discrepancy between legality
and legitimacy to the conflict between sovereignty and the need to
back up diplomatic efforts with a credible use of force, the
challenges for action will likely remain for some time. In a
neomedieval world, where an increasing number of actors are
playing a critical role, the protection of civilians will require a varied
and multifaceted approach that includes state actors, regional
organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and global bodies.
Going forward, there are no easy solutions or quick fixes. Each
avenue offers trade-offs between legality, legitimacy, sovereignty,
and effectiveness. The world may have adopted the principle of
Responsibility to Protect, but it is far from creating any kind of
standards for actually implementing it. Regrettably, that is likely to
remain the case so long as half of the world is not democratic and
wants to maintain its immunity from outside interference. And the
democratic half often is unwilling to assume the responsibility to
intervene.
The UNSC, which was founded to be the chief protector of global
peace and security, must do better. The international community can
take steps to increase the legitimacy of the UNSC actions, the
capacity of the operations it authorizes, and the use of instruments
to protect human dignity more boldly.

1. Pursue United Nations Security Council Expansion to Address

Twenty-First Century Global Power Structure. To maintain its
legitimacy and consequent support for its actions, the Security
Council membership must reflect the current reality of twenty-first
century global power. Authorizing interventions and peacekeeping
missions must involve the regions affected; those providing
significant financial resources to the UN must have a stronger say in
its decisions. The challenges beyond human protection the United
States and the world are likely to face in the future—climate change,
terrorism, economic development, nonproliferation, water resources
—will become increasingly global in nature, requiring global solutions
that must include voices from all the world’s regions.
It is important to recognize that an expanded Security Council will
not necessarily work better, be more efficient, or produce bolder
solutions to these challenges. But it will make the decisions more
legitimate and achieve stronger regional buy-in—a key element to
maintaining support for the Security Council’s decisions and lasting
stability. In other words, expansion is a vital, if imperfect, pursuit.
Without it, the UNSC decisions will not have global buy-in.2
The most practical solution is to expand the Security Council’s
permanent membership from five to twelve, to include Brazil, Egypt,
Germany, India, Japan, Nigeria, and South Africa. This step means
adding an additional seat to the previously discussed two
African/Arab slots. Specific criteria on contributions to the UN could
be developed to determine (and justify) the selection of these new
members. One could possibly split the Arab and Africa groups and
initiate a review of the European membership on the Security
Council—or even totally revise the current regional groupings.
There would be no immediate change in the veto, although the
current P-5 would agree to limit even further their use of it. The
issue of the veto would be reviewed every ten years, with the
ultimate goal being its elimination. There would still be ten
impermanent elected members, making the total Security Council
membership twenty-two. Over time, the United Kingdom and French
seats could be collapsed into one European Union (EU) seat, leaving
twenty-one members.
This move would help balance the Security Council and give it
more credibility in the global arena. Not only do the countries listed
above contribute more financially to the UN than other members,
but their admission would also bring a greater representation of the
global population as well as the current global power structure. Most
of these countries are regularly elected onto the Council for the
rotating seats for the regional representation. It is important to note,
however, that such agreement would be very difficult to achieve as
strong divisions remain over the veto and the appropriate regional
candidates.

2. Strengthen Regional Organizations for Atrocity Prevention. The

world’s capability to intervene to protect civilians or prevent and
contain conflict varies greatly. While Asia, Europe, Latin America, and
North America generally have the capacity to intervene in their
region, Africa and the Arab nations will need continued international
support to develop the capacities to do so. Particularly as the United
States and its NATO partners tire of being the port of first call for
military interventions, the international community must begin to
strengthen the capabilities of regional organizations and regional
peacekeeping forces. Nations in the neighborhood bear the brunt of
the conflict, in terms of refugees, lack of trade, and a variety of
negative consequences to war. They are the ones that will benefit
most from conflict prevention and containment; they are the ones
most willing to send troops into combat to defend their clear
interests. As we saw in the case of Kosovo and Libya, regional
organizations also can confer legitimacy on military operations.
The League of Arab States lacks the capacity—and the will—to
intervene in defense of human dignity. The organization’s charter
maintains the primacy of state sovereignty, and its membership has
mostly consisted of autocrats disinclined to intervene to protect
civilian lives. However, as the Arab Spring began to sweep the Middle
East in 2011, the Arab League played an increasingly highlighted
role, even pushing for action on regional security issues. Its rapid,
unified response to Muammar Qaddafi’s brutal crackdown in Libya
likely tipped the balance at the UN in favor of NATO’s military
intervention. Its suspension of Libyan and Syrian membership, the
observer mission, and pursuit for a Security Council resolution are
significant steps (Lynch 2012). These were all political steps,
however, underscoring the utter lack of capacity to act militarily to
support civilian lives in the conflict. That role fell to NATO.
The abysmal failure to intervene to stem the Syrian crisis
demonstrates the divisions within Arab states on when, whether, and
how to intervene. Saudi Arabia, in fact, is sending support to the
opposition forces in Syria, but in March 2011 they sent 2,000 troops
to Bahrain to crush the uprising there. The Gulf Cooperation Council
for the first time used collective military action—but it was to help
prop up Bahrain’s king, a Sunni ruler in a Shiamajority nation, and
crush the Shi’ite uprising. So long as these Arab regimes commit
significant human rights abuses at home, they will remain on the
sidelines—or even on the wrong side—of the protection of human
dignity.
The continent of Africa faces the biggest gaps in capacity to
protect civilians, with vast deficiencies in civilian structures and
military forces to maintain peace and stability. For instance, the
UNSC resolution passed in December 2012 authorized an African
force of 3,300 to help the weak armed forces of Mali oust rebel
forces who were terrorizing the population in northern Mali.
However, the resolution recognizes that there is not yet a realistic
military plan to do so—a clear recognition that the African force is
not up to the task.3
Since its inception in October 2008, the United States Africa
Command and NATO have been critical partners in helping Africa
address a range of challenges, including counterterrorism capacity-
building, disaster management, peacekeeping capacity-building,
humanitarian operations, demining, and other key activities, such as
counterpiracy activities off the Somali coast. The United States has
also conducted extensive bilateral efforts through its Global Peace
Operations Initiative program initiated in 2004 to address major gaps
in international peace operations support. These efforts should be
broadened, with the ultimate goal of an international system of
regional peacekeeping forces—and at times intervention forces—to
be the port of first call to protect human rights. International
peacekeeping training centers, such as the one in Jakarta,
Indonesia, could help implement standard levels of capabilities
worldwide. Regionally based centers of training, with standard
training and equipping doctrines, could be useful in developing
centers of first response in conflict areas, limiting conflict and
perhaps even preventing it.
The State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization
Operations must look at ways to strengthen support, especially when
implementing its mandate to strengthen civil capacity. Extensive
consultation with Congress will be necessary as the Bureau has yet
to be adequately funded or staffed, and many in Congress
attempted to eliminate funding in 2011. In addition, Congress should
continue its financial support of the United States Institute of Peace,
a vital partner in the conflict prevention and resolution realm that
was created by an act of Congress in 1984. The International Crisis
Group is also a critical partner in these efforts, which deserves
robust US support.
Such a worldwide system of capable regional forces, however,
can only come about with the strong support of and coordination by
the UN.
 3. Stronger Support for UN Peacekeeping—A Key Line of Defense
of Human Dignity. A little-noted fact is that the UN has the second
largest deployed security force in the world. With over 100,000
troops and police in the field on seventeen missions, the UN is
second only to the United States. The world is turning increasingly to
the UN to deploy peacekeeping missions to protect civilians,
meaning these troops are often on the front lines of protecting
human dignity. Considerable progress has been made since 1999
when the first mandate to protect civilians was included for the
peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone. Over the past twelve years,
the secretary-general has put forward over one hundred
recommendations on the protection of civilians to the Security
Council, many of which the Council has acted upon, including
country-specific decisions and in thematic resolutions to improve the
protection of civilians. Countries have deployed troop and police
personnel to difficult environments to fulfill protection of civilian
mandates.
Many peacekeeping missions, however, have failed to provide
systematic or consistent protection of civilians. The UN leadership
recognized in 2009 that it needs “better planning for missions
mandated to protect civilians, a more coherent approach to
protecting civilians, and improvement of the guidance available to
missions mandated with this task” (Holt and Taylor 2009). It has
undertaken a systematic review to identify the gaps in policy and
preparedness it faces and has sought to have better coordination
from the Security Council, countries contributing troops and police,
the UN Secretariat, and the field. But it is up to the member states
to fill those gaps.
Not only is the increased demand for protection of civilians a
challenge, the sheer magnitude of the peacekeeping missions is as
well. There has been a five-fold increase in peacekeeping since
2000, from 20,000 peacekeepers in the field to a present capacity of
100,000. The complexity of peacekeeping has grown as well. Since
2003, UN peacekeepers have deployed to no less than eight complex
operations, often operating simultaneously.
 The United States now recognizes that effective UN peacekeeping
operations are central to US national security interests. President
Obama’s 2010 National Security Strategy includes a commitment to
“strengthen the UN’s leadership and operational capacity in
peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, post-disaster recovery,
development assistance, and the promotion of human rights” (US
National Security Council 2010). The Pentagon’s 2010 Quadrennial
Defense Review makes the Department of Defense’s commitment to
support and enhance the capacity of the UN quite explicit (US
Department of Defense 2010). Since taking office, the Obama
administration has paid off peacekeeping arrears accumulated over
the previous four years, including approximately $2 billion for the
UN’s peacekeeping budget in 2009 and almost $3 billion in
humanitarian and development assistance for the eight countries
that host multidimensional UN peacekeeping missions. In 2009, the
United States also provided more than $600 million for training,
equipment, and logistics assistance to fifty-five nations to help
bolster their capacity to contribute troops and police for
peacekeeping operations (Soderberg 2011).
These steps are partly in response to the UN’s impressive
progress in implementing reforms and managing the explosion of
peacekeeping operations over the two decades. Twelve years after
the 2000 Report of the Panel on UN peace operations, known as the
Brahimi Report (United Nations 2000), the UN has implemented
many of the suggested reforms to make peacekeeping faster, more
capable, and more effective. Those reforms focused on improving
five key areas: personnel, doctrine, partnerships, resources, and
organization. The UN also set up a “Peacekeeping Best Practices
Section,” which has helped synchronize effective information
management practices and strengthened the development of policy
and doctrine, as well as institutionalized learning systems for
peacekeeping. It has worked to establish predictable frameworks for
cooperation with regional organizations, including common
peacekeeping standards and modalities for cooperation and
transition, and to conduct, where possible, joint training exercises
(UN Secretary-General 2006; Soderberg 2011).
Yet, gaps in personnel and other civilian and military resources
remain. Some of the Brahimi reforms have only been partially
implemented, such as a global logistics strategy and effective
integrated planning mechanisms. Given the extraordinary growth of
UN peacekeeping, and with no reduction in need on the horizon, the
ready stocks and funds to deploy missions have not been sufficiently
adjusted to meet the needed, higher levels (UN Department of
Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support 2009).
Civilian gaps include equipment and training, individual police
officers, additional corrections staff/consultants to undertake
corrections specialist projects, and experts on justice and
corrections.4 The military gaps include mobility (surface and aerial)
capability, aviation assets, and basic training and equipment.
These basic gaps hinder the ability of the UN’s missions to carry
out their mandates from the UNSC, especially those relating to the
protection of civilians. While the United States is not in a position to
provide much of the UN’s requests itself, a better and higher-level
process is needed to ensure these civilian and military gaps are
appropriately addressed and provided for—either by the United
States when it is able to or by other nations with the necessary
capabilities. High level direct requests by the United States—
especially when made by senior Pentagon officials—can often
galvanize other nations to meet the UN’s needs (Soderberg 2007).
Despite the recognition by the United States of the importance of
UN peacekeeping, today the United States provides only thirty-one
troops to UN peacekeeping operations and another ninety police and
military experts. One of the UN’s priorities is to close the increasing
supply and demand gap by enlarging the base of troop contributors
beyond its current top five: Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, and
Rwanda. One way to do that is to increase the commitment of the P-
5 to participation in peacekeeping operations, which today is less
than 4.5 percent of the 100,000 UN-deployed troops, police, and
military experts. As the United States withdraws its troops from
Afghanistan, it should consider providing additional troops to the UN.
Such deployments would not only help galvanize others to
contribute, it would also offer the United States important training
opportunities for future US efforts. To help the UN peacekeeping
missions to be better able to protect civilians, the United States
should also deepen its support for the UN with regard to filling
civilian and military gaps and provide more US personnel to UN
headquarters and police. The UN’s New Horizon plan encourages
Western Countries (particularly in Europe) to return to more robust
UN peacekeeping participation (UNDPKO and DFS 2009).
As the UN seeks to significantly enhance levels of interoperability
among its peacekeeper-contributing countries within the decade,
more efforts will be needed to achieve interoperability among and
between military peacekeepers, police, and Formed Police Units. The
United States could integrate the training of potential UN troop
contributors into its training efforts, perhaps through the combatant
commands. There is a clear need to establish a UN Clearing House
to track capabilities and needs to better coordinate efforts by donors
(Soderberg 2011).
Lastly, some form of a UN crisis response reserve force should be
established. While it remains controversial, it is critical that the UN
have a capacity to move quickly to stem a growing crisis. Over-the-
horizon proposals are under discussion, but many countries do not
want to pay for a standing force not in use. The UN continues to
need this capacity and hopes to reopen the dialogue in the context
of the global force posture. One option is something between a full
reserve and training from scratch (Soderberg 2011).

4. Strengthen US Support for the International Criminal Court as

a Tool for Human Dignity Protection. One of the tools for the
protection of human dignity is utilizing the UNSC’s power of referrals
to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The earlier special
tribunals for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and Sierra Leone have
brought us a long way in the development of international
humanitarian and criminal law. And while the ICC is still developing
and its role in international politics has yet to be fully fleshed out, it
has grown significantly in importance. Furthermore, the willingness
to support the ICC is growing among states, even those with
traditionally absolutist views on sovereignty.
While Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC at
the very end of his presidency in 2000, Congressional objections to
jurisdiction over US soldiers and other concerns continue to prevent
Senate ratification. The United States, along with Russia, China,
India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and most of the Arab world, has still not
joined. Although for much of George W. Bush’s first term the United
States was openly hostile to the court, there has been a great deal
of progress in the US-ICC relationship in recent years. The Bush
administration pushed through Congress the American Service-
Members’ Protection Act of 2002, which blocks some cooperation
with the court and sanctions the invasion of the Netherlands to
liberate any Americans detained for ICC trials. At the UN, it also
insisted under the threat of a veto of all peacekeeping missions that
any peacekeepers be exempt from the ICC. While the UNSC agreed
to provide US personnel an exemption for a few years (UNSC 2002),
the effort stalled by 2004.
Today, the United States is increasingly using the ICC to further
its foreign policy goals. For instance, in 2005, despite the strong
opposition of President Bush to the ICC, the United States abstained
from the vote that referred Sudan’s President Bashir to the ICC, thus
allowing the indictment to occur. In 2011, the United States took a
further step. Along with the United Kingdom, France, and non-ICC
members China and Russia, the US supported UNSC Resolution
1970, which referred the situation in Libya to the prosecutor of the
ICC and called on Libyan authorities to cooperate fully with the
Court. In the spring of 2011, the Obama administration opposed
deferring several cases relating to the 2007–2008 violence in Kenya.
And in the fall of 2011, the Obama administration also sent one
hundred military advisers to help Uganda apprehend the head of the
Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, who was indicted by the ICC
for the use of child soldiers and other war crimes. Another arrest
warrant is out for the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad Al
Bashir, for war crimes in Darfur.
Since coming into effect on July 1, 2002, the ICC has indicted
more than twenty leaders for their abuses in seven African nations.
Three state parties have referred situations to the ICC—Uganda, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.
In all, 121 nations have joined the treaty, including all of Europe and
South America, as well as most democracies.
The Obama administration has signaled its support for the ICC in
a variety of ways beyond the support for referrals and indictments. It
decided to take up the role of observer in ICC Assembly of States
Parties meetings and the Kampala Review Conference. The United
States has a program, Rewards for Justice, that makes payments to
those who provide information leading to the arrest of indicted
fugitives of the ICC. In 2012, President Barack Obama created the
Atrocities Prevention Board to coordinate US government prevention
activities, including US posture on the ICC’s pursuit of atrocities
indictments (Scheffer 2012). Its record to date is mixed, and many
question whether the Atrocities Prevention Board will survive beyond
the Obama administration. In addition, the administration is
supporting the ICC in all cases where the ICC has issued an arrest
warrant, providing assistance for ICC investigations and
prosecutions, including information-sharing and help with witness
protection and relocation, and providing diplomatic and political
support for the arrest and transfer of ICC fugitives to The Hague
(Coughlan 2011).
While ratification of the ICC is probably unrealistic in the near
term, the United States should continue providing such
prosecutorial, political, and diplomatic support to the Court absent
ratification of the Rome Statute. In addition, the United States
should increase its public statements in support of ICC
investigations. As the new ICC prosecutor mentioned, such
statements by high-level government officials can be helpful to the
Court on the ground in places where there are ongoing
investigations (Council on Foreign Relations 2012).
 David Scheffer, the first ambassador for War Crimes Issues,
argues that with increased support, the United States has become a
de facto member of the ICC and that there is more the United States
should do short of de jure participation. The United States could take
the initiative in the UNSC to ensure the investigative and
prosecutorial costs of the Security Council’s referrals to the ICC are
at least partially paid for with UN funds. He also suggests repealing
the American Service-Members’ Protection Act of 2002 (Scheffer
2012).
Others argue that the Council follows a double standard in its
referrals—only two in its decade of operations, Sudan and Libya—
calling into question its impartiality and independence. Human rights
organizations have criticized the UNSC’s failure to act in places such
as Sri Lanka and Syria, and the fact that the United States, Russia,
and China are permanent Security Council members but are not
subject to the court’s authority. As one human rights activist put it,
“When it comes to ICC referrals, the United States, Russia, and
China seem more concerned about prosecuting their enemies and
protecting their friends” (Human Rights Watch 2012).
Surely, the ICC has shortcomings that must be addressed,
including inconsistencies, inexcusably slow processes, and the failure
to take action outside of Africa. But overall, in the development of
international criminal justice, the growing willingness among states,
even those with traditionally absolutist views on sovereignty, to
deliver justice is notable. The more involved the United States is in
its decisions, the more likely the decisions will do more to protect
human dignity.

Conclusion
These recommendations are meant to provide a series of options to
further human dignity in the new century. As outlined above, the
global environment regarding human dignity is complex, but there is
great promise. Increasingly, the world is seeing individuals around
the globe standing up for their economic and political rights. At the
same time, international institutions are increasing their role in
international politics and thus have a growing responsibility in
protecting these rights. The UNSC is the most powerful organization
when it comes to matters of war and peace, and it must adapt to
the changing nature of global politics in the twenty-first century.
Over a dozen years into the twenty-first century, international
politics continues to develop at a dynamic and rapid pace.
Democratic developments have pushed forward—unevenly across
the Middle East but dramatically so with Aung San Suu Kyi being
elected to parliament in Burma and South Sudan obtaining
independence. These events offer tremendous opportunity for
progress—but also risk descending into chaos. Also, the long
festering conflicts in Somalia, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, and Kashmir as well as the civil war in Mali and the crisis in
Syria will demand greater attention. Surely, the instances of
violations of human dignity will continue to pose challenges for
decades to come.
Especially as awareness and capacity to act grow, calls to address
violations of human dignity will grow too. Whether the UNSC will be
up to the task will depend in large part on stronger US leadership in
the decades ahead. We must meet that challenge to be, as President
Obama has said, on the right side of history (Obama 2011).

Notes
1. In 1965, the UN Charter was amended to expand the UNSC
from eleven to fifteen members, adding four impermanent members.
Amending the Charter requires approval of two-thirds of the UN
General Assembly and ratification of domestic implementing
legislation by two-thirds of the member states, including all of the P-
5.
2. Some disagree with this assertion. Ian Hurd has an interesting
essay arguing that enlargement might not add to legitimacy. See Ian
Hurd, “Myths of Membership: The Politics of Legitimization in UN
Security Council Reform,” in Paul F. Diehl and Brian Frederking, The
Politics of Global Governance: International Organizations in an
Interdependent World, 4th ed. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010),
91–110.
3. See UNSC Resolution 2085, UN.org.
4. Current Critical Rule of Law and Other Civilian Capability Gaps
in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, June 2, 2010, 1. Note
that the United States built barracks for the Congolese armed forces
battalion trained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, African
Union: email exchange with DOD November 1, 2010.

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address-inconsistency-icc-referrals-0.
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CHAPTER 2

The Responsibility to Respect

Victims and Human Dignity at the
International Criminal Court
TOD LINDBERG

The concept of “human dignity” or the “dignity of the person” has

become increasingly important to the normative framework of
national and international law, as well as to the broader discourse on
human, political, and civil rights. Some have sought in the concept of
equal dignity a ground for human rights as such. Though some have
taken a very contrary view, wondering whether the concept of
dignity adds anything at all to discourse on rights and duties, others
have rejected what they consider to be excessive claims made in the
name of dignity but have sought to retain the concept in some other
capacity (M. Rosen 2012, 1–10). The editors of this book in chapter
1 have proposed a definition of dignity grounded in a classically
liberal view of the autonomous individual in pursuit of her own vision
of the good in the context of a Hegelian ethics of mutual
recognition: Human dignity is the fundamental capacity of human
beings to apply their gifts to thrive. As such, it requires social
recognition of each person’s inherent value and claim to equal
access to opportunity. To be meaningful, human dignity must be
institutionalized in practice and governance.
The question before authors of chapters in this book is how
international institutions serve to advance human dignity according
to the definition above and how they might better do so. The issue
boils down to how well an international institution does foster or can
foster the “social recognition of each person’s inherent value and
claim to equal access to opportunity”—which is the prerequisite of
“the fundamental capacity of human beings to apply their gifts to
thrive.” How well an international institution serves to promote
“social recognition” of this view of human beings is an eminently
reasonable and answerable question. Promotion of “social
recognition” is a matter, first, of embracing institutionally a principle
of equal treatment of persons (and their right to equal access to
opportunity) and second, of extending that view outward by the
means at the disposal of the institution.
The International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) at the Hague,
established by the Rome Statute of 1998, has as the subject matter
of its jurisdiction some of the world’s worst atrocity crimes:
genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and, not yet in effect,
the crime of aggression. As of this writing, the Court has 121
member states. The United States is not a member, but since the
second term of the George W. Bush administration, has adopted
evolving policies of increased cooperation with the Court. Its work in
the promotion of human dignity is the subject of this essay. We will
consider here especially the Court’s novel work with victims of
atrocity crimes. The Court has a treaty mandate not only to hold
perpetrators of crimes to account but also to be cognizant of the
plight of victims. This is not merely a matter of vindicating the rights
of victims but includes as well a sense on the part of the Court
throughout its operations of an institutional responsibility to show
respect for the dignity of victims and their suffering.

Crime Victims and Their Rights

However one chooses to approach the substantive content of
“human dignity,” the term would be bereft of all meaning if we could
not say with some confidence that those who have fallen prey to
genocidaires and perpetrators of atrocities—including murder, forced
relocation or ethnic cleansing, enslavement, child-soldier
conscription, rape, and other such criminal acts specified in the
Rome statute—have also suffered an affront to their dignity as
human beings. The jurisdiction of the ICC begins with crimes. And
crimes begin with harm suffered by victims at the hands of
perpetrators.
Well-functioning modern national criminal justice systems exist to
enforce the law, which they do by investigating harm suffered by
victims, identifying suspected perpetrators, proving their guilt
against the presumption of innocence of the accused (who also have
specified rights, such as the ability to confront their accusers), and
imposing punishment.1 In addition to the criminal law, victims have
recourse to civil courts and the law of torts to claim compensatory
and sometimes punitive damages for losses they have suffered.
These modern legal systems are backed by the sovereign power of
states, which can compel individuals to participate in criminal and
civil proceedings under threat of imprisonment for defiance;
incarcerate individuals against their will upon and in some cases
prior to conviction; exact fines upon conviction; in some
jurisdictions, impose the death penalty upon conviction or other
corporeal punishments; and order damages to be paid on findings of
liability.
The role of the victim in these state proceedings varies from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction and has evolved over time. At risk of
oversimplification, modern criminal (though not civil) justice systems
have traditionally tended to depersonalize crime and punishment;
the offense is deemed to have been committed not merely against
the person of the victim but also against the state itself (or “the
people”). Such a view taken to an extreme essentially deals the
victim out of the proceedings beyond the role of mere evidence-
giver. No special solicitation is due for the suffering of the victim,
whose opinions about the personal effect of the crime are irrelevant
to the determination of guilt or innocence and perhaps even to
sentencing (especially during the heyday of the view of
imprisonment as correctional in character—that is, aimed at
rehabilitating the convict).
 In response to the perceived indifference of the legal system to
victims, by the 1970s various movements promoting victim’s rights
began to gain strength in the United States, leading to widespread
passage of so-called Victims’ Bill of Rights legislation at the state
level. The protections enumerated in such legislation typically include
the right to be notified of and be present at proceedings, to make a
statement to the court, and to receive restitution.
Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is devoted to
victims’ rights, which include timely notice of proceedings, a qualified
right to attend proceedings, and a “Right to Be Heard on Release, a
Plea, or Sentencing.” Advocacy organizations have also long
promoted a federal constitutional amendment spelling out victims’
rights. At a more philosophical level, the priorities of the justice
system leaned away from its traditional emphasis on retributive
justice (centered on criminals) and toward restorative justice
(centered on victims) and the desire to promote healing,
rehabilitation, empowerment, a sense of closure, and in the context
of atrocities, reconciliation at the community or even the national
level (SáCouto and Cleary 2008, 77–78).
The increased attention to victims’ rights has not been without
controversy (O’Hara 2005, 230–33). The biggest concern is that
victims’ rights will come at the expense of the accused, undermining
the presumption of innocence and the legal norm dating to
Blackstone: “better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one
innocent suffer” (Mosteller 1997). O’Hara notes that notwithstanding
swings of the pendulum from victims’ to defendants’ rights, the
“trend in the direction of victim involvement will no doubt continue”
(2005, 242).
For comparative purposes, the civil law systems prevalent in
continental Europe make it “easier to accommodate the interests of
victims at trial without disturbing the adversarial balance that is
central to American criminal trials” (Pizzi and Perron 1996, 41). Pizzi
and Perron describe the occasionally used German Nebenklage
procedure, which allows for the participation of victims (or their
lawyers) of such serious crimes as murder, assault, kidnapping, and
rape as a secondary accuser during the trial. “A victim who chooses
to participate as a secondary accuser becomes, in essence, a party
at the criminal trial and receives treatment equal to that afforded the
defendant in the courtroom” (60). T. Markus Funk notes, “In most
civil law countries, victims (‘injured persons’) long possessed the
right to participate at various stages of the criminal process, from
the pre-trial phase to the appeal. Such participatory rights included
the qualified right to cross-examine witnesses, introduce evidence,
brief motions, and seek additional investigation” (2010, 30–31).
A turning point in the movement of victims’ rights into the arena
of international law came in 1985 with the adoption by the UN
General Assembly of its Resolution 40/34, “Declaration of Basic
Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power.” Funk
writes, “The Basic Principles … sought to internationalize victim-
centric rights that by the mid-1980s had received broad acceptance
in many domestic justice systems” (38). The 1985 Declaration
focused on rights of individuals within national justice systems. Yet
the establishment of victims’ rights internationally proceeded swiftly
in regional courts and culminated in the extensive protections for
victims written into the Rome Statute of 1998. In 2006, the UN
General Assembly revisited the subject of victims, this time explicitly
in the context of international law, passing its Resolution 60/147,
“Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and
Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human
Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Law.”

The Workings of the Court

The primary purpose of the ICC is to prosecute the worst
perpetrators of human rights violations, but another important
purpose is to give victims recognition and a chance to reconcile. The
Court has not only a punitive function but also a restorative function
(ICC 2009a, ¶3). The ICC does this by granting broad participatory
rights to victims during Court proceedings, protecting victims and
witnesses that come to the Court, providing access to reparations,
and through the workings of its trust fund for victims (Bassiouni
2006, 230). Through these processes, the Court hopes not only to
charge human rights offenders and deter future atrocities but also to
demonstrate respect for victims and their suffering.
The Rome statute, as well as the Rules of Procedure and
Evidence (RPE), applied in 2002, established the Court’s forward-
leaning system of victims’ rights. Rule 85 defines victims as “natural
persons who have suffered harm as a result of the commission of
any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court.” The term also applies
to “organizations or institutions that have sustained direct harm to
any of their property which is dedicated to religion, education, art or
science or charitable purposes, and to their historical monuments,
hospitals and other places and objects for humanitarian purposes”
(ICC 2002b, 85). The definition of “victim” set forth by the ICC is
very inclusive: It incorporates people harmed directly or indirectly by
human rights violations as well as by certain institutions. The
breadth of the definition greatly increases the number of potential
victims who have access to the Court.
To obtain rights as a victim, applicants must satisfy certain
criteria, first of which is meeting the definition spelled out in Rule 85.
Next, applicants must be able to prove that they were harmed
(directly or indirectly) by the accused. Whereas the notion of “harm”
is established on a case-by-case basis, it generally refers to physical
pain, economic loss, or psychological trauma. Candidates must then
fall within the complementarity jurisdiction of the Court. (In other
words, national courts must be unavailing in their circumstances:
“[T]he Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible where … the
case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has
jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable genuinely
to carry out the investigation or prosecution” [ICC 2002a, 17.1{a}].)
Finally, claimants must prove a causal link between the actions of
the accused and the harm they suffered (Guhr 2008, 130). Potential
victims fill out an application (typically with the assistance of
nongovernmental organization [NGO] personnel locally) setting forth
these facts and send it to the Victims Participation and Reparations
Section (VPRS), which then passes the application on to the
appropriate chamber of the Court—the Pre-Trial, Trial, or Appeals
Chambers—to determine if the victim has participatory rights at that
stage of the proceedings (ICC 2010e, 19–20).2 Between 2005 and
2011, the VPRS received 4,773 applications for participation,
declaring 2,259 as victims (ICC 2011a, 1).
An applicant granted the status of “victim” gains the right to
participate in the trial in that capacity rather than merely as a
witness. Whereas witnesses to crimes are evidence-givers in a
particular circumstance, victims in the ICC have an enhanced status.
They have the right to participation, information, legal
representation, safety, and dignity throughout the proceedings (ICC
2010e, 12).
The scope of the role granted to victims during the course of a
trial is somewhat ambiguous. The Rome statute uses the terms
“party” as well as “participant” to refer to victims. Victims as
participants do not have the right to present evidence or examine
witnesses, but victims as parties may have these rights (Bassiouni
2006, 230). Notwithstanding the ambiguity of the Rome statute, the
Court agrees that victims can participate by attending Court
hearings, making opening and closing statements, giving
observations to judges during the investigation stage, presenting
their views during the pretrial phase, and examining and cross-
examining witnesses (ICC 2010e, 13).
According to Article 68 of the Rome Statute, victims can present
their views where their personal interests are affected. This
ambiguous definition leaves the particulars of participation up to
each chamber. Because the Court does not operate on the principle
of stare decisis, victim contribution can vary greatly from case to
case. Though the Rome statute explicitly designates the ability of
victims to participate during the pretrial and reparations stages,
participation rights during the rest of the proceedings are less clear
(ICC 2002a, 57, 75). A decision in the Lubanga case, however, may
signal an augmentation of participation. The Lubanga case granted
victims the right to participate in the investigations stage of a
situation in order “to clarify the facts, to punish the perpetrators of
crimes and to request reparations of the harm suffered” (ICC 2006,
16).
When victims appear before the ICC, they almost always do so
with legal representation. These representatives are important
because victims themselves usually lack legal expertise and do not
understand the complex workings of the Court. Victims are allowed
to choose their own legal representation, or it can be provided to
them through the Court’s registrar. In cases with a large number of
victims, the Court may compel them to choose a common legal
representative (ICC 2002b, 90). Under the Court’s Rules of
Procedure and Evidence, the registrar, whose office performs the
administrative functions of the Court, is responsible for “assisting
[victims] in obtaining legal advice and organizing their legal
representation, and providing their legal representatives with
adequate support, assistance and information” (ICC 2002b, 16).
Within the registrar’s office, the VPRS is the “victims’ first point of
contact with the Court,” according to the website of the Office of
Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV). The VPRS ensures that all victims
have some form of representation.
Although the principal function of the VPRS is procedural—
ensuring that victims’ paperwork is properly filed and confirming that
victims understand their rights before the Court—the Registry also
has a statutory responsibility to ensure that victims have adequate
representation. To this end, the registrar established the
independent OPCV in 2005. The OPCV provides research and aid to
victims’ legal representatives and can also offer experienced
individuals to serve as victims’ representatives. In the Lubanga case,
the OPCV represented individual victims and helped the Court by
“undertaking … a coordinating and amicus curiae role” (ICC 2010a,
5). The OPCV has an impressive track record: From its establishment
through 2010, the relatively small office assisted over thirty legal
representatives and 2,000 victims (ICC 2010a, 6–8).
Victims who appear before the ICC do so at a certain risk. Those
appearing before the Court to answer its serious charges have all
been powerful figures, at least formerly capable of exacting harm on
victims who might speak out against them. The Court has a
responsibility to ensure that its proceedings are fair to the accused.
At the same time, the Court must prevent any further harm befalling
the victims. Therefore, throughout a trial, victim security and
protection receive special consideration (ICC 2002a, 57, 64; ICC
2002b, 87, 88).
The Court has a duty to protect the confidentiality of witnesses
and victims. Article 87 in particular notes that a chamber, at the
request of a victim, can hold a hearing in camera and can order
“that the name of the victim … be expunged from the public records
of the Chamber.” The Chamber can also prevent the prosecutor and
defense counsel from disclosing a victim’s identity to a third party
and use technology to disguise appearances during testimony (ICC
2002b, 87).
In addition to confidentiality, the Court also provides for victims’
physical security during and after a trial. Article 43 of the Rome
statute calls for the creation of a Victims and Witnesses Unit (VWU)
within the Registry responsible for victim protection. The Unit
provides short- and long-term security for victims, as well as
counseling and medical assistance (ICC 2002b, 17, 18). The VWU
faces a serious ongoing challenge given the large number of victims
typically associated with the crimes charged at the ICC. For example,
there were ninety-three victims represented in the Lubanga trial
alone (ICC 2009b, 5). Thus, the Court’s agents must constantly
adapt to new territories and conditions, and continually reassess the
threat of reprisal to current and former victims.
One way the VWU attempts to protect victims is through
relocation. Here, state parties have assisted. A common method is
for states to agree to “host protected persons and [to be]
responsible for all expenses related to assistance needs” (ICC 2010c,
6). At this writing, the Court had signed ten such agreements with
state parties. State parties can also choose to contribute to the
Special Fund for Relocations. If a state party has the resources to
support a victim but for some reason cannot protect him or her in its
own territory, it can contribute money to the fund. A state party
willing to host a protected person but perhaps unable to pay the
cost of doing so can then obtain money from the fund to defray
expenses. State parties can also pay to support victims abroad.
Although the psychological shock of relocation may cause additional
harm to a victim, sometimes in the interest of safety there is little
choice but to opt for a fresh start in a new state. If relocation is
necessary, the ICC tries to place victims in territories on the same
continent (ICC 2010c, 7). The Court tries to be mindful of the
particular needs of individual victims.
The Court also helps victims through its promise of reparations.
Whereas monetary support cannot necessarily annul the trauma
victims have experienced, oftentimes economic incentives allow
victims to begin to move on with their lives. The payment of
reparations is a significant element of the ICC’s protections for
victims, as the international community struggles collectively to
make amends for gross misdeeds.
Article 75 provides for reparations to victims. After the ICC
convicts a person, the Court can order reparations in the form of a
fine or forfeited property. These payments can be made only to
victims and their families who have been harmed by the crimes for
which the defendant has been convicted. Reparations under
international law traditionally take the form of restitution,
compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of
nonrepetition (IFHR 2010, 5). Under RPE 94, victims can submit a
formal reparations request by submitting an application to the VPRS.
The Court then determines whether there is a basis for an award.
Reparations from convicted criminals can take the form of a direct
payment to victims or a mandatory contribution to the Trust Fund for
Victims (TFV).
The TFV was established under Rome Statute Article 79 and RPE
98. It is responsible for implementing reparation payments and
offering rehabilitation to victims. Under RPE 98, the TFV is to receive
reparation payments from ICC criminals, but as of this writing there
has yet to be a sentencing hearing before the ICC, and no money
has flowed into the TFV through this mechanism. Instead, the TFV
has collected donations from states and individuals committed to
supporting the reintegration of victims into their communities. The
TFV gives material support to individual victims and funds on-site
physical and mental rehabilitation centers for victims who could not
appear before the ICC. Most of the TFV’s efforts are dedicated to
communal integration and rehabilitation (IFHR 2010, 5). Under the
TFV’s second mandate, it can disburse funds to help victims in any
situation being investigated by the Court, whether or not the victims
have suffered directly from the crimes specifically charged in Court
(IFHR 2010, 4).
The TFV is something of a breakthrough in the pursuit of
international justice: Since 2008, “the TFV has directly reached an
estimated 70,000 victims of crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC.
The great majority of these are victims from affected communities
who are being reached through the TFV’s reconciliation projects”
(ICC 2010b, 7). At this writing, the TFV has sixteen active programs
in Uganda helping an estimated 29,300 people. Most programs in
Uganda are dedicated to helping mutilation victims, providing
education grants, and promoting communal savings. There are also
thirteen active projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo
reaching 40,600 victims (ICC 2010b, 12). In 2011, the TFV raised
€3.2 million to fund its diverse programs (ICC 2012). The largest
state party donor in 2011 was the United Kingdom, which
contributed £500,000 (ICC 2011b).
TFV activities have won acclaim for their efforts to identify and
meet individual needs of victims. The TFV runs a varied array of
programs designed for distinct groups of victims. For example, the
TFV’s sixteen programs in Uganda target different sectors of the
population. The Northeast Chili Producers Association has helped
2,700 victims in the agricultural district of Lira by giving “farming
materials in order to jumpstart local farmers’ production and
counseling to strengthen the agricultural community.” At the same
time, programs in the Gulu and Amuru regions hold “healing of
memory” sessions for torture victims to speak about their
experiences. In northern Uganda, one NGO performed reconstructive
surgery for 160 mutilation victims at a hospital in Gulu. There is also
an education and protection program for girls at risk of sexual
violence in the Oyam District (ICC 2010d). These initiatives are a
small sample of the projects paid for by the TFV.
The TFV has had a measurable impact. One survivor of a brutal
Lord’s Resistance Army attack commented on how the TFV helped
her transform her life, saying “my stay at the Trust Fund’s center
removed me from my daily experience.” She detailed how after the
TFV provided her with training, three liters of cooking oil, three
packets of wheat flour, cups, and a dozen plates, she was able make
a profit selling cassava chips enough to support her husband and
family (ICC 2010b, 18). Beneficiaries of TFV programs in Uganda
have praised its programs, saying “the implementation of the
activities funded by the Trust Fund for victims of the ICC developed
hope, trust, confidence and a sense of belonging by victims. This
move as it stands has developed peace of mind and trust among the
victims and the affected communities” (VRWG 2010, 19).
The success of the TFV and the Court’s broader outreach effort to
victims is at least partially dependent on the participation of various
human rights groups and NGOs. Organizations such as the
Association of Volunteers in International Service and Interplast
Holland implement the projects funded by the TFV (ICC 2010b, 11).
Other groups are responsible for using their access in certain
countries to provide information to the Office of the Prosecutor
during investigations. Institutions such as Redress submit amicus
curiae briefs to the Court and act as a critical oversight mechanism.
Furthermore, NGOs play a large role in the ICC’s outreach method.
The ICC, tucked away at The Hague, does not have access to
remote villages where human rights violations take place. The NGOs,
who are often able to gain entry into difficult locales, take
responsibility for promoting the potential benefits of working with
the ICC (as well as alerting them to the security dangers of doing
so).
 The expansion of victims’ participation through the ICC
represents an augmentation of victims’ rights globally. NGOs in the
Democratic Republic of Congo have praised the role of the Court,
contending that the ICC “has had a positive impact as it [has]
allowed victims to feel valued through their implication in the legal
process” (VRWG 2010, 18).

A Critical Review
Although the ICC and various NGOs have created a unique
framework for the protection of victims’ rights and respect for their
dignity, the ICC remains a mostly untested institution, and many
problems remain. First, it is clear the ICC has a large outreach
dilemma. Although NGOs have been useful in collecting information
on cases and helping victims apply, many potential victims still see
the ICC as “just a rumor, more or less” (Glassborrow 2007). The ICC
must work on globalizing awareness of its operations so that victims
of atrocity crimes will feel more comfortable stepping forward.
Far from The Hague, the operation of the Court is often
misunderstood. People who have been victims of atrocity crimes
often fail to understand why the Office of the Prosecutor chooses to
investigate certain specific incidents and not others. Victims in
regions of Ituri (Democratic Republic of the Congo) not covered by
present charges, for example, do not understand why “victims who
suffer from the same atrocities, by the same groups, were not taken
into account by investigators” (VRGW 2010, 13). But of course the
prosecutor cannot feasibly investigate every atrocity incident, nor is
it the function of a Court to do so: The guilt of perpetrators needs to
be decisively proven, not comprehensively so in the sense of each
atrocity committed. Yet this process leaves some victims on the
outside. The Court must do all it can to keep them informed and to
attend to their needs as well. But this limitation points to a need for
broader institutional support for victims of atrocity crimes
internationally.
 Furthermore, the ICC has been an institution that works slowly
and is consistently backed up with paperwork. The Registry, for
example, has often been unable to process victim applications in a
timely fashion, resulting in the denial of participation to persons who
should legitimately be classified as victims (VRWG 2011, 7). The ICC
must work to streamline its operations if it wishes to maintain the
standards it has set for itself.
Other institutional growing pains are also apparent. The Rome
statute and RPE state that victims must be informed at various
stages of the proceedings, but as of this writing, no clear
understanding has emerged of what that entails (ICC 2002a, 53; ICC
2002b, 50, 59, 69). Also, the extent of victims’ rights will continue to
evolve as judges make different rulings concerning victim
participation (Spiga 2010, 185). It is too soon to say with any
precision where the Court will end up and therefore too soon to
assess its ultimate adequacy in attending to the human needs of
victims.
The slow pace of trials and the paucity of convictions have
contributed to a feeling of lassitude for some victims directly
participating in the ICC. For victims, justice delayed can indeed look
like justice denied. The boost to the credibility of the Court from the
generally cautious manner in which it has operated is one side of the
coin; the other is a loss of credibility that comes from moving slowly.
Observers report that off-site victims often fail to understand the
Court’s practical successes. The Court’s own self-assessment notes
that victims in Ituri feel they are “shadows, without a face, without a
voice, without light, wondering when the truth on … the crimes will
be revealed” (VRWG 2010, 16).
Some have expressed concern that the Court’s concern for the
rights of victims goes too far, impinging on the rights of the accused.
One critic cites the lack of clarity as to the type of fact-finding the
Court employs with regard to victim participation: a judge-driven
inquisitorial method or a partydriven accusatorial method (Zappalà
2010, 139). Some commentators have expressed concern that the
decision in the Lubanga case represents a “systemic encroachment
on the rights of the accused” (Guhr 2008, 127).
A stocktaking session devoted to the Court’s treatment of victims
at its Assembly of States Parties review conference in Kampala in
2010 frankly acknowledged a number of challenges the Court faces,
especially in outreach. The Court has now made a priority of
outreach to women and children (ICC 2010a, 80). The review
conference also acknowledged the potential problem of development
of unrealistic expectations among victims: “[I]t is inherently
impossible to repair the losses and fully alleviate the suffering
caused by heinous international crimes” (ICC 2010a, 97). Awareness
of the existence of the TFV may itself create undue expectations for
relief; the TFV will never have sufficient assets to meet the needs of
all claimants and will accordingly have to target its efforts (Keller
2007).
As the Court matures, it must build on its symbolic and
substantive successes in the expansion of victims’ rights and respect
for the dignity of victims to include concrete improvements in the
lives of victims. The ICC currently offers the most forward-leaning
example of victim advocacy in the international system. Gioia Greco
calls its work “a glaring achievement in the international field” (2007,
531). But there is much work still to do to fully operationalize its
commitment to victims (Bachvarova 2011). And as noted, the court
by the nature of its mandate will never reach all victims of atrocities,
only those harmed by the specific crimes charged in each case. This
leaves a substantial gap that other institutions and national
governments must fill.

Rights and Dignity

The Court mainly uses the language of “rights” with regard to its
obligations toward victims. What specific and different obligations
the Court perceives with regard to the dignity of victims is a topic
that has received little attention.
 This primary focus on rights is hardly unique to the Court.
Courtrooms, at the national or international level, are in the business
of adjudicating the law, and the law confers rights as well as
obligations. Rights lie at the core of our understanding of the
modern political world, at both the national level (for example, the
US Bill of Rights) and increasingly, internationally (for example, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General
Assembly in Paris in 1948). In addition, lawyers—no less
international lawyers—are accustomed to thinking in terms of the
rights of individuals: what they are, how to enforce them, how to
reconcile them when they come into conflict.
And it is possible, of course, to identify or create new rights
where they are perceived to be wanting, as in the case of victims’
rights. I would like to suggest, however, that as the operation of the
ICC has shown, precisely which rights victims can properly claim
does not exhaust the subject of how to treat victims.
Consider the case of the woman mentioned above who received
TFV start-up supplies for a business through which she was able to
support her family. It is difficult to understand how a claim of right
underlays the TFV’s action—but perfectly easy to understand the
TFV’s action in terms of its perceived responsibility to respect the
dignity of the woman. So the Court itself, in its solicitude for victims,
seems to be venturing into a territory that goes beyond the rights
individuals may have.
One fully respects the rights of others simply by refraining from
violating those rights. A government respects people’s rights by first
refraining from violating them and second by maintaining court
systems that intervene to annul B’s reaction to A’s action when A has
the right to act as A did (Kojève 2000, 40). If A has the right to walk
peaceably down the street and B assaults her and steals her purse,
the criminal justice system will seek to hold B to account. The court
is limited in what it can do to annul what B has done. Upon a finding
of guilt, it can order B to pay damages or penalties and sentence B
to prison. In the context of atrocities, the affected people have a
right to their lives, and where a perpetrator of atrocities tramples on
it, the perpetrator must be held to account. The ICC as a “court of
last resort” performs this function with respect to perpetrators of
some of the world’s worst atrocities. But no court can ever simply
undo what such a perpetrator has done. A rights-vindicating justice
system, even on an international scale, can go only so far. The
question, then, is whether it can go further in the promotion of “the
fundamental capacity of human beings to apply their gifts to thrive”
by some means other than the acknowledgment and vindication of
rights. The operation of the ICC suggests that it can.
There is a distinction to be drawn between respecting the rights
of others and respecting others. Clearly, when a person tramples on
another’s rights, for example, by perpetrating horrendous crimes of
the kind within the jurisdiction of the ICC, that culpable individual is
also failing to respect other persons. But when one refrains from
violating another’s rights, one has not necessarily shown respect for
the other. One can be in conformity with respect for the rights of
another while at the same time conducting oneself in a fashion that
shows no respect for another beyond those rights. If I have a right
to walk peaceably down the street, you—a person or a government
—have a duty to allow me to do so. If you are the government, and
therefore the guarantor of rights and the rule of law, you also have
an obligation to take action to annul a mugger’s unwillingness to let
me walk peaceably down the street. But that does not exhaust the
question of our relations. And as we have seen, annulling the
wrongful action of the perpetrator is a necessary step with real
consequences for the criminal once convicted but never sufficient to
undo the mugging. If anything, this is even easier to see
contemplating the horror of the Tutsi victims in Rwanda or the
Syrians shelled by their own government.
I would suggest that outside the circle representing your rights as
an individual lies an encompassing circle, coextensive with your
person, representing your dignity as a human being. It is not enough
for me to refrain from violating the inner circle of your rights. Under
certain circumstances, neither must I trespass on the encompassing
circle of your dignity. I have a responsibility to respect you—a
responsibility not to breach that circle and, indeed, when others
have breached it, to do what I can to help you repair it and restore
its integrity.
Under what circumstances? Clearly, not all. A stand-up comic
typically punctures the dignity of self and others. A world in which all
persons show respect for all other persons at all times—whether the
others are present or not—would be a dull and humorless dystopia.
But certainly a person acting under color of authority, whether of a
government or an international court, owes respect to those who
come before her. And the institution in question, in the performance
of its functions, ought also seek to institutionalize the responsibility
to respect, not only in the negative sense of refraining from actions
that trespass on dignity, but also in buttressing the dignity of
individuals when others have trespassed. It seems that the ICC has
sought to do this; even if it has been only partially successful, the
Court itself deserves an according measure of respect from those
who believe that a concept of dignity contributes something to
human thriving that rights alone do not account for.
I note the variability of the content of dignity, at least as I
understand it (M. Rosen 2012, 63–77). It is easy to see that an
atrocity crime also constitutes an affront to the dignity of its victim.
Likewise, it is hard to imagine how hurling vile insults into the face
of another could be construed as anything other than an affront to
dignity. Yet one’s sense of dignity, or the respect one might like to
receive, also has a substantial social and cultural component.
Exposing oneself to the gaze of others while wearing merely a two-
piece swimsuit is for one woman a day at the beach but for another
an unthinkable display of immodesty.
There is no easy resolution to this problem. Claims to respect for
dignity cannot be deemed legitimate solely on the basis of their
assertion; indeed, dignity considered apart from right (that is, the
outer, doughnut-shaped area of the encompassing circle) would not,
per se, seem to generate rights claims at all. You do not have a right
not to be offended or affronted.3 But at the same time, any regard
for the dignity of others must entail inquiry at some level into the
matter of what others might consider an affront.
This inquiry is especially important with regard to those who have
suffered in some of the worst circumstances known to humankind.
As Judith Herman notes: “Traumatic events call into question basic
human relationships. They breach the attachments of family,
friendship, love, and community. They shatter the construction of
the self that is formed and sustained in relation to others. They
undermine the belief systems that give meaning to human
experience. They violate the victim’s faith in a natural or divine order
and cast the victim into a state of existential crisis” (1997, 51).
Victims have in common the perpetration of crimes against them,
but their responses are their own. Martha Minow writes: “Survivors
of violence often ache for retribution against identifiable
perpetrators, and for public acknowledgement of what happened.
Some want financial redress; psychological or spiritual healing seems
crucial to others. Some survivors, and their fellow citizens, place
higher priorities on moving ahead with life, building or rebuilding
trust across previously divided groups, and establishing or
strengthening democratic institutions. Many believe that the entire
society needs to stand behind efforts to punish the wrongdoers, and
to deter any such conduct in the future. People understandably may
have great trouble sorting out priorities among these possibilities”
(1998, 4).
In responding, one size does not fit all. Determining an
appropriate response on an individual basis is an essential element
of the respect one must pay. Albeit imperfectly, in the ICC’s
nevertheless unprecedented regard for victims, the Court and its
officers are working to fulfill this responsibility to respect.
Your dignity begins where you are, one might say: The first place
one desires appropriate recognition and respect is where one finds
oneself right now—within one’s family, in one’s community, walking
peaceably alongside strangers on the street. It is not merely human
rights that are violated in the case of atrocities, it is also this sense
of dignity. I believe that when people say they feel violated, as crime
victims often do, it is not merely the physical, material aspect of the
crime to which they are reacting. Indeed, one may feel violated in
the same way in the absence of the commission of any crime—
perhaps as a result of an unwanted gaze that breaches one’s sense
of privacy (J. Rosen 2000, 18–20).
This sense of violation marks an affront to one’s dignity. A court
may take action to annul a violation of one’s rights. But no court can
ever annul such an affront to a person’s dignity. All it or any
institution or anyone can do—locally, nationally, or internationally—is
accord such a person the respect all persons feel is their due,
including respect for the affront suffered. That is the responsibility to
respect in its broadest sense.

Notes
Thanks to Carly Hafner for research assistance.
1. I leave aside consideration of so-called victimless crimes.
2. A copy of this form can be found at “Application Form,”
http://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/rdonlyres/48A75CF0-E38E-48A7-A9E0-
026ADD32553D/0/SAFIndividualEng.pdf.
3. Some, of course, do think they have a right not to be offended
or affronted. It is the responsibility of liberal political and juridical
order to address the requirements of their dignity without granting
this right. The International Criminal Court has been accused of an
imperialist propensity, namely the imposition on others of a narrowly
Western set of values. I reject this characterization but agree that
the Court is a classically liberal institution.

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CHAPTER 3

The UN Secretary-General and

Human Dignity
The Case of Kofi Annan
ABIODUN WILLIAMS

The protection and promotion of the universal values of the

rule of law, human rights and democracy are ends in
themselves. They are also essential for a world of justice,
opportunity and stability. No security agenda and no drive
for development will be successful unless they are based on
the sure foundation of respect for human dignity.
(Annan 2005)

Of all the secretaries-general of the UN, Kofi Annan was the most
impassioned advocate for human dignity. He viewed the role of the
UN and that of the secretary-general as central in the promotion of
human dignity around the world. He regarded the promotion and
protection of universal human rights as one of the most important
and effective ways for the secretary-general to advance human
dignity. Annan believed that lasting peace and development could
not be achieved without respect for human dignity, and throughout
his decade-long tenure, he stressed the inextricable link between
human rights, development, and security. In his address to the
inaugural session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on June
19, 2006, he said: “Lack of respect for human rights and dignity is
the fundamental reason why the peace of the world today is so
precarious, and why prosperity is so unequally shared.” He added:
“[T]he strongest states are those that most resolutely defend the
human rights of all their citizens” (Annan 2006).
The secretary-general has an important role to play in shaping
the values that guide UN action, a role that particular secretaries-
general found implicit in the Charter. Equally important, however,
have been the distinctive leadership styles—determined by personal
characteristics—exhibited by occupants of the post (Killie 2006). This
is a subject on which the Charter is silent. This chapter treats the
secretary-general’s office as an institution, but one that depends to a
much greater degree on both the talents and inclinations of an
individual, as well as on external circumstances. In short, whereas
the office of the secretary-general creates the environment for the
exercise of moral authority, the realization of the normative potential
of the role has depended in large part on the individual
officeholders.
Annan sought to advance human dignity in three ways: First, he
worked through norms, particularly by promoting human rights
standards and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Second, he
worked through institutions, primarily by reforming the human rights
machinery within the framework of a broader process of UN reform,
specifically by establishing the Human Rights Council. Third, he
worked through the UN’s operational efforts in the field, especially in
zones of conflict. In promoting human dignity in all three ways,
Annan capitalized on his lengthy institutional experience at the UN
(which spanned more than three decades), the unique geopolitical
moment at the end of the Cold War, the growth of a global interest
in human rights concerns, and increasing institutional capacity of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to address them.

The Role of Secretary-General and a

Changing International Context
The secretary-general’s role and responsibilities are broadly defined
in Articles 97 to 101 of the UN Charter. Article 97 designates him as
the “chief administrative officer of the Organization.” Article 98
requires that he submit an annual report to the General Assembly on
the work of the Organization, and Article 101 gives him the
responsibility of appointing the staff in the Secretariat, one of the
principal organs of the UN, according to regulations established by
the General Assembly. The secretary-general’s political role is based
on Article 98, which also provides that the secretary-general “shall
perform such other functions as are entrusted to him” by the
General Assembly, Security Council, the Economic and Social Council,
the Trusteeship Council, and Article 99, which empowers him to
“bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in
his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and
security.” Although the powers granted by the Charter have
appeared to many as limited in scope, they belie the influence that
the secretary-general can wield. Although secretaries-general rarely
invoke Article 99 directly, for example, the Security Council can look
to the secretary-general for advice and sometimes even for
leadership. Ian Johnstone explains that “the [s]ecretary-[g]eneral’s
normative role can be inferred from his position as head of one of
the principal organs of the United Nations,” with equal responsibility
to other principal organs for promoting the purposes and principles
of the organization (2007, 131).
Comparative scholarship on the secretaries-general has identified
the importance that personal traits can have in navigating the
seemingly rigid strictures of the Charter. Annan emerges from such
analyses as a particularly strategic secretary-general, characterized
by “responsivity” to external surroundings and an ability to capitalize
on opportunities, a “belief in his ability to influence” and, in contrast,
a lack of concern with personal “recognition,” stemming from an
emphasis on the organizational mission above his own ego (Killie
2006, 31). Annan’s personal tendencies—an instinctive empathy with
those in distress and a determination to represent the voiceless
(Smith 2007, 306)—complemented this professional approach. The
result was that in Annan, the world found a committed and effective
advocate for human dignity.
Kofi Annan was the first UN secretary-general to be appointed
from the ranks of the UN staff and had greater knowledge of the
workings of the institution than any of his predecessors. He
understood the UN’s bureaucratic structure, its organizational
pathologies, its limits, and its possibilities. Annan began his career in
the UN system as an administrative and budget officer at the World
Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva in 1962. He later served with
the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa and
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In 1987 he
became assistant secretary-general for Human Resources and
Management at the UN Secretariat in New York, and in 1990 he was
appointed assistant secretary-general for Program Planning, Budget
and Finance, and Controller and security coordinator for the UN
system. In 1993, Annan was appointed undersecretary-general for
Peacekeeping Operations. His UN career was interrupted only by a
sabbatical in 1971 to study at the Sloan School of Management at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a subsequent two-
year position in the tourism office of his native Ghana beginning in
November 1974. He thus climbed the UN’s bureaucratic ladder—from
its lowest administrative rank to its highest position—in thirty-five
years.
Annan became secretary-general in the aftermath of the Cold
War, which created the normative and political space for him to
advocate for human rights. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the
end of the Cold War allowed the UN to focus on activities that would
have been impossible during the previous ideologically charged
decades. Whereas human rights-related actions and policies had
frequently been relegated to the margins of UN activity during the
Cold War, without the fear of a Soviet veto in the Security Council
the UN could now pursue a range of human rights-related missions.
In this changed international context, Annan had the freedom to
speak from a human rights perspective without the systemic
limitations faced by his predecessors. As James Traub notes: “The
end of the Cold War transformed the moral promise of the role of
the secretary-general. It allowed him [Annan] to place the UN at the
service of the universal values of the Charter, without the constraints
of ideology or particular interests” (2006).
Although challenges remained, as Annan was acutely aware, he
nonetheless saw the potential for a “quiet revolution,” one in which
the principles of good governance, cooperation, and a dedication to
human rights allowed the international community to work together
to achieve broad-ranging goals (Annan 1998c, 123).
The 1990s also saw a rise in the influence and visibility of an
international human rights movement and a heightened focus on
individual rights as well as collective rights. The end of apartheid in
South Africa was a striking example of the marshaling of
international pressure to promote human dignity. In accepting the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, Nelson Mandela linked the South African
experience to a new awareness of human rights across the globe:
“We live with the hope that as she battles to remake herself, South
Africa will be like a microcosm of the new world that is striving to be
born. This must be a world of democracy and respect for human
rights, a world freed from the horrors of poverty, hunger, deprivation
and ignorance, relieved of the threat and the scourge of civil wars
and external aggression and unburdened of the great tragedy of
millions forced to become refugees” (Mandela 1993).
Mandela’s views were emblematic of a human rights community
that was finding its voice and of the trends toward greater
realization of individual rights in the many states freed from the
political paralysis of the Cold War. The demands of this movement
and of citizens with new freedom to express their yearning for
enjoyment of rights were a spur for new attention to human dignity
at the UN. Annan’s experience and inclinations allowed him to take
advantage of the moment and the opportunity.

Advancing Norms
Although the provisions of the Charter do not imbue the office of the
UN secretary-general with explicit political power, the role provides
great opportunities for exercising influence (Urquhart and Childers
1990, 22). Upon assuming the leadership of the UN in 1997, Annan
sought to capitalize on the normative trends in the international
community toward taking humanitarian interventions and human
rights more seriously. In the early 1990s, the UN went through a
crisis of expectations when peacekeeping forces were deployed in
zones of conflict (Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda) without sufficient
resources or a clear mandate to confront local forces engaged in
genocide or mass atrocities. The resulting “blame game” led to a
crisis between the UN Secretariat and the Clinton administration, and
ultimately to the United States’ vetoing Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s bid
for a second term as secretary-general. Yet Annan, the new
secretary-general, was himself compromised in the eyes of at least a
part of world public opinion by his role as undersecretary-general for
peacekeeping operations for the very failures for which the
Secretariat was blamed.
It was against this backdrop that Annan felt driven, both as a
result of his personal implication in the crises of the 1990s and for
the sake of the long-term credibility of the organization which he
now headed, to consolidate the transformed normative environment
that the conclusion of the Cold War augured. Arguably, it is the
realm of norm entrepreneurship, which provides the greatest
political space available to any secretary-general. Norm
entrepreneurs are invariably well-placed individuals whose
prominence enhances their ability to promote norms and prompt
change in the international system. Their promotion of change is
also generally grounded in strong notions about the standards of
behavior to which actors in the international system ought to
adhere. They “spot gaps in the existing normative architecture of
world order and engage in moral proselytism in order to fill those
gaps” (Thakur 2006, 13).
These highly motivated actors use their platforms or bully pulpits,
in Annan’s case the office of the secretary-general, to “launch their
crusades” and to convince state governments of the import of a
norm (Thakur 2006, 13). As a norm entrepreneur, Annan utilized the
platform he possessed to raise the visibility of human rights
challenges in the international system. Annan’s normative impact can
be seen primarily in two areas: first, advocating the belief that
human rights are universal and indivisible, and second, promoting
the principle of the R2P.
When Annan became secretary-general in 1997, human rights
were not necessarily assumed to be universal. Some UN member
states argued that human rights were geographically delimited—the
product of Eurocentric Enlightenment assumptions—or the concern
only of states that had reached a certain level of development. In his
role as a norm entrepreneur, Annan challenged both these
conceptions of human rights and argued that fundamental human
rights were an innate demand of the human condition and not alien
to any country, culture, race or religion. In his first speech to the
Organization of African Unity in Harare, Zimbabwe in June 1997,
Annan said: “The success of Africa’s third wave [of democratization]
depends equally on respect for fundamental human rights. The
conflicts which have disfigured our continent have, all too often,
been accompanied by massive human rights violations. I am aware
of the fact that some view this concern as a luxury of the rich
countries for which Africa is not ready. I know that others treat it as
an imposition, if not a plot, by the industrialized West. I find these
thoughts truly demeaning, demeaning of the yearning for human
dignity that resides in every African heart” (Annan 1997a).
Six months later in an address at the University of Tehran on
Human Rights Day, Annan declared: “Human rights are the
foundation of human existence and co-existence.… Human rights are
universal, indivisible and interdependent.… Human rights are what
make us human. They are the principles by which we create the
sacred home for human dignity” (Annan 1997b).
By the end of his first year as secretary-general, Annan had
placed himself firmly on the side of universalism over relativism in
human rights, signaled his intent to make human rights the
touchstone of his work, and became an international spokesman for
human dignity. This marked a break with previous occupants of the
position, who tended to assume that their responsibility for peace
and security took precedence over an outspoken position on human
rights (Forsythe 1993). Annan’s novel approach was recognized by
the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which when announcing its
intention to award Annan and the UN the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize
observed that, “[Kofi Annan] has been pre-eminent in bringing new
life to the organization. While clearly underlining the UN’s traditional
responsibility for peace and security, [Kofi Annan] has also
emphasized its obligations with regard to human rights” (Norwegian
Nobel Committee 2001).
In the late 1990s, Annan urged UN member states to resolve the
tension between the principles of state sovereignty and the
international community’s responsibility to respond to massive
human rights violations, such as ethnic cleansing. He believed that
sovereignty implied responsibilities as well as powers.1 And a critical
duty was to protect people from violence and war, which were grave
assaults on human dignity. In his view, national sovereignty was not
to be used as a shield for those who wantonly violated human
dignity. In his Ditchley Foundation Lecture in June 1998, Annan
emphasized that if a regime was abusing its own citizens, the
international community had a responsibility to prevent and end the
abuse. As he put it: “The Charter was issued in the name of ‘the
peoples,’ not the governments, of the UN. Its aim is not only to
preserve international peace—vitally important though that is—but
also ‘to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity
and worth of the human person.’ The Charter protects the
sovereignty of peoples. It was never meant as a license for
governments to trample on human rights and human dignity.
Sovereignty implies responsibility, not just power” (Annan 1998b).
The remark was emblematic of Annan’s instinctive emphasis on
the dignity of individuals rather than on the prerogatives of states,
and it came to define his approach to the role of the international
community in the face of the commission of atrocities.
 A year later Annan chose “humanitarian intervention” as the
theme of his speech at the opening of the General Assembly in
September 1999. The tragic failures of the UN in Srebrenica and
Rwanda and the Kosovo crisis provided the context for the speech.
Indeed, the Security Council had failed to act in the Kosovo crisis
because of profound competing national interests and differences
among its permanent members regarding state sovereignty and
whether a moral imperative exists to take action in response to gross
violations of human dignity. Annan underlined that the Security
Council’s paralysis threatened the credibility of the UN: “If the
collective conscience of humanity—a conscience which abhors
cruelty, renounces injustice and seeks peace for all peoples—cannot
find in the United Nations its greatest tribune, there is a grave
danger that it will look elsewhere for peace and for justice” (Annan
1999b). Indeed, when during and since Annan’s tenure divisions in
the Security Council have appeared irresolvable, the resulting
temptation for member states to take unilateral action has
threatened to erode the very foundation of the UN’s effectiveness.2
Annan’s General Assembly speech sparked a fierce and wide-
ranging debate on how the international community could better
protect the dignity and sanctity of human life. The speech was
delivered in a climate where member states were staking their own
claims on the issue, typified by British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s so-
called Chicago Speech in which he enunciated a “doctrine of the
international community” (Blair 1999). In the wake of such
declarations, Annan challenged member states to find a consensus
on the vital issue of the international community’s responsibility in
the face of massive violations of human dignity. However, Annan
acknowledged in his 2000 Annual Report on the UN: “It is, of course,
relatively easy for the international community to assert that the
tragedies of Rwanda and Srebrenica should never be allowed to
happen again. But if the reaction to my address last year to the
General Assembly is any guide, I fear we may still prove unable to
give a credible answer to the question of what happens next time
we are faced with a comparable crime against humanity” (Annan
2000b).
“The dilemma of intervention” was a main theme of the
Secretary-General’s 2000 Millennium Report. In it, Annan recognized
“both the force and importance” of the arguments of member states
who were concerned about the dangers of the concept of
humanitarian intervention. But he added: “We confront a real
dilemma. Few would disagree that both the defense of humanity and
the defense of sovereignty are principles that must be supported.
Alas, that does not tell us which principle should prevail when they
are in conflict” (Annan 2000a).
The International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty (ICISS), a Canadian-led initiative that Annan facilitated
as part of his norm entrepreneurship, restated the core issue at the
heart of the debate on intervention—shifting from debate about a
“right to intervene” towards the assertion of a “responsibility to
protect.” Its 2001 report, The Responsibility to Protect, was a
comprehensive response to Annan’s speech on intervention in the
General Assembly. It correctly interpreted the secretary-general’s
idea of two notions of sovereignty—one for states, one for
individuals—and underlined that the state exists for the benefit of its
individual citizens, not the other way around (ICISS 2001). The aim
reflected both Annan’s normative ambitions as well as his awareness
that, if it were to retain legitimacy in a new century, the UN could
not open itself to further charges of “complicity with evil” (Report of
the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations 2000, xi).
Of course, the international community already had a long-
standing commitment to prevent and punish the crime of genocide
under the Genocide Convention. The Security Council has also
exercised the right to authorize military action to redress gross
violations of human rights, such as ethnic cleansing, that it deems as
threats to international peace and security. In April 2004, in a speech
in Geneva commemorating the tenth anniversary of the genocide in
Rwanda, Kofi Annan outlined a five-point action plan for preventing
genocide: preventing armed conflict, which usually provides the
context for genocide; protecting civilians in armed conflict by UN
peacekeepers and other means; ending impunity through judicial
action in both national and international courts; gathering
information and early warning of crises; and taking swift and
decisive action, including military action. In the speech, he also
announced the appointment of a special adviser on the prevention of
genocide, which was tasked with three functions: to collect
information on potential or existing situations or threats of genocide;
to act as an early-warning mechanism to the Security Council and
other parts of the UN system; and to make recommendations to the
Security Council on actions to prevent or halt genocide (Annan
2004).
In March 2005, drawing on the findings of a high-level panel—a
collaborative means of working that was characteristic of Annan’s
inclinations as a convener of expertise—Annan issued a report, In
Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights
for All, which contained a number of policy proposals to be taken up
by heads of state and governments at the UN World Summit in
September of that year. The central theme of the report was that the
world must advance the causes of security, development, and
human rights together; otherwise, none will succeed. Annan urged
world leaders to embrace the principle of the Responsibility to
Protect both the potential or the actual victims of mass atrocities. He
recognized that many states were concerned that this principle
would violate sovereignty. However, he believed that no legal
principle should be allowed to shield genocide, crimes against
humanity, and gross human rights abuses and that the R2P doctrine
would not provide an open door to humanitarian intervention.
Annan’s recommendation that member states endorse the
“emerging norm of the responsibility to protect” was vigorously
debated during the General Assembly consultations on his report in
April. Whereas the European Union, the GUUAM group (Georgia,
Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova), and several African
states endorsed the principle, others, including the Non-Aligned
Movement, rejected it as a reformulation of humanitarian
intervention without any basis in the UN Charter or international law.
However, the Non-Aligned Movement expressed its willingness to
further discuss the issue ahead of the 2005 UN World Summit.
After intense intergovernmental debate, the World Summit, held
in September 2005, produced a historic breakthrough on the R2P. In
the Summit Outcome Document, all governments accepted clearly
and unambiguously their collective responsibility to protect
populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes
against humanity. While stressing the continued primacy of the UN
Charter, member states also agreed to take timely and decisive
collective action for this purpose through the Security Council when
peaceful means proved inadequate and national authorities were
manifestly failing to protect their populations.
The Summit’s endorsement of R2P was a major advance in
international norm setting that Annan had been advocating for
several years. In its encapsulation of the universality, indivisibility,
and interrelatedness of all human rights, R2P reflected the “Annan
doctrine”: that state sovereignty cannot be used as an excuse to
shield human rights abuses. Emblematic of his norm
entrepreneurship, Annan had helped to shift the narrative from the
rights of states to the rights of individuals. He used the office of the
secretary-general to put the emphasis where it belonged—on the
people who needed protection because their human dignity was
threatened with massacre or ethnic cleansing rather than on
relations between states.

Reforming Institutions to Promote Human

Dignity
The UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR), established in 1946
under the aegis of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC),
played an important role in producing major international human
rights standards. It drafted the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights in 1948 as well as two covenants in 1966, one on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights and the other on Civil and Political Rights.
The Commission established several working groups on thematic
issues and the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of
Human Rights. It also designated special rapporteurs, experts, and
representatives to investigate and report on specific human rights
situations and violations (Terlingen 2007).3
Over the years, however, the international credibility of the fifty-
three-member Commission had seriously declined. Notwithstanding
the difficulty of determining which human rights standards are
objective priorities, the Commission had been particularly
characterized by politicization, selectivity, and double standards.
Annan said: “We have reached a point at which the Commission’s
declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the
United Nations system. Unless we remake our human rights
machinery, we may be unable to renew public confidence in the
United Nations itself” (Annan 2005).
To that end, in his In Larger Freedom report, Annan wrote: “If
the United Nations is to meet the expectations of men and women
everywhere—and indeed, if the Organization is to take the cause of
human rights as seriously as those of security and development—
then member states should agree to replace the Commission on
Human Rights with a smaller standing Human Rights Council”
(Annan 2005, 45). He also stated: “The creation of the Council
would accord human rights a more authoritative position,
corresponding to the primacy of human rights in the Charter of the
United Nations” (Annan 2005, 64). Such a structure would provide
architectural and conceptual clarity, as the UN already had councils
that dealt with two other main purposes, security (the Security
Council) and development (ECOSOC). He believed that a new council
would help to overcome some growing problems, of perception and
in substance, associated with the commission, allowing for a
thorough reassessment of the effectiveness of the UN’s
intergovernmental machinery in addressing human rights concerns.
Annan had additional reasons for proposing the establishment of
a full-fledged Human Rights Council. As a standing body, the Human
Rights Council would be able to deal with imminent crises and allow
for timely and in-depth consideration of human rights issues. Moving
human rights discussions beyond the politically charged six-week
session of the commission, it would also allow more time for
substantive discussions regarding the implementation of decisions
and resolutions. Furthermore, if it was no longer possible, as in the
CHR, for regional groups to set slates of member states the General
Assembly had to approve, it would make members more accountable
and the body more representative. And the Council would have more
credibility with authority derived directly from the General Assembly.
The World Summit mandated the creation of a new Human
Rights Council as part of broader UN reform. In March 2006, a new
Human Rights Council was established as a subsidiary organ of the
General Assembly (subject to further review of its status after five
years). Annan had hoped that this Council would have the status of
a “principal organ” of the UN, on par with the Security Council and
ECOSOC, but that plan was scuttled by influential developing nations
that feared the new council would have the authority to make
binding decisions, despite reassurance that such prerogatives would
require an amendment to the UN Charter (Terlingen 2007). This
highlights one of the main constraints on any secretary-general in
promoting human dignity: In an intergovernmental institution such
as the UN, the secretary-general can propose, but it is the member
states that dispose.
The Human Rights Council, consisting of forty-seven member
states, represents some structural improvements over the previous
Commission. Elected by a majority of General Assembly members, it
can suspend violators of human rights abuses from membership on
the Council through a two-thirds General Assembly majority vote.
The Council also has the authority to make recommendations of
action or intervention directly to the General Assembly in the case of
violations of human rights. Through the Universal Periodic Review
process it assesses the human rights practices of all UN member
states. The Council also meets more regularly each year for a
minimum of ten weeks in three sessions, in contrast to the
Commission, which met once annually for six weeks. Additionally,
the Council retains specific rapporteurs and working groups through
the UN’s Special Procedures for nonstate-specific issues, including
arbitrary detentions, enforced or involuntary disappearances, and
the use of mercenaries.
Annan’s In Larger Freedom report also recommended the
strengthening of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR) as part of a renewal of the UN human rights
machinery. It observed that the Office was “woefully ill equipped to
respond to the broad range of human rights challenges facing the
international community” (Annan 2005, 51). In addition, Annan
urged a more active role by the high commissioner in the
deliberations of the Security Council and a new Peacebuilding
Commission, also established in the wake of the 2005 UN World
Summit. An Action Plan from the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Louise Arbour, for which In Larger Freedom called, identified
poverty, discrimination, conflict, impunity, democratic deficits, and
institutional weaknesses as priority areas. The plan recommended
increasing the size and number of OHCHR’s field offices, developing
its capacity to deploy rapid response teams in human rights crisis
situations, engaging with UN peace operations in conflict areas, and
enhancing monitoring of human rights situations in countries. The
UN World Summit backed the action plan and agreed to double the
budget of OHCHR. During Annan’s tenure as secretary-general,
countries with OHCHR presence increased from fourteen in 1996 to
more than forty in 2006, with the majority of the expansion in
country offices occurring in the wake of the World Summit.

The Operational Dimension

As secretary-general, Kofi Annan measured the success of UN
programs and activities not only in terms of the satisfaction of
member states, but also how they affected the lives of people. As
the former head of UN peacekeeping, Annan was conscious of the
role of peacekeeping in facilitating political processes in countries
emerging from conflict and in helping to create the political,
economic, legal, and social conditions in which human dignity can be
respected and enjoyed. He tells us in his memoirs: “From the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations to the office of the
secretary-general, I took with me, above all, the lessons of Bosnia
and Rwanda. Evil in civil war zones occurs due to the will of the
conflict protagonists, which must be rounded upon, confronted, and
stopped—and through force if necessary” (Annan 2012, 78–79).
During Annan’s ten years in office, UN peacekeeping grew both in
terms of scale and efficacy, from fewer than 13,000 troops to 75,000
troops in eighteen operations worldwide. A burgeoning legitimacy in
the eyes of member states, founded on Annan’s convictions about
human dignity and operationalized through his strategic diplomacy,
enabled an increase in the annual budget for UN peacekeeping from
approximately $1 billion in 1997 to approximately $5 billion in 2006.
Annan spearheaded the publication of key reports, which dealt
with the operational responsibilities of peacekeepers, human rights
workers, and humanitarian actors. Back in 1998, he introduced the
“protection of civilians” concept in his report on “The Causes of
Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable
Development in Africa” (Annan 1998a). The Security Council
responded by adopting three resolutions in 1999, 2000, and 2006 as
well as a number of presidential statements relating to protection of
civilians. Ian John-stone writes: “The combined effect of these
instruments is to set out standards of behavior expected of host
governments, other parties to a conflict, other states, and
international organizations, including the Security Council itself when
it adopts peacekeeping mandates” (Johnstone 2007, 134).
The “protection of civilians” mandate is critically important, but
often member states’ will and the UN’s capacity to fulfill it is lacking.
Armed peacekeepers have not necessarily fared better. In addition,
since 9/11 there is the perception by many host-country
governments as well as local populations that international workers
and peacekeepers operating in particular conflict zones are serving
the wider aims of a Western or Northern agenda. As the terrorist
attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 painfully
illustrated, the UN is sometimes seen as neither independent nor
impartial. Humanitarians and international peacekeepers can be
perceived as a threat to one of the parties to the conflict, a point
that is made more complex with the added involvement of the
International Criminal Court. Moreover, although the integration of
different components of the UN presence in a host country has
gathered speed, as a result of the Delivering as One report, which
Annan commissioned in 2005, concerns remain within the
humanitarian community about the effects this will have on the
impartiality of humanitarian assistance. Although Annan grappled
with these issues, often in highly politicized contexts such as the
postintervention situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the challenge
was largely one bequeathed to his successors.
In light of the growing complexities of UN peacekeeping, Annan
appointed a panel of experts led by former foreign minister of
Algeria Lakhdar Brahimi to review peace operations and suggest how
they could be strengthened. The 2000 Brahimi Report stressed the
importance of integrating human rights in peace operations: “[T]he
human rights component of a peace operation is indeed critical to
effective peace building. UN human rights personnel can play a
leading role, for example, in helping to implement a comprehensive
program for national reconciliation. The human rights components
within peace operations have not always received the political and
administrative support that they require however, nor are their
functions always clearly understood by other components. Thus, the
Panel stresses the importance of training military, police and other
civilian personnel on human rights issues and on the relevant
provisions of international humanitarian law” (Report of the Panel on
United Nations Peace Operations 2000, 7).
When Annan assumed office, it was unusual for the Security
Council to include human rights in peacekeeping mandates. Yet
during his tenure human rights became a regular component of
peacekeeping mandates. This doctrinal shift is reflected in the UN’s
peacekeeping manual:
 The abuse and violation of human rights is at the heart of most
modern conflicts and is also a consequence of them. Many of the
worst human rights abuses occur during armed conflict and the
protection of human rights must be at the core of action taken to
address it. All United Nations entities have a responsibility to
ensure that human rights are promoted and protected by and
within their field operations. Most United Nations multi-
dimensional peacekeeping operations are therefore mandated to
promote and protect human rights by monitoring and helping to
investigate human rights violations and/or developing the
capacity of national actors and institutions to do so on their own.
The integration of human rights and the sustainability of human
rights programs should always be a key factor in the planning of
multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operations. (UN
Peacekeeping Operations 2008, 27)

The evolution in peacekeeping doctrine that the 2008 manual

reflects rests in large part on Annan’s drive to operationalize his
understanding of the relationship between human rights,
development, and security. Annan recognized that safeguarding
rights was a crucial component of achieving sustainable peace and
fostering a rule-of-law culture in fragile environments. In the
postconflict contexts in which peacekeeping forces are often
deployed, both concrete action to protect human rights and a
widespread perception that the mission is occupied with this task is
essential for forestalling the recurrence of conflict.
Although the doctrinal shift in peacekeeping represented a
significant change to the way the UN approached its own mission,
Annan also recognized the importance of more effective
collaboration with actors outside the UN system. This would not only
enhance the effectiveness of global initiatives but would also co-opt
actors in the international system that the UN had traditionally
conceived as rivals or otherwise outside the scope of its activities.
Annan championed development of the emerging hybrid institutional
partnerships upon which this book focuses.
 An important example in this regard was the creation in 2000 of
the UN Global Compact, which reflected Annan’s understanding that
the private sector could be a crucial partner in furthering the cause
of human rights and in supporting other UN aims, such as
environmental protection and a reduction of corruption. Rather than
viewing the private sector as an adversary, as many in the UN were
accustomed to doing, Annan’s inclusive inclinations and commitment
to the ultimate aim of promoting human dignity drove him to form
unusual partnerships. The Global Compact also underlined Annan’s
appreciation that progress could be made towards human rights
through means other than the traditional intergovernmental process.
In his speech to the World Economic Forum, which announced the
formation of the Compact, Annan reminded businesses of the
extraordinary influence that they themselves wielded: “Don’t wait for
every country to introduce laws protecting freedom of association
and the right to collective bargaining. You can at least make sure
your own employees, and those of your subcontractors, enjoy those
rights. You can at least make sure that you yourselves are not
employing underage children or forced labour, either directly or
indirectly. And you can make sure that, in your own hiring and firing
policies, you do not discriminate on grounds of race, creed, gender
or ethnic origin” (Annan 1999a).
The Global Compact was an important example of the kind of
networks that Annan formed to pursue his aims, which had all too
often been stalled in familiar negotiations between member states.
Annan’s instinctive desire to convene all relevant actors to address
issues concerning human dignity recognized the power of innovative
partnerships, which as other mechanisms such as the Global Fund
demonstrated, increasingly characterized his approach to
international challenges as his tenure progressed.

Conclusion
It is clear that there are limitations on the role of the secretary-
general both politically and in terms of his mandate defined in the
Charter. The most significant is that the secretary-general is not a
head of state or government but the chief administrative officer of
an intergovernmental organization. The secretary-general takes
instructions from the political bodies of the UN, particularly the
General Assembly and the Security Council. The secretary-general
can stake out the moral high ground—and Kofi Annan was adept at
choosing occasions on which to do so—but he cannot get too far
ahead of the member states. Given that the influence of the
secretary-general is in large part dependent on the exercise of moral
authority, when the basis of this influence is damaged—as many
deemed it to be during the oil-for-food scandal and when the UN
appeared impotent during the US-led invasion of Iraq—the pursuit of
UN goals can be severely impeded. This reality reflects the delicate
relationship between the Security Council and the secretary-general,
which requires nimble diplomacy—both overt and behind the scenes.
The secretary-general’s personal qualities are critical in creating a
productive and even harmonious relationship with the Council. As
Marrack Goulding, former undersecretary-general for Political Affairs,
noted, the relationship works best if the Security Council
understands that the secretary-general is more than a chief
administrative officer and the secretary-general understands that the
Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining
international peace and security (Goulding 2004, 267–280).
Kofi Annan’s contributions underline the fact that the promotion
of human dignity by the secretary-general requires effective
intellectual, moral, and political leadership. The ability of the
secretary-general to provide leadership is the result of various
factors including personal conviction, strategic planning,
perseverance, patience, in-depth knowledge of the UN system,
compelling communication skills, and charisma.
Annan’s role in promoting human dignity is central to the
meaning of his secretary-generalship. Annan stressed that lasting
peace was impossible without a respect for human rights, and that
human rights and good governance were important in the struggle
for development. He placed people (rather than states) and their
needs at the center of the UN’s work. To do so, he used a variety of
tools at his disposal: influential, sometimes provocative, speeches
and other forms of advocacy, rigorous and thoughtful reports, high-
level panels, and summits. He used the media to appeal to broader
constituencies beyond states, including civil society and the business
community. He was not reticent about speaking “above the heads of
state” and appealing directly to the peoples of the world. He was an
entrepreneur who was able to use the bully pulpit to generate and
shape norms, such as R2P.
Annan tried to build networks with nonstate actors, including the
private sector, civil society organizations, philanthropic foundations,
universities and think tanks, as well as celebrities in order to
promote human dignity without relying exclusively on state power
and interstate cooperation. An understanding that his accountability
was ultimately not to states but to the people they served informed
his approach to global challenges. In pursuit of human dignity he
worked, to an extent that no secretary-general had done before, to
protect populations threatened by gross and systematic violations of
human rights even in an era when many people had come to regard
global institutions and universal norms as a threat to their particular
identity or interests.
The agenda of human dignity is clearly important enough to
warrant the further engagement of the current and future
secretaries-general. The UN secretary-general must demonstrate the
courage needed to tackle hard questions and to bring forward new
thinking on the concept of human dignity, which is so central to the
relations within and among states, and on the institutional means
and partnerships to advance it. Annan was a quintessential norm
entrepreneur, and like all successful entrepreneurs he translated an
instinctive vision into an agenda for action that won the support of
effective coalitions. The secretary-general must continue to serve as
a catalyst for a new debate on the promotion of human dignity
around the world because in the words of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in
dignity and rights.”
Notes
For a detailed discussion about strategic planning in the Executive
Office of the Secretary-General including, inter alia, issues of human
dignity, see Abiodun Williams, “Strategic Planning in the Executive
Office of the UN Secretary General,” Global Governance 16, no. 4
(2010): 435–49.
1. The notion of “sovereignty as responsibility” did not emerge
with the political crises of the 1990s but has philosophical
antecedents coterminous with the very emergence of Westphalian
sovereignty. Nevertheless, it was Annan who expressed the
argument most forcefully and with the greatest resonance, providing
the political as well as philosophical underpinnings for the
Responsibility to Protect.
2. For a treatment of the Security Council’s efforts to address
atrocities and an emerging Responsibility to Protect norm, see Nancy
Soderberg’s chapter 2 in this book.
3. For a detailed assessment of the record of the Human Rights
Council, see chapter 6 in this book by Mark P. Lagon and Ryan
Kaminski on institutional evolution and efficacy in the area of human
rights.

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CHAPTER 4

Regional Security Organizations and

Human Dignity
CHESTER A. CROCKER

Regional security organizations (RSOs) differ as actors in global

politics in accordance with the differences among the regions in
which they are based.1 Regional history, culture, internal power
structures, linkages to outside power centers, levels of development,
and strength of state institutions all help to shape a region’s ability
to support RSOs and to determine their mandates and capacities
(Williams and Haacke 2011). Hence, it follows that most efforts to
capture generically the strengths and weaknesses of RSOs as diverse
as the European Union, the Organization of American States, the
African Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, or the Collective
Security Treaty Organization are less than totally satisfactory.
Although the level of abstraction is too high for sweeping
generalizations, this chapter, nonetheless, explores some visible
trends concerning RSO performance, and it identifies actions that
offer the prospect for greater RSO contributions to advancing the
human dignity agenda.
There is a range of quite distinct roles that RSOs may play in
contemporary world politics. They may be defenders of the
sovereignty principle, seeking to protect the independence and
security of states (and their regimes) from external intrusions,
intervention and interference. They may serve as agents of regional
stability, working to iron out interstate differences and solve
problems among neighbors. RSOs may define themselves as
advocates of a form of “regional sovereignty” for the purpose of
defending certain values, promoting particular policy priorities,
resisting external influences, and achieving strength in numbers vis-
à-vis a threat or an adversary. RSOs may serve as platforms or
transmission belts for the projection of the influence of particular
members or groups of members. RSOs may see themselves as
agents of good governance, using control of the process of
admitting, expelling, or suspending members as a tool for spreading
best practices and preferred norms. In sum, then, RSOs are capable
of becoming agents of change or pillars of the status quo.
The question of legitimizing the salience of individuals and
promoting their potential (their agency) in the name of dignity
hinges on some intervening variables. States may still be the primary
instrument for defending the dignity and rights of individuals and for
extending the benefits of liberty and justice to them. But some
governments have other priorities. In some cultures and societies,
the rights of the group (however defined) and the value of social
cohesion appear to trump the value of individual rights. To be sure,
these claims are easily abused by authoritarians who seek to counter
opposition of any kind. That said, however, it is hard to dismiss the
notion that order and discipline are highly valued in places where the
alternative may be factional strife or generalized mayhem. Some
governments lack the capacity to defend and advance the rights of
individuals effectively. In some directly relevant fields (e.g., political
party development, professional education, skills training, women’s
empowerment, environmental protection, independent media,
judicial reform, and prison), the real expertise may lie in civil society
and the private sector. On top of these obstacles, RSOs may lack the
resources and functional skills to advance the human dignity agenda
through their programs of rights monitoring and conflict prevention
and resolution. They may not be, in other words, the logical first
responders.
This chapter explores some of the different roles that RSOs can
play in support of human dignity and individual rights as well as the
rights of identity groups and minorities. It argues that RSOs are
beginning to play an increasingly significant role in security affairs
and conflict management. Although this trend has implications for
their capacity to be relevant to the human dignity agenda described
in the Introduction, the substantial differences in RSO priorities
shape whether they are, on balance, a positive or negative factor.
Even though RSOs differ in major respects, there are a few
overarching points on which it is possible to generalize across the
universe of RSOs. First, membership in RSOs is confined to states.
The norms and principles embodied in an RSO’s charter reflect the
interests and priorities of its state parties, as articulated by member
governments at the time of adoption. Charters also tend to reflect
customary and conventional international law: that is, the law of
interstate relations.
Second, it must quickly be added that neither international law
nor states themselves are frozen in time. The relationship between
international law and the strategies of states is an evolutionary and
increasingly important one (Rostow 2012). Both are evolving in
response to a host of political and normative influences, with the
result that RSOs can no longer be understood to be exclusively
concerned with interstate relations. Rather, they are situated along a
dynamic continuum, ranging from those most interested in domestic
governance concerns—including equal respect for the human dignity
of all people—to those least respectful of their importance.
Accordingly, it is important to understand why and how norms
relevant to human security and dignity get diffused.
Third, it is axiomatic that the roles played by RSOs are directly
related to the threat environment in which they operate. Where
threats to individual rights and human dignity are most evident and
best documented, RSOs are most likely to experience pressures to
acknowledge the challenge. When indigenous civil society
institutions are relatively strong and able to sustain their connections
to external partners, RSOs are more likely to find that their member
states are more positive about their becoming agents of good
governance. Where instability and violent conflict take the form of
civil wars—that is to say, wars conducted by regimes or armed
factions against unarmed civilians or wars in which civilians are the
primary casualties—basic human dignity is less likely to be privileged
by political elites in RSOs.
Finally, where narco-trafficking networks and piracy have sunk
their roots into corrupt, weak (or nonexistent) state institutions, it is
a safe bet that parallel forms of illegal commerce threatening to
human dignity will soon flourish (O’Regan 2012). In sum, diverse
political and security environments lead to diverse RSO roles; these
variations help to explain their differences over such issues as radical
populism, resource nationalism, women’s rights, gay/lesbian rights,
HIV/AIDS programs, foreign involvement in Responsibility to Protect
(R2P) issues and the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC),
arms trafficking, freedom of information and internet access, and
climate change.
Before proceeding to identify the changing roles of RSOs on
issues of human dignity and human security, a few comments on
how these terms are used is in order. The definition of human
dignity offered in chapter 1 by the editors of this book is a highly
developed and quite specific formulation: “Human dignity is the
fundamental agency of human beings to apply their gifts to thrive.
As such, it requires social recognition of each person’s inherent value
and claim to equal access to opportunity. To be meaningful, human
dignity must be institutionalized in practice and governance.”
Agency and recognition are the core ingredients. As argued
below, these values depend for their realization on a prior condition
of legitimate peace, which in turn is the precursor for decent
governance.
For some, such as former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, the
term “human security” is preferred precisely because of its sweeping
breadth and its concern with all the sources and manifestations of
conflict. In his view:

During the cold war, security tended to be defined almost

entirely in terms of military might and the balance of terror.
Today, we know that “security” means far more than the
 absence of conflict. We also have a greater appreciation for
nonmilitary sources of conflict. We know that lasting peace
requires a broader vision encompassing areas such as
education and health, democracy and human rights,
protection against environmental degradation, and the
proliferation of deadly weapons. We know that we cannot be
secure amidst starvation, that we cannot build peace without
alleviating poverty, and that we cannot build freedom on
foundations of injustice. These pillars of what we now
understand as the people-centered concept of “human
security” are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. (Annan
2001)

Human security can also be conceived more narrowly and perhaps

usefully as relating to vulnerability (or its opposite) to threats of
physical violence. Astri Suhrke puts it this way:

The central task of a policy inspired by human security

concerns would therefore be to protect those who are most
vulnerable.… The philosophers do not tell us precisely who
the vulnerable are, but it is self-evident that those exposed to
immediate physical threats to life or deprivation of life-
sustaining resources are extremely vulnerable.… Other
persons can be placed in equally life-threatening positions for
reasons of deep poverty or natural disasters. This gives us
three categories of extremely vulnerable persons:

• victims of war and internal conflict;

• those who live close to the subsistence level and thus are
structurally positioned at the edge of socioeconomic
disaster; and
• victims of natural disasters.

In this schema, the condition of abject poverty or

powerlessness is not qualitatively different from vulnerability
to physical violence during conflict. (Suhrke 1999, 265-76)
These conceptions are not mutually exclusive. Given our focus here
on institutions and governance, it is best to recognize the wide
spectrum of definitions and to concentrate on what RSOs can
realistically do to advance both human security and then, human
dignity.

Why is the Role of RSOs Becoming More

Important?
The study of regional security institutions rests on the prior
assumption that regionalism is an important dimension of
international security affairs. Modern regionalism traces its
development from the negotiations that produced UN Charter
Chapter VIII, which is dedicated to relations between the global
body and regional arrangements (i.e., RSOs). Buzan and Waever
consider that a regionalist perspective is a major contending
approach alongside neorealist and globalist approaches because it
underscores the territoriality inherent in security dynamics and it
bridges between the local and global levels: “Acknowledging the
regional level as an independent, and frequently powerful, factor in
the security equation is essential to both sound theory and sensible
policy” (Buzan and Waever 2003, 481).
RSOs typically arose in one of six contexts: (a) as an embodiment
of Cold War alliance systems, (b) as an assertion of regional
solidarity to bolster shared norms or to advance shared cultural or
ethnic values, (c) in the wake of decolonization, as an expression of
sovereign independence and resistance to neocolonial or superpower
intrusion, (d) as a search for mutual support and cooperation in the
face of a powerful neighboring adversary, (e) as an assertion of
subregional competence in dealing with challenges more rapidly and
purposefully than would a more distant, regionwide organization,
and (f) as a post-Cold War act of balancing against existing global
and Western-led bodies. But whatever their origins, RSOs are
emerging as an increasingly significant vehicle for security
cooperation.
The reasons for this are several. As argued elsewhere,
regionalism and RSOs are becoming more important due to a
widespread recognition that global institutions and the leading global
so-called security exporters are already overstretched and are more
likely to be retrenching than expanding their activities (Crocker,
Hampson, and Aall 2012). Regionalism is emerging, in part, to fill an
apparent gap. In recognition of this reality, it is noteworthy that
global actors are not necessarily opposed to regional actors’
emergence. On the contrary, the UN Secretariat has conducted
extensive, multiyear engagements (e.g., conferences, publications,
and capacity-building programs) on the topic of cooperation and
coordination between the world body and regional organizations,
especially in the field of peacekeeping and conflict management.
Such activity has received support from various UN members. The
United States has increasingly identified the advantages of
partnering with multilateral institutions, a process that began during
the second administration of George W. Bush and has expanded
under Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a
focus on a multipartner world, including increased emphasis on
regional institutions. The process is symbolized by the appointment
of US ambassadors to the African Union and to the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2009 and 2011, respectively
(Patrick 2012). This partnering can only work if there is a reciprocal
willingness on the part of the relevant RSOs, as often appears to be
the case.
In addition to these factors, RSOs are becoming more significant
because of a self-conscious determination in some regions to assert
ownership and a right of first refusal in the handling of regional
security problems, even in cases where regional will to act far
outstrips regional capacity for action. Such assertions of what might
be called regional sovereignty have deep historical roots going back
to the negotiations leading to the adoption of the UN Charter and its
Article 52(2). The Indian scholar-diplomat P. N. Panikkar conceived
of regionalism in the late 1940s in ways distinct from and broader
than the Western conceptions of the day that tended to focus on
narrow conceptions of security. As regionalism has developed since
then, scholars have differentiated regionalism from regional
integration and viewed the former as an assertion of autonomy from
great power aspirations to control weaker neighbors (Acharya 2012).
In arguing in the late 1960s for a Pax Africana, the Kenyan-American
scholar Ali Mazrui made reference to a concept of racial sovereignty
that would resist all forms of external rule or domination (Mazrui
1967). Such notions of regional self-assertion explain the more
recent efforts since the 2002 inauguration of the African Union to
upgrade the African regional security architecture, a long-standing
goal of such leaders as Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo and South
Africa’s Thabo Mbeki (Engel and Porto 2010).
Regional ownership and buy-in offers legitimacy and helps to
explain the growing support of powerful states for RSO roles.
Interestingly, such support would likely strengthen to the extent that
RSOs are receptive to the human dignity agenda; by the same
token, their receptivity is likely to vary with the pressures and
incentives received from more powerful actors. Not only are RSOs
viewed to be closer to the issues culturally and geographically, they
also provide cover against accusations that external security agendas
are somehow being imposed. On the other hand, RSOs can
sometimes provide a useful platform for regional hegemons to
project their values and interests onto a regional stage. Weaker
regional states may be wary of such influences but are also aware of
their need for the protection afforded by being part of something
much larger.
Another factor in the growing salience of RSOs is the increasingly
ad hoc, a la carte character of conflict-management initiatives. The
problem of overstretch, the changing nature of security challenges,
and the risk-averse character of decision making in leading world
capitals all point toward a quest for burden sharing and borrowed
legitimacy. However challenged they may be in terms of tangible
capacity, RSOs have become increasingly attractive partners for
other actors. The result is a pattern of spontaneous, improvised
security management in which RSOs are frequent participants in a
wide range of hybrid arrangements. This pattern of collective conflict
management may not be the answer to all challenges, but it may be
the most likely pattern in the face of problems that no one actor
wants to own (Crocker, Hampson, and Aall 2011).

What Can RSOs Contribute to a Human

Dignity Agenda?
The most basic contribution of RSOs to human dignity is an indirect
one: helping to create the bare minimum conditions in which the
values of human dignity are recognized and human beings have at
least some opportunity to achieve their potential. Absent those
conditions—state institutions strong enough to impose a monopoly
on the instruments of organized violence and sovereign enough to
garner the respect of external actors—it is difficult to avoid local or
regional anarchy. Individual agency in all its meanings cannot
flourish during civil wars and intractable conflicts. Minimal security
and some measure of civic order are preconditions for bringing war-
torn states back from the abyss and crumbling states toward a
chance for stable development. This helps to explain why most
policy-related research on state building tends to focus on the
security first approach, including the building of strong institutions,
as Krasner has observed (Krasner 2011).
RSOs make security contributions to dignity in various ways. They
may provide procedures and mechanisms for dispute settlement by
offering facilitation, good offices, and mediation services to
members. Member states may prefer that interstate conflicts are
addressed under the aegis of an RSO rather than a global body, at
least in the first instance. RSO founding charters and basic principles
typically provide a normative framework that mirrors the UN
Charter’s prohibition on the use of force except for purposes of self-
defense, offering another layer of support for members’
independence and territorial integrity. As for intrastate conflicts,
which form the vast bulk of the modern conflict universe, RSO
practice varies but an increasing number are moving toward greater
willingness to take up issues that affect the sovereignty and internal
affairs of member states. Some RSOs, such as the Organization of
American States (OAS), include in their remit specific commitments
to the protection of democratically elected governments as well as
sanctions that mandate the suspension of members experiencing
coups or military putsches. Some like the European Union have
elaborate programs aimed at strengthening observance of human
rights by means of intergovernmental commissions charged with
responsibilities in this area. In addition to these contributions, a few
RSOs, such as the African Union, have developed a security
architecture with the potential to mount peace observation and
monitoring missions as well as more ambitious peacekeeping and
peace enforcement operations in support of implementation of
negotiated agreements within or among member states (Bercovitch
and Jackson 2009, Chapter 9).
Beyond their security contributions, RSOs have the potential to
block or alternatively to support the introduction of contemporary
thinking on human dignity. Whether or not RSO members are
consciously aware of the link, when they privilege peacemaking and
conflict resolution they are also strengthening respect and
recognition for individual human beings. Those precious things so
eloquently discussed in the Introduction depend upon a measure of
peace with justice. RSOs, of course, have no monopoly on the
practice of peacemaking. But they are gradually becoming more
central to the field.
To be sure, RSOs have the standing to go either way—to be a
force for positive change or an obstacle. They are legitimizers of a
region’s consensus, and lowest common denominator outcomes are
the frequent result. But, as noted above, many governments in
various regions are themselves under pressure to evolve toward a
greater respect for universal values—due to the influence of local
advocacy and interest groups, global and local nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and media, as well as the desire to appeal to
overseas financial markets, investors, and donors. As they do so,
RSOs will evolve with them. Holdouts will experience shaming as
RSOs gradually become official megaphones for new thinking.
Although RSOs serve at the pleasure of their members, they also
have some capacity to discipline members that discredit a region’s
image.
It remains unclear whether the polarized debates over values and
priorities outlined in the Introduction will endure or, alternatively, will
be superseded at either the regional or the global level. Sterile
debate over abstract principles is a favorite pastime of international
organizations at both levels. It is interesting to consider the
possibility that RSOs will rise above such value cleavages before the
UN itself does. The Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
calls for action in Libya in 2011 eased the way for UN and then the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to do something about
Qaddafi, overcoming predictable resistance from Russia and China. A
similar dynamic occurred in 2012 when African Union pressure
helped overcome their resistance to threatening sanctions on Sudan
and South Sudan when the recently separated neighbors edged
toward another chapter in their decades-long trauma of warfare.
Another factor to be considered is lateral learning as well as
possible rivalry between RSOs (and between them and global
actors). The long-established democratic norms of the European
Union (EU) and NATO were followed on September 11, 2001, by the
adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which
empowered the OAS to suspend a member state’s participation
when there had been “an unconstitutional interruption of the
democratic order.” The Charter includes strong support for
democratic institution-building and human rights protections. African
RSOs, including the continental African Union (AU) have evolved in a
parallel direction since the start of the twenty-first century,
suspending the participation of states that experience military coups
and mounting diplomatic missions, sanctions programs, and even
coercive threats and actions directed at miscreants. Sovereignty
under the AU’s Constitutive Act is described in a recent study as
“contingent on a government’s willingness and capacity to deliver on
human security” (Williams and Haacke 2011, 126). Whereas the
results are mixed (as the recent cases of Mali and Guinea Bissau
make clear), African armies no longer have a free hand to seize
power without fear of significant consequences. This represents a
shift in RSOs’ commitment to advancing norms of governance
bearing on basic dignity.

What Can Be Done to Strengthen the RSO

Role?
The emergence of the human security paradigm as an important if
not central focus of concern in international security studies marks a
significant development for all interstate institutions, including
regional ones. As Hampson et al. have argued, the arrival of people
(i.e., individuals) as a reference point in assessing the presence or
absence of international security represents an open-ended
paradigm shift in the way we view international politics. To the
extent that it becomes legitimized, the human security paradigm
changes the environment in which all relevant actors operate,
including governments and intergovernmental bodies (Hampson,
Daudelin, Hay, Reid, and Marting, 2002, 38).
It is worth looking at a few examples of the variations among
regions and RSOs. This will shed light on what is missing in many
RSOs and what can be done about it. Members of the Inter-
American institutional system place a high value on a shared legal
tradition and diplomatic culture, and they have come together
effectively to quarantine states experiencing military take-overs
(Quinney 2011). Since the 1998 peace accords between Ecuador and
Peru, interstate conflicts and arms races are generally a thing of the
past. Yet, when it comes to mobilizing real capacity to prevent
conflict by integrating the tools of democratic development, rights
monitoring, and poverty alleviation, the system falls short.2 Effective
coordination of tools is hampered by the high value placed on
consensus decision making and noninterference as well as by severe
resource shortfalls (Baranyi 2005). In addition, capacity constraints
and political divisions in the region also account for the system’s
unimpressive track record in combating some of the most important
regional threats related to criminal networks; gang violence;
trafficking in people, drugs and arms; and corruption of local
officials.
Democratic norms and individual rights face more uphill
challenges as one turns to the Middle East and much of Asia. Here
the sovereignty norm continues to hold pride of place, enabling
states with highly diverse political arrangements to get along as
partners in regional organizations. East Asia’s political diversity
makes it almost impossible to imagine a values-based regional
political order. Organizations such as the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) concentrate on such priorities as border security, combating
crime, and counterterrorism. The less openly acknowledged priority
is to strengthen the security of regimes, to defeat ethnic separatism
and, for some members, to balance against other groupings such as
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
where Western democratic norms have stronger support. This
appears to be the barren soil in which human dignity has to take
root.
Everything hinges on the political balance and the trends within a
given RSO. Lateral learning and peer pressure may have been a
factor in pushing a statist RSO, such as the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC), toward establishing in 2008 an Independent
Permanent Human Rights Commission. The Commission acquired a
governing statute in June 2011 that identifies the OIC’s purposes as
including promotion of civil, political, and economic rights enshrined
in its own “covenants and declarations and in universally agreed
human rights instruments, in conformity with Islamic values.” OIC
secretary-general Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu states that OIC rules of
procedure are inspired by member-state proposals and “the practices
of international organizations.” In a July 2010 interview, İhsanoğlu
noted the goal of “striking a delicate balance” between Islamic
declarations and international human rights instruments (Cismas
2011, 1148). Nonetheless, Ihsanoglu publicly positions the OIC as an
institution committed to helping “the new governments in the Arab
and Muslim world … bring about political stability and build a civil
society based on human rights and social justice while ensuring the
right to livelihood and the provision of economic growth and basic
sustenance for their citizens.” His public remarks have pointed to a
diffuse array of OIC efforts in “humanitarian and human
development programs in its Member States through concrete and
practical programs, including poverty alleviation, education, science
and technology, and empowering women” (OIC 2012).
Commenting on the inaugural meeting of the OIC Human Rights
Commission in Jakarta in February 2012, Indonesian human rights
advocates welcomed its emergence as evidence of a “paradigm shift
in the Islamic world on human rights” but cautioned that the
“Islamic values” caveat could be used to legitimize a reduction or
dilution of universal principles (Wahyuningrum and Hafiz 2012). The
Commission’s mandate stresses such purposes as supporting the
OIC position on rights, offering technical advice to members, and
conducting studies and research rather than monitoring and
reviewing member state reports. The mandate’s narrow emphases
distinguish its scope of action from sister commissions in the African
and Western Hemisphere systems (Cismas 2011, 2). In sum, the OIC
case suggests a process of adaptation and improvisation—embracing
while also resisting global norms. Such improvisation is also evident
in the varied interpretations of state legitimacy reflected in the
decisions of the GCC in reference to Libya, Syria, and Bahrain during
the 2011–12 period.
European interests in and potential capacity for engagement on
issues of human dignity and security are striking. EU and NATO’s
commitment to governance and human rights standards for
admission of new members have played a critical role in driving the
reform process in post—Cold War Central and Eastern Europe. The
European Union, acting through the Commission and the Council,
manages a vast and complex architecture of organizations and
programs related to conflict management, development, governance
including rule of law, and humanitarian assistance. European
engagement with RSOs in other regions (i.e., the AU, ASEAN) has
set a high standard for interregional cooperation and capacity-
building. The rhetorical commitments of European actors to the
principles and best practices for enhancing human dignity are also
impressive.
But Europe has arguably not optimized the output of its foreign,
defense, and development policies for a variety of reasons including
internal policy divisions, institutional rivalries between EU
institutions, overlap between EU mandates and those of the OSCE
and NATO, and what one expert describes as Europe’s continued
“obsession with national sovereignty” (Bailes 2011, 290–91).
Disarray and inability to cooperate for common purposes were on
painful display during the 2011 Libya crisis whose aftermath could
have offered the organization an opportunity to redeem itself as a
human security actor had not the earlier discord over the basic
mission made such action impossible.
To be sure, the EU has conducted a wide array of human security
missions starting in 2003, including some eighteen discrete military
and civilian operations in five geographic regions. These missions
offer a striking illustration of EU capacity and further potential to be
a constructive global actor. Effective missions in the Balkans, Africa,
and Indonesia are cases in point (Martin and Kaldor 2012). The
impact of such activity within the European space is uncontested.
What is less clear is whether it will continue and flourish on a global
basis in the wake of the Afghanistan experience and the multiyear
economic crisis within the Eurozone itself. (For a skeptical forecast of
future European action in conflict management activity beyond
Europe’s own home base, see de Jonge Oudraat [in Crocker,
Hampson, and Aall 2011].)
The snapshots above underscore the wide range of relevant RSO
activity. They also offer clues as to what must be done to improve
their performance. There are several ways to strengthen the RSO
contribution to advancing human dignity. The most promising
avenues for democratic states to engage in promotion of this agenda
include: (a) development of interregional (inter-RSO) programs,
meetings, and exchanges of information and people, (b) cultivating
diplomatic and capacity-building relationships between Western
RSOs and their counterparts in other regions in order to enhance the
latters’ standing in the eyes of their own members and other political
actors, (c) using UN, alliance, and bilateral networks with RSO
officials in regions with autocratic or contested governance
standards to press for improved performance, providing incentives
where appropriate, (d) exploring new partnerships with RSOs—and
their leading members—that might appear to value human dignity
less than the United States and other Western states in order to test
for areas of potential common ground on which to build, and (e)
sharing with receptive RSOs the best practices and smart power
tools for going after miscreants and hostile organizations that
directly threaten human dignity.
There is circumstantial evidence that RSO officials are conscious
of developments in sister organizations as well as in the UN that
might be relevant to their own activities. Claims on the websites of
newly arrived RSOs, such as the Russian-dominated CSTO or the
newly refurbished OIC, suggest that the channels of cooperation are
open. RSO officials, it appears, wish to communicate with their
counterparts and to be seen cooperating laterally with them. Jointly
planned ministerial meetings between EU officials and ASEAN and
AU counterparts—mirrored and, to a degree, counterbalanced by
similar events between the CSTO, SCO, ASEAN and the OIC—are
examples of how formal, planned events offer a setting for
networking, information sharing, and the development of assistance
and capacity-building initiatives. This developing pattern may slowly
increase the will and wherewithal to advance human dignity in an
RSO.
Resource-constrained RSOs such as the AU have discreetly
welcomed assistance from the UN, the EU, and the US Africa
Command (Africom) and other bilateral sources. Whereas capacity-
building and training are well established in the security sector,
parallel activity can be encouraged in such fields as health, rule of
law, rights monitoring, and conflict prevention/early warning.
As RSOs develop the habit of welcoming and accrediting envoys
from other RSOs, the UN, and individual states—the latter assign
experienced people to such missions—this practice opens a
potentially important channel for advice and demarches as well as
other forms of communication. To illustrate, if Washington seeks
improved RSO performance on rights monitoring or prevention of
gender-based violence, one way to support the goal is to assign
active, senior diplomats to the RSO’s so-called capital. Paying
attention to the leading regional organizations demonstrates that
they are taken seriously, which encourages others to do the same. It
also elevates the organization in the eyes of media and civil society
within the member states. Skillfully done, such attention should
make it easier to press for information and transparency.
An interesting variant of this approach is the potential of RSOs to
serve as building blocks for expanded security cooperation on a
cross-regional basis where political and values differences are
substantial. This principle explains the long-standing NATO program
of security dialogues and programs with Russia and other individual
members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) under
NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programs. In the case of Russia,
these included joint exercises such as the Bold Monarch international
submarine rescue exercise in 2012 and the Vigilant Skies exercise in
2011, the first ever airborne counterterrorism exercise; cooperation
with Russia also took place in the fields of military medicine,
logistics, bomb disposal and counterpiracy operations in the Horn of
Africa.
Although these are admittedly illustrations of traditional security
programming, they can also serve as a possible precedent and a foot
in the door to broader initiatives in fields more directly linked to
human security, such as cooperation against human and arms
trafficking. What has not happened so far is a formal NATO
relationship with the Russian-inspired CSTO on such issues as
counter-narcotics trafficking, as Moscow has proposed. NATO
members have been reluctant to take this step in order to avoid
creating an imagery of equivalence between two such different
organizations. By the same token, Russian officials have been
reluctant to join or even tolerate governance programs of NATO, the
EU, and the OSCE in some Balkan and Caucasus states. Zbigniew
Brzezinski has argued that there could be a case for cross-RSO
relationships if a NATO-CSTO “joint agreement for security
cooperation in Eurasia and beyond were to contain a provision
respecting the right of current nonmembers to eventually seek
membership in either NATO or the CSTO—and perhaps, at a still
more distant point, even in both” (Brzezinski 2009). Once again, the
case depends on developing a conscious strategy for translating
geopolitical common ground into expanded space for RSO roles on
human dignity issues. This logic could then extend farther east to
entail a form of cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, five of whose six core members are also CSTO
members.
Brzezinski’s notion of NATO at the center of a web of institutions
incorporating the security concerns of all Eurasia would have to start
modestly, given vastly different conceptions of governance, human
rights, and definitions of human security and dignity. Although the
Web may share common concerns about terrorism and narco-
trafficking, views on extremism and separatism, key CSO concerns,
will differ sharply. Efforts of Eurasian autocrats to redefine
cyberwarfare as an attempt by one state to use information to
threaten the security of another in order to undermine its culture
and political system only underscore the problem. However, the
relevant point here is that interaction between and among RSOs can
serve the interests of their members and create channels for shaping
opinion and spreading ideas while also pursuing common interests.
Failure to engage in dialogue and jawboning across the lines of
values polarization will do little to advance human dignity. The world
of RSOs is a competitive as well as cooperative arena, so Western
democracies should not shy away from the competition.
A fifth avenue for strengthening the potential contribution of
RSOs to the human dignity agenda is the sharing of best practices
and tools that have been successful in other arenas. Specifically, the
instruments and techniques developed in the fields of international
police and judicial cooperation, counter-narcotics trafficking, and
counterterrorism are, in a general sense, fungible tools. The power
they represent is transferable—between sectors, states, and RSOs
themselves. If applied against clandestine arms dealers, human
traffickers, or criminal warlords with some of the same zeal as was
used in the case of financial sanctions against Iran over its nuclear
policy, the effects could be striking. The use of counter-narcotics
tactics and personnel to bring Russian arms merchant Viktor Bout to
justice illustrates the general point. Tools developed to attack
terrorist financial networks can serve other purposes as well. The
ultimate objective in going after illicit operators is to shrink their
freedom of action and limit the zone of ungoverned spaces where
such people thrive at the expense of civilian populations. By doing
so, it becomes possible to expand the space for concerted action on
behalf of the rule of law (Asher, Comras, and Cronin 2011).
The obstacle to transferring such tools from one domain or
jurisdiction to another is essentially political, but it also involves
issues of intelligence sharing and concern about protecting sources
and methods. Nonetheless, such tools have been at the forefront of
US efforts not only to counter weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
proliferators and terrorist networks but also to advance policy goals
amidst the turmoil of the Arab awakening. And, US officials are
becoming more outspoken about broadening the use of financial
instruments of statecraft. As Daniel L. Glaser, assistant secretary for
Terrorist Financing, US Treasury Department, stated in late 2011:
“Within the Treasury Department, the mission of the Office of
Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, known as TFI, is to marshal the
Treasury Department’s policy, enforcement, regulatory, and
intelligence functions to sever the lines of financial support to
international terrorists, WMD proliferators, narcotics traffickers, and
other threats to our national security” (Glaser 2011). As the agenda
of human dignity rises further up the priority list of foreign policy
concerns of the United States and other like-minded powers, the
application of smart power tools through regional organizations will
predictably become more widespread.

Conclusion
This chapter has argued that RSOs can serve a range of political
purposes and goals, reflecting the interests and priorities of member
states as well as the histories and cultures of different regions. It
further asserts that RSOs are becoming more important actors in
international politics and security, as legitimizers, gatekeepers, and
operational agents. While serving the interests of member states,
they also reflect the broader universe of laws and norms, which are
ever changing. The chapter makes the case that RSOs have the
potential to be relevant players in advancing the agenda of human
dignity. Although not often primary drivers, they do play an
increasingly salient role in shaping the political and institutional
environment in which issues of dignity are acted upon. Leading
democratic states and intergovernmental bodies have possibilities for
action to expand the scope for advancing human dignity if they set
about it consciously. This chapter has identified a number of avenues
for doing so and for strengthening the RSO contribution to building a
more decent global order.

Notes
1. I am indebted to Georgetown University graduate student
Stein-Ivar Eide for his research assistance in the preparation of this
chapter.
2. I am indebted to Georgetown University graduate student
Caitlin Fogerty for drawing my attention to these issues.
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CHAPTER 5

Inclusive Growth, Institutions, and

the Underground Economy
ANOOP SINGH

The global surge in public protests against perceptions of bad

governance and lack of inclusive growth are a reminder of the
importance of developing strong institutions on the one hand and of
expanding the benefits of the formal economy to encourage
economic growth and opportunities on the other. The two challenges
are interlinked: Good institutions depend on ample state capacity,
which in turn depends on bringing economic activity into the ambit of
the formal sector. A large informal economy limits state capacity,
which may hinder institutional development, in turn discouraging
expansion of the formal sector, limiting economic and financial
inclusion, and thus restricting the benefits of a formal economy to
relatively few participants. More fundamentally, the presence of large
underground economies and weak domestic institutions lead to
unequal access to economic opportunities and thereby hinder the
freedom of individuals to thrive based on their capabilities, which are
defined by Amartya Sen as the individual’s opportunities and ability to
generate outcomes that are valued by themselves.
Large underground economies pose problems for policymaking: A
vicious cycle can be set off as governments with large informal or
underground economies may raise tax rates to make up revenues,
thereby encouraging further enlargement of the underground
economy. This may erode the institutional capacity of the government
even further. Fragile states are at heightened risk of falling into this
vicious circle. Moreover, large informal economies render official
statistics unreliable and incomplete, complicating the formulation of
informed policies. In this bad equilibrium, benefits of a formal
economy such as property rights protection and access to credit
markets are not widely available, which may discourage economic
growth and deny economic opportunities to many. The resulting lack
of inclusiveness will adversely affect human dignity, which, as noted
in the introduction, requires equal access to opportunities, which in
turn would enable each individual to apply their capabilities to thrive.
The presence of a large underground economy and widespread
corruption undercut access to justice and the agency to thrive,
thereby impinging on human dignity. Evidence suggests that the
underground economy, which includes both illegal and legal activities,
constitutes a significant portion of the economy in a number of
countries.1 Smith (1994) defines the underground economy as the
“market-based production of goods and service whether legal or
illegal, that escape detection in the official estimates of GDP.” This
chapter, however, follows recent studies that adopt a narrower
definition of the underground economy, “which includes all market-
based legal production of goods and services that are deliberately
concealed from public authorities to avoid the payment of income,
value added or other taxes, to avoid payment of social security
contributions, having to meet certain legal labor market standards,
such as minimum wages, maximum working hours, and safety
standards, and complying with certain administrative procedures”
(Schneider, Buehn, and Montenegro 2010). The lack of social security
contributions and the circumvention of labor standards could
potentially undercut the dignity of the labor force employed in the
shadow economy.
However, on the positive side, a large informal sector may be
viewed as the nursery of future economic growth within the formal
economy. It serves as an important buffer against economic
uncertainty and underdevelopment in the formal sector by providing
livelihoods to large sections of the population. This is particularly
important when viewed from a development perspective, since poor
and emerging countries have much larger shares of informal activity
than do rich countries. What links underdevelopment and the shadow
economy?
Hernando De Soto (1989) links the problem of underdevelopment
with a key institutional weakness, namely that much of the
potentially productive capital in poor countries is outside the system
of formal property rights. Unlike in countries with mature property
rights systems where assets can be leveraged easily into capital that
can be employed for productive activity and thus grow the stock of
capital, in poor countries it is often very difficult to establish clear
rights to property in the first place. It is even more challenging to
reap their benefits, such as the capacity to use property as collateral
to invest and the protections afforded by them. The productive
capacity of the economy is restricted due to this fundamental
institutional weakness; therefore, wider participation in the formal
economy is hindered, encouraging enclave-like de velopment that
benefits the few and leaves many out, leading to increased inequality
and detracting from human dignity.
In De Soto’s view, the establishment of institutions that create and
protect property rights is the key that can unlock the potential for
growth contained within the informal sector. Emerging economies in
particular have been playing a more central role in boosting global
growth, and the large size of the informal sector in these economies
suggests that even higher rates of growth are potentially achievable
once domestic institutions are strengthened, leading to greater
inclusiveness.
In examining the determinants of the size of the shadow
economy, several studies place importance on the centrality of
institutions and link the size of the shadow economy more broadly to
various measures of institutional development. This chapter seeks to
build on this approach and is structured as follows. First, some
methods to estimate the size of the underground economy are
discussed and these estimates are analyzed. Next, the chapter
discusses the determinants of the underground economy, with
particular emphasis on the role of institutions and the rule of law. The
chapter also examines the role of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) in combating the growth of informal economies.
Intergovernmental institutions, including the IMF, have an important
role to play as they help in strengthening domestic institutions, which
should serve to promote dignity and prosperity more widely.
This chapter’s findings confirm that economies characterized by
weak institutions, in particular those with a high regulatory burden,
weak rule of law, and high corruption, have larger shares of informal
economic activity, which in turn undermine economic management,
growth, and ultimately the broadened social inclusion and potential
for individual agency upon which enlarged human dignity rests. The
evidence may also be seen as conforming to the view that firms
operating in such an environment have an incentive to hide their
activities in the underground economy. As Daron Acemoglu and
James Robinson argue in Why Nations Fail, the main difference
between rich and poor countries is their man-made political and
economic institutions, not their culture or geography. The book’s
compelling narrative shows that nations prosper when they put in
place inclusive and pro-growth institutions, and they fail when their
institutions become extractive and benefit the interests of a narrow
elite instead of creating economic benefits and political power that
are widely shared (2012). Thus, institutions that are oriented toward
ensuring that a broad base of people has access to the opportunity to
prosper economically are crucial. And international institutions have a
role in catalyzing these national institutions, which is further
explained later in this essay.

Measuring the Size of the Underground

Economy
Estimating the size of the informal economy is a challenge as the
purpose of operating in it is often to avoid detection and, in some
cases, countries may lack the capacity to monitor underground
activity. Although there are no direct measures of the size and
composition of the underground economy, a number of indirect
methods have been proposed, although each of these has
drawbacks. The methods to estimate the size of the underground
economy are:

• A currency demand approach. Since most transactions in the

underground economy are conducted in cash, this approach
estimates the size of the underground economy from the excess
demand for cash.
• An electricity demand approach. This assumes that electricity
usage is a good physical indicator of economic activity and
estimates the growth of the underground economy based on the
difference between the growth rate of electricity consumption
and the official GDP growth.
• A labor force approach. This estimates the growth of the
underground economy based on the decline in labor
participation, assuming a constant labor participation rate.
• A multiple indicators, multiple causes model (MIMIC model). This
estimates the size of the shadow economy based on multiple
observed variables that are presumed to cause it, including the
share of direct taxes, the size of the government, tax rates, the
regulatory burden, and GDP per capita (Schneider 2004;
Schneider, Buehn, and Montenegro 2010).

These approaches to measuring the size of the informal economy

suggest that it is sizable in a number of countries (figure 5.1).
Estimates based on the above estimation methods for 2006 suggest
that the shadow economy in the most advanced countries ranges
from 14 to 16 percent of GDP, whereas in the case of emerging
market countries the range is 32–35 percent of GDP (figure 5.2).
Underground economies are much larger in Latin America, Central
America, and Africa, often greater than 40 percent of GDP. In
contrast, in the Middle East and Developing Asia they range between
25 and 35 percent of GDP (figure 5.3).
The extent of informality may also vary by sector within countries,
depending on the nature of the activity. For example, services sectors
such as petty/street retail and household services and subsistence
farming may be entirely informal, requiring little capital or low skill
levels. Labor-intensive manufacturing firms may also be highly
informal. And activities requiring high levels of skill and capital are
expected to be found primarily in the formal sector.

Figure 5.1 Size of Shadow Economy in 2006 (in percent of GDP).

Source: Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio E.

Montenegro. 2010. “New Estimates for the Shadow Economy All Over
the World,” International Economic Journal 24 (4): 443-61.
Figure 5.2 Size of Shadow Economy in 2006: By Economic Status
(in percent of GDP).

Source: Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio E.

Montenegro. 2010. “New Estimates for the Shadow Economy All Over
the World,” International Economic Journal 24 (4): 443-61.
Figure 5.3 Size of Shadow Economy in 2006: By Region (in percent
of GDP)

Source: Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio E.

Montenegro. 2010. “New Estimates for the Shadow Economy All Over
the World,” International Economic Journal 24 (4): 443-61.

Determinants of the Size of the

Underground Economy: Key Results from
the Literature
There is considerable debate on the role of the burden of taxation in
leading to increased underground economic activity. One strand of
the literature finds that a more burdensome tax regime (including
onerous tax rates and administration) is a key driver that leads to an
increase in the share of the underground economy as firms move
underground to evade taxes and boost profits. Estimates show that if
the tax burden as perceived by firms (measured by the Global
Competitiveness Survey) becomes more onerous (by one point on a
scale of 1 to 7), the size of the shadow economy rises by 11.7
percentage points (Johnson, Kaufmann, and Zoido-Lobaton 1998),
though once they control for log GDP per capita the coefficient
changes to -6.5. Friedman and others (2000) find that higher taxes
are associated with a smaller underground economy. Specifically,
raising taxes by one point (on a scale of 1 to 5, using the Heritage
Foundation’s 2011 measure of tax rates, in which a higher score
implies a more onerous taxation system) leads to a 9 percent fall in
the size of the underground economy. The contention is that the
higher tax rates lead to stronger revenues and better public goods
provision, including a more robust legal environment, thereby
encouraging firms to operate in the official sector.
Another strand of the literature argues that political, economic,
and social institutions are the main drivers of increased underground
economic activity.2 Using data from the 1990s for sixty-nine countries,
Friedman and others (2000) find that higher taxes are not associated
with a larger unofficial economy; rather, more bureaucracy, higher
corruption, and weaker legal environments are correlated with a
larger unofficial economy. In particular, the regulatory burden faced
by workers and firms is a more important factor that determines the
size of the underground economy. Regulatory burden includes costs
related to complying with license restrictions and leads to increased
costs for firms, which may encourage the move to the shadow
economy. Indeed, more regulation is correlated with a larger shadow
economy (figure 5.4), as a one point worsening of the regulation
index (as measured by the Heritage Foundation in 2011) is associated
with a 12 percent increase in the size of the underground economy
(Friedman et al. 2000).
Cumbersome labor market restrictions often lead to an increase in
the size of informal employment and thereby the underground
economy. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that
around half the workers in developing countries are employed in the
informal economy, even though the share of the underground
economy is much lower, around 35 percent of GDP (ILO 2011).
Overly stringent labor market regulations have the unintended
consequence of encouraging more informal labor arrangements as
they raise the cost of hiring for firms. Labor regulations are designed
in many cases to restrict hiring workers on flexible contracts, to place
limits on maximum hours worked, and to create barriers to firing
workers. Analysis using the World Bank’s Doing Business database
suggests that restrictions on hiring and firing intended to protect
workers have instead discouraged firms from hiring in the formal
labor market, as compliance tends to be expensive and cumbersome
(World Bank 2004). Instead, firms hire informal workers, pay them
under the table, and avoid providing health insurance and other
benefits. The World Bank study finds that reforms that work well to
create jobs include: increasing the length and scope of term
contracts, introducing apprentice wages, allowing flexible working
hours, and removing administrative approvals for dismissals.

Figure 5.4 Size of Shadow Economy and Regulatory Burden.

Sources: Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio E.
Montenegro. 2010. “New Estimates for the Shadow Economy All Over
the World,” International Economic Journal 24 (4): 443-46; World
Bank World Governance Indicators (WGI) Database.

Another drawback of operating in the informal sector is the loss of

access to the formal financial sector for firms and individuals. In
many developing countries, less than half the population has an
account with a financial institution, and in some countries less than
one in five households do. This lack of access to finance traps firms in
low productivity operations and perpetuates inequality as poor
individuals rely on their own limited resources to finance education or
start businesses. Since the lack of access to finance is often the
critical cause behind both persistent income inequality and slow
economic growth, financial sector reforms that promote broader
access to financial services are crucial. Government policies should
focus on building sound financial institutions, encouraging
competition, and establishing sound prudential regulation to provide
the private sector with appropriate incentive structures and to
broaden access (World Bank 2004). Governments should make
lending attractive to banks by strengthening creditor rights, enabling
securitized lending, and raising interest rate ceilings. The IMF and
World Bank jointly prepare a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of
a country’s financial sector under the Financial Sector Assessment
Program (FSAP). The FSAP provides an assessment of both the
stability of the financial sector, with emphasis on the soundness of
the banking and other financial sectors, and the development aspects
of the financial sector, which focuses on the quality of the legal
framework and financial infrastructure.

Relationship between the Underground

Economy and Institutions: Empirical
Analysis
Data and Methodology
The following empirically analyzes the determinants of the size of the
unofficial economy using a more comprehensive and recent dataset
than the papers discussed above. The key empirical question is the
extent to which weaknesses in institutional quality create room for
underground economic activity. Large underground economies and
weak institutions, however, can be mutually reinforcing in theory, and
institutions cannot be considered exogenous. From a policy
perspective, it is important to gauge whether weak institutions lead
to larger underground economies or whether the reverse effect
predominates. To do this, this essay employs an instrumental variable
regression in which a set of exogenous variables related to
geographical and historical factors are used because they have been
shown to influence institutional formation. This methodology can
isolate and estimate the contribution of poor institutions in creating
large underground economies.3
The analysis uses data on about one hundred countries and
includes advanced countries, emerging markets, and developing
countries. The dependent variable is the size of the shadow economy,
which is estimated in Schneider, Buehn, and Montenegro (2010)
based on the methodologies outlined in the previous section. Other
independent variables include the top marginal income tax rate
(Gwartney et al. 2011), real per capita GDP (World Bank 2012 WDI
database), and Consumer Price Index inflation (IMF’s IFS database).
The measures of institutional quality are drawn from the widely
used World Bank’s Governance database, which is based on
Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobaton (1999) and Kaufmann, Kraay,
and Mastruzzi (2009).4 This data comprises six composite indicators,
which measure perceptions of institutional quality: voice and
accountability, political stability and the absence of violence,
government effectiveness, regulatory quality, the rule of law, and
control of corruption.5 The overall institutional quality or governance
indicator is the average of these six composite indicators. A higher
value of these indicators corresponds to superior institutions. All
these measures are highly correlated so only one can be used in the
empirical analysis at a time to avoid misleading inference.
Results
The size of underground economies is influenced predominantly by
the quality of institutions. As discussed in the previous section, a
number of studies find that the underground economy accounts for a
larger share of national income when there is more corruption and
when the rule of law is weak. Figures 5.5 and 5.6 show that the size
of the underground economy declines as the overall institutional
quality and the rule of law improve. However, in the presence of large
underground economies, we observe widespread corruption and a
lack of governance, and economic opportunities are restricted to a
few, which in turn hinders the promotion of human capabilities and
dignity as defined in the introduction.
The three main findings of the regression analysis are contained in
table 1 and are as follows:

First, better institutions are associated with a significantly lower

share of the shadow economy. If overall institutional quality
improves by one standard deviation, an almost 11 percent
reduction in the size of the shadow economy is achieved.
Furthermore, a one standard deviation improvement in the
rule of law score is associated with an 8 percent reduction in
the share of the shadow economy. These results are robust
across a number of different measures of institutional quality.
Moreover, it is important to note that institutions are the most
important determinant of the size of the underground
economy. Once institutions are controlled for, taxes, inflation,
and per capita income are no longer statistically significant.
Therefore, it is not higher taxes per se that lead to increased
shadow economy but rather weak institutions and rule of law.
Businesses have an incentive to go underground not to avoid
high taxes but rather to reduce the burden of regulation,
consistent with the findings of Friedman and others (2000)
described in the previous section.
 Third, countries with more corruption tend to have larger
underground economies. A one standard deviation decrease
in the corruption index leads to a 7 percent increase in the
size of the shadow economy.

Figure 5.5 Size of Shadow Economy and Overall Governance.

Sources: Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio E.

Montenegro. 2010. “New Estimates for the Shadow Economy All Over
the World,” International Economic Journal 24 (4): 443-46; World
Bank World Governance Indicators (WGI) Database.
Figure 5.6 Size of Shadow Economy and Rule of Law.

Sources: Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio E.

Montenegro. 2010. “New Estimates for the Shadow Economy All Over
the World,” International Economic Journal 24 (4): 443-46; World
Bank World Governance Indicators (WGI) Database.
Table 1. Determinants of the Size of the Shadow Economy

Notes and data sources:

Robust t-statistics in parentheses; ** p<0.01, * p<0.05.
a
Average of estimates for 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2002-03, from
Schneider (2005).
b
Fraser Institute; data from the year 2000.
c
CPI inflation in 2000.
d
Kauffman, Kraay, and Mastruzzi, World Bank 2009; data are
average from 1996-2008.
e
Overall institutional quality is measured as the averaged of six
institutional variables as in KKM 2009.

Policy Implications: The Role of the IMF in

Reducing the Size of the Underground
Economy
The underground economy is a significant part of many countries’
economies and represents a vital growth opportunity, especially for
developing countries. Due to the variety of problems facing informal
economic activity, persistent large informal sectors can lead to low
productivity and anemic growth in the sectors in which they prevail,
necessitating policies to remedy the problem. Maximizing inclusive
growth requires an understanding of the incentives motivating
underground activity, bringing as many people as possible into the
formal economy, and helping them to tap their capabilities and thrive,
which in turn will promote human dignity as defined in the
introduction. The literature offers some ideas as to how the informal
sector can be unshackled and be integrated into the formal sector.
For example, governments that wish to shrink the size of the shadow
economy could focus on strengthening the rule of law, creating
access to the formal economy, and strictly enforcing only the
minimum necessary set of regulations.
Given the central role of institutions in preventing the enlargement
of underground economies and more importantly in catalyzing long
term economic growth, institutional development must take center
stage. A strong culture of the rule of law, capacity to implement the
rule of law in all sectors, government credibility, and a strong legal
and judicial framework are critical priorities, as they form the basis
for good institutions. Also it is important to give priority to the
establishment and consolidation of economic institutions, which in
turn have a powerful impact on macroeconomic stability, access to
and security of property rights, and free trade. The IMF has been
involved in strengthening economic institutions in the context of both
the provision of surveillance advice and technical advice to the
membership. The IMF has also been at the forefront of the reform of
the financial regulatory and supervisory framework in the aftermath
of the global recession with a view to strengthening domestic
institutions and the global economy. Also, in order to directly combat
the problem of the underground economy, the IMF’s legal department
(LEG) has been supporting member countries in areas of combating
money laundering and implementing fiscal legal reforms.
A key enabling condition for private sector activity to flourish is a
well-functioning property rights system. It catalyzes individuals’
power to apply their capabilities and enjoy economic opportunity.
Firms in the formal economy that enjoy these rights and protections
are able to leverage assets into working capital and grow their
businesses. As mentioned earlier, De Soto (1989) argues that
recognizing the assets of the informal sector as property might help
to convert these assets into capital that can be used for investment.
In general, institutional reform should include measures to ease
regulatory burdens where possible and strengthen the rule of law to
effectively enforce a minimum necessary set of regulations. Country-
specific and sector-specific circumstances will of course guide the
precise path and desirable sequencing of policy measures, which will
vary considerably.

The IMF and the Reform of Financial Regulation and

Supervision
The IMF is playing a key role in the development of financial
regulation and its implementation by national authorities.6 It serves
as a forum to ensure that reform efforts are appropriate, sustained,
coordinated, and globally consistent. The IMF, with its knowledge of
member countries’ financial systems and its experience in monitoring
global standards and codes, is well positioned to help ensure that a
well-designed financial system benefits all its members, not just
some. The resulting broader access to opportunity will strengthen
dignity globally. The IMF is able to see the pros and cons of different
regulatory structures, what has worked well, what has not, and what
can help translate these assessments into practical regulation. The
IMF could advise countries on the best placement of a mandate for
financial stability, depending on each country’s current financial
architecture. Thus, the IMF could help minimize the collateral damage
to households and firms that might otherwise take place if the
necessary financial system reform fails to occur or occurs in an
uncoordinated way, leading to an unlevel playing field. Through its
surveillance activities, the IMF can help to bring peer pressure to
bear on countries that fall short of conforming to international best
practices. In so doing, it demonstrates the vital role of an
intergovernmental institution to help strengthen the domestic legal
framework in a fashion that will advance the ability of broad
populations to count on consistent legal norms, make their own
choices, and economically thrive.
To help foster a more stable global financial system, the IMF is
taking steps to refine its surveillance of the financial system using a
more global approach—by looking at the connections between the
financial system and the macroeconomy (so-called macrofinancial
linkages) and by removing data gaps that inhibit observance of
various linkages. IMF policy advice is being strengthened by
enhancing the interaction between multilateral and bilateral
surveillance and through more targeted technical assistance in the
areas of supervision, regulation, and crisis management. Assessment
of contingent fiscal liabilities to the financial sector and their impact
on systemic risk is becoming a particular focus.
The IMF already contributes to ongoing discussions on regulatory
reform through its interactions with the financial sector standard
setters (Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International
Organization of Securities Commissions, International Accounting
Standards Board, and the International Association of Deposit
Insurers and the Financial Action Task Force). The IMF has been
increasingly interacting with the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and
the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) on topics of mutual
interest. The roles of these bodies will become further intertwined as
the FSB helps to advance the agenda for international financial
regulatory changes, the BIS collects data and performs research, and
the IMF brings to bear its members’ experiences by tracking and
encouraging the implementation of new standards and regulatory
changes through its surveillance activities and technical assistance.
The IMF’s ability to monitor implementation and enforcement
through FSAP should help to spur reform efforts. To assure
compliance with emerging regulations, best practices, or guidelines,
the IMF has recently developed additional ways for reviewing the
implementation of new standards and codes and has adopted
proposals for making the FSAPs and Reports on the Observance of
Standards and Codes (ROSCs) more flexible in their application and
more targeted and timely in their delivery. In low-income countries,
the FSAP also focuses on issues related to access to financial services
by the broader population and development of financial markets.
Actions to achieve these objectives result in wider participation in
financial markets, which contributes to furthering human dignity
through (1) social recognition of more groups as deserving of
inclusion and (2) agency to thrive yielded to those people gaining
access to financing.

Fiscal Legal Reforms and the IMF

The IMF’s legal and fiscal work is related to reducing the size of the
underground economy and focuses mainly on improving the tax
system as well as increasing revenues and reducing corruption.
Specifically, the IMF carries out a substantial program of technical
assistance in tax policy, tax administration, and drafting of tax
legislation. Among other things, this technical assistance seeks to
establish tax regimes for small businesses that:

(1) involve minimum discretion, hence reducing the scope for

corruption,
(2) employ tax accounting rules that minimize the compliance
burden on businesses, and
(3) fix a tax burden on the informal sector that is reasonable but
not concessionary, in turn providing small businesses an
incentive to adopt more comprehensive accounting
procedures. The latter might in some cases result in a lower
tax burden than under presumptive regimes.

The IMF also works on reforms related to the drafting of tax

procedure codes and implementation of tax administration reforms
that support simplified registration procedures, thereby unleashing
access to opportunity. One-stop shopping allows a small business to
register without having to go to a multitude of government offices to
obtain the necessary business licenses. The IMF’s work in this area is
coordinated with that of the International Finance Corporation (IFC),
which facilitates tax and other administrative reforms to create a
more supportive climate for small business. More broadly, the IMF
collaborates with the World Bank, other regional development banks
such as the Asian Development Bank and the African Development
Bank, the World Trade Organization, UN agencies, and other
international organizations on a number of issues to serve its
membership and to work towards inclusive growth.

The IMF’s Role in Promoting Financial Integrity

In part, recognizing that macroeconomic policy execution and, more
abstractly, the fuller realization of individuals’ dignity are impaired by
the existence of unaccounted for economic transactions generated in
the informal or illegal sectors, the IMF’s legal department addresses a
number of issues related broadly to underground economies.7
Although the department’s financial integrity group is providing
increasingly meaningful support to IMF surveillance and programs, its
primary role has been to provide technical assistance to member
countries on policy for anti-money laundering and countering the
financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) and on broader governance and
institutional issues when large illicit or informal sectors are thought to
have an impact on financial or economic stability. Specifically, the IMF
implements a broad program of technical assistance designed to
develop domestic institutions and help members build capacity in and
strengthen AML/CFT law, legal frameworks, financial intelligence
units, national risk assessments and strategies, training programs
designed to improve on-site inspection procedures for banks and
regulators, and implementation of a risk-based approach to
supervision. IMF-managed technical assistance (TA) on these issues
is supported by external donors and has taken place in countries such
as Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, China, Ghana,
Indonesia, Iraq, Mauritius, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Peru, Thailand,
Tanzania, Uruguay and Zimbabwe.8
The IMF regularly advises members through technical assistance
and AML/CFT assessments, which are an important part of the FSAP
and ROSC programs, on areas within the IMF’s mandate associated
with underground economy (IMF 2009a and b). These activities have
dual objectives related to reducing the size of underground
economies: increasing the ability of governments to identify the
source of all assets (including tax fraud) and reducing the size of the
cash basis of an economy if it interferes with the ability to identify the
source of funds in the economy.
Money laundering may be associated with tax fraud that can
undermine financial or macroeconomic activity in important ways. As
such, weak institutions, corruption, and criminal activity undercut the
consistent legal norms and contribute to worsening inequality, which
weakens the agency of individuals to thrive and hence weakens basic
human dignity. Also, as discussed above, significant levels of tax
fraud may affect a government’s revenues and undermine the fiscal
balance and prospects for long-term sustainable growth. Moreover,
the injection of large amounts of so-called hot money arising from tax
evasion may subject a country’s banking system to volatile inflows
and outflows that can threaten its stability. By limiting opportunities
for the banking system to be used to launder the proceeds of tax
evasion, a robust framework of AML/CFT controls can serve as an
effective instrument in combating tax evasion (IMF 2009b).
AML legal and institutional tools can be used to detect and
investigate the laundering of the proceeds of tax evasion, corruption,
and fraud; prosecute offenders; and recover the proceeds of these
crimes, including when they are hidden abroad. Assessing IMF
members’ compliance with the AML/CFT recommendations, advising
on corrective actions, and providing technical assistance arguably
contributes to reducing the size of underground economies by
helping IMF member countries’ work in regulating various relevant
sectors with the economy.
An IMF paper (IMF 2009b) on this issue reflects recognition of the
importance of AML/CFT as a component of the IMF’s work on
governance and addresses how the AML/CFT program should evolve
in two areas: (1) assessments that are part of the ROSC and FSAP
programs, and (2) modular financial stability assessments, IMF Article
IV surveillance (which is the regular consultation with members), and
support for IMF financing programs. It was decided to maintain the
mandatory inclusion of AML/CFT assessments in all FSAPs.
The legal department has been actively supporting surveillance
and program work where underground or illegal economic activity
leads to serious unwanted macroeconomic outcomes and has been
making this work operational through targeted, systematic
interventions under the terms of IMF programs.
Taken together, IMF-supported reforms in the areas of financial
regulation, fiscal policy, and AML/CFT have an important role to play
as they help to strengthen domestic institutions, which should serve
to increase inclusiveness and access to economic opportunities,
thereby promoting human dignity.

Conclusion
The underground economy constitutes a significant portion of the
overall economy in a number of countries. A central finding of this
essay is that when businesses are faced with onerous regulation and
weak and inconsistent enforcement and corruption, they have an
incentive to hide their activities in the underground economy. That
context undercuts accountability and transparency upon which
greater economic growth, shared prosperity, and the realization of
human dignity rest. Another finding focuses on the importance of the
rule of law in curbing shadow economic activity. The policy
implication is that large reductions in tax rates or increasing the
number of regulations will not shrink the shadow economy. Instead,
governments should place emphasis on strengthening the rule of law,
simplifying access to the formal economy, including improving access
to financial services, and strictly enforcing a minimum necessary set
of regulations, rather than increasing the plethora of regulatory
requirements.
The IMF has been involved in strengthening domestic economic
institutions in the context of both provision of surveillance advice and
technical advice to member countries. Since the global financial crisis
of 2008, the IMF has played a key role in the reform of the global
financial regulatory and supervisory framework. Also, in order to
directly combat the problem of the underground economy, the IMF
has been supporting its members by providing technical assistance on
combating money laundering and terrorist finance and on larger
governance and institutional issues when large illicit sectors are
thought to be seriously hindering favorable macroeconomic
outcomes.
To sum up, the empirical examination in this chapter indicates that
the absence of rule of law and widespread corruption inevitably allow
underground economic activities to flourish, particularly in developing
countries. Conversely, in order for the population to more fully
flourish, domestic institutions must be strengthened, thereby
protecting private property rights, regularizing financial flows, and
ensuring full access to economic opportunities. Despite the recent
emergence of new types of international groupings (from the G—20
to philanthropic foundations to public-private partnerships), the
Bretton Woods institutions and the IMF in particular continue to play
an important function to help countries strengthen domestic
institutions. And as those domestic institutions become increasingly
responsible and responsive to the needs of all members of society,
citizens will have more consistent access to legal rights and a greater
assurance that their capabilities, choices, and efforts will translate
into a better life in practice. In short, intergovernmental institutions
can and must help domestic institutions emerge; this will catalyze
inclusive growth and the realization of the fruits of a life of dignity.

Notes
The views expressed herein are those of the author and should
not be attributed to the International Monetary Fund, its Executive
Board, or its management. The author would like to thank Sonali
Jain-Chandra, Carine Chartouni, Jody Meyers, Adil Mohammad,
Melissa Tullis, Victory Thuronyi, and Rhoda Weeks-Brown for their
input and comments.
1. Also variously known as the informal, shadow, or parallel
economy.
2. Institutions are defined as the formal and informal constraints
on political, economic, and social interactions (North 1990).
 3. The goal is to use a set of instruments that are correlated with
the endogenous regressors, but not with the error term. This paper
uses a standard set of instruments from the literature, including legal
origins, language, ethno-linguistic diversity, and some geographical
factors (for more details please see IMF 2003).
4. This essay also considers alternative measures of institutional
quality, namely the Heritage Foundation’s (2011) Index of Economic
Freedom.
5. These aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of individual
variables that measure various dimensions of governance and
institutional quality derived from views of household and firm survey
respondents. The paper then uses an Unobserved Components Model
(UCM) to combine these individual indicators into the six composite
measures of governance. The composite measures of governance
generated by the UCM are in units of a standard normal distribution,
with mean 0, standard deviation of 1, and running from
approximately -2.5 to 2.5, with higher values corresponding to better
institutional outcomes.
6. Based on Kodres and Narain (2010).
7. The work done by the IMF LEG’s Financial Integrity Group as
described in this chapter took place until mid-2006 and was
completed jointly by staff in LEG and in the then Monetary and
Financial Systems Department, who together now comprise the
Financial Integrity Group.
8. This list includes all of the countries identified in figure 5.1 with
shadow economies greater than 50 percent of GDP. Fund TA on
AML/CFT targets economies and subject areas where TA can make
the greatest impact.

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the Third World. New York: Harper Collins.
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“Dodging the Grabbing Hand: The Determinants of Unofficial
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CHAPTER 6

The Global Human Rights Regime

Assessing and Renovating the
Architecture
MARK P. LAGON AND RYAN KAMINSKI

Although the concept of human rights is abstract, how it is applied

has a direct and enormous impact on daily life worldwide. It requires
all people be recognized in practice as deserving equal access to
justice and to the opportunity to make choices to apply their gifts
and thrive. That is what human dignity entails. Yet millions have
suffered crimes against humanity. Countless more toil in bonded
labor. In the last decade alone, authoritarian rule has denied civil
and political liberties to billions. The idea of human rights has a long
history, but only in the past century has the international community
sought to galvanize a regime to promote and guard them.
Particularly, since the UN was established in 1945, world leaders
have cooperated to codify human rights in a universally recognized
regime of treaties, institutions, and norms (Farer and Gaer 1993).
An elaborate global system is being developed. Governments are
striving to promote human rights domestically and abroad and are
partnering with multilateral institutions, civil society groups, and
even the private sector to do so. Together, these players have
achieved some real success, though the institutionalization and
implementation of different rights is progressing at varying rates.
Acknowledging key exceptions, such as over 100,000 killed in Syria
since 2011, response to mass atrocities has seen overall progress,
even if enforcement remains inconsistent. The desire to stem critical
threats to public health is strongly embedded across the globe, and
substantial resources have been devoted to the challenge. The right
to freedom from slavery and forced labor has also been integrated
into international and national institutions and has benefited from
high-profile pressure to combat these extreme abuses. Finally, the
steady accumulation of human rights-related conventions has
encouraged most states to do more to integrate binding legislation in
their constitutions and domestic statutes.
Significant challenges to promoting human rights norms remain,
however. To begin with, the conceptual umbrella of human rights is
massive. Freedom from slavery and torture, the imperative to
prevent gender and racial persecution, and the right to education
and health care are only some of a broad spectrum of issues
asserted as human rights. Furthermore, nations continue to dispute
the importance of civil and political versus economic, social, and
cultural rights—two sides of human dignity. National governments
sometimes resist adhering to international norms they perceive as
contradicting local cultural or social values. Western countries—
especially the United States—resist some international rights
cooperation from a concern that it might harm business, infringe on
autonomy, or limit freedom of speech. The world struggles to
balance democracy’s promise of human rights protection against its
historically Western identification.
Moreover, some of the worst violators of human rights have not
joined core rights treaties or institutions, undermining the initiatives’
perceived effectiveness. Negligence of international obligations is
difficult to penalize. The UN Charter promotes “fundamental
freedoms,” for example, but also affirms that nations cannot
interfere with domestic matters. The utility of accountability
measures, such as sanctions or force and under what conditions, is
also debated by some. At times, to secure an end to violent conflict,
negotiators choose not to hold human rights violators accountable.
Furthermore, developing nations are often incapable of protecting
rights within their borders, and the international community needs to
bolster their capacity to do so—especially in the wake of the recent
revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa. Finally,
questions remain over whether the UN, regional bodies, or other
global actors should be the primary forums to advance human
rights, a focus in this book.
In the long term, strengthening the human rights regime will
require a renovated UN human rights architecture complemented by
other more nimble and accountable institutions as well as building
partnerships between the heterogeneous array of international
institutions today. A steady coalition between the global North and
South to harmonize political and economic rights within democratic
institutions will also be necessary. In the meantime, regional
organizations and NGOs must play a larger role from the bottom up,
and rising powers must do more to lead. Together, these changes
are the world’s best hope for durable and universal enjoyment of
human rights, to meaningfully extend human dignity.

Human Rights: Heightened Attention,

Uneven Regional Efforts, and Weak Global
Compliance
The international human rights regime has made several welcome
advances—including increased responsiveness in the Muslim world,
attention to prevention and accountability for atrocities, and notably
at the UN Security Council (UNSC), more pressure on great powers
to avoid standing in the way of action. Yet, despite responses to
emerging cases demanding action, such as Sudan and Libya, global
governance in ensuring human rights has faltered, including in Syria
in recent years.
Many experts credit intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) for
making advancements, particularly in civil and political rights. These
scholars cite the creation of an assortment of secretariats,
administrative support, and expert personnel to institutionalize and
implement human rights norms (Rubenstein 2004). Overall, the UN
remains the central global institution for developing international
norms and legitimizing efforts to implement them, but the number of
actors involved has grown exponentially, creating the neomedieval
context Lagon and Arend describe in this book.
The primary mechanisms include UNSC action, the UN Human
Rights Council (UNHRC), committees of elected experts, various
rapporteurs, special representatives, and working groups (Piccone
2012). War crimes tribunals—the International Criminal Court (ICC),
tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and hybrid courts in
Sierra Leone and Cambodia—also contribute to the development and
enforcement of standards. All seek to raise political will and public
consciousness, assess human rights-related conduct of states and
warring parties, and offer capacity-building advice to states on
improving human rights.
However, these mechanisms are far from consistent. Generally,
when they are effective, they change states’ conduct more by
publicizing abuses than by providing technical advice or applying
punitive measures. For example, no global body was capable of
forcing the United States to stop its mistreatment of detainees at the
Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, but mounting international
pressure did encourage fundamental US reform of its detention and
interrogation policies in 2009 (Warrick and DeYoung 2009). As a
result, skeptics also counter that other grassroots movements or
organizations may be more responsible for rights improvements than
global institutions (Smith-Cannoy 2012). Furthermore, although
progress has been significant in condemning and responding to
atrocities, it has been limited in advancing civil and political rights.
Many in the international community are reassessing economic,
social, and cultural rights as IGOs increasingly link human rights to
business practices and public health.
Of all UN bodies with a similar focus, the UNHRC receives the
most attention. In its former incarnation as the Commission on
Human Rights, it developed a reputation for allowing the
participation—and even leadership—of notorious human rights
abusers, which undermined its legitimacy. Reconstituted as the
UNHRC in 2006, the new forty-seven-member body has a higher
threshold for membership as well as a Universal Periodic Review
(UPR) process, which evaluates the human rights records of states,
including those on the Council. Nevertheless, the UNHRC’s
effectiveness has been uneven. On the one hand, the UNHRC took
the unprecedented move of voting to recommend the suspension of
one of its members (Libya) in 2011. In the same year, the organ also
passed a pioneering resolution on sexual orientation. On the other
hand, however, the UNHRC agenda maintains a disproportionate
focus on Israel, ignores major abuses in other nations, and still
includes serial rights abusers in its ranks.
The UNSC has more power to take action against human rights
abusers (as discussed in Nancy Soderberg’s chapter 1 in this book).
It can impose sanctions, mandate peacekeeping operations, and
authorize the use of force in extreme cases. Furthermore, UNSC
deliberations are higher profile than UNHRC meetings and thus
substantially elevate international attention to and pressure on rights
violators. In particular, the UNSC deliberates on countries’ abuses
when they threaten international peace and security—but only when
UNSC politics permit it. The five permanent UNSC members can all
veto resolutions. France, the United Kingdom, and the United States
tend to be the most vocal advocates for promoting human rights,
though they at times subordinate such concerns to strategic
interests. China and Russia, however, often veto human rights
interventions and have stymied efforts at achieving international
consensus regarding extreme human rights violations in Syria.
Recently, major powers elected to the UNSC have been ambivalent
on human rights, and none of the three seeking permanent
membership (Germany, Brazil, and India) voted to authorize
intervention in Libya in 2011.
Increasingly, the locus of activity on human rights is moving to
the regional level but at markedly different paces from place to
place. (See Chester Crocker’s chapter 4 in this book on regional
bodies and human security.) Regional organizations and powers
contribute to advancing human rights protections in their
neighborhoods by bolstering norms, providing mechanisms for peer
review, and helping countries codify human rights stipulations within
domestic institutions. Regional organizations are often considered
the first lines of defense and are better able to address rights issues
unique to a given area. This principle is explicitly mentioned in the
UN Charter, which calls on member states to “make every effort to
achieve pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional
arrangements or by such regional agencies” before approaching the
UNSC.
Major regional organizations in the Western Hemisphere, Europe,
and Africa—such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the
European Union (EU), and the African Union (AU)—have integrated
human rights into their mandate and established courts to which
citizens can appeal if a nation violates their rights. This has led to
important rulings on slavery in Niger and spousal abuse in Brazil, for
example, but corruption continues to hamper implementation
throughout Latin America and Africa, and a dearth of strong
leadership in African nations has slowed institutionalization (Duffy
2009; Canton, 2009).
Meanwhile, organizations in the Middle East and Asia, such as the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation, focus primarily on economic
cooperation and have historically made scant progress on human
rights. The Arab League, however, departed from its indifference to
human rights in 2011 by backing UN action against Libya and
sanctioning Syria (Rice 2012).
Civil society efforts have achieved the most striking success in
human rights through frequent engagements with international
institutions and national governments. Nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) provide valuable data and supervision, which
can assist both states and international organizations. NGOs also
largely rely on international organizations for funding, administrative
support, and expert assistance. Indeed, some 3,900 NGOs have
been named as official consultants to the UN Economic and Social
Council alone, and many more contribute to domestic and
international human rights advocacy in more informal ways
(ECOSOC 2013). Domestic NGOs understand needs on the ground
far better than their international counterparts. That international
NGOs are beginning to recognize this is clear in two recent
developments: The first is financier-philanthropist George Soros’s
$100 million donation to Human Rights Watch to develop field offices
staffed by locals, which enabled the organization to increase its
annual operating budget to $80 million; and second, the number of
capacity-building partnerships between Western-based NGOs and
NGOs indigenous to a country is increasing. That said, NGOs have,
to date, been more successful in advocacy—from achieving passage
of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention to calling attention to
governments’ atrocities against their own citizens (Evans 2012). Yet
NGOs devoted to implementing human rights compliance have been
catching up—on issues from democratic transitions to gender
empowerment to protecting migrants.

Norm and Treaty Creation: Prodigious but

Overemphasized
The greatest strength of the global governance architecture has
been creating norms. Myriad treaties, agreements, and statements
have enshrined human rights on the international community’s
agenda, and some regional organizations have followed suit. These
agreements lack binding clauses to ensure that action matches
rhetoric, however, and many important violators have not signed on.
In addition, states often attach qualifiers to their signatures that
dilute their commitments.
The array of treaties establishing standards for human rights
commitments is broad—from political and civil liberties to economic,
social, and cultural rights to racial discrimination to the rights of
women, children, migrant workers, and more recently the disabled
(OHCHR 2011). Other global efforts have focused on areas such as
labor rights and human trafficking (Perez Solla 2009). Regional
organizations, most notably the Council of Europe and the
Organization of American States, have also promulgated related
instruments, although less uniformly. In addition, member states
have articulated declarations and resolutions establishing human
rights standards, and increasingly so in economic affairs. In 2011,
the UNHRC, in a departure from the premise that states are to be
held accountable for human rights conduct, passed formal guidelines
for related business responsibilities (UNHRC 2011; Ruggie 2013).
On the other hand, states are under are no binding obligation to
observe or implement rights resolutions unless passed—without a
veto—through the UNSC or one of the few regional bodies with
binding authority over member states. Similarly, although the
proliferation of treaties, conventions, and protocols over the past
fifty years implies significant advances in human rights norms, the
true impact of these measures is questionable.
First, many of the conventions, such as the Rome statute or the
Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families,
have not been ratified by central players, such as the United States.
Second, although calls for enhanced human rights norms have
increased, consensus over implementation and compliance has not
kept pace. In particular, whereas the global North has largely
focused on advancing civil and political rights, the global South has
tended to defend economic, social, and cultural rights. Third, even if
a rights document is ratified, states often use reservations,
understandings, and declarations (RUDs) to evade obligations,
especially those of legally binding documents. They do so to avoid
negative press or the potential for imbroglios from even moderately
intrusive monitoring mechanisms. Saudi Arabia is an apt example.
The country has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), but one RUD
states that the convention is not applicable when it conflicts with
sharia law, which allows Riyadh to continue denying basic rights to
women.
To be effectively implemented, the language in international
treaties must be incorporated into domestic legal structures, but this
process is often quite slow and mere norm-building is too often
overemphasized. Implementation of existing rights treaties and
agreements might have more concrete effect than expanded
protection on paper. Human dignity depends on it.

Rights Monitoring: Proliferating Experts,

Increasing Peer-Based Scrutiny
Monitoring is imperative to matching rhetoric with action. Over the
years, human rights monitoring has matured and developed
considerably, though serious challenges remain, such as ensuring
freedom from torture for suspected terrorists and uniformly
protecting and promoting human rights despite the biases of rights
organizations or officials entrusted with doing so.
The original UN Commission on Human Rights and its successor
the UNHRC both authorized a wide array of special procedures to
monitor human rights protection in functional areas and particular
countries. Since the UNHRC was established in 2006, the number of
country-specific and thematic special procedures has swelled to
more than fifty, with monitors addressing economic and social issues
outnumbering those addressing political and civil liberties. Similarly,
the UNHRC has also established official commissions of inquiry to
examine particularly egregious cases of human rights violations.
In addition, each UN human rights treaty has an elected body of
experts to which state parties must report at regular intervals on
implementation (Keller and Ulfstein 2012). For instance, the Human
Rights Committee (not to be confused with the Council) is charged
with receiving reports about the implementation of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and making
nonbinding “concluding observations” about states’ overall
compliance (OHCHR “Committee Against Torture”). The Human
Rights Committee can also receive complaints from individuals
regarding state compliance with the accord. One of the UN
Convention Against Torture’s monitoring mechanisms, the Committee
Against Torture (CAT), is similar but can also send representatives to
inspect areas of alleged cases of torture being “systematically
practiced.” Very few parties to the Convention (e.g., China, Syria,
and Israel) have exercised the “opt-out” provision to avoid these
inspections. The Committee has exercised the mechanism eight
times since 1988 (OHCHR “Convention Against Torture”).
Some observers believe that this array of special procedures and
treaty bodies, bolstered by the UPR of all member states, indicates a
robust capacity to monitor human rights globally (Piccone 2012).
This could, in turn, empower NGOs to raise information and engage
governments in countries where they operate. Others question the
strength of the system, noting that the quality and personal biases
of experts vary dramatically and that as much time is spent in the
UPR on liberal states as on systematic rights abusers, and that non—
Western states often elevate praise over even constructive criticism
when questioning peers (McMahon 2012). There is also the risk of
stacking the deck during such reviews if government-friendly (or -
sponsored) NGOs submit erroneous or misleading reports (Tamayo
2013).
Various regional bodies also monitor implementation of human
rights. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) and Council of Europe mechanisms are robust. The inter-
American system is highly institutionalized but disinclined to address
suspension of constitutional provisions by democratically elected
leaders. The AU has a promising foundation in its peer review
mechanism, but it is largely unrealized in the human rights area.
Other regional organizations, such as ASEAN and the Gulf
Cooperation Council, have no monitoring mechanisms to speak of,
despite dramatic cases of abuses and public demand for better
protections in their regions (Tavares 2009).

Capacity-Building: Vital but

Underemphasized
Capacity-building—especially for human rights—is often expensive
and daunting, viewed with suspicion, and the success of assistance
is notoriously hard to measure. In many cases, national
governments have signed international commitments to promote
and protect human rights, and they earnestly wish to implement
them but are incapable of doing so. For example, serious questions
continue to surround the basic operability of Libya’s judicial system
following the collapse of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime (ICG 2013). On
the other hand, some states refuse assistance from NGOs and IGOs,
suspecting that it might interfere with domestic affairs. On balance,
it also remains far easier, and less costly, for the international
community to condemn, expose, or shame human rights abusers
rather than to provide the material aid for human rights capacity-
building to tangibly advance dignity.
The international community has developed various ways to offer
technical assistance. Most notable is the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), established in 1993
(Farer and Gaer 1993). In addition to providing an institutionalized
moral voice, OHCHR offers technical assistance to states through an
array of field offices—for example, by providing training to civilian
law enforcement and judicial officials through its country office in
Uganda, strengthening the Cambodian legal and institutional
framework for human rights, and assisting Mexico with development
of a National Program on Human Rights. However, some member
states prefer unilateral support for capacity-building (addressed
below), others favor naming and shaming over capacity-building,
and yet others perceive human rights capacity-building as either a
threat to sovereignty or tantamount to neocolonialism.
Regional organizations such as the OSCE, Council of Europe,
OAS, EU, and to some extent the AU, may be more effective than
the UN in sharing best practices and providing capacity-building
advice to states. Often capacity-building entails training human
rights protectors and defenders, but it may also include legal
framework-building or addressing countries’ specific capacity deficits.
The OSCE, for instance, collaborates with member states on election
monitoring and offers training and education to human rights
defenders through its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights (see OSCE 2007). In another example, the OAS collaborates
with European partners in its judicial facilitators program, which
trains judicial officials in rural areas with limited access to justice,
and assisted Haiti in establishing a civil registry. Still, opportunities
for sharing resources and coordinating between IGOs and NGOs in
capacity-building are limited. As mentioned, norm creation has
outstripped both monitoring and implementing norms.
Some developed states, however, prefer providing bilateral
assistance to working with IGOs and multilateral institutions because
resources can be better monitored and projects more carefully
tailored to support donor state interests. For instance, the US
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which laid the basis for the creation
of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), calls for
the use of development assistance to promote economic and civil
rights. Since its inception, USAID has provided billions of dollars to
support good governance, transparency-building, and civil society
projects worldwide—in effect advancing agency for millions. For
instance, it recently gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Liberia to
train judges, promote the rule of the law, and increase transparency.
Meanwhile, other multilateral institutions like the World Bank,
International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization
(WTO) also support human rights promotion, but tend to do so more
indirectly, through poverty alleviation and community enhancement
schemes. Together, though, these institutions face new constraints
as the international community continues to grapple with the global
financial crisis and unprecedented budget deficits.
NGOs, although indispensable actors in terms of implementing
ground-level capacity-building, mostly operate at the pleasure of
national governments and have little recourse if asked to cease
operations or even leave a state entirely. Suspicious of NGO activity,
some governments have attempted to pass laws limiting the activity
of NGOs or requiring them to receive prior approval before engaging
in capacity-building efforts. The March 2009 decision of Sudan’s
president, Omar al-Bashir, to order thirteen international NGOs to
leave Sudan—in the aftermath of his indictment by the ICC—
demonstrates that NGOs may be perceived as easy targets by
governments seeking to gain political or diplomatic leverage when
pressed on their human rights records.
As a whole, successful capacity-building forms the core of long-
term efforts to improve human rights in countries. Regardless,
ground-level human rights capacity-building is often
underemphasized both in areas most in need as well as among
countries or IGOs that are most in a position to help (Hafner-Burton
2013). Broad, crosscutting partnerships of international institutions
are essential for such efforts to enjoy success and produce
sustainable human rights reform.

Response to Atrocities: Significant

Institutionalization, Selective Action
Atrocities of all sorts—whether war crimes, genocide, crimes against
humanity, or ethnic cleansing—have been a major focus in the
international community over the last two decades. A number of
regional and country-specific courts, as well as the ICC, provide
potential models for ending impunity (see chapter 2 by Tod Lindberg
in this book). However, these courts have unevenly prosecuted
violators of human rights, have been criticized for focusing on some
abuses or regions while ignoring others, and have focused more on
extended ex post facto accountability than on successful prevention.
Regional and hybrid courts have made some advances on
accountability. In April, 2012, the hybrid Special Court for Sierra
Leone convicted former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, of eleven
counts of war crimes, including “acts of terrorism” and “sexual
slavery.” Taylor was sentenced by the court in May 2012 and is the
first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an
international judicial organ since the Nuremberg Trials, after World
War II. Many hailed the ruling as an important step in national
reconciliation for Liberia and Sierra Leone.
As for preventive action, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan
championed stronger norms for intervention against ongoing
atrocities. In the wake of the Kosovo crisis, Annan cited the need for
clarifying when international intervention should legally be used to
prevent atrocities in states. In response, the Canadian-sponsored
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS) promoted the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
in 2002 (ICISS 2002). Specifically, it placed the primary responsibility
on states to protect their own citizens. When states failed,
responsibility fell to the international community. Annan’s In Larger
Freedom report picked up on this concept, and R2P informed two
paragraphs in the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document. The
latter also included an emphasis on the importance of capacity-
building assistance to help states meet their R2P obligations. As
Nancy Soderberg notes in chapter 1, in the UNSC, the R2P doctrine
has been invoked repeatedly—first generically affirmed, then raised
in semi-germane cases in 2008 (in Myanmar after a cyclone and in
Kenya during postelection violence), and then more conclusively in
2011 with UNSC Resolution 1973 on Libya (Bellamy 2009; UNSC
2011).
Sudan has also served as a bellwether for the international
community’s capacity to respond to instances of atrocities. In 2004,
in response to the depredations of government-backed Janjaweed
forces against the inhabitants of Darfur, the United States issued a
legal determination that genocide had been committed. Rape of
women venturing outside camps for the internally displaced,
however, continued long after the UN became involved. A combined
UN and AU peacekeeping force was also established to help mitigate
the violence. In 2009, the ICC indicted Bashir but had neither the
means to apprehend him nor the leverage to facilitate his capture.
Sudan would officially split in 2011, with a new state, South Sudan,
becoming the UN’s 193rd member just five days later.
 The geopolitical complexities of the Syrian conflict beginning in
2011, have presented a fresh challenge to the international
community’s response to atrocities. Although the UNSC was slow to
respond, the UNHRC has established a commission of inquiry to help
create a framework for accountability, and the UN General Assembly
has moved more than once to condemn Damascus for human rights
abuses. Elsewhere, the efforts of the World Food Program, UNICEF,
and the UN High Commission for Refugees have been critical in
bringing lifesaving aid to over a million people, composed
overwhelmingly of women and children, affected by the situation.
In short, the international community has taken its greatest step
by redefining sovereignty as answerable to legal international
intervention should a state fail to shield its citizens from atrocities, or
worse yet, sponsor them (Lagon and Shorr 2007). However, state
practice has not matched these norms, and it remains to be seen
whether consensus about Libya was sui generis.

Political Rights: Uneven

Institutionalization, Backlash on Free
Expression and Association
Treaties that define political and civil liberties are widely ratified, but
many countries have not signed on to enforcement protocols, and
many continue to violate the rights of their citizens regardless of
treaties. In addition, the right of people to choose their leaders and
to have freedom of the press, religion, and association has backslid
in recent years. At the same time, however, people are increasingly
demanding rights and attempting to bypass repression of illiberal
regimes. New technology (such as cell phones, social media, and
satellite television) is also providing unprecedented opportunities for
social recognition and voice. Citizens publicize abuse and organize
protests through platforms like Twitter and Facebook, though
repressive regimes are closely following with practices to censor new
technology.
 States resisting the spread of political and civil liberties have been
challenged more by civil society than by other states or by IGOs.
Using information and communications technology, and with the
support of global NGOs and occasionally the private sector, civil
society has taken its demands to a new level. China’s effort to
control dissent, for example, has been greatly challenged by Uighur
dissenters in Xinjiang, by Falun Gong groups, and by Google’s
decision to refuse to implement comprehensive censorship in China.
However, international pressure remains relevant. For example, the
Obama administration’s October 2011 statement that censorship
practices in China may violate WTO rules has increased pressure on
China to reform (Kravets 2011).
In the UN, the number of member states, organs, and generic
mandates related to freedom of expression and association has
increased. For instance, the UN General Assembly adopted a
resolution in 2007 calling for the end of capital punishment. In
September 2010, the UNHRC adopted another resolution that
created a special rapporteur on rights to freedom of peaceful
assembly and of association. This occurred in the wake of a
multiyear backlash against domestic NGOs and their international
philanthropic and civil society backers in a series of autocracies
(Gershman and Allen 2006).
Nonetheless, analysis has documented a five-year backslide in
levels of democratic governance and other civil political liberties
worldwide (Kurlantzick 2011). Moreover, ratifications of the First and
Second Protocols of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights remain low. The latter, which attempts to ban the death
penalty, has only eighty parties. Another more recent accord, the
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearances, came into force in 2010 but has not been
ratified by states most commonly charged with executing such
practices, including Russia and China.
Attacks on journalists have also increased, especially as the Arab
revolutions swept through the Middle East and North Africa. And
even as individuals and civic organizations have used social media
and other online tools to exchange ideas and press their cause,
authoritarian governments have taken advantage of the same
technology to halt or reverse gains in freedom of expression. In July
2012, the UNHRC passed a resolution on internet freedom,
advancing the notion that individuals retain their rights to expression
whether online of offline.
In recent years, national debates about the relationship between
terrorism and Islam have also increased the number of measures in
IGO bodies like the UN and UNHRC on religious expression. Muslim-
majority states have proposed resolutions to stem the “defamation”
of religion. During the spring of 2011, however, the UNHRC shifted
from the annual tradition of passing the controversial defamation of
religion resolutions, which many rights groups and Western states
believed opened the door to so-called religious blasphemy laws
limiting pluralistic expression, to adopt a more authentically robust
freedom of religion formula (Lagon and Kaminski 2013). The new
balance, focusing on combating religious intolerance, was largely
due to a compromise the United States struck with the Organization
of the Islamic Conference, since renamed the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC).
As a whole, although a large number of states continue to
disregard or even retard the protection of political and civil liberties,
expanding efforts on the ground and in multilateral bodies may
prove most significant to enlarging realized human dignity in the
long term.

Economic Rights and Business

Responsibilities: Increased Focus and
Engagement
A long-standing debate between the global North and global South
has been over whether to prioritize negative obligations of states to
avoid restricting political and civil liberties or positive obligations to
deliver economic and social benefits. Indicators, however, show a
subtle yet important shift in the lastten of the forty-year debate,
indicative of the potential for a transcendent human dignity
consensus.
Until the end of the twentieth century, international law
frameworks placed human rights obligations on the shoulders of
states. Not least through former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan’s
role as an ideas entrepreneur (which Abiodun Williams treats in this
book), notions of the obligation of businesses on human rights have
blossomed. First, in 2000, Annan and his adviser John Ruggie
crafted the UN Global Compact, which enumerates voluntary
principles for business related to human rights and environmental
stewardship. The UN then created a mandate for a special
representative of the secretary-general to assess state, business,
and civil society stakeholders on business conduct and human rights,
for which Ruggie was selected. As noted earlier, in July 2011, the
UNHRC adopted guidelines that delineate state obligations to protect
human rights, business obligations to respect them, and a joint role
to provide remedies to people robbed of them (UNHRC 2011; Ruggie
2013). These successes do not come without challenges, however,
as implementation will be a difficult next step.
Nevertheless, the decisions of businesses to uphold human rights
standards remain largely voluntary and thus subject to market—
rather than moral—forces. Even when businesses make
commitments to corporate responsibility programs, no actor exists to
enforce such commitments. Civil society can play a critical role in
mitigating these challenges, however, by publicizing corporate
human rights abuses and working directly with businesses on
corporate responsibility. NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, the
Institute for Human Rights and Business, the International
Federation for Human Rights, Global Witness, and the International
League for Human Rights exemplify these efforts. Additionally, even
where businesses act in violation of domestic laws or international
conventions protecting human rights, limited domestic law
enforcement capabilities undermine the force of accountability
standards.
 The international community’s efforts to address economic and
social rights have accelerated. Some measures evidence a
questionable redefinition of human rights, such as the special
procedure mandate from the UNHRC on toxic waste. Some entail
ambitious norm setting, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities, negotiated during the George W. Bush
administration and signed by the Obama administration, which ought
to not spark controversy. Most important have been efforts to
address economic and social rights with tangible programming. The
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is a landmark
achievement for bridging health, economic, and discriminatory ills;
for mobilizing significant resources beyond regular assessed budgets
of the UN; and for involving an array of UN, private sector,
philanthropic, and civil society actors in a concerted partnership. It is
worth noting that the global North (and its greatest skeptic on
economic and social rights, the United States) has championed this
effort, supplementing it heavily through the US President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, and contemporary
slavery have also become a focus of global governance efforts since
the beginning of the twenty-first century (see Lagon’s chapter 11 in
this book). Such abridgments of freedom and autonomy signal a
tragic combination of economic desperation, weak rule of law, and
discrimination. The work of the International Labor Organization
(ILO) to address forced labor and the most acute forms of child
labor through conventions and preventive programs has now been
supplemented by other efforts. New energy has been directed to
mitigating the most coercive of labor practices as a result of the near
simultaneous enactments of the Palermo Protocol to the UN Crime
Convention on Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and the US Victims of
Trafficking and Violence Protection Act in 2000.
The UNHRC has also authorized special rapporteurs on both
human trafficking and contemporary slavery. States, IGOs, and
NGOs have developed partnerships to address child labor, forced
labor, and human trafficking. Businesses are also joining global
governance efforts, moving from sector-specific partnerships (such
as the travel and hospitality sector on child sex trafficking and
chocolate companies on child labor in West Africa) to cross-sectoral
ones (such as the Athens Ethical Principles and emerging thought-
leader coalitions).

Women’s and Children’s Rights:

Institutional Progress but Holdouts on
Implementation
The rights of women have advanced incrementally. The UN system
has moved beyond creating norms, such as the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, to more assertive leadership
and calls for implementation efforts among national governments.
However, despite marked success on various fronts, the UN
estimates that women continue to make up less than 10 percent of
world leaders and only about one-fifth of parliamentarians (UN
Women 2013). Moreover, it remains to be seen whether the
uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa will help or hinder
the cause of gender equality—given Islamic parties’ role. Efforts to
enhance the economic and social well-being of women and children
have also improved but remain at risk as a result of tightened
national and international aid budgets.
Arguably, the decision of the UN Development Program (UNDP)
to commission reports by Arab experts to link gender inequality and
reduced development in the Arab world, published in 2005, was an
important step forward (UNDP 2006). The formation of the UN Entity
for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women),
amalgamating four existing agencies, received an additional boost
when Chile’s Michelle Bachelet was appointed its first leader. The
remaining question is whether the consolidation of women’s rights’
functions will mainstream or silo them.
 The essential role of women in peace and consensus-building has
moved from statements like UNSC Resolution 1325, which
recognized that women are not adequately consulted and integrated
into peace processes, to reality. In December 2011, for example, the
United States joined thirty-two other countries in publishing a
National Action Plan (NAP) on Women, Peace, and Security designed
to integrate governmental efforts to implement UNSC Resolution
1325. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s leadership as the first woman elected
head of state in Africa in postconflict Liberia, the July 2010
establishment of UN Women, and widespread agreement on the
necessity of integrating gender empowerment in a proposed UN post
—2015 development framework provide further evidence of the
international community’s improving recognition of the indispensable
role of women in contributing to national prosperity.
Moreover, attention to the acute problem of violence against
women has advanced, even if it has been significantly curtailed in
practice. In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY), along with the Rome Statute, established the
precedent that targeted rape is a crime against humanity, though
the practice has continued largely unabated in Darfur, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burma, and Zimbabwe. The
degree to which prostitution of girls and sex trafficking of women is
an act of violence and gender commodification is beginning to be
better understood around the world.
Despite several conventions addressing the issue of human
trafficking and antitrafficking laws in many countries, it remains a
nearly $32 billion industry (UNODC 2012). Although exact statistics
are difficult to obtain, a 2012 ILO report estimated that at least 20.9
million people are victims of forced labor and human trafficking (ILO
2012). Over the past decade, the United States and the UN have
devoted greater resources to monitoring and prosecuting trafficking
by means of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime’s human trafficking
case law database and the US Department of State’s annual
Trafficking in Persons Report. Additionally, in 2010, the UN
established a trust fund to assist victims of human trafficking, and
the UN General Assembly adopted a global plan of action to combat
trafficking (see Lagon’s chapter 11 in this book on institutional
partnerships and human trafficking).
Girls are substantially less likely to attend and complete basic
education, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Moreover, the World Bank reports that this situation is unlikely to
change through economic development alone. Although girls’
education has received more attention in recent years, much work
remains. Gender parity in primary and secondary education was
among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) originally
targeted for achievement by 2005. In support of this goal and its
original 2005 deadline, the UNICEF launched the “25 by 2005”
initiative, which brought greater awareness to girls’ educational
needs in twenty-five countries of concern. However, the international
community failed to reach the 2005 MDG target—60 percent of
countries still lack gender parity in education—and it remains on the
list of MDGs targeted for 2015 (UNDP 2010). Nevertheless, NGOs
like the public-private Education for All-Fast Track Initiative have
successfully implemented country-specific approaches. A dignitarian
agenda requires such efforts to facilitate agency to thrive without
societal discrimination.
Awareness and official standards for the rights of children have
also expanded, but implementation has lagged. The near-universally
ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two optional
protocols—on child soldiers and on the sale and sexual exploitation
of children—have set crucial norms. Partnerships of states, IGOs,
NGOs, and the private sector have begun to address the subjects of
these two protocols in particular. International organizations have
heightened focus on postconflict rehabilitation and reintegration of
child soldiers in various regions, from the Democratic Republic of
Congo to Sri Lanka. NGOs, media, and authors have raised
international public awareness, and increasingly, using child soldiers
is seen as human trafficking. As for child prostitution, diverse groups
such as UNICEF, ILO, UN Interagency Project on Human Trafficking,
International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the secular
nonprofit End Child Prostitution and Trafficking, the faith-based
nonprofit World Vision, and Body Shop Corporation have forged
partnerships to identify and assist victims. However, the problem of
prostituted children being treated by local authorities as disposable
or criminal, rather than as victims, persists globally, even in major
democracies like the United States, Japan, and India.
In large segments of the developing world, children are seen as
breadwinning assets, sometimes abandoned to degrading
exploitation when they are too much of a burden to families. Among
those capable of responding to this problem, UNICEF is arguably the
best run, most respected, and most able to secure donations. In a
related effort, the World Health Organization has encouraged linking
immunizations to human rights as a part of its Decade of Vaccines
program, which spans 2011 to 2020, though financial support will
likely be constrained as a global economic downturn continues.

Other Group Rights: Heightened Focus,

Selective Bias
Dedicated efforts to address the rights of particular groups have
advanced for some, but stalled for others. Racism and other forms of
xenophobia have been a major focus. OAS members have been
negotiating over an antiracism convention proposed by Brazil since
2005, to follow in the footsteps of the UN Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racism and monitoring regime. The UN
process, despite the 1991 repeal of UN General Assembly Resolution
3379 (classifying Zionism as a form of racism), has been sidetracked
by the issue of Israel and its occupation of Palestinian territories.
The 2001 UN World Conference against Racism in Durban came
close to declaring Israel racist, and follow-on efforts, such as at the
2009 Review Conference, had a similarly skewed focus. In practice,
however, certain great exemplars of antiracism have transcended
past discrimination, from South Africa’s reconciliation under Nelson
Mandela to Barack Obama’s election in a nation in which segregation
was widely institutionalized a half century earlier. Sadly, many varied
instances of racism and xenophobia remain, from anti-Semitic
violence in Europe to antiwhite land seizure policies in Zimbabwe.
Indigenous peoples have been the subject of elaborate, extended
dialogue and expert monitoring in the UN and inter-American system
of IGOs but remain subject to discrimination. After establishing the
Convention on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in 1989,
the UN General Assembly voted to adopt the Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. Although Australia, New
Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States initially opposed
the declaration, they ultimately voted in favor. Other ethnic
minorities are the targets of discrimination (such as Dalits, who
make up the vast majority of the estimated forty million bonded
laborers in India despite a 1976 law against the practice) or state-led
political and cultural repression (such as Tibetan Buddhists and
Uighur Muslims in ostensibly autonomous territories of China)
(Kethineni and Humiston 2010). Ethnic rights abuses remain one of
the major sources or pretexts for armed conflict.
Sexual minorities have begun to gather increased attention in
IGO forums, in resolutions, and in national practice. Focus has
ranged from being subjects of violence to securing freedom from
discrimination. Brazil has spearheaded confronting rights
abridgments in the UN and OAS, as it did on homophobia. African
and Middle Eastern states and the Vatican have led opposition to
sexual minority rights in the UN. Western and Latin American states
have increasingly swung toward supporting these rights, which
culminated in the UNHRC passing the first UN resolution on the
protection of sexual minorities in June 2011. A November 2011
follow-up OHCHR report mandated by the resolution concluded that
discrimination and violence toward sexual minorities persists in all
regions of the globe (OHCHR 2011).
In short, an increasing number of groups have sought and, in
turn, have been recognized as deserving equal access to justice by
multilateral bodies, states, and publics. Implementation efforts are
spottier. Second, cultural legacies of prejudice may persist as more
and more groups lobby for rights.

Strengthening the Global Human Rights

Regime in the Near Term
United States and international action are needed to extend the
tangible impact for people’s dignity of the global human rights
architecture. These recommendations for how international
institutions can advance dignity specifically in the area of human
rights fall into two time frames: near-term and long-term.
In the near term, the United States and its international partners
should consider the following initiatives:

Empowering Regional Organizations and NGOs to Act

Global IGOs are important but alone are not enough to advance the
fullest realization of human rights. Regional organizations and NGOs
have also become important actors. The United States, in concert
with other leading powers and global IGOs, should actively cultivate
a more robust role for regional institutions and NGOs.
Compared to regional organizations, human rights action in global
IGOs and institutions commonly falls prey to regional and North-
South bloc politics, procedural logjams, and the need to compromise
among far too many competing interests—in effect rendering a final
outcome document toothless. In contrast, working through regional
organizations involves fewer actors and may work best in terms of
ensuring legitimacy and building consensus. Institutions like the EU,
Council of Europe, and OSCE have advanced human rights in
transitional states seeking to be members of the institutions in good
standing. The inter-American system of IGOs has highly developed
human rights mechanisms. The AU has also developed good
governance and a promising peer review mechanism.
Rather than host conferences to share best practices, the United
States should seek to deepen the already strong efforts of regional
organizations, such as that of the OSCE for technical assistance and
monitoring, and to bolster their capacities, such as that of the AU to
support UN-authorized military operations (which could, for instance,
help alleviate the ongoing crisis in Somalia and Mali). Promising but
slowly developing efforts, such as AU and the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development’s peer review mechanisms, should be
encouraged, especially by other regional organizations and leading
African powers. Stalled efforts, such as the Inter-American
Democratic Charter, signed in Santiago, Chile in 2001, should be
resuscitated. In the Charter, OAS members are committed to helping
prevent other members from backsliding from democracy, but no
mechanism exists to ensure a response to several states’ executives
revising constitutions by fiat—including lengthening their terms
(Trujillo 2012). Regional organizations that have largely ignored
human rights, such as the ASEAN, should be encouraged to
integrate them into their charters.
The United States should also encourage Mexico, Japan, and
India among other leading liberal powers to trust, rely on, and fund
NGOs as partners where applicable, both within their own territory
and internationally. The United States should also help IGOs find
inventive ways to sidestep member state politics to empower NGOs.
A model to scale up and replicate is the UN Democracy Fund
(UNDEF), which funds responsible and reliable civil society
organizations to advance a wide array of political, civil, economic,
and women’s rights.

Technical Assistance to States

The United States should make a concerted effort to urge IGOs to
devote more time and resources to help developing countries
expand their capacity to protect human rights on the ground.
Although they must not abandon roles of speaking truth to power,
condemning rank abuses of human dignity, and authorizing experts
to monitor human rights, IGOs’ finite resources would be best spent
on technical assistance.
 As such, the United States should also push other IGOs to
prioritize technical assistance rather than relying solely on explicitly
rights-oriented institutions. For instance, the UN Office on Drugs and
Crime should provide more resources in the form of technical
assistance to help countries enforce the Palermo Protocol on
Trafficking in Persons, rather than only help them draft suitable laws.
A vital aspect of this strategy is ensuring that relevant mechanisms
for disseminating capacity-building and technical assistance are
adequately resourced.

A Global Trust for Rule of Law

That said, forty different UN organs contribute to rule of law efforts
in one capacity or another in over 110 countries. A study on the UN’s
rule of law efforts from New York University’s Center on International
Cooperation concludes, “As it stands, each UN department and entity
has its own tools and mechanism to develop benchmarks and
indicators and to monitor and measure progress, but these tend to
be superficially consultative, focus narrowly on program outputs
rather that the attainment of broader goals, and are seldom based
on a theory of change” (Kavanagh and Jones 2011, 15). But the
need is great. Poor implementation of rule of law in developing and
least developed parts of the world ensures that countless people will
not enjoy tangible agency to economically thrive and actually enjoy
their rights on paper (Haugen and Boutros 2010; Khan 2009).
Based on the urgent need for concerted rule of law capacity-
building, the United States—in partnership with likeminded
developed and developing countries, international institutions, NGOs,
and private sector actors—should create a Global Trust for Rule of
Law (Global Trust). Similar to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund), the Global Trust would be
an autonomous funding body run by a diverse board of donor states,
philanthropists, rule of law experts, and civil society representatives.
Its primary function would be to provide grants and technical advice
to NGOs and governments strictly tied to enlarging access to legal
rights and to rule of law capacity. The Global Trust would, for
instance, support projects training lawyers or prosecutors, helping
citizens gain access to existing justice institutions, or spreading
awareness about corruption.
Lessons from the Global Fund include involving foundations and
private sector actors to mobilize their resources and comparative
advantages, and not giving lead responsibility to a single UN entity
(like the World Health Organization) with vested interests. Lessons
from the lesser-known UNDEF include budgetary insulation from
score-settling member state politics of IGOs, while still offering the
legitimacy and imprimatur of a highly respected body. Most
important, UNDEF favors nimble non-UN implementers and civil
society organizations, which receive a minimum of 85 percent of its
total grants as a policy. Based on these models, a Global Trust for
Rule of Law would stand as the globe’s most nimble catalyst to build
trust in societies in veritable access to justice and economic
opportunity (Lagon 2012).

Strengthening the Global Human Rights

Regime in the Long Term
More forward-looking objectives should also be prioritized. This goal
includes not only a focus on institutional reform but also efforts to
rethink conventional approaches to the fulfillment of universal
human rights that can transcend typical political, social, and cultural
fault lines. As such, thought leaders and policymakers on the front
lines of the advancement of dignity need not interpret “long-term”
goals to mean unattainable.

Further Renovation of the Human Rights Council and

Global Institutions
In the long run, the global human rights architecture needs to be
reformed to advance the agency and social recognition in practice on
which dignity depends. Some argue that advances from the UN
Commission on Human Rights to the UNHRC should not be risked by
reopening dialogue on structural and procedural issues. Two
reforms, which should not be objectionable to the developing world,
are critical.
First, the UNHRC should move to New York, where all member
states already field delegations, to better inform the work of the
UNSC, UNDP, UN Women, and UNICEF, and to shield the Geneva-
based OHCHR from micromanagement by a proximate political body.
Second, the United States could also call for boosting the direct role
of regional organizations to shape the work of the global ones
without the latter dictating or limiting the former. Despite OAS
inertia, increased AU and Arab League capacity will justify this step.

Rethinking Economic and Social Rights

In the long run, the United States can advance the efficacy of the
human rights regime by encouraging the global North and South to
rethink economic, social, and cultural rights. The United States, for
instance, has been even less inclined than more social democratic
states in the North to embrace the justifiability of economic, social,
and cultural rights. However, recent US policy priorities—such as the
push to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities within the Senate as well as combating human trafficking
and HIV/AIDS through the PEPFAR initiative—demonstrate the
inseparability of weak rule of law, discrimination, povertyinduced
desperation, and poor public health.
Aspects of human dignity cannot be compartmentalized. The
United States should work with the global North to mobilize more
support for political and civil liberties in the South—notably among
rising liberal powers—by demonstrating more openness to economic,
social, and cultural rights. So too, the United States should engage
the global South to accept limits on these rights—focusing on equal
opportunity and access to food, education, health care, housing, and
decent work conditions, rather than equality of outcomes or
unrealistic mandates. Finally, the United States should encourage the
global South, and again particularly rising liberal global powers, to
delink their calls for economic, social, and cultural rights from efforts
to sidetrack multilateral focus on political and civil liberties, which
are, in fact, enablers of the latter (see Lagon and Schulz 2012).

Democracy as a Touchstone of Multilateral Human

Rights Policy
Human rights and democracy are not exactly one and the same.
Human rights can be incrementally improved in contexts lacking
elements of democratic governance. Yet, in the long run, the global
human rights regime should be premised on the idea that
democratic governance is the best foundation for durable human
rights protection, and in our opinion, human dignity. Without regular
free and fair elections and core democratic institutions, it is too easy
for even benevolent autocrats to violate the rights of their
populations. The onset of the Arab revolutions is serious evidence
that democracy can be considered a universal aspiration. Building
democracy is the best way to ensure peace, as many studies have
suggested that democracies tend not to fight one another.
In short, multilateral institutions should premise their declaratory,
diplomatic, and aid policies on democracy as the foundation, as the
UNDP did between 1999 and 2005 (Malloch-Brown 2011; Newman
and Rich 2004). The effective implementation of human rights stems
not only from good governance but also particularly from democratic
governance advancing horizontally among states and vertically by
planting institutionalized roots within states.

Use of Global Economic Institutions to Promote

Rights
Global economic institutions, given adequate political will, can also
help promote and protect human rights. In particular, these
institutions should promote the notions of equal access to justice,
real-time freedom of information, and ultimately the concept of
agency as mutually reinforcing catalysts for economic development.
For instance, the World Bank, IMF, and regional development banks
should extend their anticorruption and good governance work to
promote equal access to legal rights for all groups with the objective
of expanding developing nations’ productivity and prosperity (see
Anoop Singh’s chapter 5 on the rule of law and the role of the IMF in
strengthening domestic institutions).
This effort should include streamlining and expanding projects
related to rule of law, bolstering emerging judicial institutions, and
promoting the functioning of civil society within countries. A good
example is an ambitious effort by the World Bank to quantify the
domestic economic impact of homophobic exclusion of sexual
minorities (Kim 2014).

The Way Forward

Despite many achievements enumerated herein, the global human
rights regime exhibits skewed priorities and lagging implementation,
retarding both essential elements of human dignity that Lagon and
Arend identify: (1) agency to thrive and (2) societal recognition of
the equal inherent value of all groups. Many of the logjams on
progress involve states clinging to parochial interests and blocking
traditional IGOs—especially the UN and others of global scope—from
contributing to human rights being realized in practice.
The short- and long-term recommendations above focus on the
opportunity offered by the emergence of a mosaic—albeit messy—
multilateralism of complementary, partnering, and hybrid institutions.
That opportunity is to break through this implementation-related
gridlock. Empowering regional organizations and civil society
institutions, creating a Global Fund for Rule of Law, and in the longer
term engaging international financial and trade institutions more in
rights promotion would harness that mosaic multilateralism to good
effect. Moreover, rethinking the false dichotomies of political versus
socioeconomic rights and of human rights versus democracy as
priorities, as well as the UN human rights institutions themselves,
could meaningfully advance human dignity. They build upon the
human rights tradition and existing institutions to advance dignity in
the lived experiences of people worldwide.
Notes
This chapter draws significantly from the Council on Foreign
Relations’ International Institutions and Global Governance (CFR
IIGG) program’s Global Governance Monitor (GGM) Global Human
Rights Regime Issue Brief. Specifically, it reflects and builds upon the
conclusions reached by Mark P. Lagon and Stewart M. Patrick. The
project was a direct result of the generous support of the Robina
Foundation, as well as the work of the CFR IIGG staff. The human
rights component of the GGM—along with other components on
major global governance issues, can be found at
http://www.cfr.org/global-governance/global-governance-
monitor/p18985.

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CHAPTER 7

The Human Dignity Lens on

Terrorism and Counterterrorism
ANTHONY CLARK AREND

One of the most dramatic challenges in today’s neomedieval world

has been the increasing use of political violence by nonstate actors,
often in the form of terrorism. Whereas some scholars would trace
the roots of terrorism back to groups like the Zealots of the first
century CE,1 the destructiveness of terrorism in the late twentieth
century and early twenty-first century has risen to a whole new
level. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, global
institutions have had to engage the problem of terrorism to an
unprecedented extent. Indeed, in the early years after September
11, some officials spoke about the existence of a global war on
terrorism.
With terrorism and counterterrorism playing such a prominent
role on the global stage, it is not surprising that terrorism has been
analyzed from multiple perspectives—the philosophical, the political,
the sociological, the ethical, and the legal. Each of these lenses adds
to our understanding of the phenomenon we call terrorism. But what
would the lens of human dignity suggest? How would human dignity
advance our understanding of terrorism, and what would it suggest
for actions by global institutions?
In order to address these questions, this chapter will do three
things. First, it will set forth a basic definition of terrorism. Second, it
will offer several propositions about terrorism that can be derived
from a human dignity perspective. Third, it will make several
concrete recommendations for global institutions.

What Is Terrorism?
Over the years, the international community has repeatedly sought
to develop a definition of terrorism. But after many lengthy debates
at international conferences and in other fora, states,
intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and other major actors
have still not been able to reach a consensus on a legal definition.
For purposes of this work, however, I would offer the following
definition: Terrorism is the threat or use of force undertaken for
political purposes by a nonstate actor that intentionally targets
civilians and other noncombatants in violation of existing law relating
to the conduct of hostilities (Arend 2002).
This definition, in my view, captures the essence of what we
commonly call terrorism. First, terrorism involves force—either
threatened or realized. This requirement is inherent in the violent
nature of terrorism. Second, this threat or use of force is undertaken
for political purposes. This is an important criterion that
differentiates terrorism from criminal activity, which is undertaken for
private gain. Third, terrorism is something undertaken by a nonstate
actor. It is true that there can be state-sponsored terrorism, but
there must be some nonstate group involved. Fourth, terrorism
means the targeting of civilians or other noncombatants in violation
of law. One of the hallmarks of terrorism is that it attacks legally
protected persons and places—civilians, commercial airliners,
subways, commuter trains, shopping malls.
It should be noted that this definition of terrorism does not
include forcible actions by nonstate actors when they are directed
against legitimate military targets. There is a long philosophical
tradition of a right of revolution—allowing persons to use force
against their government.2 Indeed, the American Declaration of
Independence specifically acknowledges this right. If such forcible
actions are taken against military targets, such actions do not
constitute terrorism.

Propositions about Terrorism and

Counterterrorism
I. Terrorist Acts Violate Human Dignity
A first proposition about terrorism is that terrorist acts always violate
human dignity. This may seem to be an obvious conclusion. But over
the years, there has frequently been a claim that “one person’s
terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.” In other words, if one
agrees with the political goals of the group involved, it is not a
terrorist group, whereas if one does not agree, then the group is a
terrorist group. A human dignity lens would reject this. Viewed from
the perspective of human dignity, violent acts against innocent
civilians and other immune targets are wrong irrespective of motive.
Terrorism, in essence, uses innocent people as policy tools and in so
doing deprives human agency and removes the recognition of their
status, which is necessary to assure their dignity.

II. Distinguish between Terrorist Acts, Terrorist

Groups, and Terrorists
A second proposition is that it is important to draw distinctions
between terrorist acts, terrorist groups, and terrorists. What does
this mean? First, terrorist acts are those described above. Second, a
person that commits one of those acts may be described as a
terrorist. Third, a terrorist group is a nonstate actor that, as a part of
its identity, advocates and engages in terrorist acts. It would not
seem logical to designate a group as a terrorist group if some of its
members had committed isolated terrorist acts that were generally
rejected by the leadership of the group. An analogy may serve to
illustrate this distinction. Over the years, some members of the US
military have committed war crimes; the behavior of US personnel at
My Lai in Vietnam or Abu Ghraib in Iraq come immediately to mind.
But although those persons found responsible for committing those
atrocities can be labeled as “war criminals,” the US military or the
United States itself as a whole cannot be so labeled. The same
principle would apply to nonstate actors.
It is also important to note that a group that previously engaged
in terrorist acts could undergo a fundamental change and come to
eschew terrorism. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is an example of
such a group. Although it previously supported acts against
protected persons, the IRA ultimately rejected such a tactic.
It is also useful to differentiate terrorists from those persons who
have some connection with a terrorist group but do not themselves
advocate or engage in terrorist actions. A person may be a spouse
or a friend of a terrorist, but that does not make that person a
terrorist. Similarly, a person who provides food or shelter to a
terrorist—especially when the person providing such assistance is
not aware of the acts of the terrorist or when the person is forced to
provide such assistance—should not be considered a terrorist.
Indeed, one of the great difficulties of the legal category adopted by
the United States of “providing material support” to terrorism is that
it potentially conflates this type of support with terrorism itself.3 A
human dignity lens requires that these distinctions be made,
because a fundamental corollary of human dignity is that all persons
are of equal worth and should be treated justly. This means that the
state should only punish offenders in a manner proportionate to the
gravity of their offenses.

III. Forcible Response to Terrorism Is Permissible

As noted above, terrorist acts by definition violate the human dignity
of persons. Consequently, it is incumbent upon the international
community to take action to prevent, and if prevention fails, to stop
terrorism. This means that the use of military force can rightfully be
used for prevention and abatement of terrorism. But such force must
meet criteria that are established under international law. In
particular, such force must meet the jus ad bellum criteria of
necessity and proportionality and the jus in bello criteria of
discrimination and avoidance of unnecessary suffering.
The “jus ad bellum” is the law relating to the recourse to force
(Arend and Beck 1993, 2). Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, states
have an inherent right of self-defense if an armed attack occurs.
Although the Charter was written when other states were thought of
as the perpetrators of armed attacks, the international community
has come to recognize that nonstate actors can also commit armed
attacks and be subject to forcible response to such attack. In fact,
following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Security
Council adopted Resolution 1373 that explicitly acknowledged the
right of self-defense in the wake of an attack by al-Qaeda, a
nonstate actor.
In order for such a response to be lawful, it must meet two
criteria: necessity and proportionality (Arend and Beck 1993, 18,
72). First, it must be demonstrated that it is necessary to use
military force. With respect to an ongoing terrorist operation, this
criterion is easily satisfied. Thus, for example, following the al-Qaeda
actions against the United States beginning in the early 1990s, the
necessity requirement was met, and US forces were empowered to
take forcible actions to stop the ongoing activities of al-Qaeda. With
respect to a preventative action, it is a bit more complex. If a state
believes that a group is contemplating terrorist acts, the state (or
states) that is likely to be the target must demonstrate that an
attack is truly about to occur. Under traditional international law, the
state must demonstrate that an attack is imminent.
Second, the forcible response must be proportionate to the
threat. The goal of using force against terrorism is to stop the
terrorist threat. This means that force can be used in a manner that
is calculated to end the threat. There is no necessity for a tit-for-tat
response. In other words, if a terrorist were to kill a national of the
target state, the victim state is not limited to the same level of
action. The victim state is empowered to take action to end the
threat. But the victim state is limited to only that amount of force
that could reasonably be considered necessary to end the threat.
 In addition to these jus ad bellum criteria, forcible responses to
terrorism must also meet the requirements of the jus in bello, also
referred to as the laws of war, the laws of armed conflict, and
international humanitarian law (Dinstein 2004). The jus in bello
emerged under customary international law and has been codified in
numerous treaties, including The Hague Conventions of 1899 and
1907 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Whereas these
agreements set forth a number of specific requirements—including
some that will be discussed in the next section—two principles are
particularly noteworthy when discussing a forcible response to
terrorism: discrimination and unnecessary suffering.
First, the use of force must discriminate between legitimate and
illegitimate targets. Under the laws of war, military force can only be
employed against military targets—active combatants, weapons
systems, military installations and equipment, and other such force
components. Force cannot be used against civilians who pose no
military threat, military personnel that are surrendering, and troops
that are wounded and pose no threat. Similarly, force cannot be
used against nonmilitary targets, such as hospitals, places of
worship, or undefended population centers. Any counterterrorist
action must discriminate in this fashion. Indeed, one of the
distinctive characteristics of terrorism itself is that terrorist acts
intentionally target these protected persons and places.
Second, under the jus in bello, all parties to an armed conflict are
to avoid methods of combat that are calculated to cause
unnecessary suffering. While it might seem that any use of force
causes unnecessary suffering, under international law, there is a
specific prohibition on both weapons that always cause gratuitous
suffering and the use of methods that would produce such suffering.
Thus, for example, jagged-edged bayonets and hollow-point bullets
are not allowed in combat because they cause injuries beyond that
which is necessary to neutralize an enemy. In engaging in a
counterterrorism operation, military forces are bound not to take any
action that would violate this prohibition on producing unnecessary
suffering.
IV. Terror Suspects Must Be Treated Humanely
Given the horrific nature of terrorism, there has frequently been a
tendency on the part of those apprehending terrorists to claim that
those individuals somehow forfeit their humanity by virtue of their
actions. Human dignity, however, requires that irrespective of the
heinous nature of terrorism and any particular terrorist act,
individuals that are captured under suspicion of being terrorists must
be treated humanely, with international humanitarian law setting the
minimum standard for this treatment.
Concretely, this requirement means several things. First, it means
that terror suspects that have surrendered cannot be killed, tortured,
or otherwise treated with disrespect. Following the US Supreme
Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld from 2006, the legal standard
articulated in Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Convention
serves as a good baseline. It provides:

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character

occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties,
each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum,
the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including

members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and
those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention,
or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated
humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race,
colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other
similar criteria. To this end, the following acts are and shall
remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever
with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular, murder of all kinds,
mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and
degrading treatment;
 (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions
without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly
constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which
are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

Although these requirements might seem straightforward, during

the socalled war on terror, there were significant disputes about the
definition of torture. As is well-known, the US Justice Department
produced a series of legal memoranda that set an extremely high
threshold for torture, allowing for the conduct of waterboarding and
a number of other tactics that were widely criticized (Greenberg and
Dratel 2005). Moreover, although the Supreme Court concluded that
Common Article 3 applied to terror suspects, there is not necessarily
universal agreement on that determination.
Looking at the treatment of terror suspects through the lens of
human dignity does not provide an authoritative list of dos and
don’ts with respect to treatment, but it does demand that when in
doubt, a harsh technique should not be undertaken. Human dignity
would encourage an interrogator to err on the side of the suspect
and to refrain from actions that any reasonable person would
consider an affront to human dignity. Practices such as
waterboarding, for example, clearly violate human dignity.
A second conclusion drawn from the requirement that terror
suspects be treated humanely is that the practice of indefinite
detention is by nature problematic. With the potential exception of
Common Article 3, the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of
Prisoners of War really only applies to persons who meet the
definition of a prisoner of war contained in Article 4 of that
Convention. Because terrorists by definition do not follow the laws of
war, they cannot be considered prisoners of war (POWs) and thus
are not entitled to the full protections of the Convention. One area
addressed by the Convention is the length of detention. POWs must
be repatriated at the end of the conflict. But what about terror
suspects?
 There are several problems here. First, although in a traditional
war there is a much clearer sense as to when the conflict is over,
when would a war on terror be over? Unlike in traditional wars,
where repatriated POWs are unlikely to continue the conflict with the
enemy, terror suspects may continue to challenge the state that
captured them even if the terrorist group with which they were
associated no longer exists. Second, POWs can be tried for violations
of the laws of war and, if found guilty, imprisoned. Certainly, a terror
detainee could also be tried and if found guilty imprisoned for the
length of the sentence, including presumably life. But what if a terror
suspect is captured and detained and due to the circumstances
surrounding the capture of the person, there is either insufficient
evidence to try and convict the person or the evidence was obtained
through techniques that would prevent such evidence from being
admissible in court? Can that person simply be indefinitely detained
because those capturing him or her reasonably believed he or she
committed war crimes?
This is a serious problem here. A human dignity lens would
counsel against detaining a person indefinitely without any trial and
subsequent conviction. As noted earlier, when we acknowledge the
inherent value of all persons, justice requires that persons only be
subjected to punishment in proportion to their offense. But if the
offense has not been adjudicated, how can the person be indefinitely
detained? Part of the problem is the law. This is clearly a lacuna in
the Geneva Convention that needs to be addressed.

V. The International Community Needs to Address

the Root Causes of Terrorism
Whereas much of the focus in recent years has been on
counterterrorism and efforts to prevent terrorist attacks and capture
individual terrorists, a human dignity perspective suggests that the
international community should seek to understand and address the
root causes of terrorism. By addressing the root causes, it is hoped
that the incidence of terrorism could be greatly reduced, even if it’s
never eliminated. But what causes human beings to become
terrorists? In order to attempt to answer this question, it is
important to recognize distinctions among different types of
terrorism and different types of terrorists.
When continental Europe was being hit with a wave of terrorist
activities in the 1970s, the German scholar Claus-Dieter Kernig drew
the distinction between what he called “terrorism with a goal” and
“terrorism without a goal” (Kernig 1978). Into the first category, he
placed groups that had clear, identifiable policy goals. These groups
adopted terrorist tactics as a means to achieving those goals. Thus,
for example, ETA, the Basque group, had the explicit goal of
establishing an independent Basque state. The Palestine Liberation
Organization and the IRA had similarly concrete goals. Indeed, when
al-Qaeda was created, its leadership articulated a series of demands
that under-girded their raison d’être.
The designation of the second type of terrorism, terrorism
without a goal, should not be taken too literally. If the leaders of
these groups were to be asked, they would undoubtedly describe a
series of goals. The main difference here is that the goals these
groups articulate seem to translate into a desire for a complete
overhaul of the entire established political, economic, or social
system. Such groups would include the Baader-Meinhof Group, the
Red Brigade, the Red Army, Aum Shinrikyo, and even the
Symbionese Liberation Army. These groups seemed to engage in
terrorism to rage against the system as a whole. Even if public
officials wanted to respond to address their concerns, there would
be no way to effectively address their demands.
Another critical distinction to make when attempting to
understand the root causes of terrorism is the distinction between
the leadership and the foot soldier. On one side are the Osama Bin
Ladens and the Mullah Omars, and on the other is the fifteen-year
old with a bomb strapped to her body. Although the leaders may be
motivated by an established ideology or clear political goals, foot
soldiers may not be. Foot soldiers may be coming from a society that
is ungoverned and rife with poverty, unemployment, and political
corruption. They might feel disenfranchised and lost. Indeed, to use
the theme of this book, such people may feel that their human
dignity has been stripped. They may feel a loss of agency and the
inability or unwillingness of society to grant recognition to their
personhood. Then, into such people’s seemingly hopeless lives
comes a group that promises to give life meaning and a sense of
belonging. Although it is impossible to draw a definitive conclusion,
such a motivation could indeed be an important reason that many
join a terrorist cause.
In efforts to address the causes of terrorism, these distinctions
need to be considered. First, for groups that have concrete political
goals, international institutions and states need to seek to
understand these goals. And although they should not feel an
obligation to yield to terrorist blackmail, they should realistically
deliberate on the political goals that have led groups to engage in
terrorist tactics and seek a resolution that is ultimately just and fair.
Second, given that many foot soldiers may be less motivated by a
concrete ideology or specific political goals and more inspired by
their need to reclaim their human dignity, the international
community needs to address the conditions in society that have led
persons to feel powerless and without dignity.

Recommendations for Global Institutions

One of the implications of these propositions is that in order for
human dignity to be given effect, institutions—both traditional and
emerging—must take a holistic approach to the problem. In the
past, states and IGOs have understandably tended to focus their
attention on the more immediate aspect of terrorism—
counterterrorism—and have not focused on the more systemic
problems that lead to terrorism. To effectively promote human
dignity in the wake of terrorism, however, both the immediate
challenge and the underlying problems must be addressed.
Accordingly, I would make these recommendations for action by a
variety of global institutions.
I. A New Geneva Convention
The International Committee on the Red Cross and Red Crescent
(ICRC) is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) headquartered in
Geneva, Switzerland. Since 1864, the ICRC has been the leader in
promoting the development of international humanitarian law. As
warfare has evolved over the years, the ICRC has convened a series
of conferences to update the Geneva Conventions. It is time for
another such conference.
The goal of the new Geneva Conference would be to either adopt
an additional protocol to the 1949 Conventions or produce a
completely new convention that would address the lacunae in the
existing Conventions. It is hoped that several specific issues would
be addressed. First, although at present an argument could be made
that Common Article 3 of the Conventions applies to terror suspects
—indeed, as noted earlier, the US Supreme Court has ruled that it
does—its applicability still remains unclear and its provisions minimal
(Lagon and Schulz 2012). A new convention could provide clarity to
the rights given to terror suspects. Second, a new treaty could
explicitly set forth the level of evidence that is necessary to convict a
person of war crimes for various acts of terrorism. The convention
might also draw distinctions between the leaders of terrorist
operations and persons who could be considered foot soldiers and
other actors who fall somewhere in between. Whereas foot soldiers
cannot be absolved of a war crime, a mitigating factor could be their
level of involvement in the planning and the extent to which they
may have been coerced into committing the terrorist act. Third, a
new convention could address the problem of indefinite detention in
cases where there is insufficient evidence to convict a person of a
war crime. As noted earlier, although traditional POWs can be held
until the armed conflict is over, that same standard is problematic
regarding terrorism. When is the war on terror over? When
individuals are committed to using terrorist tactics against a state,
do they no longer become a threat when their organization is no
more? A convention could address this issue—perhaps with an
arrangement such that persons detained as terror suspects would be
subject to periodic review to determine whether they continue to be
a threat, perhaps even with a provision that requires their release
after a certain period of time in any case.

II. An Early Warning System for Terrorism

What if we could predict terrorism before it occurs? In theory, this is
the goal of each state’s intelligence agencies. And although the
successes of such efforts are generally not known, the failures are all
too public. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, for example, numerous commissions made it clear how the
intelligence community in the United States failed to connect the
dots to prevent 9/11. But would the lens of human dignity suggest
an additional approach?
As noted earlier, some individuals may be motivated to take up a
terrorist cause when they feel that they have been stripped of their
dignity due to adverse conditions in their state. Confronted with
challenges such as abject poverty, the lack of a fair governance
structure, and a general sense of hopelessness, disenfranchised
persons may seek some sense of meaning in a terrorist group.
Accordingly, it would make sense to seek to identify the early onset
of these conditions that might lead persons to join terrorist groups.
In order to do this, two actions are necessary. First, clearer
correlations need to be established between adverse conditions and
the incident of terrorism. Second, once such correlations are
determined, so called big data needs to be used to predict those
factors in the global system that are likely to produce conditions
conducive to terrorism. A word can be said about each of these
tasks.
First, although much has been written about the root causes of
terrorism, it makes sense to attempt to develop an international
consensus on conditions that historically have led to disenfranchised
persons joining terrorist groups. To accomplish this task, state
governments and private foundations can play the primary role by
funding social science research that models terrorism based on past
actions and proposes a variety of conditions that leads to terrorism.
The goal is to develop hypotheses that can then be discussed and
evaluated at international fora, perhaps under the sponsorship of the
UN Education, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO).
Second, once a set of conditions are formulated, NGOs and IGOs
could use available big data to explore the development of these
conditions. Much as organizations like the World Health Organization
can use big data to predict outbreaks of diseases, so too could the
proper use of big data be able to predict the early emergence of
conditions that are likely to create fertile ground for terrorism.
There is likely more art than science in such an approach to
predicting terrorism. But if there were to be an institutionalized
mechanism for promoting the examination and discussion of
conditions potentially leading to terrorism, it would at the very least
ensure that there is a regular exploration of emerging conditions
that are destructive to human dignity. Such exploration would, it is
hoped, help the global community focus on the problem before it
manifests itself into full-blown terrorism.

III. A Global Trust for Governance

Although there are many adverse conditions that potentially create
the environment for disaffected persons to become terrorists,
undoubtedly one of those conditions is poor governance or lack of
governance completely. A state where corruption is rampant, the
judicial system decidedly unfair, and a government that cannot
deliver even on the most basic services necessary for survival is a
likely breeding ground for the foot soldiers of terrorism.
One way to address some of these governance issues is to
establish a Global Trust for Governance. This recommendation draws
upon a proposal made by co-editor Mark P. Lagon for a Global Trust
for the Rule of Law (Lagon 2012). Modeled after the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global Trust for the Rule of
Law would be a partnership of states, NGOs, other nonprofits, IGOs,
and private sector actors. As Lagon explains, “Its purpose would be
to build developing nations’ capacity to implement rule of law and
unleash the potential of marginalized groups worldwide, promoting
not only human dignity but, crucially, global economic growth”
(Lagon 2012). It would do this by “provid[ing] grants and technical
advice to NGOs and governments dedicated to enlarging access to
legal rights and rule of law capacity where both are weak” (Lagon
2012). In particular, “[a]mong other activities, it would support
projects to train lawyers or prosecutors, help citizens gain access to
justice institutions, and spread public awareness about corruption”
(Lagon 2012). Donors to the Trust could include states, multilateral
institutions, nonprofits, large foundations, private corporations, and
even individual persons. Importantly, “It would have an autonomous
governing board composed of representatives from developed and
developing countries, the UN and international financial institutions,
NGOs, relevant foundations, representatives of the private sector,
and civil society institutions. A regional representation allotment
would allay concerns about a Western bias. Funding from and
decision-making influence of any single donor—including the United
States—would be limited (e.g., a 10 percent ceiling), with no veto
power for any board member. A technical committee of experts
across cultures charged with evaluating grant applications would
report to the board” (Lagon 2012).
My suggestion is to expand this to a Global Trust on Governance
and the Rule of Law. Under such an arrangement, it would address
all the issues Lagon raises and would expand to other areas. These
could include funding and training to develop governmental
institutions that provide basic social services—education, health care,
child services, safety regulations and such. In particular, proper
funding and training could help those institutions develop in such a
way as to reduce corruption and increase efficiency. Although such a
fund is certainly no magic bullet, it could help improve agency and
recognition—and hence justice and prosperity—in states and
perhaps reduce the chances of disenfranchised persons becoming
terrorists.

IV. Joint Action by Faith-based Institutions

As noted earlier, it is not unusual for terrorist groups to be motivated
by certain ideologies. Unfortunately, some groups draw upon religion
to justify their terrorist actions. Fundamentalists of a variety of
different religious traditions have engaged in many of the most
destructive terrorist acts in history. From the Zealots to al-Qaeda to
groups that bomb abortion clinics, terrorists have frequently made
religious arguments to support violence.
A claim that we make in this book is that virtually all mainstream
religions value human dignity—even if they may not use that term or
may implement it differently in their own cultural contexts.
Accordingly, it is logical that faith-based institutions at all levels could
play a major role in engaging in a dialogue on human dignity and
terrorism. In particular, these institutions could work to make it clear
to their adherents that terrorist methods are always at odds with the
affirmation of human dignity. And indeed, religious groups have
spoken out against terrorism and condemned specific terrorist acts.
But there is still more that can be done.
One suggestion is to encourage interreligious conferences aimed
specifically at developing common approaches to terrorism. Such
common approaches could not only involve formulating common
statements on terrorism but could also include common actions
relating to alleviating the underlying conditions that may be
conducive to terrorism. Joint efforts by religious organizations—
especially in communities with great religious diversity—to address
poverty, health care, and education could go a long way to
addressing some of the root causes of terrorism. Joint efforts could
also demonstrate a level of cooperation among different religious
groups that could help mitigate the problem of demonization of one
religious group by another.

Conclusion
Sadly, violence by nonstate actors in pursuit of political aims seems
to be a permanent feature of the twenty-first century. Far too often,
however, discussions of terrorism get lost in ideological or even legal
debates and a fundamental point is missed: Terrorism by definition is
an affront to human dignity. When viewed through the lens of
human dignity, the negative effects of terrorism on the agency and
affirmation of persons is clear. At the same time, a human dignity
lens allows us to affirm that the terrorists themselves—as well as
those who live with and care for them—are still persons, worthy of
having their dignity preserved.
In order to combat terrorism in the short and long term, it is
necessary that both traditional and nontraditional institutions act in
partnership. Actions by states alone are not sufficient—nor are
actions by more traditional IGOs such as the UN. Those actors
frequently have limited recourses, circumscribed geographic reach,
and in some cases insufficient legitimacy. Instead, states, IGOs,
NGOs, and hybrid institutions need to work in partnership to both
combat contemporary acts of terrorism and to address the global
conditions that set the stage for future terrorists to emerge. Human
dignity demands it.

Notes
1. I am indebted to Dr. Elizabeth Grimm Arsenault for her lectures
on the origins of terrorism.
2. We tend to think of John Locke as one of the great
philosophers supporting a right to revolution, but several medieval
political thinkers, such as John of Salisbury, argued that violence
could be permissibly undertaken against a tyrant.
3. One applicable section of US federal law can be found at 18
USC § 2339A: providing material support to terrorists. It holds:

(a) Offense. Whoever provides material support or resources or

conceals or disguises the nature, location, source, or
ownership of material support or resources, knowing or
intending that they are to be used in preparation for, or in
carrying out, a violation of section 32, 37, 81, 175, 229, 351,
831, 842 (m) or (n), 844 (f) or (i), 930 (c), 956, 1091, 1114,
 1116, 1203, 1361, 1362, 1363, 1366, 1751, 1992, 2155, 2156,
2280, 2281, 2332, 2332a, 2332b, 2332f, 2340A, or 2442 of
this title, section 236 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42
USC 2284), section 46502 or 60123 (b) of title 49, or any
offense listed in section 2332b (g)(5)(B) (except for sections
2339A and 2339B) or in preparation for, or in carrying out, the
concealment of an escape from the commission of any such
violation, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be
fined under this title, imprisoned not more than fifteen years,
or both, and, if the death of any person results, shall be
imprisoned for any term of years or for life. A violation of this
section may be prosecuted in any Federal judicial district in
which the underlying offense was committed, or in any other
Federal judicial district as provided by law.
(b) Definitions. As used in this section, the term “material support
or resources” means any property, tangible or intangible, or
service, including currency or monetary instruments or
financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert
advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or
identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons,
lethal substances, explosives, personnel (one or more
individuals who may be or include oneself), and
transportation, except medicine or religious materials.

References
Arend, Anthony Clark. 2002. “International Law and Rogue States:
The Failure of the United Nations Charter Framework.” New
England Law Review 36 (4): 740.
Arend, Anthony Clark, and Robert J. Beck. 1993. International Law
and the Use of Force: Beyond the United Nations Charter
Paradigm. London: Routledge.
Dinstein, Yoram. 2004. The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of
International Armed Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Greenberg, Karen J., and Joshua L. Dratel, eds. 2005. The Torture
Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kernig, Claus-Dieter. 1978. “Theorie und Praktisch der Terroristischen
und Anarchistischen Bewegungen [Theory and Practice of
Terrorist and Anarchist Movements]” (lecture). Universität Trier.
Fall.
Lagon, Mark P. 2012. “A Global Trust for the Rule of Law.” Policy
Innovation Memorandum No. 26. Council on Foreign Relations.
Accessed November 4, 2013. http://www.cfr.org/rule-of-
law/global-trust-rule-law/p29170.
Lagon, Mark P., and William F. Schulz. 2012. “Conservatives, Liberals,
and Human Rights.” Policy Review, 171.
PART II

EMERGING INSTITUTIONS
Part II treats what this volume terms “emerging institutions.” These
include various private sector, philanthropic, civil society, and hybrid
institutions. While some of these institutions have been in existence
for some time, such as the Roman Catholic Church or multinational
corporations, in today’s neomedieval world they are properly
considered emerging because they have become engaged in new,
innovative ways in promoting human dignity.
On one hand, the next seven chapters show the impact of actors
separate from international government organizations, such as
chapter 12 by Thomas Banchoff, who focuses on the Catholic Church
and other major faith traditions; chapter 13 by Nicole Bibbins
Sedaca, who addresses faith-based, programmatic,
nongovernmental organizations; and chapter 14 by Michael Samway,
who discusses multinational corporations. On the other hand, two
chapters show emerging institutions collaborating with traditional
ones—such as chapter 8 by Rosalía Rodriguez-García, who considers
UNAIDS and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria; and chapter 11 by Mark P. Lagon, who treats institutional
partnerships to combat human trafficking.
Human dignity inspires the work of these emerging institutions.
For instance, chapter 9 by Raj Desai and Homi Kharas explores how
lenders to developing world entrepreneurs are moved and
themselves empowered by new private sector institutions employing
crowdsourcing. So too, Banchoff’s and Bibbins Sedaca’s chapters
reveal the mobilizing power of dignity in faith-based institutions’
work.
 Finally, the chapters in part II reveal important yet different types
of impacts on human dignity. Some emerging institutions help
marginalized people seize agency and social recognition, such as the
nimble private sector development entities that Desai and Kharas
examine. Others can stop threats to dignity or reduce complicity in
such threats, such as the institutional reforms to help stateless
persons—a category of human beings denied access to justice—as
proposed in chapter 10 by Benjamin Boudreaux. Samway
enumerates internet companies’ due diligence measures to avoid
helping states infringe on civil liberties. Still other institutions can
reverse the stigma or blame placed on those victimized. Here, Lagon
shows how multistakeholder partnerships can stop human trafficking
victims from being reflexively treated as criminals or from being
deported, and Rodriguez-García shows how UNAIDS and the Global
Fund overcome the social stigma on populations most vulnerable to
HIV/AIDS. Emerging institutions show promise to avert a shameful
double denial of individuals’ dignity.
CHAPTER 8

Transcending HIV/AIDS Social

Stigma
Putting Human Dignity Center Stage
in Global Institutions
ROSALÍA RODRIGUEZ-GARCÍA

Global institutions, both intergovernmental and multistakeholder

partnerships, have for three decades grappled with the dignity-
negating effects of discrimination in the AIDS (acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome) pandemic. Slowly, they have dealt with
the social stigma of vulnerable and affected groups as a barrier to
their interventions. The cases of the Joint UN Programme on
HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis, and Malaria show how gaps between discourse and
action and between global commitments and impact on individuals
must be bridged to tangibly serve human dignity.
The first cases of an unusual type of immune deficiency not seen
before were found in the United States among gay men in 1981.
When the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
issued its first official report on HIV (human immunodeficiency
virus), few could have foreseen that HIV, the virus identified as the
cause of AIDS, would become the most severe epidemic of modern
times. In the early 1980s the disease was confined primarily to high-
income countries and among the gay population. Little did the global
health community realize that HIV had been spreading unnoticed for
decades among the general population, first in sub—Saharan Africa
and then in different regions. By the year 2000 HIV affected every
region in the world and the number of people living with HIV rose
from less than one million to an estimated 27.5 million (UNAIDS
2011).
AIDS was first and foremost a health catastrophe, but soon it was
also seen as a national security issue. Public health arguments for
AIDS engagement were made even more urgent by arguments that
emphasized how the vicious circle of poverty, often leading people to
engage in commercial sex to survive, maximized the risk of HIV
infections and AIDS, thereby creating social instability. The concern
for security was fueled by the fact that in the decade of 1990–2000,
the number of countries in a preconflict, conflict, or postconflict
status had tripled (Global Development Alliance 2001) and
populations at war were often subjected to human rights abuses and
sexual violence, all of which facilitated HIV transmission (Gostin
2003). This situation was compounded by the fact that the security
sector (i.e., armed forces, law enforcement) in many countries were
hit with high rates of HIV infection, and thus, AIDS became part of
the military lexicon (Rodriguez-García 2002).
Not since ancient times with diseases like leprosy had a disease
fueled the imagination and fear of people as AIDS did due in great
part to its undertones of illegality, same-sex acts, and sure death.
Some people when confronted with same-sex relationships
experience a deep aversion or disgust. Nussbaum (2010) argues that
disgust has long been among the fundamental motivations of those
who are fighting for legal discrimination against lesbian and gay
citizens. As Nussbaum argues, the politics of disgust must be
confronted directly, for it contradicts the basic principle of the
equality of all citizens under the law.
In the emergency response mode that defined the early stages of
the epidemic (around 1981) the application of public health
measures of isolation or mandatory testing, such as the US practice
of detaining HIV-positive Haitian refugees at Guantánamo and
Cuba’s forcible quarantine of its own HIV-positive citizens, was
controversial and bitterly criticized by health practitioners and human
rights advocates (Stemple 2008). This position was not as farfetched
then as one may think now, as in the early times of the epidemic
AIDS was a fatal disease.
However, by the late 1980s health officials recognized that
discrimination against people with AIDS or who were HIV positive
was counterproductive, and by 1988 the World Health Organization
(WHO) adopted a resolution, which stated that addressing
discrimination was an essential element of HIV prevention programs.
This principle of nondiscrimination was consequently incorporated
into the governance and practice of the first HIV/AIDS Strategy of
the WHO. If the first phase of the HIV epidemic (in the early 1980s)
saw the international community applying a public health approach
to HIV prevention, and the second phase (in the late 1980s)
decrying the need to fight discrimination, the third phase of the
epidemic in the early 1990s underscored the concept of vulnerability
and the fundamental connection between HIV and human rights. By
then it had become clear that a lack of respect for human dignity
was a major contributor to the HIV epidemic (Gruskin, Hendriks, and
Tomasevski 1996).1
The development of the health and human rights framework at
the UN coincided with the beginning of the rapid spread of
HIV/AIDS. Whereas in previous epidemics the spread of disease was
fueled largely by lack of scientific knowledge, the spread of HIV was
fueled by social and human determinants. Discrimination (singling
out a person with the result that the person is treated unfairly and
unjustly) and disregarding human dignity contributed to the spread
and exacerbated the impact of the disease, while at the same time
HIV itself undermined progress in the realization of human rights.
This link is apparent in the fact that the overwhelming burden of the
epidemic today is borne disproportionately by low income countries,
the poor, and vulnerable populations—mainly sex workers (SWs),
men who have sex with men (MSM), and injecting drug users
(IDUs).
 Thus, since the beginning of the global response to HIV/AIDS,
human rights and human dignity accompanied the dialogue about
prevention, treatment, care, and mitigation. Jonathan Mann, who
headed the first HIV/AIDS program of the WHO (1986–1990),
worked unceasingly to garner consensus among world leaders
against the exclusion of people living with AIDS from everyday life,
including from housing, employment, and travel (Gostin 1998).2 This
was not easily addressed, as it turned out, not even in high-income
countries. Case in point: It would take twenty years for the United
States to end a ban against HIV-positive people entering the United
States. In the words of President Obama: “I was so proud to also
announce that my administration was ending the ban that prohibited
people with HIV from entering America” (Obama 2011).
Despite significant expansion of knowledge about HIV
transmission, treatment, and preventive regimes, it was only in 1996
that regulatory approval was given for antiretroviral therapy (ART).
Several more years would pass before ART treatment was available
in low- and middle-income countries due to its high cost.
Concomitantly, global resources available for HIV in low- and middle-
income countries rose from about US$1 billion in 2001 to more than
US$16 billion by 2009 (UNAIDS 2011).
This dramatic increase in the level of global investments on one
single disease was facilitated by the creation of the UNAIDS in 1995
and later, in 2001, by the UN General Assembly Declaration of
Commitment on HIV/AIDS, which acknowledged AIDS as a global
epidemic (United Nations 2001). This recognition led to the creation
of the two major financiers of HIV/AIDS today: The Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (the Global Fund) in 2002 and
the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in
2003.3 In the 1980s and 1990s the major leader and financier of
HIV/AIDS programs had been the World Bank. UNAIDS and the
Global Fund are archetypical examples of the impactful hybrid,
multistakeholder institutions highlighted in this book. Thus, how do
the international community and particularly the major international
agencies working on HIV/AIDS address human rights and human
dignity issues?
Despite these unprecedented global actions the disease is
experienced at a very personal level that affects the HIV-positive
person’s relation with family, friends, coworkers, and community.
Indeed, in the early phases of the epidemic, a diagnosis of AIDS
carried a double burden: It was a death sentence physically, and it
was a death sentence socially, the latter fed by fear of abandonment
and societal discrimination, marginalization, and exclusion. People
living with HIV were, and in many countries still are, denied the
most basic care and support; they are seen as no longer productive
members of society, and their value is expressed in societal costs
and not in societal contributions, thereby dehumanizing them. Many
of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS see their human rights
violated, their social value withdrawn, and their human potential
crushed by the enormity of the disease and by the societal fears that
result in the condemnation and penalization of many of the
behaviors that are considered to heighten HIV risk. Stigma and
discrimination curtail individuals’ political and economic freedoms,
civil rights, social opportunities and autonomy (Sen 1999). Applying
the definition of human dignity provided by Lagon and Arend in the
introduction of this book, one could say that the quality of life of
these populations is undermined by lack of individual respect, social
recognition, and power to achieve their full potential; that is, denial
of human dignity.
This chapter posits that to advance the human dignity agenda
one needs to balance the inherent tensions that both propel and
hamper progress: (1) the tension between discourse and action at
the global and national levels, and (2) the tension between global
commitments and the national and individual nature of human rights
impacts (see figure 8.1).4
But first, a word about the scope of this chapter and how human
rights and human dignity are understood herein. “Human rights”
refer to the basic rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to
regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, race, religion,
language, or other status as discussed elsewhere in this book.5
Individual human rights are a concept of modern societies, though.
It came forth in the wake of World War II driven by the principle of
respect for the individual and respect for human life, which
culminated in the document called the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) in December 1948, from which international
human rights conventions and law have flowed. In this declaration,
the term “human dignity” is used to express the basic principle upon
which human rights are understood to rest (Lebech 2004).

Figure 8.1 AIDS and Human Dignity: Competing Tensions.

In addition to this macro-level view of human rights, this chapter

suggests a micro-level view based on a causal-logic theory of
change.6 This theory asserts that the restoration of human dignity is
the desirable outcome of human rights actions, whereby human
dignity is a result of human rights inputs—action leading to local
impacts (i.e., international guarantees and treaties, national laws
and legislation, and importantly, their implementation). Although the
basic principles of human dignity might be readily agreed upon in
most cases, it is the application of these principles and the
expectation of concrete and measurable results in the improvement
of people’s lives that underlines the tensions between global
discourse and action and between global commitments and local
impacts. Rights spring from inherent dignity at the macro level,
whereas at the micro level, especially when human dignity has been
suppressed or attacked, the application of human rights would aim
at restoring dignity.

Major Players, Pathways, and Milestones

in HIV/AIDS and Human Dignity
In their definition of human dignity in this book, Lagon and Arend
also posit that to be meaningful, human dignity must be
institutionalized in practice and in governance. Accordingly, this
section examines the degree to which UNAIDS and the Global Fund
address human dignity in their corporate governance and in their
practices. UNAIDS does so through primarily a convening and
normative role and the Global Fund through a financing one.
UNAIDS was established in 1994 by Resolution 1994/24 of the UN
Economic and Social Council and launched in January 1996 with the
objective of providing global leadership for a nationally and
internationally coordinated and accountable response to the
HIV/AIDS pandemic.7 Although the UNAIDS resolution did not
explicitly include human rights or human dignity language, it de
facto adopted the UN rights-based approach to HIV/AIDS.
Furthermore, the UNAIDS charter did include language that at the
time many considered revolutionary by making explicit civil society
participation at the policy and programmatic levels. Specifically, the
resolution indicates that in fulfilling its objectives the UNAIDS
program would collaborate not only with national governments and
intergovernmental organizations but with nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and groups of people living with HIV/AIDS.
This decision enabled a path towards action on human dignity by
involving from the start those groups that could better express the
voices of the marginalized and the vulnerable. And indeed civil
society has played a pivotal and constant role at all levels as a
conduit of information on abuses and as defenders of human dignity,
effectively shifting from the naming and shaming approach of the
early phases of the HIV epidemic to becoming the accountability
watchdogs for AIDS and the voices of the affected (Meernik, Aloisi,
Sowell, and Nichols 2012).
Despite these good intentions, it would take another five years
before the lofty objectives of UNAIDS took root. According to Peter
Piot, UNAIDS’ first executive director, during the first five years,
“countries were under-spending on AIDS, there was no effective
treatment, and people living with HIV had to battle stigma and
discrimination” (UNAIDS 2011, 23).
This situation began to change in September 2000 when the UN
General Assembly adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, giving
birth to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For the first time
high-level decision makers (donors, governments, private sectors,
and NGOs) supported specific goals and measurable targets on a
global scale (United Nations 2000). Two MDGs are directly concerned
with HIV: (1) to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV and to
achieve universal access to treatment, and (2) to provide assistance
to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Three other MDGs are related to
HIV/AIDS: (1) to halve the proportion of those whose income is less
than one dollar a day, (2) to ensure that girls and boys have equal
access to all levels of education and are able to complete a full
course of primary schooling, and (3) to reduce maternal and under-
five child mortality. These linkages point to the two pillars that
ground the definition of human dignity offered in this book: respect
or recognition and agency. (For instance, access to schooling by
boys and girls, even those orphaned by AIDS, is seen as a pathway
to get out of poverty, gain recognition, and flourish.)
Other global meetings followed and by June 2001 the UN General
Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS was pivotal to rally
broad political commitment in support of a global response to HIV
and to galvanize civil society and the private sector as partners. And
by then, evidence was beginning to show HIV preventive measures
and treatment regimes that worked. But these programs needed to
have much higher coverage of affected populations to show impacts
on the epidemic, and thus required much more significant resources.
The further realization that halting the epidemic would require an
unprecedented amount of resources, including resources that could
move quickly from donors to recipients, led to the creation of the
Global Fund in 2002, an experimental financial mechanism to get
funds quickly on the ground.
Since 1986 the World Bank had been the major financier of
HIV/AIDS programs. Through the African Multi-country AIDS
Program (MAP) alone, the World Bank allocated US$500 million in
2000-2006 (World Bank 2000). The MAP approach required strong
political commitment, institution building, multisectoral partnerships,
and community engagement, all of which the MAP funded. By
September 2006, the World Bank had committed US$1.32 billion to
the AIDS response (World Bank 2007a). By 2007 most financing was
on grant terms (World Bank 2007b).
The Global Fund was created as a multistakeholder international
financing institution dedicated to disbursing additional resources to
combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It was funded based on
a set of principles related to its role as a financial instrument not an
implementing entity. These principles guide everything it does, from
governance to making grants. It is telling that none of the principles
addressed issues related to the recipient countries or the potential
beneficiaries of the funds. The Global Fund principles can be
assumed to be anchored, although not explicitly, on the UDHR,
which guides agencies such as UNAIDS.
The Global Fund has followed its core principles, which reflect its
comparative advantage as a financial institution, not a technical
agency. As a financial instrument the Global Fund has become the
world’s largest financier of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria programs.
By mid-2012 it had approved funding of US$22.9 billion to support
more than 1,000 programs in 151 countries. In 2010, the Global
Fund accounted for around 20 percent of international public funding
for HIV that included providing AIDS treatment for some 6.7 million
people in 147 countries, among which twenty-one countries reported
more than 60 percent coverage of those in need, with a total of
US$12.4 billion in approved HIV funding since 2002 (Global Fund
2012). For normative criteria and technical quality assurance, the
Global Fund relies on UNAIDS, WHO, and other partners.
It was 2007 when the Global Fund recognized the imperative of
addressing some of the crucial social underpinnings of AIDS: gender
issues. This realization resulted in the Gender Equality Strategy,
which focuses on the vulnerabilities of women and girls and on
sexual minorities (MSM, transgender people, and female, male, and
transgendered SWs). Gender equity was followed in 2009 by the
strategy on sexual orientation and gender identities (SOGI) (Global
Fund 2008, 2009). In 2011 the Global Fund released an Information
Note on HIV and Human Rights advising applicants to ensure that
human rights principles were applied to Global Fund processes
(Global Fund 2011a).
In its 2012-2016 corporate strategy, the Global Fund makes
explicit linkages between equity and human rights of sexual
minorities through the encouragement of in-country participatory
equity. This is important because if the Global Fund encourages a
human-rights approach in country proposals, it means that it is
ready to finance measurable actions (i.e., to prevent stigma,
encourage equity, and thus restore human dignity), heightening the
plausibility of achieving local impacts. In this way the Global Fund
can also support countries to apply UNAIDS and WHO normative
guidance in concrete ways, which these agencies do not always have
the resources to do.
Of note is the Global Fund’s acknowledgement of the importance
of partnerships not only with civil society but with UN and other
institutional players by proposing to roll out a partnership and
advocacy plan for 2012–2016 in support of key global initiatives,
such as the joint UNAIDS accelerated action plan for women and
girls or the UN secretary-general’s global plan for the elimination of
mother-to-child HIV transmission (Global Fund 2011b).
Despite the significant financial contribution of the Global Fund to
the global AIDS response, the institution is not without controversy,
from the ups and downs in its own institutional development to
facing corruption in some of its recipient countries. And the media
continues to note how donations have dwindled because of the
financial crisis and reports of mismanagement (Economist 2012).
Still, it is hard to move so much money to so many countries and not
face some controversy. What matters most is how the institution
responds to such challenges and the Global Fund seems to have
learned from experience.
Some of the criticisms are not without basis. Despite the global
consensus that gave birth to the institution, early on the Global Fund
was slow in seeking the assistance of established agencies and was
often a reluctant player in international cooperation. It is remarkable
that in a letter former Global Fund general manager Gabriel Jaramillo
sent on his last day at the job, he described that among the
accomplishments of the Global Fund under his watch was bringing
“rigor to our model by working with partners to introduce three
Disease Committees, and by allowing our technical partners to
participate in our Grant Approval Committee, [and] that collaboration
in the field with the Global Fund’s major bilateral partners had
improved, and that the results were already visible” (All Africa
2013).8 The statement was backhand recognition that this
collaboration was wanting for more than ten years.
In their Informational Note on HIV and Human Rights, the Global
Fund adopted UNAIDS and WHO recommendations that national HIV
responses include programs to overcome stigma, discrimination and
violence; increase access to justice; sensitize law enforcement
agents and law and policymakers; train health care workers in
nondiscrimination; monitor and reform laws, regulations and
policies; and empower affected populations by increasing their legal
and rights literacy (UNAIDS/WHO 2010).
Human dignity was also affirmed in the declaration of universal
access, which UNAIDS formally launched in 2006 and reaffirmed in
the political declaration of HIV/AIDS adopted by the UN General
Assembly in June 2011 (United Nations 2011). Although voices for
human dignity had been audible in the global HIV/AIDS discourse,
the actions to address the threats to human dignity were less visible
and more complex, especially at the national and group-specific
levels, namely among the drivers of the epidemic and at-risk
populations. For instance, in 2011 past UN secretary-general Kofi
Annan continued to urge leaders to “tackle social barriers and affirm
human rights as key planks in the AIDS response” (UNAIDS 2011,
47), and former president Clinton exhorted “stakeholders around the
world [to] focus more on high-impact prevention efforts that reach
the most vulnerable populations, including those affected by political
bias and social stigma” (UNAIDS 2011, 35). Although succeeding to
increase and make visible global leaders’ commitment to human
rights and human dignity in HIV/AIDS, the actions to achieve these
aspirational goals were less successful due in large part to the
fundamental tensions between the global, the national, and the
individual domains and the lack of attention to the need for
balancing and rebalancing these tensions.
The initiative for universal access to prevention, treatment, care,
and support re-energized countries and civil society, the private
sector, and people living with HIV/AIDS, guided by the principle,
which says: “HIV and AIDS services and products must be
accessible, acceptable, affordable, available, of good quality, and
sustainable to all people in need, regardless of their status and free
from any form of stigma or discrimination” (UNAIDS 2011, 77). To
channel efforts on these principles, UNAIDS developed a plan of
action, the outcomes of which reflect the vision articulated by
UNAIDS in 2010: zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and
zero AIDS-related deaths. Finally, thirty years after the first cases of
AIDS were reported, stigma and discrimination had become one of
three critical goals of the HIV/AIDS response. In the words of Michel
Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS: “We have made tremendous
progress in stabilizing rates of new infections in nearly sixty
countries, but this success only highlights the rampant stigma and
discrimination that contributes to rising infections rates among key
populations at higher risk and to the vulnerability of women and
girls. We can end the discrimination and inequality that blocks
access to prevention, treatment, care and support. We can stop the
criminalization of people living with and at risk of HIV” (UNAIDS
2011, 11).

Tension between Discourse and Action at

the Global and National Levels
There is an inherent tension in HIV/AIDS between human dignity
discourse based on the declaration of principles that govern
international institutions on the one hand and the actions that are
taken to apply those principles at the policy and programming levels
on the other hand. Part of this tension sprang from the fact that
international human rights declarations are nonbinding. The UN
cannot impose penalties on violations like other entities, such as the
World Trade Organization, can do. However, these declarations
provide a mechanism for good governance related to HIV/AIDS and
could be used as conditions for international development aid,
although such conditions are not always feasible or desirable.
UNAIDS has not been idle in efforts to move the human dignity
agenda from discourse to action. It leveraged its convening and
normative roles to prepare guidelines on the application of
international human rights law to HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS 2006).9 By
setting time-bound targets for prevention, access to essential
medicines, and eliminating discrimination, these guidelines often act
as an accountability tool. For NGOs and advocacy groups, human
rights law provides a basis and tools to monitor countries’ HIV/AIDS
performance, take action to redress public health policies that violate
rights (Patterson and London 2002), and hold decision makers
accountable for their global commitments and their actions.
Historically, the UN has provided an impartial venue for discussion
and dialogue about human rights and human dignity. Civil society
has been both spurring and contributing to the global response,
asking for action, not just words, and demanding that institutions
apply those principles that underpin their missions in their own
governance and practice. A statement by the International Red
Cross/Red Crescent Federation to the 58th UN General Assembly in
September 22, 2003, underscores the thinking at the time showing
some of the key aspects of this tension between discourse and
action and demanding that action serve real people and not focus on
only money and statistics. They said:

Much has been said already about the social and economic
impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the threat that it
represents for security and stability in the world. The
projections are truly frightening: HIV/AIDS will kill more
people this decade than all the wars and disasters in the past
50 years. There is no doubt that the pandemic is a global
disaster of catastrophic proportions. But this simply must not
become a cold debate around numbers and figures. Instead
we must make this an ethical debate and move away from
the ethics of mere survival to the ethics of dignity.… The fact
that the discourse has turned into discussion on how much
money is needed or what types of interventions we should or
should not do is indecent and an affront to the dignity of
every person who is living with or has been affected by
HIV/AIDS. (International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies 2003)

Undoubtedly, this is not an either/or matter. Halting the epidemic

does require addressing the economic, financial, and programmatic
dimensions of the epidemic as well as addressing human rights,
which cannot be disassociated from a discussion of the laws that
penalize certain behaviors of people who are HIV positive or most at
risk of infection.
The internal governance and practices of global institutions can
provide a proxy indicator of their ability to move from discourse to
action and from action to impact. Balancing these tensions within
institutions is reflected in how they undertook to address HIV in their
hiring and human resources practices, from combating stigma and
discrimination to providing testing and treatment. For instance, in
their job announcements, the Global Fund stresses that “all
appropriately qualified people regardless of sex, sexual orientation
and/or gender identities and individuals who are living with HIV are
encouraged to apply.” UNAIDS asserts that “applications from people
living with HIV are particularly welcome. Applications from women
and from nationals of non- and underrepresented member states are
particularly encouraged.”10
Another proxy indicator is the engagement of UN employees in
advocacy, which gave birth to UN Plus, the UN systemwide advocacy
group of staff living with HIV. It was established in March 2005 as
part of UN reform. It brings together HIV-positive staff from across
the region and from other agencies in “solidarity, equality, and
acceptance of people living with HIV within the UN system through
awareness raising, policy change and advocacy” (UN Plus 2013).
This approach has been adopted at the local level. Liberia,
Mozambique, Swaziland, Rwanda, and Ghana launched Friends of
UN Plus as part of their efforts to achieve a work environment that is
free from stigma for all UN staff living with HIV and their families.
Thus, UN Plus helps HIV-positive employees to gain respect and
enables them to assert their agency to live fulfilling lives—crucial to
what Lagon and Arend contend human dignity rests upon.
The Global Fund in its 2011 HIV and Human Rights Note
underscores “individual agency,” namely empowering individuals to
be proactive in taking care of their health needs. Further,
demonstrating the mutually reinforcing roles of different rights, it
says that: “[A] focus on human rights can help minimize the impact
of harmful social norms and violations including discrimination,
harassment, or violence. It can empower individuals to claim and
exercise their rights and be proactive in taking care of their health
and welfare. For example, women living with HIV are more likely to
be able to safely disclose their HIV status, adhere to treatment, and
discuss HIV with their children if they have equal access to property
and inheritance, are protected from violence, and have equal rights
in marriage and divorce” (Global Fund 2011a, 4).
The UNAIDS strategy for 2011–2015 goes a step further towards
action in that it heightens the importance of promoting and
enforcing the rights of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and
decries the harmful impact of stigma, social and legal exclusion, and
gender inequality, which deepens the vulnerability of women, girls,
and people living with HIV/AIDS. This strategy brings action closer
to discourse. It places discrimination at the forefront, recognizing
that stigma must be overcome to reach universal access to HIV
prevention, treatment, care, and support and to achieve the MDGs
by 2015.
Social transformation is at the heart of the HIV/AIDS response.11
Social transformation requires positive changes in social, legal,
gender, and economic inequalities that continue to weaken access to
services by those who need them. At the end of the day the
international community and country governments must view actions
directed to qualitatively safeguard and restore human dignity with
the same ardor as expanding services by allocating budgets to
implement context-appropriate strategies. Hence, the Global Fund’s
move to encourage human rights-based approaches in country
proposals is a major milestone—a critical catalyst to transform the
pathway from discourse to concrete actions that are funded, leading
to local impacts.

Tension between Global Commitments and

the Individual Nature of Human Dignity
In addition to the tension between discourse and action, there is an
inherent tension between the national and global levels, as states
assert national sovereignty over the laws that govern their societies
(i.e., those related to equal access to services, police violence, drug
use, or sex work, among others), which are sometimes at odds with
the commitments governments make in the global arena. This
tension is even more acute between national laws and the
experience of AIDS, which is unique at the personal, family, and
community levels. Thus, despite progress, there have been
important setbacks in ensuring the right type of policy and legal
changes occur and that those changes result in positive impacts at
the societal and individual levels.
Nobody questions that the global response to the AIDS epidemic
has been remarkable. Over 8 million people living with HIV were
receiving treatment in 2011, a 20 percent increase from 2010, with
coverage reaching 54 percent of those infected. There was 19
percent increased treatment coverage in sub—Sahara Africa alone.
By 2011, new infections among children had declined for the second
year in a row. Fifty-seven percent of the estimated 1.5 million
pregnant women living with HIV in 2011 received treatment to
prevent mother-to-child transmission, up from 48 percent in 2010.
Increased treatment coverage has added 14 million life-years in low-
and middle-income countries since 1995 and declining death rates
means that there are 34.2 million people living with HIV, more than
ever before; the HIV epidemic is shifting from a death sentence to a
chronic disease. With the focus on treatment expansion, UNAIDS
estimates that “the world is nearly on track to having 15 million
people living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment by 2015” (UNAIDS
2012, 18). This is an optimistic estimate. Such a level of coverage
would require more and better access to treatment precisely by
those populations that are most vulnerable to discrimination: SWs,
MSMs, and IDUs. In many countries, these populations remain sadly
marginalized and often neglected. Discrimination robs these groups
of their human dignity and any prospects of a fulfilled life. Thus,
despite significant progress, there are setbacks in reaching the goals
of zero discrimination and universal access to HIV prevention,
treatment care, and support. These setbacks feed the gap between
global commitments and local impacts.
First, the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS did not
specify these populations as needing special protection. And the UN
Assembly applied the term “vulnerable groups,” which many
advocates renounced as vague and undefined, leaving room for
countries to avoid real commitments to these politically unpopular
groups (Gruskin 2002).
 The UN was criticized again when the 2006 Political Declaration
on HIV/AIDS (United Nations 2006) failed to concretize the steps
that could lead to lasting change, which civil society interpreted as a
missed opportunity for heightened action by countries (Africa
Science News Service 2006). HIV/AIDS advocates argued that by
refusing to name specific vulnerable groups and by failing to set new
benchmarks for measuring success, countries were hampering the
AIDS response (IGLHRC 2007). And it was only in 2011, as
previously noted, that the Global Fund released an Information Note
on HIV and Human Rights advising applicants to ensure human
rights principles were applied to Global Fund processes (Global Fund
2011a).
In 2012–2013 several milestones converged: PEPFAR released its
Blueprint for Creating an AIDS-free Generation, the Global Fund
rolled out its new funding model, and the Institute of Medicine
released its congressionally mandated evaluation of PEPFAR.
Together, these landmarks paint a picture of remarkable alignment
between PEPFAR and the Global Fund. They also show how
complementary the two organizations are as they pursue the same
mission: saving lives (Derrick 2013).
Although the funding for HIV/AIDS programs worldwide has
continued to increase, funding from domestic public sources in low-
and middle-income countries grew by more than 15 percent
between 2010 and 2011, supporting more than 50 percent of the
global response. Bilateral donors, banks, and philanthropy
contributed about 25 percent, and the US Government and the
Global Fund together accounted for 25 percent of contributions or
US$5.5 billion in disbursement (UNAIDS 2012).
This level of support carries influence, as many HIV/AIDS national
budgets rely heavily on external funding. Thus, when the United
States, the largest single bilateral donor, launched PEPFAR in 2003
with its own set priorities, their approach to treatment and
prevention services was the subject of sustained critique by some
lawmakers, scholars, and advocates (Dietrich 2007). For example,
the antiprostitution pledge requirement forced countries and
agencies that received PEPFAR money to adopt a written policy
opposing prostitution, which in the view of many were counterefforts
against stigma and discrimination of SWs. Despite the condom’s
confirmed effectiveness in HIV prevention, one-third of PEPFAR’s
prevention funding was directed to programs that promoted
abstinence and faithfulness and were not required to provide any
information about condoms (Kay and Jackson 2008; IGLHRC 2007).
Given the above criticisms, it is worth noting that the evaluation
of PEPFAR, conducted by the US Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the
National Academy of Sciences over a period of four years and
released on February 20, 2013, has given PEPFAR a glowing
assessment in terms of improving and saving lives and, overall,
being globally transformative in the way it envisioned and
implemented health assistance. The IOM evaluation report applauds
PEPFAR’s emphasis on gender-based violence, as an underlying
driver of vulnerability, and acknowledges that biomedical approaches
are important but not sufficient (IOM 2013). The evaluation of
PEPFAR has implications for the global HIV/AIDS community in terms
of investments, measurement, country ownership, and collaboration.
A commentary published by the Lancet on the same day
PEPFAR’s evaluation report was issued highlighted the need for
PEPFAR to maintain its support for interventions that target all
modes of HIV transmission but that it falls short of identifying
specific population groups (Black 2013). Summers (2013, 1) goes a
step further when he underscores an evaluation finding saying that
“PEPFAR continues to emphasize treatment and clinical care over
prevention, and often fails to address the challenges patients face in
accessing and retaining HIV/AIDS services, including prevention. Key
among these challenges is discrimination and social stigma which
hampers access to services” (emphasis added). For UNAIDS, the
report’s assessment “reinforces the strong synergies between
UNAIDS’ vision of zero HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero
AIDS-related deaths with the US goal of an AIDS-free generation”
(UNAIDS 2013).
 At the national level, the need for concrete legal changes
persists. Although the number of countries that reported programs
to reduce HIV-related stigma increased from 39 percent in 2006 to
92 percent in 2012, many of these programs lack adequate budgets
and therefore had little impact (UNAIDS 2010). The tension between
commitments to principles and actual changes in country policy from
discriminatory to dignity enabling is daunting. It can be socially
explosive, requires sophisticated policy and political know-how at the
country level, and cannot be accomplished without a sound plan and
concomitant resources. It requires the support of parliamentarians,
communities, and people living with HIV themselves.
Decision makers need evidence to support their policies, yet,
although there is a plethora of strong anecdotal evidence, hard
evidence is only recently beginning to be available. A recent study of
HIV prevalence among MSMs shows that of the eleven countries
with the highest HIV prevalence rates studied in sub—Sahara Africa,
seven punished male-to-male relationships with ten years of
imprisonment and two with the death penalty. Only South Africa
provides legal protection. (There was no legal data on one of the
countries.) (World Bank 2011). As the authors assert, “while legal
status alone does not guarantee protections or enabling
environments, it is a parameter for understanding social tolerance
and the space for rights advocacy at country level” (306). It permits
the type of social interventions that can enable the agency in human
dignity.
Although global institutions foster a multistakeholder approach to
achieving local impacts, the very nature of these institutions makes
them less agile for engaging in swift actions at the local level, hence,
necessitating the critical role of nonstate actors. Community activism
has been instrumental in enacting laws to protect key populations
(e.g., Chile’s May 2012 antidiscrimination law and India’s 2009
decriminalization of same-sex relations). Activism and community-led
initiatives had been driving forces behind the significant expansion of
HIV prevention and treatment of the last decade along with
decreases in stigma, discrimination, and domestic violence (UNAIDS
2012; Rodriguez-García et al. 2013).
A recent portfolio of studies conducted by the World Bank on the
local HIV/AIDS impacts of community responses demonstrate that
social and structural interventions can result in improved agency.
One study in India found strong association between empowerment
of female SWs and MSM/transgender individuals and social change,
where being a member of a sex worker community group was
associated with access to social entitlements (p<.05), reduced
violence (p<.001), and reduced police coercion (p<.001). Access to
justice and legal services is empowering for people, the more so for
marginalized populations. The same study found that although the
prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) had decreased
among female SWs, it did not decrease among MSM/transgender
(MSM/T) populations. One explanation is that, in this case, real and
perceived stigma toward MSM/T decreased their use of health
services and therefore, very few were tested for STIs (Rodriguez-
García et al. 2013, 8, 71–73). This finding is interesting given the
High Court of Delhi, India decriminalizing consensual same-sex
relations in 2009, which shows the limited impact of laws alone.
Another study in Lesotho found that fear of discrimination deterred
men from being tested, and if tested, from collecting the results. The
higher the stigmatizing attitudes at the work place and within the
household, the less likely individuals would seek the results of the
HIV test and therefore, would be treated if needed (Rodriguez-
García et al. 2013, 76–77).
The epidemic has evolved since the 1980s and 1990s and many
advances in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care, and support, and
mitigation have given the international community a sense that the
MDG of halting new HIV infections is within reach. But this goal
cannot be achieved without reaching the populations that are most
at risk and who are driving the current phase of the epidemic. Some
of their behaviors (i.e., drug use or sex work) cause them to be
often penalized and criminalized by national laws, discriminated
against by employers, marginalized by society and ostracized by
family and community. Addressing the legal environment alone
involves not one but many actions on several fronts: legislation, law
enforcement, and access to justice.
Whereas more countries are recognizing the need to implement
programs to reduce HIV/AIDS-related stigma, progress remains
inadequate. More than fifty-six countries have laws that specifically
criminalize HIV transmission or exposure, with the majority of
prosecutions reported in high-income countries; 116 countries
criminalize some aspects of sex work; seventy-nine countries
criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations; and thirty-two
countries have laws that penalize with the death penalty drug-
related offenses. Laws such as these increase peoples’ vulnerabilities
and isolation and deter many of them from seeking much needed
services (UNAIDS 2011). Using the HIV Stigma Index, a study of
people living with HIV/AIDS in nine countries found 53 percent of
Rwandans and 33 percent of Zambians have been verbally abused;
20 percent of Rwandans and 25 percent of Colombians who
participated in the survey have experienced physical violence.12 What
is even more appalling is that many “people internalized this stigma:
More than 60 percent of people living with HIV in Bangladesh,
China, Myanmar and Scotland said they felt ashamed of being HIV-
positive” (UNAIDS 2012, 68).
Not only is the agency of people affected by HIV not supported at
the country level, but the legal and societal norms that result in
stigmatization and discrimination prevent these population groups
from being recognized and respected by their social peers,
assaulting their human dignity. In short, if left unbalanced, the
tensions between discourse and action and between global
commitments and local impacts will hamper restoration of the dignity
of every person affected by HIV/AIDS.

Conclusion
Looking back at the early writings on AIDS and human dignity one is
struck by the challenge of appraising progress. There has been
progress in human rights and human dignity, but it has been slow
and patchy.
On the one hand, there is a deeper understanding of what Mann
named the societal nature of the pandemic and the societal
preconditions for HIV vulnerability (Mann 1999, 223). One could
argue that by being responsive to the needs of people they are
meant to serve—enabling them to improve their agency—UNAIDS
and the Global Fund are positioned to work with stakeholders and
country governments to achieve positive change in countries.
On the other hand, significant local impacts are still elusive.
Stating that discrimination must end is not enough. To the extent
that UN resolutions are not legally binding, it falls on national
policymakers to introduce concrete changes in their sociolegal
system. A few have succeeded, but in many countries the legal
environment related to HIV/AIDS has changed relatively little in the
past twenty years. Purposeful action on a broad scale is needed to
repeal discriminatory laws and replace them with antidiscriminatory
ones. If the international community is serious about zero
discrimination, the work on AIDS and human dignity must be
implemented with evidence, realizable goals, sound strategies, and
significant resources—in other words, on a scale more typical of
biomedical interventions (Stemple 2008).
Among the many challenges that scaling up faces, two are
critical. One, as mentioned above, is adequate funding. If actions to
improve the legal environment and to undertake concrete programs
are not adequately funded, it will be difficult to see impact on human
dignity. The other critical challenge is political will. It is usually easier
to commit to broad principles globally than to take action on those
principles locally, and those policymakers who take action face
serious obstacles when they try to uproot long-held national laws
and societal practices that penalize certain behaviors. This is
compounded by the fact that activists in civil society, a key instigator
of change at the local level, often have their own hands tied by
belonging to groups who themselves might be penalized by local
laws. This chapter argues that human rights need to be taken as
seriously in HIV/AIDS programming and funding as biomedical and
prevention programs in order to see tangible results for human
dignity.
This look at HIV/AIDS and human dignity shows that for global
institutions there will always be tension between the need to bring
stakeholders together globally around fundamental principles and
the imperative to translate these principles into concrete actions to
achieve local impacts. Some national governments have
demonstrated the wisdom to devise and implement changes to
safeguard or restore human dignity. Global institutions can make a
difference by recognizing and supporting these efforts with adequate
resources, normative guidance, and good practices. Equally
important, they can empower civil society to engage in those
countries that are more recalcitrant regarding legal and societal
changes and provide adequate support.
Despite slow progress, active multilateral partnerships,
unprecedented engagement of civil society, UNAIDS’s explicit goal of
zero discrimination, and the Global Fund’s support of human agency
taken together appear to be paving a path toward improvements in
human dignity. Global institutions are going beyond protecting
people who are vulnerable to HIV to empowering them.

Notes
The author thanks Mark P. Lagon and Matthew Carnes for their
valuable inputs and comments.
1. This book is recommended reading for anyone interested in
the evolution of HIV/AIDS and human rights.
2. Jonathan Mann was particularly interested in the effect of
health policies on human rights, the health impact of human rights
violations, and the inextricable connection between promoting and
protecting health and rights.
3. In January 2003, under President George W. Bush the United
States committed US$15 billion over five years to address the
international AIDS epidemic. Full implementation of PEPFAR began in
June 2004 and by 2012 the United States was a leading financier
having invested over US$37 billion in bilateral funding and over US$7
billion in the Global Fund. Fact Sheet, November 29, 2012.
Washington, DC,
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/11/201195.htm.
4. In this chapter “tension” does not imply “opposite.” It refers to
the forces that influence possibly equally important demands.
Different actors balance these tensions differently, which in turn
affects the evolution of HIV/AIDS, human rights, and human dignity.
5. See Lagon and Kaminski’s chapter 6 in this book.
6. A “theory of change” is a specific and measurable description
of a social change. It depicts a causal outcomes-based model that
articulates underlying assumptions and hypotheses about why
something will cause something else. Theories of change capture
complex initiatives. They often start with a goal and then link
outcomes and activities to explain how and why the desired change
is expected to come about. Consult: http://www.theoryofchange.org.
7. UNAIDS brings together the resources of its Secretariat (based
in Geneva) and eleven UN system organizations: ILO, UNDP,
UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, the World
Bank, WFP, and WHO,
http://www.unaids.org/en/aboutunaids/unaidscosponsors/.
8. Gabriel Jaramillo was an able general manager of the Global
Fund during 2012. Since January 2013, the executive director of the
Global Fund is Mark Dybul, who in 2006–2009 served as the US
global AIDS coordinator, which includes PEPFAR.
9. Publications that bring human rights thinking together with
sound public health policy in a clear and consistent way are: The
International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights 1998
(HR/PUB/98/1) and 2006 (consolidated version)
(http://www.unaids.org) and The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency,
Injustice and Unfulfilled Expectations, by Lawrence O. Gostin
(University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
 10. See the web pages of these agencies under jobs or
employment.
11. Social transformation refers to individual and societal
processes. Within the social system, transformation refers to large-
scale social change leading to cultural reforms. At the individual level
it refers to a reciprocal relationship whereby people are correctly
identified with the cultural expectations of their particular class
membership. It requires that individuals have their social position be
validated by others.
12. The People Living with HIV Stigma Index is a research tool
used to capture data on HIV-positive people’s experiences and
perceptions regarding stigma and discrimination,
http://www.stigmaindex.org.

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CHAPTER 9

The New Global Landscape for

Poverty Alleviation and
Development
Foundations, NGOs, Social Media,
and Other Private Sector
Institutions
RAJ M. DESAI AND HOMI KHARAS

Following the end of the Second World War until very recently,
international development assistance aid was mainly provided by
two types of institutions: donor agencies of richer countries and
multilateral development banks whose capital was contributed
largely by governments of richer countries. But between 2000 and
2011, international private giving by US-based corporate and
independent foundations and individuals more than doubled. Along
with foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), religious
groups, and charities in the United States contributed $39 billion to
development causes in 2011. By comparison, the World Bank lent
about $43 billion and the United States disbursed about $31 billion in
economic assistance (World Bank 2011; Hudson Institute 2013). Our
chief aim here is to examine the implications of this dramatically
changed aid landscape for global poverty alleviation as well as for
human dignity in international affairs. We argue that although there
remains some uncertainty about the effects of private aid on
development and on the motivations of private aid givers, there is
reason to believe that private aid advances the centrality of personal
agency as the focus of donor-recipient aid transactions both for
individual taxpayers and for beneficiaries. For taxpayers, private aid
most obviously offers opportunities for greater control over funding
and allocation that is not possible through the normal route that
official aid takes in being transferred from rich-country taxpayers to
poor-country beneficiaries. For recipients, private aid fundamentally
involves dignity-enhancing, person-to-person relationships that often
trump sovereign considerations of strategic and commercial interest
in allocating of funds.

Private Aid: New Players, New Directions

Both official aid and private international giving have risen strongly
in the United States over the last decade. In the United States
private giving for international development now exceeds official
development assistance by 30 percent. Whereas time series data on
private giving volumes is limited, the sheer number of private
foundations grew from 40,100 in 1995 to 71,000 in 2005, with more
than 650 US foundations making grants for international affairs
(Lawrence, Austin, and Mukai 2007; Renz and Atienza 2006).
Meanwhile, international NGOs quadrupled from 6,000 to 26,000 in
the 1990s, before increasing again to 40,000 by the end of the
1990s (Keohane and Nye 2000). The growth in private aid is all the
more striking because survey data suggests that public opinion
overestimates the size of official aid by significant amounts. In the
United States, 69 percent think the US government gives more than
other countries in international aid as a share of their gross domestic
product (Ramsay et al. 2009).
Meanwhile, new global institutions have emerged in the last two
decades. Growth in private, nonofficial aid is seen at all levels, from
the largest charities, such as the Gates, Ford, MacArthur, Rockefeller,
and Hewlett Foundations, to transnational NGOs, such as CARE,
Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Save the Children, to
hundreds of smaller foundations, to the small-scale philanthropy of
millions of individuals who have at their fingertips a variety of
mechanisms for delivering donations or microloans to developing
countries.
Despite this growth, relatively little is known about the allocation
and effectiveness of private aid. Private aid’s defenders argue that
private development assistance is more effective than official
development assistance due to lower overhead costs, less
susceptibility to corrupt practices, less leakage due to public-sector
inefficiencies, a stronger need-based orientation, and fewer funds
being funneled back to consultants and contractors in rich countries,
as is the case for much official technical assistance (Dreher et al.
2009; Koch et al. 2008). Research on the allocation and selectivity of
private aid is still of recent vintage; information on the impact of
private aid remains in its infancy.
Although evidence on the workings of private aid may be
preliminary, there is reason to believe that private aid, by putting a
human face on those whose dignity will be served through their
economic empowerment, advances the centrality of human agency
as the analytical centerpiece of relationships between donors and
recipients. It does this in two separate but related ways: (1) through
a sometimes dramatic shortening of the route between donor and
recipient, thus potentially reducing both transaction and agency
costs of aid, and (2) through a reliance on person-to-person
relationships that are, increasingly, abetted by social media and
internet technology.

The Long and Short Routes of

Development Aid
The new forms of private aid offer different answers to the
traditional models of charity. First, official aid and private aid face
different collective action constraints. For the former, taxpayers who
support foreign aid in principle may be insufficiently mobilized
relative to particular interest groups. Even philanthropically minded
individuals may free ride on the efforts of larger private donors. For
the latter, private giving offers an opportunity for individual action
rather than collective action. Aid is an act of altruism. Second, the
path that official aid takes—from taxpayers to government coffers to
aid agencies to governments in developing nations to public
agencies or private organizations in the field—is long and winding.
And whether accurate or not, this course is often perceived by
taxpayers in donor countries to be costly and susceptible to
corruption and leakage as funds move from donor countries to
beneficiaries in recipient countries. Private aid offers a more direct
connection between giver and recipient. Third, donor-country
individuals may want to help and recipients may want input into
funding decisions, but both recognize that they need to act through
one or more intermediaries (usually governments or NGOs)—parts of
a global foreign-aid apparatus that may be simply too insulated or
centralized to incorporate the individual preferences (see, e.g.,
Easterly 2005; Roodman 2006). Private giving offers many more
opportunities for choosing the kind of intermediation platform with
which donors and recipients feel most comfortable.

Coordination
The public economics literature suggests that collective action
problems may block private giving for worthy causes because each
individual, behaving rationally, tries to free ride on others’ generosity.
Governments can overcome the collective action problem by taxing
everyone and providing grants to the causes to which individuals
would want to give. One common empirical approach is to test
whether individual donations are smaller in areas where government
grants are larger. Such crowding out is evidence of collective action
problems at work.
A review of the literature by Bekkers and Wiepking (2007) finds
evidence that crowding out in domestic charities is significant. Their
summary looks mostly at cross-section studies. Garrett and Rhine
(2007) analyze time series for 1965–2003 and reach the same
conclusion. In the long run, cointegration tests show that increased
government spending crowds out charitable giving, especially in the
education sector. In the short run, however, the effects are weaker
and not significant. The authors suggest that it may take time for
individuals to get full information on what the government is doing.
Andreoni and Payne (2008) also confirm the crowding-out effect
in a large sample of charities. They demonstrate that crowding out
occurs through two channels: classic crowding out (where donors
feel less willing to give) and fundraising crowding out (where grant-
receiving organizations reduce their activity to collect donations).
Their evidence suggests that fundraising crowding out accounts for
68 percent of the observed crowding-out effect.
This evidence, however, relates to giving through NGOs
compared to government tax-and-spend programs. It does not
directly look at new forms of private giving. For these newer types of
private assistance, the premise is that the act of individual giving
gives pleasure directly to the donor—that is, assuming that giving is
altruistic. If so, it would suggest that the collective-action constraint
to international aid is minimal.

The Chain of Official Aid

If one were to follow the money of a bilateral aid transaction, it
would look something like this. Taxpayers in rich countries pay taxes
that are collected by a revenue-raising agency and are then
allocated to the foreign aid agency or department. Within the foreign
aid agency, project officers, through a series of interactions with
their counterparts in various line ministries in developing countries,
design aid programs to be funded that are subject to managerial
approval (and in some cases may require interagency authorization)
before the funds can be transferred to the recipient governmental
agency. In accordance with program design, the recipient ministry
may rely on extant procedures for accounting and use of the
received funds (the country systems approach), or it may establish
new, specialized units within the ministry for the specific purpose of
managing the use of program funds (the project-implementation unit
approach). In either case, a portion of funds may be used for a
variety of incidental expenses, including salary supplements for civil
service. According to procedures thus defined, the ministry then
allocates the funds to a frontline agency or organization—for
instance, a regional government or a provider of public services. The
frontline agency, similarly, may use some funds to pay or
supplement the salaries of specific staff members responsible for
administering the funds. Finally, the frontline agency spends the
funds remaining on the intended project, such as a vaccination
effort, a new school, improved sanitation, or other such areas.
Foreign aid delivered through these official channels, obviously,
does not provide direct connections between citizens and recipients.
Citizens pay their taxes to the government, which in turn allocates
resources to other governments to fund myriad public programs,
among them programs that benefit poor individuals around the
world. There is no face-to-face contact between an individual
taxpayer and the final recipient, and insofar as taxpayers have
inaccurate perceptions of how their government spends
development aid, there are few concrete expectations of impact,
return, or reward.
Official aid travels a long route, with costs at each stage. The first
stage is the cost of tax collection when money is transferred from
individuals to the treasury. In this stage, costs consist of the direct
administrative costs of tax collection as well as deadweight losses
from taxation. These costs can be substantial. For example, Alm
(1985) found deadweight losses on US taxes could approach nine
percent. In the second stage, official donor agencies transfer funds
to recipient country governments to support specific development
projects and programs. The administrative costs of these agencies
have averaged between 4 to 5 percent according to statistics
reported by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee. The
third stage involves costs associated with transferring the money
from the recipient government to final beneficiaries through project
implementation.
 Administrative costs of the project, corruption, and other
leakages mean that only about half the funds actually reach their
stated end purpose. One study, based on surveys in Ghana,
Tanzania, and Rwanda concludes that, “approximately half of the
overall amount allocated to clinics and hospitals did not actually
reach them” (Lindelow, Kushnarova, and Kaiser 2006, 30). Similar
figures appear in other studies. According to the Paris monitoring
survey, in 2011 some $62 billion was disbursed by donors to 78
percent of the recipients who participated in the survey. But only $42
billion was received by these recipients; between the aid agencies of
donor countries and the government budgets of these recipient
countries, some $20 billion was lost (OECD 2011). The US
Government Accountability Office (GAO), in its recent analysis of the
Millennium Challenge Corporation was able to identify the allocation
of 59 percent of in-country disbursements as transaction costs in the
nine compact countries that are currently operational.1 Of this, 32
percent was for direct project-related expenses, and 27 percent was
for administrative, audit, fiscal, and procurement expenses (GAO
2007). Adding all these together, transaction costs on official aid
could amount to 60 percent or more.
Some of the most venerable, older international development
charities traditionally operated in a similar manner. Individuals
(sometimes prompted by tax rules allowing charitable contributions
to be deducted from taxable income) directed resources to an
organization (e.g., the Red Cross or Child-Fund2), with which the
taxpayer identified or otherwise to trusts, and the organization in
turn allocated resources to various programs and operational
expenses. Some organizations allowed varying forms of sponsorship,
where donors received updates from recipients (e.g., updates from a
child recipient) or selected a level of donation that corresponded to
different types of the organizations’ activities (e.g., a donation to
allow the charity to purchase vaccines). Donors were not typically
able to select which child they sponsored and funds received were
not usually earmarked.
 These traditional modes of aid delivery were designed to cope
with three principal challenges: Most donors did not have enough
information on the specific causes of poverty or on the types of
programs that could be designed to address these causes—not just
to treat the symptoms; small-scale donations that might otherwise
be fragmented or insubstantial needed to be coordinated; and
agency costs needed to be addressed. Aid agencies or some more
traditional charitable organizations provided an institutional basis for
reducing the taxpayer-specific burden of acquiring information on
specific program and project possibilities and, by pooling resources,
avoided the coordination problem that atomistic donor-taxpayers
faced.

Private Aid as a Direct Transaction

Private aid in the last decade, however, has removed the advantage
that official aid (and older private aid) held in overcoming these
challenges. In part, this has been accomplished through the
expansion of a particular type of global institution that is not an
intergovernmental entity but one that is attached to private
philanthropists: the mega-charity. With charities whose endowments
have been established at the bequest of individual billionaires, such
as the Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Google
Foundation, there is little coordination problem in making aid-
allocation decisions. Regarding the information challenge, moreover,
the operating principle of many of these larger charities is to direct
large amounts of funds to programs and sectors that individual
philanthropists themselves have chosen as priorities. Reflecting the
dot-com boom that created the wealth of these new philanthropists,
many hold an abiding faith in the capacity of innovation, technology,
and modern management methods to solve problems of extreme
poverty. And there is an emphasis on blurring the line between
nonprofit and for-profit approaches, as the new philanthropists seek
to invest in income-generating activities. Google.org (a for-profit
charity aiming to address issues of global health, disease, poverty,
and climate change) and the for-profit Omidyar Network are prime
examples.3 Rather than funding a medical clinic, for example, the
new philanthropists invest in biotech companies working on tropical
diseases. Rather than fund the distribution of drugs, the new
philanthropists seek to invest in and create incentives for drug
companies to operate in poor regions.
As a consequence of this, there are three arguments to be made
that new private aid may be, on the margins, more effective than
official aid. First, private aid may be less susceptible to so-called
leakage due to corruption and bribes. Because it usually avoids
public-sector ministries or government agencies in recipient
countries and is instead transferred directly to frontline NGOs and
development projects, it can avoid problems associated with weak or
fragile public institutions. Second, smaller portions of private aid are
typically spent on overhead costs or on technical assistance that
often funds contractors in donor countries. Most foundations and
charitable organizations typically lack a (costly) network of field
offices with international staff and instead tend to rely on local staff
and partnerships with frontline NGOs. They also tend to depend
more extensively on the input of end-user beneficiaries. Third,
although official donor allocations are strongly influenced by
strategic or commercial relations with recipient countries, private aid
allocations appear to be more heavily influenced by recipient need
and human dignity, as defined by Mark P. Lagon and Anthony Clark
Arend at the outset of this book.
This is not to suggest that private aid is not without its
drawbacks. Although there are certainly reasons to believe that
private aid may be more cost saving and that larger portions of
private aid than official aid actually reach the poor, in contrast to the
extensive evaluation of official-aid effectiveness there is very little
comparable information on the cost efficiency of private aid. Self-
evaluations of NGOs may be positive, but these are rarely conducted
according to accepted standards of reliable impact evaluation.
Moreover, private aid givers are not subject to the same
standards of budgetary and governance oversight or accountability
as are official aid agencies.4 The use of taxpayer funds naturally
raises demands for financial accountability, which can encourage
risk-averse strategies when compared to private funds, which can be
less risk-averse. Finally, private aid cannot, of course, promote
liberalization, institution building, fiscal reforms, governance reforms,
or any of dozens of other key elements of an effective development
strategy.

Crowdfunding Aid
As we have seen, official aid, although funded by taxpayers, gives
citizens little say over aid allocations. Compared to official aid,
private aid is by definition more sensitive to the preferences of
philanthropic-minded individuals who determine allocations across
countries and, within countries, across sectors, projects, and
individuals; in short, the aid giver is empowered. In recent years,
private development aid has been facilitated by the availability of
peer-to-peer, internet-based platforms, which bundle large amounts
of small, individual contributions for investments, grants, or loans.
The bundling of funds is generally done through internet-based
social networks. From the United States, internet-based companies
such as Global Giving, Kiva, Wokai, and Zidisha, have channeled
millions of dollars to individuals and partner organizations in
developing countries.
Crowd funded private aid also offers the promise of a much
shorter route from giver to recipient. Internet-based platforms offer
a direct matching between the two. Although there are some
differences in approach across platforms (e.g., Kiva focuses on
individuals or entrepreneurs whereas Global Giving highlights the
worthiness of the projects they are proposing for funding), all
enhance social recognition of the beneficiaries’ worth and catalyze
their agency. Donors contribute directly to those activities rather
than to individuals. In both cases, the flow of funds route is short.
The money goes from an individual to the internet-based bundler,
where it is pooled and transferred to a financial or project
intermediary in the recipient country that then disburses it to the
final beneficiaries. The long route of passing through government
bureaucracies is avoided.

Private Aid and Personal Agency

From the perspectives of both individual taxpaying donors as well as
end-user beneficiaries, channeling funds through official aid agencies
has the drawback that it is the agency, rather than the donor or
recipient, that decides what projects to fund. For some, this may not
be a cost but a benefit. If an official agency learns about what works
in development, has an active evaluation mechanism, strong project
review and implementation structures, and appropriate financial
controls, it may provide valuable services to both the individual
donor and recipient. On the other hand, if the official agency
chooses projects on a different basis from what individual donors or
recipients would choose or imposes conditions on its giving, there
may be agency costs. In the past, one large source of agency costs
came from tied aid, a practice where procurement was linked to the
country of origin of the funds. It is unlikely that altruistic individual
donors would care about whether a particular good or service was
procured from a specific country, whereas it is more obvious why a
national government may care about such linkages. Estimates of the
cost of tied aid vary, but they averaged between 15 and 30 percent.
For some types of aid, like technical cooperation, the costs of tying
may be even higher.
A further source of agency costs comes from differences in
approach about what makes for an effective aid intervention.
Individual donors and recipients may have views about project size,
sector, and other characteristics that differ from official agency
views. The greater the difference, the greater the agency costs of
transferring aid through official channels. To the extent that private
aid establishes—and to a great extent relies upon—the personal
connection of individual donors and recipients, there is reason to
believe that new forms of private aid facilitate the placement of
individual agency of both the donor and recipient as a main driver of
efforts to alleviate global poverty.
One approximation of the relative benefit of personal agency over
official agency, then, is to examine whether the preferences of
individual donors and recipients match the allocative decisions of
official aid agencies. There is a considerable body of analysis of the
general effects of public opinion on foreign policy. Although early
research suggests that the effects of public opinion on foreign policy
are weak or indeterminate, recent studies indicate that public
opinion often has a measurable impact on, for instance, international
security (Hartley and Russett 1992; Hill 1998; Sobel 2001; Wlezien
1995), trade (Kono 2008; Mansfield and Mutz 2009), and
immigration policies (Facchini and Mayda 2008).
Several authors, similarly, find that foreign aid increases with
public support for international assistance in rich countries
(Lumsdaine 1993; Tingley 2007; Chong and Gradstein 2008). But
although there is evidence that public opinion affects aid levels, we
know little of how citizen preferences shape aid allocation. Of
course, where individual preferences must be articulated through
interest groups, political parties, or representative institutions,
ideology and group affiliation will filter those preferences for aid
allocation. Thus Tingley (2009), for example, finds that although one
would expect conservative individuals in rich countries less inclined
than their liberal counterparts to support foreign aid, right-wing and
left-wing governments show no difference in aid to middle-income
countries. Only with low-income recipient countries is there an
ideological bias, with right-wing governments giving less aid to these
poorer nations. Similar effects have been seen with respect to
legislative voting on aid allocation (Fleck and Kilby, 2001; Milner and
Tingley, 2010).
In the framing of this book, of course, the perspectives of
recipients are as important—indeed, more important—than those of
donors. What do the citizens in recipient countries think of official
aid? Few, if any, systematic studies of citizens’ views of aid in
recipient countries have been conducted. Official donors occasionally
run market-research-style surveys, but results are rarely released to
the public. One of the few field experiments on a nationally
representative sample (in Uganda), for example, finds that citizens
do like aid, want more of it, but want greater say in its use. In fact,
80 percent of respondents reported that they themselves have not
directly benefited from aid, and nearly two-thirds of participants
believed that more than half of aid dollars were not spent as
intended (Milner, Nielson, and Findley, 2013).
Public opinion regarding aid allocation may also shape decisions
of foundations, NGOs, and other private aid organizations. But
private humanitarian and development aid has been little studied by
social scientists, and the limited research that exists has focused
exclusively on larger organizations. Financial records of the most
prominent US-based international development NGOs, for example,
show that these NGOs allocate funds raised from private sources
based on strong humanitarian motives principally to projects that
provide or improve education, health care, safe drinking water,
sanitation, sewage, and emergency relief in poor countries (Büthe,
Major, and de Mello e Souza 2012). Information on the allocative
preferences of individuals however, is nonexistent. Examining
contributions by large numbers of individuals to international
charitable causes can provide a more direct understanding of citizen
preferences regarding aid allocation.
Taking the example of charitable crowdfunders, we can assume
that crowdfunders who participate in global philanthropy are likely to
be representative of larger populations of individuals who, in the
United States at least, now account for 75 percent of all private
donations to international charitable causes (Giving USA 2012).

Person-to-Person Aid: The Case of Kiva

Kiva is a nonprofit organization that operates an internet-based,
peer-to-peer, crowdfunding platform connecting microlenders to
microentrepreneurs in developing countries. Founded in San
Francisco in 2005, Kiva operates through its internet portals, through
which anyone with a credit card or PayPal account can lend to
microentrepreneurs who post requests online. Prospective borrowers
must post their projects through one of several affiliated
microfinance institutions (MFIs). Prospective microlenders, once they
have registered, can select projects based on region, country, and
project objective. Once the preferred traits have been selected, a
microlender is shown a list of project requests matching the
preferred project criteria. Alternatively, microlenders can select most
recent projects that have been newly listed, or they may have the
Kiva website randomly select a project. It is this flexibility in
matching donor preferences to recipient requests that, through
platforms such as Kiva’s, support personal agency as well as the
empowerment and hence dignity of beneficiaries, along with donors.
Selecting any particular project reveals more information: the
amount of the loan (up to a maximum of $5,000), the loan duration
in months (up to a maximum of two years), the name and risk-rating
of the MFI, the number of borrowers (if the borrower is a group),
the gender of the borrowers, and a short narrative written by the
microentrepreneur as to the specific purposes for which the funds
will be used. Finally, the project information also includes an
indication of how much of the project amount requested has been
funded thus far.
Once a project is selected, microlenders can contribute funds in
any amount (above a required minimum of $25) up to the full
amount requested. Using a PayPal account or a direct payment from
a credit card, microlenders then transfer funds in the pledged
amount. Projects accumulate funds from lenders in this manner until
they are fully funded. When microloans reach maturity, their
principal is to be repaid to the original lender’s account; lenders
receive no interest, and thus the cost of capital is borne by the
lender. Zero-interest loans, moreover, allow Kiva to operate as a
nonprofit 501(c)3 organization under US law instead of as a
regulated commercial bank.
Once microlenders choose to lend (i.e., once they become
crowdfunders), they are notified periodically of the progress of the
microentrepreneurs’ effort. Kiva’s field partners may post business
journals identifying how the loan is being used or what effect it has
had on the business owner. This reporting is not required, thus the
flow of information from recipients can be erratic and the
information provided is very rarely financially detailed (Bonbright,
Kiryttopoulou, and Iversen 2008). Nevertheless, Kiva platforms
provide enough information to make a personal connection between
the donor and the recipient. The information enhances social
recognition of the recipient as the other pillar of dignity in addition to
agency, as posited by Lagon and Arend in this book. Yet a key
problem for both organizations is to decide on exactly what (and
how much) information to provide to permit informed choices
without overwhelming an individual donor.
Beneficiaries’ agency, of necessity, is not without limits. Kiva
restricts both loan size and time on the website. Until the end of
2007, individual loan requests by potential beneficiaries could not
exceed $1,200; that limit has since been raised to $2,000. The
maximum request for group loans remains $5,000. All requests by
microentrepreneurs must be made through partner MFIs, and all
requests made to Kiva enter a queue. After a preliminary screening,
they are posted on the website for a maximum of thirty days, after
which they are pulled from the site if they have not been funded.
Kiva has occasionally had to cap individual lenders’ contributions
because of the lack of fundable projects.

What Motivates Private Philanthropists?

Indirect evidence of the funding preferences of private
philanthropists may be inferred from data on crowdfunded
microloans through Kiva. The behavior of private aid givers has been
little examined to date, despite the increase in private development
aid. There are three possibilities: crowdfunders act as rational
charitable contributors, making funding decisions based on project-
specific risks and incentives; crowdfunders behave like official
foreign-aid agencies, funding projects based on a combination of
country need and institutional quality; or crowdfunders are
motivated by the social networks connecting them to countries in
which projects take place. Because Kiva crowdfunders expect to
have their principal repaid, Kiva’s project data affords us an
opportunity to test the risk-aversion of crowdfunders. Because Kiva’s
projects span some eighty developing countries, we can also
examine whether aid flowing through Kiva is as selective as official
development assistance.
Analysis of funding rates for Kiva projects—on the assumption
that faster-funded projects are more aligned with donors’ individual
preferences about project characteristics—finds weak support for the
view that crowdfunders are risk-averse with respect to microcredit in
developing countries. Kiva’s crowdfunders preferred loaning to
women for shorter duration and smaller amounts. However, they
reject the group-liability approach of traditional microfinance and
only weakly prefer lending through lower-risk partner microfinance
institutions. We find almost no consistent support for the hypothesis
that crowdfunders act selectively towards projects based on the
poverty or institutional quality of the country.
By contrast, there is strong support for the argument that
crowdfunding is essentially an expressive act that enables individuals
to connect with microentrepreneurs much in the same way that
individuals can sponsor children in developing countries through a
number of NGOs. Again, the social recognition of the recipient is
arguably part of the benefit. In this regard, we find the nature of
social relations that developing countries are able to rely upon in
richer countries, in particular, through their communities of migrants
has a strong effect on the funding rates of Kiva projects. Kiva
crowdfunders prefer to lend to countries that claim larger numbers
of more recent, wealthier immigrants and to which a large number
of refugees also come. One possible reason for this is that
immigrants themselves participate as crowd-funders. (Kiva lending,
however, is unaffected by remittances, which would be unlikely were
immigrants themselves largely responsible for Kiva funding to their
home countries.) Another possibility is that immigrant communities,
through their social ties with native-born populations, provide
information about their home countries to prospective crowdfunders.
 In sum, Kiva and its feedback mechanisms and other information
are principally geared towards establishing a connection between
people rather than between sovereign entities or between
multilateral organizations and a sovereign entity. Kiva in many ways
is highly representative of the changes in international private
philanthropy that have taken place in the past decade, for example,
an increasing amount of aid, global accessibility, and real-time
information about recipients and their use of funds.
These findings have implications for official aid policy. In contrast
to years past, the collective-action costs of private aid appear to be
minimal, especially with the proliferation of internet-based
crowdfunding platforms. Moreover, internet technology appears to
have superseded the earlier advantage that official agencies once
held in terms of minimizing the transaction costs of disbursing aid.
Finally, private aid now has significant advantages over official aid in
promoting personal agency now that private aid givers can give
money to recipients in developing countries in a much more direct
way. Indeed, the rapid growth of crowdfunded, private aid may be
attributed to the attractiveness of this short route to giving.
Not all recipient countries, however, are organized to take
advantage of this spread of private aid. Another obvious conclusion
is that aid recipient countries would do well to organize themselves
to take advantage of new forms of private aid. In some countries like
India, MFIs must first obtain approval from the Reserve Bank of
India before they can borrow abroad—an obvious barrier to
accessing private loans from Kiva. These findings also suggest that
the design of projects can be fine-tuned to make them more
attractive to donors. As an example, it is probably more effective to
invest in providing assistance to entrepreneurs to allow them to
develop project ideas than to invest in building the capacity of
microfinance intermediaries. Private lenders seem not to care too
much about the rating of these agencies.
The phenomenal growth of internet-based giving is testimony to
the potential for private aid to reach a scale which can be significant
in global terms, an institutional arrangement rivaling in scale that of
national institutions’ and multilateral development banks’ funding.
What has not been shown is that organizing aid in this fashion is
more effective for development, which many would argue could
more robustly advance the human dignity of aid recipients in the
long term. A comparison of development effectiveness between
public and private aid platforms is an important direction for future
research. Time and future research will reveal if this represents a
new dominant institutional arrangement for aid provision and
whether it is effective. Yet to the degree it appears to affect agency
of donors and recipients—connected more directly to one another—
this institutional trend is dignity-building and ought to be facilitated.

Conclusion
In this chapter we have argued that, in the new aid landscape,
newer forms of private aid enhance the personal agency of both
donors and recipients in aid transactions. Donors, who are better
able to select countries, sectors, projects, and in many cases
individuals to whom funds (and loans) can be given, are afforded
greater control over allocative decisions. Beneficiaries who can
provide input and information directly to donors are better able to
influence funding decisions and have greater flexibility in the timing
and disbursement of funds, that is, accorded agency. Through these
institutions, they are accorded social recognition too, helping them
realize dignity. For both groups, these person-to-person relationships
constitute a shorter route than official aid normally takes. The result
can economize on coordination, transaction, and agency costs of
official aid.
Private aid can make a difference, but it is by no means a
panacea for all that ails the world’s poor. For all the amounts that
have been granted, there has been little evaluation of the cost-
effectiveness of private aid, and there are few examples of privately-
funded programs being expanded in ways needed to make a dignity-
building dent in global poverty. The history of global charity has also
had its share of scandals involving misappropriations of funds and
theft. And the universe of foundations, charities, educational
organizations, and private and voluntary organizations may be too
crowded and too fragmented to make a real difference on a large
scale.
There are four possible implications of the spread of private aid
for the alleviation of global poverty. First, private aid functions best
as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, official aid. Indeed,
there are many things that private aid cannot support in recipient
countries; development strategies, debt reduction, and so on are
generally beyond the scope of private aid modalities. Private aid also
raises separate (but related) issues of accountability compared to
official aid.
Second, private aid is supported by new types of global
institutions that rely principally on multilayer connectedness between
individuals—linked through social networks that, supported by
internet technology and social media, now span the globe—rather
than on bilateral or multilateral intergovernmental relations.
Although many of the longer-term implications of the expansion in
influence of these global private institutions are uncertain, the
private sector has grown from a small player in development
assistance to a major, dynamic force. Yet the world has little noticed.
Annually, approximately 800 press credentials were issued for the
World Bank-IMF annual or spring meetings. Meanwhile, at the Global
Philanthropy Forum (GPF), few if any members of the press were on
hand. This lopsidedness is unfortunate. The fact is that the
attendees who meet at the GPF will soon give more aid to the
world’s poor than the Bretton-Woods institutions.
Third, although at present private aid is not connected to policy
reforms in the way official aid is, it is plausible that the proliferation
of private aid will encourage governments in recipient countries to
reform in order to permit individual or group beneficiaries to take
advantage of these new forms of aid. Pressures to permit greater
cross-border capital flows, for example, can be driven by citizens
who do not wish to be deprived of the benefits of peer-to-peer
financial flows—whether they are remittances, microloans, or private
grants.
Fourth, it is also possible that private aid will make foreign aid
more competitive. For decades, poor developing nations have faced
a take-it-or-leave-it attitude from international financial institutions
and official donors and were forced to deal exclusively with a
particular official bureaucracy on development projects. Private aid
now can offer alternative channels for development assistance. But
to make this competition work, recipient countries must be free to
choose whether aid is channeled through an official government
project or through a more efficient NGO provider. Recipients of aid
must also be able to rely on benchmarks that compare the
effectiveness of private and official aid programs.
But a competitive aid system also requires a better understanding
of what works and what doesn’t. Neither the demand side—the
priority needs of the underserved—nor the supply side—who is doing
what and for which communities—has been mapped out at the
country level. Without that, it is inevitable that both public and
private aid providers will fail to provide systemic change and will fail
to help poor nations develop their own capabilities, both of which
are needed for sustained poverty reduction and greater realization of
dignity in practice. These are the efforts to which the global
development community should dedicate itself—not to the
maintenance of the current inflexible foreign aid system but to its
transformation into a system of global institutions that are both
flexible and dignity enhancing for both donors and recipients.

Notes
The authors thank Mark P. Lagon and Michael Morfit for valuable
comments on earlier drafts.
1. The remaining 41 percent of funds have still not been
classified by use.
2. Formerly known as Christian Children’s Fund.
 3. See the treatment of Omidyar-funded Humanity United
underwriting NGO partnerships to combat human trafficking in
chapter 11 in this book by Mark P. Lagon.
4. On these problems, see Wenar (2006).

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CHAPTER 10

Statelessness, Sovereignty, and

International Law
Promoting the “Right to Have
Rights”
BENJAMIN BOUDREAUX

Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1973), argues that

states often deny persons rights in two general ways: not only by
various forms of oppression and discrimination of the kind frequently
catalogued by human-rights organizations but also by denying them
the very precondition of having rights at all. She argues that the
latter situation, faced by persons who are stateless, is one of
complete vulnerability. The stateless lack membership in a political
community, she claims, and live on their own in a prepolitical state
of nature. In her words, the stateless are denied “the right to have
rights.” They find themselves in the unique and unfortunate situation
in which “their plight is not that they are not equal before the law,
but that no law exists for them; not that they are oppressed but that
nobody wants even to oppress them” (Arendt 1973, 295).
Arendt’s point was not simply to draw attention to a vulnerable
group but to show the hollowness of the modern human-rights
regime. According to Arendt, human rights are practically
meaningless because states that profess allegiance to them
frequently violate them and more fundamentally, because rights
require states to begin with. Although supposedly grounded in
universal human qualities such as a human’s inherent dignity, rights
are only grounded “from within the nation” (Arendt 1973, 299). The
state is the protector, enforcer, and recognizer of human rights, and
without a state, one is denied these protections. For Arendt, this was
not only a matter of access to rights or enjoying the exercise of
rights but a matter of having rights at all. As Arendt put the point,
“the stateless people were as convinced … that loss of national
rights was identical with loss of human rights, that the former
inevitably entailed the latter.” She continued, “the restoration of
human rights … has been achieved so far only through the
restoration or the establishment of national rights” (Arendt 1973,
299). Paul Weis, a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), legal scholar, and a contemporary of Arendt, echoed her
words. In his view, a court’s decision was that “a State … does not
commit an international delinquency in inflicting an injury upon an
individual lacking nationality, and consequently no state is
empowered to intervene or complain on his behalf either before or
after the injury” (Weis 1956, 162). In other words, according to Weis
and Arendt, international law in the mid-twentieth century permitted
states to treat stateless persons as cruelly as they liked.
Despite Arendt’s assertion that legal rights are dependent on
states, the world today might appear quite different. She was writing
at a time when a wide array of international actors and efforts were
taken to denationalize rights by establishing a universal foundation
decoupled from the state. Over the sixty-plus years since the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), human rights have
become substantially more embedded throughout international law
and practice. Indeed, states have claimed and even actualized the
right to intervene in the domestic affairs of other states to protect
foreign citizens. Such intervention can be justified only by appeal to
rights that transcend origin in the national sovereignty of the state
that violates them. And states have legally bound themselves
through accession to international conventions that generate
obligations. Nonstate actors also play an increasingly important role,
advocating for those denied rights and sometimes even providing
some of the protections typically associated with a state.
Notwithstanding these developments, the problem of
statelessness highlighted by Arendt over fifty years ago remains dire:
Stateless persons continue to live an extremely vulnerable life and
face an array of daily indignities, and their numbers are vast,
depending on one’s definition of who counts as stateless, a number
that ranges between ten to hundreds of millions of persons.
This chapter analyzes the plight of the contemporary stateless. In
particular, it assesses the various efforts made to fill the still-present
gap that Arendt identified within the human-rights regime, by
examining the conceptual complications of statelessness, the halting
development of international legal instruments, and the role of other
institutions in protecting this vulnerable population. Addressing the
problem of statelessness, I argue, requires joint action by states and
nonstate actors in the short term and in the long run nothing less
than a transformation of some of the most basic and venerable
international norms. This often overlooked problem shows both how
the sovereign state system fails to properly take responsibility for
persons and how states are still necessary in a messy neomedieval
world to provide the conditions in which persons can live with
dignity; it thus suggests an imperative for further transforming the
state-based system.
This chapter begins, first, by pointing to a tension in international
law that informs and yet complicates the problem of statelessness.
Second, it grapples with an ongoing debate about what exactly
statelessness consists of, noting some of the enduring conceptual
challenges. Third, it discusses ongoing efforts to address the
problem but points to continuing gaps in protection. Finally, it offers
recommendations to further protect and reduce the stateless.

A Tension in International Law

A point of conflict embedded within international law illuminates the
problem of the stateless and the challenge of an effective
international response. Consider the tension between a state’s
interest in protecting its sovereignty and a basic humanitarian
concern for all persons. States maintain that the right to determine
who is a citizen is a fundamental component of their sovereignty.
Stemming from the very beginnings of the state system following
the Treaty of Westphalia, the right is justified in part by the state’s
role in protecting and stabilizing a particular ethnonational
community. The principle asserting that states determine their own
citizens has been enshrined and advanced by international law, from
at least the 1930 Hague Convention on Nationality onward and has
been further developed and applied in judicial cases, such as the
Nottebohm case adjudicated in 1955 by the International Court of
Justice, which claims that “nationality is within the domestic
jurisdiction of the State.”1 Even given today’s emergence of global
institutions and other nonstate actors, no nonstate institutions have
the authority to make determinations of citizenship other than states
themselves.2
Whereas states have maintained the right to determine who is a
national, they have also recognized the basic right of all persons to a
nationality. This right appears most prominently as Article 15 of the
UDHR, which states that “everyone has a right to a nationality and
no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.” Although the
UDHR is not binding international law, the same right appears in
treaties with legal force, including the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.3
All told, nearly every state has endorsed at least one of these tools,
thereby recognizing the right.
At least three reasons justify the right of every person to a
nationality. First, a basic humanitarian principle stresses that
citizenship is a necessary means for persons to live with dignity. In
the introduction, Mark P. Lagon and Anthony Clark Arend define two
pillars of dignity—the agency of a person to realize his or her
potential and public recognition of the person’s inherent value and
equal access to opportunity—that seem to require that a state
protect and acknowledge an individual. The absence of a nationality,
as Arendt suggests, is akin to living in a Hobbesian state of nature,
where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes 1994,
chapter 13). This justification of the right is a cross-cultural,
universal factor because it is grounded in conditions that all of
humanity shares.
A second justification is based within states’ pragmatic
calculations and, in particular, the potential instability that stems
from the existence of unacknowledged and unaccounted-for
persons. These persons seem to threaten the very foundations of
the state system by putting at risk the notion that states have
ultimate juridical authority over the entire human population. As US
officials state, “the United States government cares about
statelessness as an issue that carries repercussions for regional
stability and economic development” (Green and Pierce 2009).
Third, and perhaps somewhat cynically, certain political
considerations seem to support inclusion of the right to a nationality
in the UDHR and in legally binding conventions as a way for some
states to occupy the moral high ground against irresponsible states
that exclude or discriminate against certain groups. Consider the
development of the refugee regime, developed during the Cold War,
in which arguably democratic states sought to gain an upper hand
against their ideological opponents (Loescher 1996).
Despite the latter two state-based justifications and contra
Arendt, the right to a nationality is prima facie grounded in the
inherent worth of all persons.4 All humans are presumably vested
with this right, even if they have no state to protect them; the right
supposedly precedes the state, rather than vice versa.5
Whatever the merits of these proposed justifications, the tension
between the legal rights of states and of persons is straightforward:
A person’s right to a nationality amounts to nothing if no state
exercises its right to bestow nationality upon him or her. If states
have the sovereign right to determine who is or is not a national,
then no state is required to actualize an individual’s right to a
nationality, and thus persons might be unable to exercise their right.
In the terminology of rights-theory, the right to a nationality is a
positive or claim right that requires some other party to take
deliberate action to protect it. But the right to a nationality is a claim
right that does not identify a party responsible to act. In fact, there
is a conflicting right held by the only parties that could actualize the
right that explicitly gives them the right not to provide protection.6
Consider how this tension plays out in the case of stateless
persons. A state has an interest in responding to the problem of
statelessness not only out of a humanitarian concern for stateless
persons but also because the stateless are a potentially destabilizing
force. Those without a state live an exceptionally insecure life but
also potentially increase the insecurity of the state in which they
reside. Although states have an interest in diminishing and
addressing the problem of statelessness, they might not perceive
that they have an interest in granting a particular stateless group
citizenship. Indeed, it appears that many states would rather
persuade other states to take responsibility rather than face the
costs and potential political backlash of nationalizing new groups of
persons. Given that statelessness is a practical problem for states,
they have a clear incentive to minimize the existence of the problem
even in the absence of a legal requirement to respond. The UNHCR
legal scholar Weis made this point sharply: “To the extent that there
are no rules of international law imposing a duty on States to confer
their nationality, nor, in general, rules denying or restricting the right
of States to withdraw their nationality, one may say that
statelessness is not inconsistent with international law” (Weis 1956,
166).
The tension between the rights of states to determine their
citizens and the right of persons to a nationality underscores
Arendt’s point about the surpassing importance of the state in
securing a person’s dignity. The right to a nationality is grounded in
the notion that persons need a state to live well, whereas the right
of states to determine who is a national is similarly grounded in the
importance of the state for human well being. Of course, it is not
surprising that when looking at a state-based legal regime, states
are of central importance. However, this feature of international law
makes the problem of the stateless seemingly intractable.
Of course, the right to a nationality is not entirely feckless; to be
sure, it has motivated international law and domestic analogs that
oblige states to provide nationality under certain circumstances. For
instance, the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women
requires that states not deprive women of their nationality in the
event of divorce or if the husband changes his nationality (Article 1).
Likewise, the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that
children “shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have
the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality”
(Article 7).
Above all, the tension in international law illustrates that
responding to the problem of the stateless requires a fundamental
transformation of traditional elements of the state-based system. In
particular, either the sovereign right of states to determine who is a
national must be limited, thereby requiring them to give nationality
to stateless persons, or the world must change in such a way that
nationality is no longer a necessary means for the exercise of basic
human rights and the possibility of a life of dignity.
Before discussing these options more fully, we should clarify the
precise components of statelessness.

What Is Statelessness?
My brief discussion of Arendt and international law has already
indicated to what extent statelessness is a significant affront to one’s
dignity and quality of life. It is worth exploring, however, the array of
vulnerabilities the stateless face in order to emphasize the stakes in
failing to protect them. First, there is the fundamental connection
highlighted above between the state and the protection of a person’s
rights. The stateless generally lack all political rights and thus submit
to a government for which they have had no voice or influence. In
addition, they often lack the economic rights associated with
property and employment as well as the mobility rights to travel or
to reenter their country of habitual residence once they leave. They
are frequently the victims of discrimination in such crucial aspects of
life as housing, education, police protection, or even when opening a
bank account. Further, there is an important connection between a
state and a person’s identity: Persons often identify with their state
as a valuable cultural community and, moreover, by registering one’s
birth and issuing an identity card, the state is most often literally the
source of one’s official identity. According to classical theorists like
Plato and Aristotle, social contract theorists of modernity, such as
Hobbes and Locke, and contemporary political thinkers like Sen, the
state is a necessary precursor to enjoying important capabilities and
living well (Sen 1999).
Depending on one’s definition, the numbers of stateless range
greatly, and different definitions imply different gaps in protection.
The crucial consideration when defining the stateless is whether one
considers only the de jure or legally stateless or whether one also
includes the de facto stateless, those who possess some legal
nationality, but do not have an effective nationality.

De Jure Statelessness
The most widespread and established definition in international law
stems from the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless
Persons, the first major international treaty that focused exclusively
on the stateless. Article 1 offers this definition: “‘[S]tateless person’
means a person who is not considered as a national by any State
under the operation of its law.” This definition is a de jure definition
as it is based exclusively on the legal status of a person as
determined by sovereign states. The 1954 Convention, framed on
the heels of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,
was motivated by the stateless population that emerged after World
War II. Those who designed the Convention believed that this
definition would fully close all gaps in protection without overlapping
this category of persons with refugees protected by the 1951
Refugee Convention. Besides minimizing overlap, this de jure
definition enjoys the advantage of simplicity: A person’s status
comes down to how states identify the person, a presumably
ascertainable legal fact. And it focuses the problem of statelessness
on a relatively small and manageable group of persons who lack a
basic legal right resolvable through legal means. Given these
advantages and its place in the international stateless regime, this
definition guides most international action.
According to the de jure definition, the UNHCR counts
approximately twelve million persons as stateless (UNHCR 2010a).7
These persons become stateless in a variety of complex ways,
including through explicit state discrimination and through accident.
The sovereign state system is one in which states determine
nationality according to their own standards: some by jus soli or
citizenship by birth in the territory, whereas others only by jus
sanguinis or blood ancestry. But cracks between these laws create
situations in which one has no nationality whatsoever: One might be
born in a state that does not have jus soli citizenship or one might
lack the ability to claim citizenship through descent.8
Other laws that cause statelessness include gender-discriminatory
laws that pass citizenship exclusively through patrilineal descent, like
those in Jordan, the Gulf Arab States, and over twenty states across
Africa. If one is born in these states to a female citizen but a male
noncitizen, then one lacks a de jure nationality. Indonesia’s
citizenship laws are also gender-discriminatory, holding that if one is
born out of wedlock to a citizen mother but a noncitizen father, one
is denied Indonesian citizenship.
Statelessness also results from laws that specifically exclude
groups on ethnonational grounds. The Bihari Urdu speakers in
Bangladesh are denied Bangladeshi citizenship because of doubts
about their national loyalties. Similarly, almost a million mostly
Muslim Rohyngya are denied nationality by the ruling junta in
predominantly Buddhist Myanmar. Further, more than 3 million
persons in Cote d’Ivoire, ethnic Nepalese in Bhutan, Nubians in
Kenya, and people of Slavic origin in Latvia are all denied citizenship
because of ethnic exclusion (Blitz 2009). Each group is a victim of
discriminatory laws that seem to violate the UDHR’s guarantee that
“no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.”
Others become de jure stateless simply through the difficulties of
registering births. The UN estimates that 36 percent of total annual
births go unregistered for practical or cultural reasons, mostly in
South Asia and sub–Saharan Africa, and many of those persons
legally lack nationality of any state. State succession can also lead to
statelessness. During the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the
USSR, for instance, millions were left without a state.
The overall number of de jure stateless is particularly difficult to
determine. The UNHCR’s twelve million estimate relies heavily on the
numbers provided by state governments. The Department of
Homeland Security, for instance, has estimated that the de jure
stateless in the United States is a mere 4,000 persons. But the
stateless are a particularly difficult group for states to identify given
the fact that, by definition, they live without state recognition.
Determining the number of stateless is made even more difficult by
the fact that most states do not have specific procedures by which to
identify or process the stateless. Stateless determinations are
typically done through the refugee process, and persons are thus
identified as stateless on an ad hoc basis when and if they apply for
asylum (Batchelor 1998). What’s worse, some states have an
incentive to undercount the number of domestic stateless,
minimizing the problem to deflect negative international attention.
There is therefore good reason to believe that the UNHCR estimate
is not an accurate count; indeed, the UNHCR itself calls the number
a “guesstimate.”9
Despite possessing the advantage of simplicity, the de jure
definition has been attacked for posing an excessively high hurdle.
To be considered de jure stateless, a person must prove a negative
—that none of the over 190 states in the international system claim
him or her as a citizen. This burden of proof falls on the applicant,
but many candidates are unable to prove they have no legal state
because the transactional costs can often be prohibitively high, other
states might not cooperate with the investigation, or the state in
which they have had strong links no longer exists (e.g., Yugoslavia).
Consider also the difficult situation of thousands of persons of
Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican
Republic does not grant them citizenship, claiming that they have
Haitian citizenship even though the Haitian government also does
not grant them nationality. Although they have no citizenship, these
persons are not considered stateless by the Dominican Republic
because it treats them as being Haitian citizens.
An additional drawback of the de jure definition is that it excludes
many persons who, although they might be claimed as a citizen by
some states, in practice reside and have strong attachments to a
state that does not recognize them. Consider the case of persons
who have a nationality but because of severe conflict are forced to
flee to other states where they develop social attachments. These
persons are not identified as stateless by the customary de jure
definition nor are they refugees according to the 1951 Refugee
Convention. Nonetheless, such persons might still face the same
affronts to their dignity as the de jure stateless, vulnerable to
exploitation and without any of the protections accorded by either
their state of residence or state of nationality. This consideration
suggests that although international legal instruments have largely
focused on the de jure stateless, the specific affronts to dignity seem
to apply equally to both the de jure and other persons who,
although they may have some nationality, lack an effective
nationality. From the person’s perspective, the vulnerabilities of de
jure and de facto statelessness are equivalent. The customary de
jure definition enshrined in international law is blind to this reality as
the definition was developed from the perspective of the states that
contain the stateless, rather than the perspective of the stateless
themselves. The assumption of the de jure definition seems to be
that a de facto stateless person can be repatriated or otherwise
could seek the protection of their state of nationality, whereas a de
jure stateless person cannot and thus the latter should be granted
special protection. This, however, simply raises a further question.
How should states identify the persons mentioned above who claim
some nationality but cannot be repatriated? Their right to a
nationality is ineffective, as the mere fact of nationality de jure
includes with it no protections.10 Moreover, because they already
have a nationality, the solution to their plight is not simply to give
them a legal nationality; hence, there is no obvious legal remedy.
The UNHCR, the organization vested with the most expansive
international mandate to grapple with the problem of statelessness,
seems to agree with these considerations. In the Information and
Accession Package to the Stateless Conventions, they state:

It is now apparent that there are those who do not qualify as

refugees but whose nationality status is unclear. The situation
of such a person in terms of a lack of national protection may
be identical to that of a de jure stateless person. (UNHCR
1999)
On this basis, the UNCHR accepts a responsibility to
accommodate the de facto stateless. Likewise, the Final Act of
the other major international convention dealing with
statelessness, the 1961 Convention, “recommends that
persons who are stateless de facto should as far as possible
be treated as stateless de jure to enable them to acquire an
effective nationality.” (UNHCR 1999; UNHCR 2006)

Although the UNHCR seems to accept a mandate to address the

problem of the de facto stateless, it itself does not however offer a
clear definition of what this concept means and who actually counts,
an issue to which I now turn.

De Facto Statelessness
A de facto definition of the stateless includes a broader category of
persons who might have some legal nationality but nonetheless lack
an effective nationality. There is no consensus on how best to
understand this category of persons; indeed, some have even
suggested that there is no such thing. Nehemiah Robinson, for
instance, argues that “nationality is a legal concept; therefore de
facto statelessness is a somewhat illogical term” (Robinson 1955;
Hudson 1952). Robinson’s point is that the de facto stateless do not
face a problem solvable through juridical means as they already
have a legal nationality. If they have a nationality, how are they
stateless? Others, however, have been struck by the vulnerabilities of
and significant gaps in protection for these persons. Even the
UNHCR, as noted above, argues that the de facto stateless should
be treated as far as possible as stateless. I consider below several
alternative definitions, pointing to the potential advantages and
disadvantages of each; rather than argue for a particular view, my
goal is to demonstrate the need for a consistent and operational
definition.
One definition of de facto statelessness takes seriously the
perspective of persons living without a state rather than the
perspective of the states administering nationality laws. According to
this definition, persons are stateless if they are not accorded the
protections of citizenship from their state. Weissbrodt and Collins
offer one version: “De facto statelessness can occur when
governments withhold the usual benefits of citizenship, such as
protection, and assistance … persons who are de facto stateless
might have legal claim to the benefits of nationality but are not, for
a variety of reasons, able to enjoy these benefits. They are,
effectively, without a nationality” (2006, 251–52).
The UNHCR offers a similar definition in its Handbook for
Parliamentarians, stating: “[D]e facto stateless persons …
technically, still hold a nationality but do not receive any of the
benefits generally associated with nationality, notably national
protection” (UNHCR 2005, 25).11 For Weissbrodt and Collins and in
this UNHCR publication, then, de facto statelessness occurs when
persons fail to possess certain legal protections of their state.
This definition has come under significant fire. First, the definition
requires a clear explanation of what it means for a person to lack the
usual protections of citizenship, and which protections, if denied,
cause statelessness. Consider the myriad examples of persons in
conflict with their state—Tibetans in China, for instance, the Syrian
opposition, or internally displaced persons worldwide. Others are
denied legal protections generally thought of as basic human rights,
such as women in Taliban-era Afghanistan or present-day Saudi
Arabia. These persons are in some sense denied state protections,
but is this sufficient to render them stateless? Weissbrodt and Collins
claim that “most persons considered de facto stateless are the
victims of state repression,” which suggests that persons in conflict
or otherwise repressed by their state should count as de facto
stateless (Weissbrodt and Collins 2006, 263). After all, they lack the
benefits usually associated with nationality.
But, to recall Arendt’s argument, these persons are oppressed in
the sense that their rights are not respected, though this does not
entail that they are genuinely stateless. The genuinely stateless,
according to Arendt, do not merely face oppression, but they do not
possess the very preconditions of receiving protection. Compare
UNHCR Senior Legal Adviser Hugh Massey’s treatment, who argues
that the “right to a nationality is distinct from the rights attached to
nationality … and the violation of one does not necessarily entail a
violation of the other” (Massey 2010, 38). So even if the Assad
regime violates rights usually associated with the nationality of the
Syrian opposition, this does not entail that they have no nationality—
they are, after all, still Syrian. Massey goes even further in rejecting
this definition: “[T]o argue that persons who are deprived of their
nationality are de facto stateless, and that all de facto stateless
persons should be treated as de jure stateless, would be doing a
grave disservice to persons who should be treated as the nationals
that they are, rather than as stateless persons” (Massey 2010, 39).
One is not stateless so long as one has a nationality, even if this
nationality does not offer the protections that might ideally be
associated with it; the definition severely overstretches the term
“stateless.”
One problem with Arendt and Massey’s distinction is that the
right to a nationality means little unless it is attached to rights
accorded to being a national. The right to a nationality is a means to
live well, not an end on its own. Thus, the cost of keeping their
distinction intact is potentially to neglect all those who, even if they
have some nominal nationality, do not enjoy even the most basic
protections and thereby seem to live a life of de facto statelessness.
That said, it is important to keep in mind Arendt’s and Massey’s
distinction between not having a state (and therefore being
stateless) and not enjoying protections provided by the state and to
not make the problem of statelessness completely unmanageable.
The definition of de facto stateless that is under consideration
significantly enlarges the numbers: Depending on the withheld rights
that are deemed the crucial benefits of nationality, the number of de
facto could be hundreds of millions or more, constituting perhaps all
persons living in irresponsible states (Goldston 2006). This massive
scale alone precludes an effective international response. Moreover,
by what methods can the international community respond to
persons denied these benefits of nationality? If the UNHCR takes
seriously the stated definition of de facto stateless, and they seek to
treat the de facto similarly to the de jure, this might involve major
intervention within sovereign states, potentially enlarging UNHCR’s
purview to protect all those oppressed globally.
Consider, then, a second potential definition that has also been
promulgated by the UNHCR: A person is de facto stateless if they do
not have a nationality from the state in which they have a “genuine
and effective” link. In their words: “Governments must acknowledge,
formally and in practice, that they do not have the right to withdraw
or withhold the benefits of citizenship from individuals who can
demonstrate a genuine and effective link with the country” (UNHCR
2005, 3). If governments do withdraw or withhold benefits, then
those persons are de facto stateless. Being de facto stateless is not a
matter of failing to be protected; rather, it is that one lacks
nationality from the state in which one lives. The Nottebohm case
and other international instruments have also invoked this account
of nationality through attachment—sometimes referred to as jus
connectionis, or the law of connectedness.12
However, this definition likewise raises a variety of questions that
are problematic for its applicability. First, what more precisely is the
genuine and effective link, and how might it be determined?
Standard international practice and law, such as the Nottebohm
case, leaves this to state discretion, and states typically deny that
persons without a proper jus soli or jus sanguinis connection have a
“genuine and effective” link. Even relatively welcoming states, such
as the United States, have been unwilling to give citizenship to
persons on the basis of social attachment. Taking the UNHCR’s
suggestion seriously might require that states radically alter their
citizenship laws, thereby greatly affecting their right to make their
own determinations of nationality. Although ideally jus connectionis
might best promote human dignity worldwide, this principle surely is
not what drives UNHCR action nor will it likely guide state action in
responding to the particular issue of statelessness.
A third definition responds to one problem with the de jure
definition, holding that persons are de facto stateless when they
have a nationality but cannot prove it. As indicated above,
administrative, technical or other reasons might make this proof
difficult if not impossible to obtain, and as a result many persons live
without the preconditions for basic protection. This definition is
significantly more narrow than previous definitions, excluding many
irregular migrants or those systematically oppressed by their state. It
thereby tries to balance the perspective of the state and the
perspective of the vulnerable person while acknowledging the extent
to which many who have de jure nationality should be treated as
stateless.
Although this definition seeks to balance the perspective of states
and of persons, it might be challenged from either side. Many
vulnerable persons might be able to prove their nationality yet still
lack all of their state’s protections and thus might live identical lives
as those who are de jure stateless. This definition might not
therefore be sufficiently strong to give teeth to the notion that all
persons have a right to a nationality.
But a state might also challenge this designation because it
enables persons to qualify as de facto stateless if they still reside in
their state of nationality. States might object that the concept of
statelessness must only apply to persons who are outside of their
own state. Although this might not matter for the persons
themselves, some might believe that this is crucial to limiting the
definition to a manageable group to which the UNHCR and states
might provide response.
Consider now a fourth alternative definition of de facto
statelessness: “Persons who are outside the State of their nationality
and lacking in that State’s protection, the protection in question
being diplomatic and consular protection and assistance (as opposed
to protection on the territory of the State of nationality itself)”
(Massey 2010, ii). This definition, stemming from the 1946
Memorandum on Statelessness by the Intergovernmental Committee
on Refugees and recently promoted by UNHCR Senior Legal Adviser
Massey, is sufficiently narrow and does not include those who are
systematically oppressed by their own state. Its criteria require that
one be outside one’s state of nationality and that one’s state of
nationality fails to provide protection in specific diplomatic or
consular functions. According to Massey, this failure to provide
protection must be the result of one’s state refusing to provide it
rather than being unable to provide protection, or if there is simply
an absence of diplomatic recognition (Massey 2010).
But this definition likewise seems too limited to characterize
persons who live functionally equivalent lives as those who are de
jure stateless. One’s de jure state might provide diplomatic or
consular services, though one might live with strong attachments in
a different state that provides none of the protections essential to
living well. From the perspective of the person, this definition thus
fails to capture something crucial about the right to nationality. And
surely what matters for a definition of statelessness, if it is to be
made operational to fill a protection gap, is to capture the lived
experience of the unprotected person. To further bolster this point, it
might be asked, why would it matter from a person’s perspective
whether one’s de jure state fails to provide protection simply
because it does not have diplomatic relations with one’s de facto
state? This is a trivial distinction, perhaps meaning something to the
respective states but not the vulnerable person left out of all
protections in their de facto residence simply because they have
some de jure connection to a state that does not protect them. On
this definition, the right to a state is thus divorced from the rights
associated with having a state; the former might be granted without
any provision of the latter.
As should be clear by now, the major potential definitions of de
facto statelessness are subject to scrutiny. Without fully arbitrating
this dispute, this discussion does hopefully suggest the difficulties of
defining statelessness in a way that reasonably balances the
concerns of states and the vulnerabilities of persons who fall into a
protection gap and points again to a solution that requires breaking
through the basic tension in international law that animates this
dispute. I offer my own approach to broker this tension in the
recommendation section below. But, before making
recommendations and with these conceptual complications in mind,
I turn now to efforts taken by states to address the problem.

The Development of an Anti-Stateless

Regime: State-Sponsored Protection
The origin of an anti-stateless regime can be traced to the League of
Nations and Fridtjof Nansen’s work as the League’s high
commissioner for refugees. However, it was only following World War
II that states began to distinguish the stateless from refugees.
During discussions in the development of the 1951 Refugee
Convention, a provision was offered to extend the 1951 convention
to include de jure stateless persons who did not also qualify as
refugees, but states declined, and the stateless were sidelined
without protection until specific instruments were developed.

The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of

Stateless Persons
The first such instrument, the 1954 Convention Relating to the
Status of Stateless Persons, attempted to fill the protection gaps
faced by the de jure stateless by acknowledging the problem and
promoting basic rights. It offers the now standard definition of the
de jure stateless and contains thirty articles granting them rights at
least as strong as the rights granted to other foreign nationals.
Although excluding persons already receiving UN protection (such as
the Palestinians in the United Nationals Relief and Works Agency
zone of operation) and those convicted of criminal acts, the de jure
stateless are guaranteed some basic rights on par with nationals of
the state, such as religious freedom, the right to elementary
education, and the right to court access, along with other rights on
par with nonnationals, such as the right of association, the right to
housing, and the right to property. In addition, Article 27 provides
the stateless with the right to an identity document from their state
of habitual residence, and Article 28 provides travel documents that
enable them to leave and return.
Despite the provision of these rights, the Convention provides
weaker rights for the stateless than the 1951 Convention’s rights for
refugees because it only applies to stateless persons who are
lawfully within the country. If the person was not legally admitted,
then none of the rights are guaranteed; of course, it is for states
themselves to determine when a person is a lawful resident. It also
does not prohibit penalties for unlawful entry into a state and thus a
de jure stateless person fleeing conflict might be penalized for
crossing the border. Further, there is no explicit obligation of states
not to return the stateless to their country of origin. In comparison
with the much stronger provisions of Articles 31 and 22 of the
Refugee Convention, the protections of the stateless are quite weak.
Moreover, the Convention inherits the basic tension in
international law between the right of states to determine nationality
and the right of persons to a nationality. The Information and
Accession Packet itself acknowledges that, despite the protections
guaranteed by the convention, “there is no replacement for
nationality itself.” But the Convention does not require that states
grant nationality to stateless persons, merely that it “facilitates” their
naturalization, and thus it in no way restricts the right of states to
grant nationality at their discretion (Article 32).13 In addition, the
Convention neither reduces the existing population of the stateless
by providing a path to citizenship nor does it try to prevent future
populations of stateless by closing loopholes in nationality laws. And
it does not otherwise prohibit laws that discriminate against women
or specific ethnic groups. And of course, it only applies to the de jure
stateless, excluding potentially millions of de facto stateless who lack
an effective nationality and thus are accorded no rights at all.
Given these limitations, it is no wonder that Arendt calls the 1954
meeting that led to the convention “no more than a mere gesture: to
gather the representatives of at least twenty states, but with the
explicit assurance that participation in such a conference would
entail no obligations whatsoever” (Arendt 1973, 280). The 1954
Convention clearly fails to resolve the problem of the stateless over
the long term. Indeed, given that it neither provides the stateless
with a path to citizenship nor requires states to change their
nationality laws to prevent future statelessness, one might argue
that the Convention recognizes a permanent and second class of
persons, thereby sidestepping the entire problem.

The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of

Statelessness
The international community was not blind to the gaps remaining
from the 1954 Convention and worked to develop an additional
instrument in the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of
Statelessness. The Convention employs the de jure definition of the
1954 Convention, and seeks to reduce their overall numbers by
providing a path to citizenship for those who would otherwise be
stateless. In particular, it obliges states to provide nationality to
children born on their territory if those children have no other
nationality. So, in jus sanguinis states, the Convention requires
states to apply jus soli rules to persons who would otherwise be
stateless; in jus soli states, the Convention requires states to apply
jus sanguinis rules to provide a nationality to children who would
have no other nationality (for instance, if they migrated to the state
but were not born there). It thereby seeks to break free of the legal
tension and restricts a state’s discretion to determine nationality. The
1961 Convention also tries to reduce statelessness by prohibiting the
renunciation or deprivation of citizenship if the person would
otherwise be stateless, and in general, it prohibits states from
depriving persons of nationality on racial, ethnic, religious, or
political grounds (Articles 8 and 9).
The 1961 Convention strives to reduce the stateless population
but is nonetheless quite limited. First, as usual, it applies exclusively
to the de jure stateless, thereby leaving out an entire population that
lacks an effective nationality.14 Second, it only provides a path to
nationality in limited contexts: One has to apply in the right age
range and has to reside in the country for a specified period of time
(Articles 1.2.a and 4.2.a, and 1.2.c and 4.2.c). Outside of this age
range, states are under no obligation to provide an otherwise
stateless person nationality. Moreover, the Convention provides a
path to nationality if one is born in the state and would otherwise be
stateless, but it does not give a path to citizenship for those who are
already stateless outside of the age range. Thus, it reduces future
populations of stateless but does nothing to accommodate the
current population. What’s more, these provisions only apply if one
can prove both that one has no other nationality (a burden for all de
jure stateless) and that one was born within the contracting state.
As noted above, approximately fifty million births annually go
unregistered, and the convention would thus potentially exclude
these persons from receiving benefits. In general, it is beset by the
overarching aspiration that if a state ratifies the Convention it will
take responsibility for its stateless population by giving them
citizenship, but the very existence of the stateless is itself the result
of the ongoing failure of states to accommodate this group. Even a
commitment to the Convention does not therefore mean that states
will actually take responsibility.
 Beyond the limitations within the Conventions is the basic
problem that very few states have ratified them. Currently there are
seventy-two state parties to the 1954 Convention and forty-three
parties to the 1961 Convention, with almost all of Asia, Eastern
Europe, and Africa being nonparties to both, whereas most of
Europe remains a nonparty to the 1961 Convention. Many states
with significant populations of de jure stateless are nonparties,
including Bangladesh, India, the Gulf Arab States, and the
Dominican Republic. Although some states, such as the Philippines,
have domesticated the laws without becoming a party, most states
have simply ignored the Conventions.
States offer a variety of reasons for not ratifying, with some
claiming that statelessness is not a problem at all. Other rationales
have also been employed. Think of the explanation offered by US
officials, who claimed that because the United States is a jus soli
state, it “does not contribute to the problem of statelessness” (Green
and Pierce 2009, 35). Of course, there remain thousands (and,
depending on one’s definition, perhaps millions) of stateless persons
in the United States who lack protection and a path to citizenship.
One might further argue that by not ratifying the Conventions, the
United States contributes to the problem of statelessness by setting
a bad precedent for other states that have larger stateless
populations and far fewer means to address the problem.
US officials argue that the Conventions conflict with other aspects
of their nationality laws, such as Americans’ right to freely renounce
their nationality, because the 1961 Convention prohibits renunciation
if it would result in statelessness (Green and Pierce 2009, 35). But
again this justification faces a serious objection: The whole point of
the Conventions is to shape states’ nationality laws to reduce
statelessness. The only way the population will eventually be
accommodated is if states are willing to accept modifications to their
existing nationality laws. If states are unwilling to modify their laws,
then the stateless population will never be reduced.
Other states, including India and countries in Europe, have
concerns about encroachments on sovereignty and their perceived
duty to protect a particular ethnonational group that has seemingly
precipitated these countries’ failure to ratify the conventions.
However, even these justifications can be challenged by the
responsibility of all states to ensure the conditions under which
persons can live with dignity and, in this case, to help persons
realize their right to a nationality.

Recommendations: Who Is Ultimately

Responsible?
The problem of statelessness is worsened by ongoing conceptual
complications and the many causes of statelessness. Solutions must
therefore be similarly complex to address an array of challenges. The
following recommendations are divided between short-term and
long-term solutions.
In the short term, more international attention needs to be
directed at the plight of stateless persons. The stateless are too
often an afterthought in the international community, which, for
political and other reasons, has tended to focus more on refugees.
But, as should be clear, although not all stateless persons qualify as
refugees, many of them live with similar indignities, though they lack
equally strong legal protections. The work by Refugees International
and other advocacy groups to help publicize the plight of particular
stateless groups has effectively placed the problem within an
international agenda. But more must be done both to identify
particular groups and to resolve the conceptual difficulties that
complicate and confuse many discussions. It bodes poorly for
effective international engagement if even the organizations whose
mandate it is to respond to statelessness cannot come to a
consensus about what statelessness is. Stateless persons cannot be
identified, much less protected, if there is no clear definition and no
sense of their numbers.
Second, states should accede to the Conventions relating to
statelessness. Despite their limitations, they do put statelessness on
the international agenda and provide some protection. At UNHCR’s
ministerial conference in December 2011 to mark the fiftieth
anniversary of the 1961 Convention, eight states ratified at least one
Convention, and twenty others pledged to ratify soon. One
advantage is that states have a genuine self-interest in diminishing
the stateless population and providing them with protection. No
state is well served by wasted economic talent and an invisible
population. States that have recently ratified the Conventions have
seemingly recognized their self-interest in ratification, and they
should set an example for other states.
Even states like the United States, who are so-called
noncontributors, should demonstrate that they take this problem
seriously by ratifying the Conventions. If states continue to resist,
strong pressure should be applied by the international community to
at least adopt the basic framework of each Convention as an
element of domestic legislation.
Third, continued emphasis should be placed on birth registration,
especially across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The UN
Children’s Fund and other actors should continue to work with
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and should emphasize to
states the importance of using mobile clinics and other forms of
outreach. Although fewer persons will be stateless if more births are
registered, birth registration will not solve the problem of a lack of
legal identity on its own. As a result, humanitarian organizations
should also promote access to some form of alternative identity
documents for persons who are stateless. Either the UNHCR should
pressure states to offer alternative identity documents, or the
UNHCR itself should consider issuing a kind of identity document
that might allow the stateless access to a bank account, health care,
and other basic services. This is of course no substitute for a legal
national identity, but it might alleviate some of the daily indignities
faced by the stateless.
Fourth, NGOs and other nonstate actors should consider
alternative tools to protect the stateless outside of traditional state
protections. Some American cities have already taken the lead as so-
called sanctuary cities that will not use municipal funds or other
resources to cooperate with federal immigration law.15 Some cities
have even taken steps to offer protections at the city level that are
typically associated with the state—San Francisco, for instance,
offers city-based health care coverage. By providing the stateless
some of the protections typically associated with nationality, without
offering them nationality itself, cities and smaller organizations could
also seek to decouple protections from the state.
These short-run fixes might alleviate the plight of some
individuals, but they do not solve the problem itself. In the long run,
the only surefire way to prevent the indignities of the stateless is to
radically change our conceptions of citizenship and sovereignty. In
particular, two transformative ideas that are already gaining traction
should be furthered to fundamentally improve the situation.
First is a reconceptualization of the notion of sovereignty that
expands the states that have a responsibility to persons within their
territory, sometimes referred to as “sovereignty as responsibility.”
Embraced by the UN General Assembly in the Outcome Document of
the 2005 World Summit and reaffirmed by the Security Council in
2006 as Pillar 1 of the so-called Responsibility to Protect, the idea is
that states have the responsibility to protect their population from
threats, including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against
humanity.16 This notion of sovereignty requires that states be able to
justify their actions over their population to both an internal and
external audience. Although there are some states that have taken
steps to resist this changing conception of sovereignty—in particular,
Russia, China, and India—there are efforts to strengthen and apply
the norm. Roberta Cohen, former US state department deputy
assistant secretary, UN special adviser, and someone with experience
negotiating with states regarding the concept of sovereignty as
responsibility, notes that: “No government has ever challenged the
concept of sovereignty as responsibility.… Governments can no
longer persuasively argue that sovereignty allows them to deny life-
sustaining support to their citizens. More traditional and absolute
notions of sovereignty have given way to notions of accountability to
one’s domestic constituency and to the international community at
large” (Cohen 2003). Despite fundamentally transforming the
traditional notion of sovereignty, then, states have at least purported
to accept it. Indeed, it is difficult for even the most authoritarian
state not to acknowledge publicly its responsibility to its citizens.
How might this transformative norm be applied to the situation of
the stateless? As a model, consider how sovereignty-as-responsibility
has been employed in the development of guiding principles to mold
international action in response to the more than twenty-five million
internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide. Dr. Francis Deng,
among others, recognized that IDPs were fundamentally unprotected
under existing international law (indeed, they were not even defined
as a distinct category of vulnerable persons) and employed this
norm of sovereignty to develop a definition and principles that would
guide state response. The guiding principles have been successful
insofar as IDPs now command more international attention, some
states have taken greater responsibility for them, and some have
even incorporated the nonbinding principles into domestic law.
Cohen observes the role of states in responding to the principles but
also notes the role of the array of other actors characteristic of the
neomedieval world: “In the forefront of promoting the use of the
Principles around the world have been local NGOs, lawyers’ groups,
women’s associations, academics, and other members of civil
society” (Cohen 2003). Getting states to take responsibility more
readily for stateless populations will require a similarly pluralistic set
of actors encouraging states to consider all persons over whom they
have jurisdiction. States should be encouraged to take responsibility
for the dignity of all within their borders. Other actors might have a
role filling in protections and exercising their own sovereignty where
states have failed.
A transformative conception of citizenship has developed in
conjunction with this reconceptualization of sovereignty. Theoretical
justifications of nationality and of the very existence of the state
system come down to the principle that the kind of legal community
constituted by the state is a necessary means for persons to live well
and with dignity. So long as this is true, the focus of nationality and
the function of the state should be about what is best for the person
within a state rather than what is best for the state itself. In this
regard, the idea of jus connectionis, the law of attachment,
fundamentally captures the value of citizenship in a multipolar world.
Persons should be able to enjoy the protections of citizenship where
they live the most significant portions of their lives. This principle
makes citizenship fundamentally about a current social attachment,
the ongoing experience of a lived humanity, rather than some inert
historical fact about birth or ancestry implicit within jus soli or jus
sanguinis. With this principle in play, all stateless persons would
have the right to nationality in the state in which they undertake the
sorts of activities that constitute the valuable aspects of their lives. It
would deal with gender discrimination in nationality laws, prohibit
citizenship laws that exclude ethnic groups, correct for cracks in
state laws, and resolve practical problems, such as a lack of birth
certificates. This would also work as a proposal to resolve the
definitional quandary facing the UNHCR regarding de facto
statelessness: A person is stateless if they are not granted state
protection from the state in which they have their most significant
social attachments. This is the definition the UNHCR and other
advocacy groups should use because it captures the most
fundamental feature of what it is to lack the right to have rights.
These two ideas in tandem—sovereignty as responsibility and jus
connectionis—would fundamentally transform international relations.
Together they resolve the tension between the right of all to a
nationality and the right of states to determine who is a national—
decidedly against the latter and with the former. As moral thinkers
have emphasized for centuries, humans are fundamentally of value
and thus precede the artificial and arbitrary political grouping of the
nation-state. Notwithstanding the practical problems of actually
implementing these proposed norms, they would serve as an
ultimate solution to the problem of the stateless. Persons have a
right to nationality where they are most attached. States are
sovereign only so far as they take responsibility for persons socially
connected and living their lives within their borders. The result is a
world in which states help persons enjoy the rights associated with
nationality where it means the most to them. This change would
mark nothing less than a reconfiguring of the normative landscape,
putting humans ahead of states as the fundamental moral
touchstone.

Conclusion
How would Arendt assess our progress on the problem of
statelessness? Given the ongoing challenges and the enduring gaps
in protection, she would likely not be satisfied. She herself
understood how difficult the problem would be and the sort of
massive transformation of the state system required to fully address
it. In her view, half steps and subtle reforms, like international
conventions, were bound to fail: They remained too close to a state-
based system. She writes, “[F]or, contrary to the best intentioned
humanitarian attempts to obtain new declarations of human rights
from international organizations, it should be understood that this
idea transcends the present sphere of international law which still
operates in terms of reciprocal agreements and treaties between
sovereign states; and for the time being, a sphere that is above the
nations does not exist” (Arendt 1973, 298).
Although I have not followed her lead by proposing a sphere
above nations to resolve the problem—that is, I have not proposed a
suprastate that gives all nationality—I have sought to eliminate a
debilitating tension in international law by reconceptualizing state
sovereignty and nationality in a way that better suits the array of
actors in the neomedieval world and better protects stateless
persons. Arendt would perhaps find these suggestions too optimistic
in their tendency to make states responsible for persons. But they
remain the best step forward in creating a world without the
stateless.
Notes
1. The 1930 Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the
Conflict of Nationality Laws Article 1 states: “It is for each State to
determine under its own law who are its nationals. This law shall be
recognised by other States in so far as it is consistent with
international conventions, international custom, and the principles of
law generally recognised with regard to nationality.” The Nottebohm
case (Liechtenstein v. Guatemala) holds that nationality “is a legal
bond having as its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine
connection of existence, interest and sentiments, together with the
existence of reciprocal rights and duties.” Note that although the
latter part to the claim seems to limit the right, the genuine effective
link is up to states to determine and includes birth or descent.
2. I use the concepts of “citizenship” and “nationality”
interchangeably. For one canonical definition of nationality, see (Weis
1956): Nationality guarantees “the allocation of individuals, termed
nationals, to a specific State—the State of nationality—as members
of that State, a relationship which confers upon that State under
customary international law rights and duties in relation to other
States.”
3. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article
24.3: “Every child has the right to acquire a nationality.” The
Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 7.1: All children “shall
be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from
birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality.”
4. The Preamble to the UDHR makes this explicit: “Whereas
recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable
rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of
freedom, justice, and peace in the world.”
5. Consider for instance how Eleanor Roosevelt, in working to
develop the UDHR, argued that the rights of the individual are above
the rights of the state. See the account in (Glendon 2002).
 6. This tension supports Lagon and Arend’s attempt in the
introductory chapter of this book to move beyond stalemated
debates within the discourse of “rights” to establish a new normative
foundation for assessing institutions.
7. The UNHCR also notes that they do not have “comprehensive
statistics on stateless populations worldwide” (UNHCR 2010b).
8. Some analysts point to jus sanguinis as the central contributor
to the problem. For instance, Blitz argues that, “the principle of
membership on the basis of blood origin has historically locked many
minority groups out of the right to citizenship in their habitual state
of residence” (Blitz 2009).
9. “This number is a ‘guesstimate’. It has been very difficult for
organizations to collect comprehensive data on the number of
stateless persons because the concept of statelessness is disputed
among countries, because governments are often reluctant to
disclose information about statelessness, and because the issue of
statelessness is not high on the international community’s agenda”
(UNHCR 2005, 3).
10. Compare the special rapporteur to the International Law
Commission Roberto Codova, who wrote in 1954: “It seems to the
Special Rapporteur that the most important aspect of this problem of
statelessness is not the technical question of nationality only, but the
real situation.… Needless to say that the Commission is not only
obliged to deal with juridical statelessness, but is also under the
solemn obligation to provide juridical solutions for the situation of
thousands of human beings who are in a much worse position than
those only are de jure stateless” (Codova 1954, 30).
11. They also report that, “the individual is thus unable to
demonstrate that he/she is de jure stateless, yet he/she has no
effective nationality and does not enjoy national protection. He/She
is considered to be de facto stateless” (UNHCR 2005, 11).
12. The Nottebohm decision states: “Nationality is a legal bond
having as its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection
of existence, interest and sentiments, together with the existence of
reciprocal rights and duties.” But this raises the question: Is one
stateless if one has strong social attachments but no rights?
13. Article 32 states: “The Contracting States shall as far as
possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of stateless
persons. They shall in particular make every effort to expedite
naturalization proceedings and to reduce as far as possible the
charges and costs of such proceedings.”
14. As mentioned earlier, Resolution No. 1 of the Final Act states,
“The Conference recommends that persons who are stateless de
facto should as far as possible be treated as stateless de jure to
enable them to acquire an effective nationality.” This resolution,
however, is a recommendation rather than an obligation.
15. There are thirty-one cities of this sort in the United States,
including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
16. The World Summit text reads: “Each individual State has the
responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes,
ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility
entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement,
through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that
responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international
community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to
exercise this responsibility and support the UN in establishing an
early warning capability.”

References
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CHAPTER 11

Fighting Human Trafficking

Transformative versus “Cotton-
Candy” Partnerships
MARK P. LAGON

Both the UN treaty and US law devoted to fighting human trafficking

as a modern form of slavery have the same touchstones for areas of
action. Completed in 2000, both the Palermo Protocol to the UN
Convention on Organized Crime and the US Trafficking Victims
Protection Act (TVPA) established norms around three P’s:
prosecution of traffickers, protection of victims, and prevention of
the offense. A fourth P was added by former secretary of state
Hillary Clinton, who emphasized partnerships between governments,
multilateral organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
and the private sector as a vehicle to seek an end to human
trafficking (Clinton 2009).
In truth, partnerships have been at the heart of antitrafficking
efforts since their inception. For instance, if it were not for strange-
bedfellow partnerships between feminists, conservative Christians,
legislators, and others, there would be no TVPA, no State
Department antitrafficking office, and no annual global Trafficking in
Persons (TIP) Report in the United States. Since the Bush
Administration instituted it, the State Department office under
administrations of both parties has devoted as much effort to
funding NGOs and international organizations as partners as to
preparing the global report as a diplomatic tool to spur change.
 Moreover, a particular type of alliance—public-private
partnerships—has been a feature of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama
administrations as well as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO)
antitrafficking efforts (Report on the Vienna Forum 2008; ILO 2008).
These partnerships involve businesses that are fighting the enabling
environments for trafficking—from sex tourism in the travel sector to
supply chains tainted by forced labor and onerous child labor.
Still, overall progress in fighting slavery appears less than
transformative. Although over two-thirds of the world’s nations have
enacted comprehensive antitrafficking laws, laws on paper are not
enough. According to the TIP Report, only 7,705 traffickers were
prosecuted and 4,746 convicted in 2012 (levels which have remained
fairly constant since 2004). Furthermore, only 1,153 were
prosecuted and 518 convicted for labor-related (as opposed to
sexrelated) trafficking, although, encouragingly, those figures were
up from 508 and 302 respectively in 2011. The victim protection P is
arguably even more important to advancing dignity than the
prosecution P. Yet in a world with at least 20.9 million trafficking
victims, as estimated by the ILO (ILO 2012), the number of victims
identified worldwide in 2012 was merely 45,570 (TIP Report 2013)—
up from the previous year (41,210).
This book advocates the notion of institutions advancing agency
and social recognition as the bases of dignity in tangible ways—
beyond the norm setting, which intergovernmental organizations
have emphasized. Some of the most crucial of the partnerships
between actors to provide governance on (against) human
trafficking are:

• between law enforcement and social service agencies of

governments;
• between national, state/provincial, and local authorities within
countries;
• bilaterally between governments of source, transit, and
destination countries of transnational trafficking;
 • between governments and intergovernmental organizations
(IGOs);
• between IGOs (e.g., different agencies of the UN);
• between law enforcement and NGOs, where there is mutual lack
of trust, even in democratic countries;
• between international NGOs and national NGOs, struggling over
ownership and expertise;
• between NGOs in coalition in a nation (e.g., the Alliance To End
Slavery and Trafficking, or ATEST, in the United States);
• between businesses, either with one sector (e.g.,
cocoa/chocolate, apparel, or travel/hospitality) or across sectors
(e.g., the global Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking,
or gBCAT);
• between businesses and governments or businesses and IGOs
(public-private partnerships); and
• between businesses and NGOs.

This sheer variety of relationships drives home both the

opportunities for leveraging capacities and the challenges from
friction between stakeholders in hybrid global institutions. It is time
to assess what kind of partnerships are vital to reduce the
recognition- and agency-robbing effects of human trafficking and to
progress down a path to its eradication. Some partnerships are more
like cotton candy—big, airy, colorful, and sweet but of little actual
substance—whereas others are truly effective and potentially
transformative.
Specific examples of international partnerships that have had
more or less impact for each focus yield some overall lessons. These
lessons could make the difference between a disjointed, if energetic,
global movement against trafficking and multistakeholder
institutional arrangements capable of veritable international
governance—namely, to reduce and ultimately marginalize trafficking
as an obstacle to the realization of dignity. To make this assessment,
it is important to unpack eight focus areas related to the 3 P’s. One
is understanding the nature and extent of the problem. Three relate
to protection of victims—identifying them, providing immediate care,
and fostering longer-term economic re-empowerment. Another is
prosecution of perpetrators, which also yields dignity to victims. Two
relate to prevention—initiatives to promote awareness and training
on the one hand and attention to demand forces for labor and sex
trafficking on the other. (Some would argue that antipoverty
programs dealing with a major root cause of trafficking is another
area, but those efforts are too diffuse to explore in a short chapter.)
Finally, mobilizing and coordinating monetary and other resources is
an eighth antihuman trafficking focus area.
As a note on my empirical approach, these examples of stronger
and weaker partnerships will sometimes be more empirically
conclusive and at times will reflect heuristic or suggestive
assessments based on my own work situated in government, an
NGO, and business sectors, which will merit all the more rigorous
future validation. Moreover, the examples herein typically are
institutional actors in major powers—such as India, Brazil, and the
United States. The rationale for this choice is that if partnerships in
such resource-rich major powers reveal limitations, those limitations
are likely to be all the more acute in actors operating in settings with
lesser capacity and fewer resources.

Partnerships for a Baseline for Action

Focus #1: Researching and Mapping the Problem
To address the problem of human trafficking and to tangibly advance
the dignity of its actual and potential victims, institutional
partnerships need qualitative and quantitative information about the
phenomenon. Importantly, those institutional partnerships need
baselines to see if the problem is growing or diminishing and in what
respects and whether interventions pursued (in all the other seven
focus areas) are making a difference. The human trafficking field has
suffered from weak statistics and baselines. Obviously, one of the
major problems faced by researchers and organizations combating
human trafficking stems from the fact that accurate accounting
remains difficult given that, “[M]ost of the populations relevant to
the study of human trafficking, such as victims/survivors of
trafficking for sexual exploitation, traffickers, or illegal migrants are
part of a ‘hidden population’, i.e., it is almost impossible to establish
a sampling frame and draw a representative sample of the
population” (Tyldum and Brunovskis 2005, 18).
Indeed, no advances in sampling techniques will adequately
overcome this intractable problem. With that said, there have been
both notable successes and stumbles associated with researching
and mapping the human trafficking problem.
The ILO in its most recent report of June 2012 found that there
were an estimated 20.9 million individuals at a minimum trapped in
jobs or occupations that they cannot leave. It further found that 90
percent, or 18.7 million were in the private economy, where the
ratios of chiefly labor to chiefly sexual exploitation was 3:1, adult-to-
child victims was 3:1, and female to male victims was 11:9 (ILO
2012; Solis 2012). The ILO itself suggests that, “the numerical
results of the 2012 estimation are not comparable to those derived
in 2005” when it did a previous survey (Mehran and de Cock 2012,
11). And although their statistics are more robust, the statisticians,
in explaining the decreased proportion in the incidence of state-
imposed forced labor, demonstrated this most recent study still relies
heavily upon available data. Indeed, they wrote, “state-imposed
forced labor represents a lower proportion of the total, at around 10
percent. This could be due in part to the fact that far fewer data are
available on state-imposed forced labor relative to the other forms,
pointing to a need for further research in this area” (17). At its base,
the ILO sampling uses a commonly used statistical method of
capture-recapture sampling. This sampling allows researchers to
calculate elusive populations, like the number of fish in a lake, where
there are no sampling boundaries available. The major margin for
error associated with the sampling in this case is that it relies upon
reported cases as its base. Indeed, the ILO sampling is almost
wholly reliant upon secondary sources (reports from NGOs, the
media, government agencies, academics, and trade unions as
partners). That said, based on these partnerships, notably
academics as validators such as Siddharth Kara of Harvard
University, this estimate is a substantial increase over the 27 million
estimated by scholar Kevin Bales in 2004, ubiquitously cited by the
US government, the UNODC, and NGOs worldwide (Bales 2004). And
it is a huge leap forward from the aforementioned 2005 ILO estimate
of 12.3 million based on weaker methodology and a propensity to
undercount veritable human trafficking victims who are adults in the
sex industry, or who have not crossed international borders.
The State Department TIP Report is perhaps the most significant
example of research and mapping of the problem.1 Still, the TIP
Report “using information from US embassies, government officials
sharing statistics, nongovernmental and international organizations,
published reports, news articles, academic studies, research trips to
every region of the world, and information submitted to
[email protected]” (TIP Report 2012), is not designed to provide a
baseline for the incidence of human trafficking. Rather, it is designed
to evaluate efforts on a state-by-state basis to legislate and combat
human trafficking, which places those states into four tiers. Indeed,
those tiers are based not on the extent of the human trafficking
phenomenon in countries but rather on the will and activity of the
government to address the problem. Once again, the methods have
been criticized by some for being undisclosed and subject to
pressure on the basis of geopolitics. Yet the tiers offer their own
baseline as states move between tiers. Thus far, the TIP Report, with
admittedly less than transparent methods, offers the international
community the most consistent reporting on the status of individual
countries. It has significantly raised awareness of governments and
publics. Judith Kelley of Duke University and Beth Simmons of
Harvard University have established a robust causal relationship
between the Report’s ranking and enactment of antitrafficking laws
(Kelley and Simmons 2014).
 Another example of mapping is the International Organization for
Migration (IOM). The IOM focuses on supporting specific projects or
networks of NGOs in regional hot spots, whether in the Volta region
of Ghana or Vietnam, to serve international human trafficking
victims. The US State Department antitrafficking office supports
these programs and encouraged IOM to form a comprehensive
database of information on trafficking survivors. IOM’s Counter-
Trafficking Module Database that “facilitates the management of all
IOM direct assistance, movement and reintegration on processes
through a centrally managed system, as well as mapping victims’
trafficking experiences,” provides a useful tool for identifying
potential hotspots. The problem with this database, however, is that
it is dependent on host government cooperation, and sources of
funding to scale up its work. Moreover, it provides after-the-fact data
that does not serve the purpose of mapping the scale of the
problem.
UNODC and its former Executive Director (2002–2010) Antonio
Maria Costa aspired to produce a global human trafficking report as
an analog to its annual World Drug Report to offer an ostensibly
more legitimate multilateral counterpart to the US TIP Report. It has
produced only two editions of the Global Report on Trafficking in
Persons (2009 and 2012), and those two editions have pulled their
punches regarding criticizing the UN member states and exhibited
gaps in information and data larger than in the imperfect, if
influential, US Report. The 2009 and 2012 reports feature individual
country profiles with very limited statistics and graphics for each,
which although illustrative, are not consistent across countries and
are significantly more limited than the US TIP Report. Even the most
recent 2012 report has profiles of only two-thirds of the nations of
the world.
In an emerging area of mapping, there is great ardor on the part
of business, NGOs, and the US Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) to apply cutting-edge aspects of geospatial and investigative
modeling using recent advances in big data analytics pioneered by,
for example, Google, Deloitte, and Palantir (Skibola 2012). Yet this
approach’s success relies on robust and large datasets, integrated
dialogue between enthusiastic experts on human trafficking, and
equally enthusiastic technicians in the data analytics industry, which,
quite simply, do not exist today. Moreover, if there are plans to use
baselines to preempt interventions to address particular human
trafficking hotspots, then standardization of data appears necessary
—say, between known hotspots such as the Mekong region in
Southeast Asia and the Amazon Basin in Brazil.
In a broader sense of mapping, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security
organization, comprised of fifty-seven states spanning from
Vancouver to Vladivostok, hosts a multistakeholder partnership: the
Alliance against Trafficking in Persons (Alliance). The first OSCE
special representative and coordinator for Combating Trafficking in
Human Beings (SR), Helga Konrad, proposed establishing an
informal platform among IGOs and NGOs active in fighting
trafficking. Consultations with the OSCE’s chairperson-in-office and
secretary general, member states, and heads of other IGOs spurred
the Alliance’s formation in July 2004. Konrad and her successors as
SR have since chaired the Alliance, which is now comprised of some
forty stakeholder institutions (OSCE 2014). The first meeting of the
Alliance embraced an informal model for exchange of information
and best practices. Input from other IGOs led to establishment of a
smaller group of experts, the Alliance Expert Coordination Team
(AECT), representing the same organizations at the working level,
which meets twice a year in Vienna to share trends, methods, and
avoid duplication. AECT meetings have yielded common
understandings on such issues as protection and shelters for victims,
national rapporteurs, and the protection of migrant, unaccompanied,
and asylum-seeking children. The annual Alliance conference
facilitates a high-level dialogue between national authorities, civil
society, and other stakeholders in the OSCE region. The tenth
Alliance meeting focused, for instance, on a particularly hidden form
of trafficking, domestic servitude (OSCE 2014). That the Alliance
members pay their own way to meetings and events shows how
concretely they value the forum.
This array of some of the most promising and potential efforts
reinforces the huge need for the research and mapping of trafficking
in order to advance human dignity and its elusive realization.

Partnerships for Protection

Focus #2: Victim Identification
In terms of dignity, one might say that the most morally urgent
focus of antitrafficking work (even more than prosecution and
prevention) is the protection of known, suffering victims. To offer
protection, one has to first find victims. This is no easy matter as
human trafficking is an underground economic and criminal activity.
Moreover, victims are often treated as criminals acting on their own
volition (e.g., in prostitution or undocumented migration) and worthy
of detention, deportation, scorn, or apathy. Perpetrators use this fact
to intimidate victims into not fleeing from their literal or
psychological grip—suggesting if they do flee, they will only be
treated as criminals or deportable, irregular migrants. And because
victims are frightened of law enforcement and immigration officials,
these officers need institutional partners to assist in their efforts.
For instance, Brazil has a substantial forced labor problem, most
notably in the Amazon region, where victims clear fields to raise
cattle and produce charcoal to heat pig iron for making steel. The
Ford Motor Company uncovered the latter problem, which arose
when it was discovered this activity had been contaminating steel
supplies for its cars (Ford 2010-2011). Cognizant of its legacy of
colonial slavery, Brazil’s government has partnered with NGOs,
businesses, and the ILO to address human trafficking for labor-
related exploitation. With dedicated US funding support for Brazil,
which was among eight target countries under a Bush presidential
initiative, and long-term technical advice from the ILO, Brazil’s
Ministry of Labor has created mobile inspection teams to find and
liberate forced laborers—5,016 in 2008, 3,769 in 2009, 2,617 in
2010, 2,428 in 2011, and 2,560 in 2012 (TIP Reports 2009, 2010,
2011, 2012, 2013). Despite the overall decline in numbers, this is a
remarkable effort to identify and assist victims.
Another example is a partnership of government, NGOs, and the
business community. The US Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) contracted with an NGO to run the primary national
hotline for human trafficking. After awarding its first contract to an
NGO partner that provided only limited language services and had
an inadequate capacity for reliably answering calls, HHS awarded
and renewed the contract twice to the Polaris Project during both
Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. Its National
Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline (1-888-373-
7888) offers not only information and training but also a place for
victims, or those suspecting they have come across victims, to call.
The hotline can quickly connect the latter to law enforcement. The
LexisNexis Group made an in-kind contribution to Polaris by
designing and building an elaborate searchable database allowing
the NHTRC to refer callers to law enforcement and service providers
countrywide—applying a comparative competency to extend the
capacity of HHS and Polaris (LexisNexis 2009). Now Google has
funded Polaris to share its model for setting up hotlines for victim
identification in countries around the world. The statistics for the
number of calls and victims assisted have grown markedly (Polaris
Project 2011).2
A more troubling case on victim identification was in Cambodia,
roughly between 2005 and 2007. The US TIP Report, by design of
the US Congress in the TVPA, assesses other governments’ efforts to
combat trafficking by assigning one of four possible rankings: Tier 1
(best), Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List, and Tier 3 (representing minimal
government will or effort to address the problem). It can spur action
in other governments to combat human trafficking by threatening
sanctions and limiting nonhumanitarian aid to countries with the
lowest tier ranking of Tier 3. The TVPA (and the Palermo Protocol to
the UN Convention on Organized Crime, also finalized in 2000)
emphasizes prosecution of victims. Thus, when Cambodia received
Tier 3, its illiberal government interpreted it to mean they needed to
lock up more criminals in the sex trade, which sadly included many
prostituted girls and women (Doyle 2006). As a result, some
institutional arrangements have not only advanced victim
identification but also have temporarily hindered victim identification.
Clearer US diplomacy and partnership with and training of
Cambodian law enforcement in international agencies and NGOs,
such as International Justice Mission, have improved the situation
(earning Cambodia Tier 2, the second highest possible ranking in the
last five years, 2008–2012).
In short, partnerships for victim identification need government
will, the understanding of and training on the nature of who is a
victim, and actors outside the public sector extending capacity
beyond law enforcement, whose officers are sometimes intimidating
to victims. If institutions lack these qualities, they cannot help
victims reclaim their dignity by the necessary first step: finding
them.

Focus #3: Survivors’ Immediate Care

In addition to providing safety from traffickers, victim protection is
typically interpreted as furnishing housing, food, and medical and
counseling services for physical and psychological traumas induced
by trafficking. Numerous global partnerships have emphasized
immediate care and service (vice longer term empowerment), given
the connotation of the word “protection” embedded in the Palermo
Protocol and many States-Parties’ national laws conforming to it.
One domestic example is the Salvation Army STOP-IT Program, a
Chicago-based initiative that works with national and Chicago-area
organizations to provide psychological treatment, residential
placement, and support services for victims of sex trafficking. One of
STOP-IT’s most productive partnerships resulted in the success of
Operation Little Girl Lost, a yearlong, undercover investigation
undertaken by Chicago law enforcement working in concert with
social service providers. Officers from the Cook County Sheriff’s
police vice unit, the US Attorney’s office, the federally created High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program, the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI), and the State Attorney’s federally funded
Human Trafficking Unit—together constituting the Chicago Task
Force on Human Trafficking—worked to target street gang members
who had sex-trafficked women and children (Alvarez 2011). Although
this collaboration had important prosecution-related dimensions
(arrests of more than fifty customers and nine offenders trafficking
women in the Chicago area), the immediate victim protection is
noteworthy. Working alongside law enforcement, STOP-IT and the
International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA) joined numerous
raids to promptly address the needs of the recovered victims,
synthesizing efforts by government and nongovernment local service
providers to more efficiently allocate resources and training
(Salvation Army 2013; Sweeney 2012). In this case, one sees not
only a key role of an NGO in a governance partnership within this
focus area but a faith-based actor, as discussed by Nicole Bibbins
Sedaca in chapter 13 in this book.
Another energetic diplomatic actor besides the United States has
been the Government of the Philippines. Citizens of the Philippines
are migrant workers from all over the world, and the remittances to
family members are the second highest in Asia, accounting for some
9 percent of the nation’s GDP (Huang, Rahman, and Yoeh 2005).
Most embassies of the Philippines in nations with a substantial
number of Filipino citizens run shelters for human trafficking victims
who are running away from their exploitation—from domestic
servitude to construction work. This is true in Gulf Arab States where
placement fees to labor recruiters, sponsorship laws, holding of
passports by employers, and treatment of foreigners and women as
lesser human beings make legal, documented guest workers
vulnerable to human trafficking. By running shelters and engaging
the host government about their citizens (rather than ignoring the
problem as numerous other governments do for fear of bad relations
with host governments, which could hinder contracting access for
work visas and hence remittances), these diplomatic entities extend
global governance and the realization of dignity. It cannot be called
ad hoc because it is the concerted policy of the Government of the
Philippines, which moreover forms complementary relationships with
NGOs offering immediate care for victims.
These varied cases show that immediate victim care requires
more than physical shelters, benefits from nimble NGO cooperation
with governments, and even benefits from governments engaging
one another.

Focus #4: Survivors’ Long-Term Economic Viability

Finding, sheltering, and offering basic services to trafficking victims
are not enough. Re-empowerment requires survivors to be capable
of making a living wage and re-integrating themselves into the
population and society.
The Emancipation Network (TEN), also known as Made by
Survivors, provides projects to this end through education and
economic empowerment. By working closely with a dozen partner
agencies in Nepal, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Uganda, and the
United States, TEN offers employment to over one thousand
survivors and education to two hundred former victims as well as
their children.
TEN has a partnership with a local Indian NGO called the Rescue
Foundation. Their shelter in Boisar, India, houses one hundred young
slavery survivors on a forty-acre farm an hour from Mumbai, India,
where Rescue Foundation—the largest child rescue agency in India
as an NGO accredited by Government of the State of Maharastra—
pulls hundreds of minors each year from that megacity’s
Kamathipura red light district. Finding sustainable employment for
older girls and young adults is difficult, given the stigma surrounding
prostitution and the lack of local jobs for poor, untrained women.
The partnership trains survivors in renewable energy management,
agriculture, and animal husbandry to help them reintegrate into their
communities. They work in a biogas plant designed to recycle dung
from the farm’s cattle. The complex, in turn, provides dairy products
and fuel for the shelter. Surplus energy and dairy products are
subsequently sold locally to provide sustainable income for the
survivors and the shelter. This holistic approach gives survivors tools
to thrive in the long term—to apply their agency—and gives them a
stake in the robust sustainability of their community.
Another institution in India has advanced long-term economic
empowerment to survivors of modern-day slavery. The Pragati
Gramodyog evam Samaj-kalyan Sansthan (PGS) is a nonprofit
organization that offers comprehensive services to stonebreakers in
debt bondage to help achieve sustainable freedom. To accomplish
this objective, PGS has partnered with the international nonprofit
Free the Slaves (FTS) while working closely with the government of
India and local banks.
PGS partnerships have been particularly successful in helping
hundreds of families free themselves from enslavement in stone
quarry sites located within the Allahabad province. For example, PGS
has created self-help groups (SHGs) that include freed laborers as
well as others who are at risk of falling prey to the debt-bondage
phenomenon. Once the groups are in place, PGS engages the local
government to acquire cooperative quarry lease licenses for this
newly formed community. When leases are issued, the laborers are
then able to capitalize on the skills they have already developed,
collectively manage the sites, and generate their own incomes. To
facilitate these efforts, PGS assists SHG members to persuade village
leaders to purchase stones quarried by nonbonded laborers for local
projects. In the village of Rajgarh, this particular model enjoyed a
tangible impact. There, bonded stonebreakers were encouraged to
escape their slaveholders to work on a SHG quarry site, where they
finally earned salaries three times what they were paid by their
previous employers (Free the Slaves 2014).
Prior to these interventions, breaking free from debt bondage
was virtually impossible. If families fled, they met the harsh reality of
acute poverty; opportunities for these landless and unskilled workers
were almost entirely absent (Singh and Tripathi 2010). By leveraging
resources and linking these individuals to government employment
programs, trafficking survivors have been empowered to start small
businesses and other income-yielding activities. Collaboration
between PGS, the SHGs, banks, and the District Development Office
has helped over 1,900 SHG members assert their inherent value by
providing them with the economic, legal and social tools, as well as
opportunities they need to thrive. The agency, prosperity, and dignity
of this population have been extended (Free the Slaves 2014).
In this focus area, there is a clear need for businesses to train
and hire survivors of human trafficking. ManpowerGroup, a global
labor placement firm focusing on neutralizing scurrilous labor
recruiters who lure victims into human trafficking situations, can play
a significant role. Yet many businesses without these special
motivations can offer jobs as partners of government and NGOs.
Businesses’ aversion to the risk ascribed to hiring a trafficking
survivor is as unfortunate as it is predictable. US antitrafficking
Ambassador Luis Cde-Baca envisions NGOs and businesses
maintaining a joint database to help match jobs with the specific skill
sets of victims. Businesses should audit their supply chains for signs
of trafficking and commit marketing resources for raising awareness,
but they especially should not lose sight of the fact that they are in a
unique position to offer survivors the key to a new life: employment.

Partnerships for Prosecution

Focus #5: Bringing Traffickers to Justice
A key aspect of helping trafficking survivors reclaim their dignity is to
bring to justice those who sought to rob that dignity. This P—
prosecution—is emphasized above all other goals in the Palermo
Protocol and TVPA.
To this end, the International Justice Mission (IJM) has had great
success partnering with local authorities in the Philippines as a part
of their Project Lantern. Over five years, IJM has sought to
document that, when antitrafficking laws are enforced by well-
trained and equipped police and courts, children are less vulnerable
to traffickers. As a major global institution (as seen in its work to
address HIV/AIDS, treated elsewhere in this book), the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation funded a new IJM office in Cebu to work
in tandem with the local police to have one hundred suspected
traffickers arrested and successfully charged in that metropolitan
area. External researchers found that the number of minors available
for exploitation in the commercial sex industry in the Cebu metro
area dropped 79 percent from what their initial study showed four
years earlier, just before IJM began its casework in partnership with
Cebu authorities (Haugen and Boutros 2014, 244). They also found
measurable increases in law enforcement activity that addressed sex
trafficking cases and in the commitment of law enforcement officers
trained through the project to resolving the cases. IJM is replicating
the project in Manila and Angeles City (in northern Luzon) and hopes
to continue its work worldwide (IJM 2010). These local efforts reveal
how partnerships not only yield greater prosecutions but also
tangibly contribute to the crime’s prevention (Haugen and Boutros
2014).
On the other hand, the Government of Brazil has had an anemic
record on bringing perpetrators of forced labor to justice.
Unfortunately, the active partnerships between the Ministry of Labor
and ILO discussed above to identify victims have not yielded
punishments for those responsible for forced labor. There are three
reasons for this. First, powerful landholding interests continue to
influence the legislative and executive branches of Brazil’s
government. As a result, although 2,560 victims of forced labor were
rescued by government personnel in 2012, only 10 percent of those
victims had a prosecution launched to hold a perpetrator to account.
Second, the Brazilian judicial system does not move cases through
its courts quickly—whereby justice delayed is justice denied. Third,
judges sentencing perpetrators of forced labor tend to suspend or
reduce sentences. In 2012, for example, thirty-nine people were
convicted of slave labor (trabalho escravo), which includes more
general forms of exhausting and degrading labor broader than
human trafficking. Of these sentences, many were commuted to
community service while others were given short terms in halfway
houses (vice prisons). While convictions rose from 2011 to 2012, the
figures remain minuscule compared to the thousands of victims
rescued and the over 25,000 total victims estimated in the 2011 US
TIP Report (TIP Reports 2011, 2012, 2013). Regrettably, efforts of
the Brazilian Labor Ministry, ILO, NGOs, and enlightened businesses
do not seem to be galvanizing law enforcement, prosecutors, and
judges to yield prosecutions and especially convictions. This is a
gaping hole in progress.
A last example is the partnership between States-Parties to the
Palermo Protocol and the UNODC. UNODC, under Executive Director
Antonio Maria Costa, emphasized a UN Global Initiative to Fight
Trafficking (UN.GIFT), largely an exercise in holding conferences
funded by princes of Gulf Arab States with problematic records on
addressing human trafficking (Report of the Vienna Forum 2008).
(To his credit, Costa stressed that partnerships should be the fourth
P, beyond those cited in the Palermo Protocol, prior to then
secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s statement to the same effect.) His
successor in 2010, Yuri Fedotov, has championed a Voluntary Trust
Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking. This admirable idea seems
clearly outside the core competency of a UN agency devoted to law
enforcement against transnational organized crime. To the degree
UNODC advances prosecution, it is through urging UN member
states to sign and ratify the Palermo Protocol and to implement laws
conforming to that treaty based on model laws UNODC and UN.GIFT
have developed (Brusca 2011, 8–20). Yet, what appears to fit its
core competency but be grossly underemphasized is technical
assistance to states for implementing those laws once they are in
place. As Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros of the United States and
Irene Khan of Bangladesh have noted, the gap between rule of law
on paper (treaties and legislation) and enforced justice is acute
(Haugen and Boutros 2010; Khan 2009).
Partnerships could contribute more to holding traffickers
accountable in two ways. First, victim rehabilitation is crucial to
successful prosecutions. Stabilizing survivors wracked by physical
and psychological trauma is not only important in and of itself, but it
makes for more willing witnesses to assist law enforcement with
investigating, prosecuting, and convicting perpetrators. There is a
temptation to use leverage on victims, for example, detaining them
and withholding immigration relief from migrants until they
cooperate with law enforcement. This is flatly wrongheaded.
Instead, law enforcement needs well-resourced government and
NGO social service providers to support witnesses so their traffickers
can be held accountable.
Second, governments need labor inspectors to partner with law
enforcement personnel, who often work only in isolated bureaucratic
silos. Although victim rescue and protection is a moral imperative,
law enforcement bodies need to be given access to evidence for a
prosecution. Otherwise, a victim’s access to justice will never be fully
realized. While serving as US antitrafficking ambassador, I met
Burmese girls victimized in the seafood-processing industry in
Thailand. I subsequently urged collaboration in Thailand between
labor inspectors and law enforcement, which appears to have taken
place (TIP Reports 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). Similar cooperation in
Brazil could help advance the heretofore lagging punishment of
traffickers.

Partnerships for Prevention

Focus #6: Preventive Awareness and Training
Initiatives
Of the three pillars of the UN Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in
Persons, beyond prosecution and protection, is prevention. A sixth
focus area in which to examine the capacity of global institutions and
partnerships in the major area of prevention is awareness campaigns
and training.
For instance, the goal of World Vision Cambodia (WVC) is to
empower communities to build a better future for Cambodia’s
children. To target human trafficking, WVC began collaborating with
DHS. The work of these partners is a component of the DHS
initiative called The Blue Campaign. The Blue Campaign is the
banner under which the DHS unites its various antitrafficking
programs. One element of the Blue Campaign attempted to prevent
trafficking by publicizing the legal consequences for human
traffickers. WVC coordinated this effort to illustrate the illegality of
child sex tourism and created billboards within the country that
evocatively showed why travelers should not participate in this
industry. Captions read: “Abuse a child in this country, go to jail in
yours,” and “I am not a tourist attraction.” This second caption is
superimposed over a black and white photo of a child. These signs
make it clear that child predators will be caught, which alludes to the
training of law enforcement officials and newly enacted legislation
that protect vulnerable youth throughout the world. The billboards
also include a twenty-four-hour hotline number staffed by operators
who are prepared to receive any reports of suspicious activity. This
engages the entire community in preventative efforts by establishing
a venue for reporting suspected trafficking.
This effort, coupled with the work of the Cambodian
antitrafficking forces, international regulations, and the large-scale
work by both World Vision and the US Office of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, prompted a crackdown on child sex tourism
following its implementation. The arrest of at least eight alleged
foreign pedophiles in 2006 demonstrated to the world Cambodia’s
commitment to decreasing the impunity for sex traffickers within the
country. Though these highly publicized arrests and the very visible
billboards show that traffickers will be prosecuted, these efforts have
not been enough to come close to eradicating the practice within
Cambodia. An IJM investigator and Chanthol Oung, executive
director of the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center, said that the
recent arrests—although causes for celebration—have prompted
increased sophistication on the part of traffickers. Oung said that the
government will need to allocate much greater amounts of legal and
physical resources to convict the child predators (Naly 2004).
 ManpowerGroup is a major global labor placement, multinational
corporation helping employers with both long-term and short-term
workforce solutions. It specializes in training to improve the
competitiveness of its talent pool. ManpowerGroup partners with the
nonprofit organization, Verité. By working directly with individual
companies to ensure that their supply chains employ fair labor
recruitment practices, this partnership decreases the incidence of
human trafficking (ManpowerGroup 2012).
Verité created the initiative Help Wanted to research the ways in
which current labor recruitment practices can lead to human
trafficking. Help Wanted publicizes this research so that the private
sector, civil society organizations, and governmental institutions can
stem trafficking. Its publications outline a fair hiring framework for
businesses and a template for winnowing exploitative practices in
supply chains (Verité 2013). Help Wanted research demonstrates
how continued profits are dependent upon maintenance of fair,
nonexploitative labor practices, in order to avoid legal risk, harm to
brand value and company reputation, and threats to investment and
financing (Verité 2010). The Verité model is based on working with
businesses and establishing profit-driven interests as well as moral
bases of combating trafficking. The vitality of a Manpower-Verité
collaboration compared to most business-NGO partnerships lies in
the similarity of premises and goals, and the complementarity of
assets.
A problematic example of an awareness campaign has been MTV
Exit, an NGO that seeks to raise awareness of human trafficking in
Asia through music, films, and concerts. Because it is not formally
part of the MTV corporation, MTV corporate resources do not fund
the project—it just lends its brand name. Its partners (i.e., funders)
have included the US Agency for International Development
(USAID), the counterpart agency Australian Aid, and the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Circa 2005–2008, MTV Exit’s
video and film messaging was distinctly murky with regard to sex
trafficking demand. In that period, USAID funded MTV Exit videos
and public service announcements in India, which suggested that if
a viewer was a purchaser of commercial sex that he or she should
not contribute to human trafficking.3 One does not need to wholly
equate prostitution to human trafficking to recognize that a basic
problem of commercial sex is the enabling environment of sex
trafficking (prostitution for all minors, seen under the law as lacking
meaningful consent and for adults being subjected to force, fraud, or
coercion). (This is not to mention MTV as a separate entity
simultaneously celebrating imagery and language of pimps in videos,
again in the enabling environment of sex trafficking.) Since then,
MTV has sought to mobilize young activists through live and filmed
concerts, featuring major music and acting entertainers as
headliners. Although it spurs younger people to engage in social
media on this issue, it is not clear where the MTV Exit content
creates textured awareness, as human trafficking is a classic case of
the perils of knowing a little (such as incorrectly thinking that it is
chiefly about children, when the ILO suggests they are only 25
percent of its victims; that it is abduction; that it refers to human
smuggling; or that it requires physical violence). By comparison,
CNN’s Freedom Project (sponsored by corporate partners), which
aired news stories and documentary films since 2011, including
highlighting best practices of changemakers, offers qualitative
awareness. As a function of ASEAN sponsorship, the content has
also downplayed the responsibility and accountability of states in
Asia—given the socalled ASEAN way—as an operating mode not
interfering in the sovereign political decision making of its member
states (Tavares 2009).
In short, to be transformative, institutional partnerships for
awareness and training need partners unanimously committed to
systematically reducing human trafficking’s impact, forming useful
content, targeting suitable audiences of the content, and giving
those audiences a meaningful way to act to incrementally contribute
to the advancement of dignity.

Focus #7: Preventive Anti-Demand Efforts

The cases of WVC, MTV Exit, and Verité point to a second area of
preventive work for antitrafficking partnerships: addressing the
demand side of the equation. WVC in part sought to deter those
euphemized as “child sex tourists” from creating demand for child
sex trafficking. MTV Exit’s messaging in part condoned sex buying
and failed to address demand. Verité’s training materials recognize
how consumer demand for lower prices militates companies to look
for cheap labor, requiring them to put in place robust vetting of labor
recruitment practices. Preventive demand reduction represents a
seventh focus area of its own.
Returning to the rich case of Brazil, the Brazilian government
publicizes a so-called Dirty List of companies implicated in forced
labor, which are denied both public and private financing. This
stigma uses market demand to force the companies to change. The
knowledge to the consumer in Brazil of companies responsible for
such forced labor—heightened by denial of financing—applied a
market force against the dignity-denying practice. The Ford Motor
Company discovered that forced labor in the Amazon was applied to
making charcoal, which in turn was used to smelt pig iron, which in
turn was used to make steel for export to the United States in Ford
automobiles. With the stick of the Dirty List and the carrot of support
from the ILO and a Bush presidential funding initiative, Brazilian
businesses established a partnership to inspect supply chains for
forced labor—the Citizen’s Charcoal Institute. This is one of the best-
documented case studies of how businesses, NGOs, authorities, and
the ILO have worked together to counteract the demand for cheap
inputs and labor feeding into its supply chain (Ford 2010/2011).
There are a number of examples and assessments of child sex
trafficking demand prevention efforts in the developing world
(Vidyamali and Burton 2007). Yet let us take an example in the
United States, pertinent worldwide to the trend of sex trafficking
moving from the street and brothel setting to being sold via the
internet. “Adult services” advertisements on Craigslist.com and
Backpage.com have been proven to enable trafficking of young
women and girls, as testimonies of survivors validate. After
weathering a similar wave of popular disapproval and pressure from
state-level attorneys-general, Craigslist.com eliminated this section
of its website. However, because the Village Voice makes an
estimated $22 million from these advertisements and has seen
profits rise as it gained Craigslist.com’s business, it has resisted
following suit (Pompeo 2012).
A multistakeholder partnership focused on both legal and
publicity dimensions has worked to shrink an enabling environment
for trafficking. The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW),
an advocacy NGO, operates in fifteen countries and every major
region of the world. It sponsored multiple protests in front of the
Village Voice headquarters, coordinated and catalyzed other groups’
calls for the elimination of Backpage’s adult ads, and encouraged
two sets of key public officials to call for the same (CATW 2011,
2012; Office of Koster 2012). First, attorneys general from forty-
eight states issued a statement describing Backpage.com as a sex
trafficking hub (notably for minors) and called for the organization to
reform its practices (Office of Blumenthal 2012; Office of Kirk 2012).
Second, a bipartisan coalition of US senators issued a Sense of the
Senate resolution calling on Village Voice Media to end its facilitation
of human trafficking by eliminating the adult services section of their
website. The senators also wrote to forty companies to inform them
that their advertising host (Village Voice) owns Backpage, that
Backpage facilitates trafficking, and that they should leverage their
economic influence to force Village Voice to change Backpage policy
(Powers 2012). Shortly after this letter was distributed, six major
companies indicated that they would discontinue their
advertisements with Village Voice Media in response to the senators’
letters. This partnership of NGOs and public officials brought the
leverage of a third actor, the corporate sector, to bear.
Another partnership is slaveryfootprint.org, created by musician
and filmmaker Justin Dillon. Based on consumer awareness of their
“carbon footprint” affecting their demand for climate change-
inducing goods and services, Dillon consulted Stanford scholars on
how to create a website and app related to human trafficking. As
one of its signature efforts since 2010, the US State Department
antitrafficking office has funded the demand-focused prevention
effort. One enters the website, answers a few questions about one’s
lifestyle, gets an estimate of the number of slaves (human trafficking
victims) that that lifestyle relies upon, and is then encouraged to
contact companies and urge them to strengthen their antitrafficking
supply chain auditing. I asked Notre Dame undergraduate research
assistant Nicole Michels to go on the website, and she wrote to me:

[T]hrough the use of simple animations, colorful graphics and

sets of questions about consumption and lifestyle,
slaveryfootprint.org is able to guide the consumer to a state
of reflective self-analysis. However, it’s not clear what to do
after finishing the quiz. I was informed that fifty-two slaves
contributed to my lifestyle and then had the option to click on
the “take action” button.… [W]ould-be advocates can call for
antislavery reform by sending a note to companies, spreading
the word through social networks, donating money to
antislavery campaigns, and lobbying government
representatives. The entire process relies on cursory
questions to connect lifestyles to their consequences when
really the problem is much deeper.

Although it aptly addresses demand, slaveryfootprint.org as an NGO

partnership with a government agency falls short for two reasons.
First, the back of the envelope calculation of the number of slaves
supporting a lifestyle is the antithesis of the research and baselines
Focus Area #1 requires. Second, anti-demand partnership needs to
choose between working with companies (e.g., Verité) or challenging
them publicly (e.g., CATW); it is unclear which slavery footprint
represents, if either.
Although these last two examples are merely suggestive (if highly
so) as opposed to being empirically conclusive about potential
impact on dignity in truly global multistakeholder partnerships, one
can see some lessons for preventive antidemand partnerships. To
succeed, partnerships require both addressing the demand forces
propelling gross and violent exploitation in labor (e.g., charcoal in
producing pig iron) and sexual (e.g., child prostitution) domains.
They must apply the capacity of complementary actors in the public
sector, corporate, and civil society to create transformative leverage.

Partnerships for Resources

Focus #8: Marshaling and Coordinating Funding
Finally, it requires resources for collective action against human
trafficking to tangibly impact dignity—empowering those people
already victimized, reducing its incidence based on baselines, and
ultimately abolishing it as a modern form of slavery. Moreover,
efforts and resources must be coordinated. Here, two cases of
partnerships are instructive.
Humanity United is a philanthropy underwritten by Pierre and
Pamela Omidyar, based on money made in the growth of eBay, for
which the former helped lead. Imbued with a Silicon Valley ethic of
metrics, engaging the private sector, and encouraging social
entrepreneurship, it funds efforts in two areas: (1) fighting mass
atrocities and their aftermath through postconflict peace building,
and (2) human trafficking. Its basic model is the same in both areas:
funding specific projects of NGOs globally and once an NGO proves
to be a change-maker, funding its general operational budget with
no strings attached but one. That one condition is membership in an
NGO coalition designed to coordinate interventions, speak with a
unified voice to government entities about their own policy and
funding priorities, and avoid competition with each other based on a
fundraising imperative.
In the human trafficking area, the result is ATEST. This alliance
includes organizations with varied comparative competencies—in
trafficking globally or in the United States, involving migrants or
countries’ citizens of countries, for labor or sexual exploitation, of
adults or other minors. Perhaps ATEST’s success over time is not just
coordinating the resources of its own members (grantees) but
encouraging other key actors to markedly increase resources (e.g.,
the US government or the Gates Foundation to address this problem
as the latter addresses HIV/AIDS) and to coordinate their application
with others (O’Connor 2012).
Let us return to the example of UNODC and the UN.GIFT
initiative it launched as a global partnership to combat human
trafficking. After the 2000 Palermo Protocol (for which UNODC is
bureaucratically responsible) came into effect in 2003, UNODC
chaired the established UN interagency group related to combating
human trafficking, including, for instance, other agencies such as the
UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the ILO, which address particular
dimensions of the problem. UNODC launched the UN.GIFT Initiative
ostensibly to better coordinate efforts to fight human trafficking,
based on seed money from the United Arab Emirates. Officials of
their partner agencies in UN.GIFT, such as the ILO, IOM, or the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have
told me they did not experience enhanced resource or programmatic
coordination from UNODC. Major resources were not mobilized,
other than from the United Arab Emirates, eager to be seen backing
multilateral efforts as the trafficking problem festered at home, as it
still does today according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the issue
(UNOHCHR 2012). The product was chiefly conferences, model laws,
trainings for businesses and legislators, and some dedicated reports.
The examples of Humanity United and UN.GIFT suggest that
global partnerships can mobilize and coordinate use of resources if
parochial institutional interests can be bridged with an ethic of
complementarity and growing the pie. In global efforts to address
human trafficking, the former does more of that (albeit chiefly with
US-headquartered actors), and the latter has not.

Partnerships Which Advance Dignity

Of the antitrafficking partnerships discussed above, some have
proven to be more fruitful than others. What distinguishes between
a limited impact, higher impact, and a truly transformative
partnership, in terms of the two fundamental elements of human
dignity, which global institutions should advance (as raised in
Anthony Clark Arend’s and my introduction to this book) are: agency
and social recognition. To advance the agency and social recognition
that victims or potential victims of human trafficking enjoy, there are
four common denominators or four M’s.
First, market mechanisms matter. A partnership must account for
the supply of trafficking victims (e.g., children detached from family
and regular and irregular migrants) and demand (for cheap
products, cheap labor, and purchased sex). Brazil’s Dirty List and
CATW engage the latter, while slaveryfootprint.org and MTV Exit do
so poorly. Moreover, it needs to account for the natural competition
between actors—international organizations or NGOs seeking
leadership roles, prominence, or funding at the expense of others.
Humanity United has done this well, UN.GIFT has not.
Second, metrics matter. Collective action needs to have a sense
of the problem and its extent in order to choose interventions and
measure progress. Other activities need a serious empirical basis. If
actionable big data does not exist, and mutual empirical
understanding fails to bridge specialists respectively in data analytics
and human trafficking, dreams of disrupting trafficking networks will
founder. Or, in borrowing the powerful concept of carbon footprint
from the sustainability field, if slaveryfootprint.org offers only the
roughest of estimates of how many human trafficking victims
support a consumer’s lifestyle based on a handful of questions, it is
not a very sustainable means for affecting consumer demand.
Third, matching missions matter. For a multistakeholder
institution to succeed, its partners need to have aligned goals. For
instance, Verité as a non-confrontational NGO and the
ManpowerGroup as a global human resources company both had
interests and normative values that converged.
Finally, motives matter. Not only must the partners (governments,
international organizations, NGOs, foundations, businesses) have
matching intent, but they need good and sound intent. Unsound
intent is seen in a business pursuing window-dressing corporate
social responsibility or discrete philanthropy without addressing
human trafficking in its business operations or supply chains; an
NGO more focused on fundraising, celebrities, and galas than
programmatic impact; or an international organization seeking to
raise money from dubious sources and places itself at the front of a
parade of sister organizations. Lacking the determination to do
more, partnerships pursuing worthy interventions fall short of
transformative impact. For instance, Brazil’s government devoted
labor inspectors to find and rescue some 2,560 forced labor victims
in 2012 but did not partner the inspectors with law enforcement
successfully enough to prosecute the victims’ tormenters more than
10 percent of the time in order to better serve the social recognition
and hence the dignity of those victims.
This book relies upon a number of Kantian notions. It focuses on
the value of embedding rule of law and participatory governance in
global institutions. Moreover, Kant’s idea that all people have
inherent and equal value and must never be treated as mere means
animates the proposal that human dignity should be the primary aim
of those global institutions. Yet here, another concept from
Immanuel Kant’s ethics is pertinent: actions should be judged by
their intent. Institutional partnerships should be as well.
In short, the fourth of the four P’s to fight human trafficking—
partnerships—need these four M’s. A partnership that is attentive to
market forces, takes metrics seriously, has matching missions, and
exhibits sound motives is more likely to be transformative—to help
survivors reclaim dignity and actually reduce or abolish the ongoing
threat to potential victims. A partnership lacking one or more of
these qualities is increasingly likely to resemble cotton candy—
sweet, colorful fluff.

Notes
Many thanks go to Mathew Caldwell, Nicole Michels, and Andrew
Reddie for superb research assistance and input into this chapter.
 1. In full disclosure and regarding objectivity, I edited and
supervised the production of this report for two years.
2. As the former CEO of Polaris and later a LexisNexis adviser, I
may not be the source to offer a wholly unbiased assessment of the
impact of the hotline.
3. As State Department antitrafficking director from 2007 to
2009, I raised concerns but the partnerships with MTV Exit
continued.

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CHAPTER 12

Religion and the Global Politics of

Human Dignity
The Catholic Church and Beyond
THOMAS BANCHOFF

The idea of human dignity can serve to cultivate shared moral and
political ground in a world divided along religious, social, economic,
and ideological lines. At the same time, the ambiguity of the concept
is a challenge. Unlike human rights, human dignity has not been
codified. Human rights, although contested, have been the object of
a structured conversation for more than half a century. Specific
rights are set down in treaties, conventions, and other legal
instruments. Professionals the world over—including lawyers, judges,
activists, civil servants, and scholars—apply them in their work.
The concept of human dignity does not have these robust
institutional foundations, but it does have a political force that
human rights lacks. The language of rights is legal, whereas the idea
of dignity has deep emotional resonance. Rights are adjudicated and
balanced against one another, whereas human dignity is, by
definition, inviolable. To claim that something violates human dignity
is to assert that it contradicts basic moral precepts and must be
remedied. Over the past two centuries, struggles against slavery,
colonialism, racism, sexism, and the oppression of minorities have
deployed the idea of human dignity—and revulsion at its violations—
in building coalitions and bringing about change. Since the turn of
the twenty-first century, the idea of human dignity and its
implications for economic, social, and political life in a global era has
informed an ambitious human development agenda around poverty,
health care, and education.
The emotional pull and political force of the idea of human dignity
has shaped, and been shaped by, the public role of religion in world
affairs (Casanova 1994). The idea that human life is sacred—widely
shared across the world’s major traditions—adds a powerful
expressive layer to the politics of human dignity. Violations of human
dignity are viewed (and felt) as affronts to both a moral and a
cosmic order. The call of religious leaders to advance human dignity
and human rights is construed and experienced as a response to
God or some ultimate concern. From Mahatma Gandhi to Martin
Luther King Jr. and the Dalai Lama, faith leaders have mobilized
members of their own and other communities around a wide range
of human rights agendas. In a world of state competition for
material power and advantage, religious communities do not
dominate the politics of human dignity and human rights. But they
have contributed to human rights coalitions by infusing the
emotional power of the idea of human dignity with a spiritual
dimension (Banchoff and Wuthnow 2011; Witte and van der Vyver
1996).
This chapter explores the religious politics of human dignity in the
case of the Roman Catholic Church, the most influential formally
organized religious community in the world. After an overview of the
evolution of the idea of human dignity in world politics, it tracks the
Church’s shift towards a human dignity and human rights agenda at
the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and its wider impact since.
A concluding section sketches the idea of human dignity in two other
leading traditions, Islam and Confucianism, as one way to explore
the potential of interfaith and intercultural dialogue and collaboration
to strengthen the international human rights regime.

Human Dignity in World Politics: Paths to

the Present
Historically, the term “human dignity” has had two broad meanings.
The original Latin dignitas signified something noble or worthy; it did
not attach to all human beings, but only the most exemplary. This
first sense is still present in the word “dignified.” Human dignity, so
understood, is something that some people have and others do not.
The second meaning of human dignity extends to all people; it refers
to an inherent worth possessed by members of the species Homo
sapiens. Human dignity, so defined, cannot be taken away. It is
something valuable to be protected and nurtured, recognized and
respected (Kateb 2011; Rosen 2012; Waldron 2012).
This second, universal understanding of human dignity has
emerged as a political force only in the modern era. Although it has
deep historical roots—for example in the Hebrew and Christian
scriptures, Stoicism, and Renaissance humanism—the idea of human
dignity first took on a strong political (as well as philosophical and
religious) complexion during the Enlightenment of the eighteenth
century (Joas 2013). Among philosophers, Immanuel Kant
emphasized human rationality as foundational for dignity; as free,
reasoning moral agents, he argued, we should respect the inherent
dignity of others (Kant 1797). In setting out their social and political
visions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith placed greater
emphasis on the emotional foundations of the idea of human dignity.
Rousseau’s pitié (Rousseau 1754) and Smith’s “moral sentiments”
(Smith 1759) informed the idea of a common humanity and of
obligations of mutual recognition and respect. Among Christian
thinkers of the era, the Methodist John Wesley stood out for his
invocation of human dignity, grounded in humanity’s creation and
redemption through God, as both theological precept and impetus
for social reform (Wesley 1757).
The idea of human dignity—and moral and political outrage at
assaults against it—had an eventful subsequent political career. It
was deployed effectively by American, French, and other national
revolutionaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as
by socialists, abolitionists, and anti-colonialists, among others.
Thomas Paine contrasted “the natural dignity of man” with “the
attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud” (Paine 1791, 88),
whereas Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels lamented the condition of
workers, treated as “a commodity, like every other article of
commerce” and an “appendage of the machine” (Marx and Engels
1848, 227). The Latin American revolutionary Simón Bolívar, like
many other abolitionists, condemned slavery as a “shameless
violation of human dignity” (Bolívar 1826, 148). At the turn of the
twentieth century, the height of the imperialist era, anticolonialists in
Asia and Africa invoked the principles of human dignity, freedom,
and equality in their appeals for national self-determination (Simpson
2004).
Two world wars and the Holocaust proved a turning point in the
global politics of human dignity. The Preamble to the 1945 Charter of
the UN drew a close connection between violations of human dignity
and the mission of the new world organization, expressing a
determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of
war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to
mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the
dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men
and women and of nations large and small.” Other foundational UN
documents also connected revulsion at violations of human dignity
to the imperative of more effective global governance. For example,
the constitution of the 1945 UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) refers to a “great and terrible war … made
possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity,
equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their
place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the
inequality of men and races.”
The founding document of the contemporary human rights
regime, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, draws the
clearest connection between the violation of human dignity and the
imperative of human rights. Its Preamble asserts that “recognition of
the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all
members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice
and peace in the world” and claims that “disregard and contempt for
human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged
the conscience of mankind.” Several subsequent articles elaborate
the human dignity-human rights connection. Article 1 states that “all
human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” and that
“they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act
towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Article 22 is more
specific, relating the idea of human dignity to development and to
the “economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity
and the free development of his personality,” whereas Article 23
goes on to relate human dignity to “just and favorable remuneration
ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human
dignity” (UN General Assembly 1948).1
From the beginning, critics of this dignity language and of the
Universal Declaration and the emergent human rights regime
attacked its conceptual ambiguity, internal tensions, and
ineffectiveness in practice. Amid the political and ideological
contradictions of the Cold War, human rights declarations and
conventions proved an ineffective mechanism for countering
violations of human dignity in the Soviet bloc or in autocracies allied
with the United States. Nevertheless, a fuller human rights regime
developed, gradually and unevenly, on the basic understanding of
human dignity and human rights embodied in the UN Charter and
the Universal Declaration. Two hallmarks were the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1966 (Lauren 2011).
From the 1970s onward, social and political changes in advanced
industrial democracies, much of Eastern Europe and Latin America,
and parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East transformed the global
politics of human dignity and human rights. The extension of the
idea of full human dignity and equality to women, children, and
members of all races and religious and ethnic groups—the complex
product of underlying economic, cultural, and political shifts—
supported efforts within the UN to formulate and endorse a further
set of human rights instruments, including the 1979 Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the
1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and the 1989 Convention on
the Rights of the Child. Over the same time period, national and
transnational human rights coalitions mobilized against violations of
human dignity and in favor of human rights, contributing to waves of
democratization in Latin America and Eastern Europe and the end of
apartheid in South Africa (Huntington 1991).
With the collapse of Soviet communism, the end of the Cold War,
and the accelerating globalization of the world economy, the idea of
human dignity has been increasingly invoked in the context of global
human development. Although the UN declared a Development
Decade in the 1960s, major efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to
address global poverty and shortages of health care and education
ran up against East-West ideological confrontation and an emphasis
on macroeconomic stabilization (structural adjustment) that often
involved cuts in social services for the neediest. The first in a series
of UN Human Development Reports, published in 1990, signaled a
shift of emphasis. In the midst of the Eastern European revolutions,
its authors suggested that “we are rediscovering the essential truth
that people must be at the centre of all development” (UN
Development Programme 1990, iii) and that “the basic objective of
development is to create an enabling environment for people to
enjoy long, healthy and creative lives” (9). The 2000 report made an
even clearer connection between human rights, human dignity, and
development: “Human rights and human development share a
common vision and a common purpose—to secure, for every human
being, freedom, well-being and dignity. Divided by the cold war, the
rights agenda and the development agenda followed parallel tracks.
Now converging, their distinct strategies and traditions can bring
new strength to the struggle for human freedom” (UN Development
Programme 2000).
Over the course of the 1990s, the first concrete efforts took place
to adopt and pursue specific development targets within the UN
system—a trend that culminated in the adoption of the Millennium
Development Goals. In 1995, the World Summit on Social
Development in Copenhagen created momentum for a wider UN
development agenda. The following year, an influential Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report noted
the magnitude of the challenge: an “enduring concern for the human
dignity and well-being of others” coupled with the fact that “more
than one billion people still live in extreme poverty” (OECD 1996,
19). In the run-up to the turn of the millennium, UN agencies
developed five ambitious development goals to be achieved by 2015,
incorporating poverty reduction, primary education, child mortality,
maternal health, and multisector cooperation. In endorsing these
and other Millennium Development Goals at their Millennium Summit
in September 2000, world leaders reiterated the close connection
between human dignity, human rights, and development,
recognizing “a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of
human dignity, equality and equity at the global level” (UN General
Assembly 2000).
From the eighteenth up through the twenty-first century, the idea
of human dignity has supported a widening human rights and
human development agenda. The idea that all human beings,
whatever their origins, are entitled to basic recognition and respect
has historical roots in diverse philosophical and religious traditions
but only rose to political prominence with the first national and
democratic revolutions in Europe and the Americas. Over subsequent
centuries, revulsion at perceived violations of human dignity—
through slavery, industrialization, colonialism, dictatorship, racism,
war, and genocide; the subjugation of women, children, and
minorities; and persistent poverty and lack of access to basic health
care and education—has fed political mobilization around a diverse
and widening set of human rights. The emotional force of the idea of
human dignity has had a political impact from the Age of Revolution
through today’s global human development agenda.

The Case of the Catholic Church

As the world’s largest centrally organized religious community and
most influential nongovernmental organization, the Roman Catholic
Church has both shaped and been shaped by the global politics of
human dignity over the centuries. The Second Vatican Council
(1962-1965) marked a turning point: a break with the Church’s long-
standing opposition to secular modernity and its full embrace of
democracy, religious and other freedoms, and interreligious dialogue
(O’Malley 2010). The idea of human dignity proved an important
pivot—a concept with deep historical roots and theological and
emotional resonance that could also be articulated in a more secular
human rights idiom. Since the 1960s, successive popes have
engaged public authorities and other religious traditions more
actively around a range of national and international social and
political challenges. Their espousal of human dignity and human
rights—through appeals to reason, emotion, and faith—has
facilitated the emergence of the Church as an effective advocate for
democratization around the world and, more recently, as an
influential proponent of a global human development agenda.
The steep decline in the Church’s political fortunes in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was reinforced by its passionate
and fruitless efforts to stem the tide of Enlightenment modernity. At
a theological level, popes rejected the idea of reason, delinked from
faith, as the arbiter of truth. They viewed secular reason as a
rebellion against God’s authority and against the authority of the
Church, God’s representative on earth. At a political level, the
Vatican rejected democracy and civil liberties as absolute values,
insisting that the best political system would give Catholicism a
privileged institutional status and allow moral constraints on the
freedom of citizens. From the point of view of Pius IX (1846–1878),
the dominant pope of the nineteenth century, opposition to secular
modernity was a defensive response to growing attacks on the
Church and its prerogatives. His famous Syllabus of Errors (1864)
was directed against atheistic, nationalist, liberal, and socialist
forces. It was not an assault on human reason or human dignity as
such, but was against efforts to conceive them outside of a Catholic
religious framework.
The Vatican’s first effort to articulate its own positive vision of
human dignity and its social and political implications was the 1891
encyclical Rerum novarum of Leo XIII (1878–1903). Under the title
“Of New Things,” Leo provided an overarching analysis and critique
of industrialization and its excesses. He decried both liberalism and
socialism for their underlying atheism and materialism and the
neglect of the spiritual needs of the burgeoning working classes. And
he took a decisive step further, criticizing the material conditions of
the proletariat and advocating social and economic change, including
the freedom for workers to organize trade unions. For the first time,
the Church systematically applied the idea of human dignity,
traditionally a theological concept bearing on the human person’s
divine origins and eternal destiny, to wider economic, social, and
political conditions. In a key passage, the encyclical criticized
employers who “laid burdens upon their workmen which were
unjust, or degraded them with conditions repugnant to their dignity
as human beings” (Leo XIII 1891, 36).
The first half of the twentieth century saw a further development
of the idea of human dignity as the cornerstone of Catholic Social
Teaching. Catholic intellectuals like Jacques Maritain developed a
Christian humanism that combined appeals to the authority of
Catholic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas with reflection on the
implications of human dignity for contemporary economic, social,
and political affairs (Maritain 1947; Amato 1975). During the
Depression, Pius XI (1922–1939) issued his encyclical Quadragesimo
anno on the fortieth anniversary of Rerum novarum in 1931,
condemning the excesses of both industrial capitalism and state
socialism and praising social legislation designed “to protect
vigorously the sacred rights of the workers that flow from their
dignity as men and as Christians” (Pius XI 1931, 28). In his 1942
Christmas message, Pius XII (1939–1958) went a step further.
Looking with hope to prospects for a peaceful postwar order, he
made the “dignity of the human person” and the “dignity of labor”
two of the “five points for ordering society” (Pius XII 1942).
Through the 1950s, the Church’s influence on the emergent
global human rights agenda remained constrained by its ongoing
opposition to principles of liberal democracy, including the
nonestablishment of religion and full religious freedom.2 Pius XII
stayed close to the view that the ideal form of government should
guarantee the Church’s privileged status as the bastion of the one
true faith and the arbiter of public morality. Relations with liberal and
socialist parties and with other Christian denominations—not to
mention other faiths—remained strained. It was only under John
XXIII (1958–1963) and with the Second Vatican Council that the
Church abandoned its defensive stance. In his opening Council
address to bishops assembled from all over the world in October
1962, John called on Church leaders to address the needs of the
present day by “demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather
than by condemnations.” While recalling a theological view of the
human person as created and redeemed by God, he acknowledged
that non-Catholics the world over were “ever more deeply convinced
of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection
as well as of the duties which that implies” (O’Malley 2010, 94).
At the Council, the concept of human dignity served as a pivot
between the Catholic tradition and an opening to a wider human
rights agenda. Three authoritative documents issued in 1965 played
a critical role. The declaration Dignitatis humanae—Of Human
Dignity—abandoned the Church’s historic opposition to religious
freedom and endorsed individual liberty as both a gift of God and an
expression of human dignity. “A sense of the dignity of the human
person,” the declaration began, “has been impressing itself more and
more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man” (Paul VI
1965a, 1). The declaration Nostra aetate, an opening to interfaith
dialogue, abandoned the principle of “no salvation outside the
Church” and condemned “discrimination against men or harassment
of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion”
(Paul VI 1965c, 5). Gaudium et spes, the Pastoral Constitution on
the Church and the Modern World, included a section on “The
Dignity of the Human Person,” underscoring the far-reaching social
and political implications of the concept, as well as its emotional
force. “The Church knows that her message is in harmony with the
most secret desires of the human heart,” it proclaimed, “when she
champions the dignity of the human vocation, restoring hope to
those who have already despaired of anything higher than their
present lot” (Paul VI 1965b, 21).
In the decades following the Council, the Church emerged as a
powerful advocate for human rights and development on the world
stage. The historic address of Paul VI (1963–1978) to the UN in New
York in 1965 was a critical juncture. “What you proclaim here are the
fundamental rights and duties of man, his dignity, his freedom, and
above all his religious freedom,” he told the General Assembly. “We
feel that you are the interpreters of what is highest in human
wisdom, We would almost say, of its sacred character” (Paul VI
1965d, 241). In his 1967 encyclical Populorum progressio, Paul set
out the idea of “integral human development” designed “to eliminate
every ill, to remove every obstacle which offends man’s dignity”
(Paul VI 1967, 6). The Pope linked the Church’s passion for the
imperative of human rights back to “the ferment of the Gospel,”
which “has aroused and continues to arouse in man’s heart the
irresistible requirements of his dignity” (32). But he also addressed
emotional appeals to protect and advance human dignity beyond the
Church faithful in his writings and on his trips to the Americas,
Africa, and Asia.3
The global diplomacy of Pope John Paul II (1978–2005)
intensified this trend. Through his numerous encyclicals and far-
flung international travels—he made more than one hundred
international trips—the pontiff tirelessly promoted the idea of human
dignity and the imperative of human rights in world affairs. His
encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987), issued on the twentieth
anniversary of Populorum progressio, moved from a description of
persistent injustice and suffering in the world to a positive trend in
“the full awareness among large numbers of men and women of
their own dignity and of that of every human being,” and in “the
more lively concern that human rights should be respected, and in
the more vigorous rejection of their violation” (John Paul II 1987,
26). In 1991, in Centesimus annus, he looked back on the wave of
democratization that had swept his native Poland and much of the
rest of the world over the previous decade, plausibly asserting that
“an important, even decisive, contribution was made by the Church’s
commitment to defend and promote human rights” (emphasis in
original). Where political and ideological polarization had “obscured
the awareness of a human dignity common to all, the Church
affirmed clearly and forcefully that every individual—whatever his or
her personal convictions—bears the image of God and therefore
deserves respect” (John Paul II 1991, 22). During his pontificate,
John Paul was widely criticized for not bringing his human dignity
agenda into the Church itself, in particular with respect to women’s
rights. But his emphasis on human dignity and human rights
certainly had a significant impact on world affairs.
With the end of the Cold War and the intensification of
globalization, the Catholic Church’s approach to human dignity and
world affairs has paralleled the UN’s turn toward a human
development agenda and the problems of poverty and social
inequality. After declaring the symbolic year 2000 the Church’s first
Great Jubilee, John Paul closed the event by lamenting that “our
world is entering the new millennium burdened by the contradictions
of an economic, cultural and technological progress, which offers
immense possibilities to a fortunate few, while leaving millions of
others not only on the margins of progress but in living conditions
far below the minimum demanded by human dignity” (John Paul II
2001, 50). In the decade that followed, through the transition to
Benedict XVI (2005–2013), the Vatican aligned itself closely with the
Millennium Development Goals and with the idea of global human
development, noting parallels with Paul VI’s idea of integral human
development. In the context of the global financial crisis, Benedict’s
encyclical Caritas in veritate contended, “the risk for our time is that
the de facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched
by ethical interaction of consciences and minds that would give rise
to truly human development” (Benedict XVI 2009, 9).
In his pontificate thus far, Pope Francis (2013—) has continued to
advocate for human rights and human development by invoking the
idea of human dignity and calling for a sweeping reform of the
global order. In a June 2013 address to the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the UN, for example, he insisted that “the human
person and human dignity are not simply catchwords, but pillars for
creating shared rules and structures capable of passing beyond
purely pragmatic or technical approaches in order to eliminate
divisions and to bridge existing differences” (Francis 2013a, 2). The
following month, to mobilize support for far-reaching change, he
insisted during his pastoral visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa—
a major entry point for African migrants to Europe—that Christians
and others should develop a greater emotional capacity to identify
with the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. “In this globalized
world, we have fallen into globalized indifference,” he told the crowd.
“We have become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect
me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business!” (Francis
2013b).
As the world’s most visible religious figure, Pope Francis, like his
immediate predecessors, has a significant influence on political
controversies surrounding human rights and human development.
Although the Roman Catholic Church only fully opened to the wider
secular world in the 1960s with Vatican II, its leaders have since
skillfully invoked the idea of human dignity—and abhorrence against
its violations—to advocate for a broad human rights agenda. The
theological foundations of the concept within the tradition have
contributed to this success as has its emotional resonance in the
wider culture. One should not, of course, overestimate the Church’s
impact—the politics of human rights remain dominated by states and
include a range of other powerful secular players. At the same time,
the acceleration of globalization and the growing salience of its
religious and cultural dimensions have elevated the voice of the
Church and its particular understanding of human dignity and its
implications.

Human Dignity, Human Rights, and World

Politics: The Interfaith Dimension
The case of the Catholic Church illustrates the political salience of
the idea of human dignity when articulated within a particular
religious tradition. Of course, attacks on human dignity can resonate
politically outside any religious context. But when given a spiritual or
transcendent dimension, as the Catholic case suggests, they can
exert a particular emotional pull and political weight. To what degree
does the same dynamic hold across other traditions? And might
convergence around the idea of human dignity across diverse
communities—if and where it exists—increase the potential for
interfaith dialogue and collaboration to advance a wider interfaith
and human rights agenda? The balance of this chapter briefly
explores these questions through sketches of two other highly
influential world traditions: Islam and Confucianism.

The Case of Islam

It is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of Islam as a unified actor
that brings a particular conception of human dignity to world politics.
Like Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Hinduism, and
Buddhism, Islam does not have a hierarchical structure and an
authoritative leader on the model of the Roman Catholic Church. On
the foundation of core beliefs—in the Oneness of God, Muhammad
as His Prophet, and the Qur’an as His direct revelation to humankind
—Muslims engage in social and political affairs in different ways. The
closest thing to a Muslim voice in international affairs is the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a multilateral grouping of
more than fifty Muslim-majority countries formed in 1969. Although
the OIC does not speak for Islam in any authoritative sense, its
declarations often have a religious cast, and its status as an
intergovernmental bloc at the UN gives it some clout.
Like Christianity, Islam has considerable scriptural resources for
the idea of human dignity and human rights (An-Na’im 2010;
Sachedina 2009). In the Qur’an, God breathes his spirit into human
beings and calls on them to take possession of the earth and to rule
it responsibly: “We have conferred dignity on the children of Adam,
and borne them over land and sea, and provided for them
sustenance out of the good things of life, and favoured them far
above most of Our creation” (Qur’an 17:70).4 Within Islam, human
beings possess the spirit of God; they are rational, moral agents who
should love and respect one another, whatever their differences. As
the Qur’an puts it in an oft-quoted passage: “We have created you
all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and
tribes, so that you might come to know one another” (Qur’an
49:13).
One of the first modern Muslim statements on human dignity was
the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, which the Islamic
Council of Europe endorsed in 1981 out of concern that the
emerging international human rights regime was too secular and
Western in its thrust. The Preamble references “human rights
decreed by the Divine Law” that “aim at conferring dignity and
honour on mankind and are designed to eliminate oppression and
injustice.” Another, more prominent, statement came in 1990, when
the OIC (then known as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference)
endorsed the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which
asserts that “All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and
basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on
the grounds of race, color, language, sex, religious belief, political
affiliation, social status or other considerations” (OIC 1990, Art. 1).
The Declaration stops short of asserting the right to change one’s
religion or the full equality of men and women in marriage, two
contested issues within Islam. But in its main outline it demonstrates
a broad convergence with the theistic grounding of human dignity
and human rights in the Catholic and Christian tradition.
 The advance of democracy in several Muslim-majority countries
since the Islamic Council of Europe’s 1981 Declaration, including
Turkey, Senegal, and Indonesia, furthered some convergence
between human dignity and human rights, as understood in Islam,
and more secular understandings of human rights. Issues of
religious freedom and women’s equality remain contested in these
and other countries, but a deep-seated suspicion of human dignity
and human rights discourse as part of the historical legacy of
Western imperialism has faded somewhat over time. For example,
the Preamble to the 2013 Draft Constitution of Tunisia, the most
hopeful national case to emerge out of the Arab Spring, referred to
its foundation on “the fundamentals and the open and moderate
objectives of Islam” as well as “on sublime human values, and on
universal human rights that are in harmony with the Tunisian
people’s cultural specificity” (National Constituent Assembly of
Tunisia 2013). And while the OIC has made Islamophobia its
overriding contemporary human rights concern, its leaders also
emphasize interfaith commonalities, particularly with Christianity and
Judaism—fellow Abrahamic traditions. “Many of the underlying
principles are common and the ethical foundations overlap,” said OIC
Secretary-General Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu at a conference in Vienna
in 2012. “They encourage tolerance and protection of human
dignity” (İhsanoğlu 2012).

The Case of Confucianism

Confucianism is another influential global tradition, alongside
Christianity and Islam, but its impact on the global politics of human
rights is more difficult to trace. Confucianism’s status as a religious
or philosophical tradition—or both—is hotly contested. It has always
had a religious element involving ancestor and temple worship, but it
is perhaps best understood as a comprehensive personal, social, and
political philosophy that endows human existence in the here and
now with sacred significance. Confucianism was the official ideology
of the Chinese state into the early twentieth century but was
subsequently repudiated by generations of nationalist, liberal, and
socialist intellectuals and political leaders as a premodern relic.
Confucian ideas still have an impact on society and politics in East
Asia, particularly in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore, but
that influence is broadly cultural rather than religious or political (Bell
and Chaibong 2003).
It is as a culture and philosophy that Confucianism is most
relevant to contemporary conversations about human dignity in
world politics. Most often associated with rightly ordered social and
political relationships—and in the popular mind with autocracy—
Confucianism also has resources supportive of basic human dignity
in terms of reason, moral responsibility, and respect and solidarity
with others. For example, Confucius’s follower Mencius distinguished
between the dignity of the leader and general human dignity, what
he termed “natural nobility.” The ideal of the gentleman, for whom
selfcultivation, benevolence (ren), harmony, and service to the wider
society are guiding norms, was for him accessible to all in principle.
Along these lines, the influential contemporary neo-Confucian thinker
Tu Weiming rejects “the accusation that by stressing the importance
of the group, Confucian ethics fails to account for the dignity of the
individual.” Confucianism rightly understood, he argues, accepts
“liberty, rationality, due process of law, human rights, and the dignity
of the individual” as positive values (Tu 2001, 24, 26).
Whether Confucianism emerges as a global political force and a
carrier for ideas of human dignity and human rights will depend in
large part on the future of the People’s Republic of China (Bell
2008). In an effort to shore up their political legitimacy, Chinese
leaders have increasingly taken up Confucian themes over the past
decade. For example, in a programmatic speech before the Central
Party School in June 2005, then president Hu Jintao cited Confucius
to the effect that “Harmony is something to be cherished.” As Hu put
it, a “harmonious society should feature democracy, the rule of law,
equity, justice, sincerity, amity and vitality”—albeit under the
leadership of the Communist Party (Xinhua News Agency 2005). The
clearest effort of the Chinese state to draw on the Confucian legacy
has been the Confucius Institutes it supports around the world as a
vehicle for official cultural diplomacy. Without further political
liberalization in China and an official embrace of the humanist
dimension of the Confucian tradition, we are unlikely to see a major
impact of Confucianism on the global politics of human dignity and
human rights.
This very cursory sketch of Islam and Confucianism reveals some
of the resources of both traditions when it comes to human dignity
and its implications for world politics. It also suggests some
convergence with the Catholic view of the human person, not simply
or primarily as a rational and autonomous individual but as an
inherently social being bound up in relationships of mutual
dependence and obligation. For all of Christianity and Islam, as well
as for Judaism, this relational conception of the human person has
its ground in the loving and just creativity of an all-powerful God. For
Confucianism, as for Buddhism and Hinduism, human existence has
a sacred character with some ultimate grounding—but without
reference to a single all-powerful divinity. These ideas about the
dignity of each and every human being as part of creation or a
cosmic order, when articulated across traditions in compatible ways,
provide one way to cultivate shared moral ground and to increase
political consensus around particular human rights agendas (Bloom,
Martin, and Proudfoot 1996).
Since the end of the Cold War and with the acceleration of
globalization, we have seen a proliferation of efforts to deepen
interfaith dialogue around human dignity and human rights in the
face of pressing global challenges. Prominent examples include the
Declaration Toward a Global Ethic approved by the Parliament of the
World’s Religions in 1993 and the Universal Declaration of Human
Responsibilities put forward by the InterAction Council in 1997
(Parliament of the World’s Religions 1993; InterAction Council 1997).
As critics have pointed out, these and other declarations tend to
elide differences across traditions at a high level of abstraction and
have little or no direct political impact (Casanova 1999). For
interfaith initiatives to shape politics and policy nationally and
internationally, they must be taken up by the leaders of particular
religious communities and by political elites responsive to the
expectations and—when it comes to human dignity and its violations
—the emotions of those communities (Banchoff 2012). With the
greater salience of religion in world affairs and the emergence of a
more global civil society, we can expect more interreligious and
transnational mobilization around global human dignity and human
rights agendas in the years ahead.

Conclusion
Over the past half century, the prominence of the idea of human
dignity and the emergence of a robust international human rights
regime have gone hand in hand. Appeals to human dignity and of
the inviolable worth of each and every human person have helped to
mobilize national and international coalitions in support of diverse
human rights agendas. Moral outrage in the face of violations of
human dignity—the unjust suffering and deprivation of fellow human
beings—has advanced the cause of equal human rights of women
and children, racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, and other
groups over time. Each of these contexts has seen fierce
contestation over the precise meaning and implications of human
dignity. Most recently, for example, discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation has emerged as a controversial issue within and
across countries. Here, as previously, claims about the violation of
fundamental human dignity have found emotional resonance and
structured human rights debates.
In the context of globalization, religious communities have
emerged as key actors in the politics of human dignity and human
rights. The idea of human dignity can, of course, be conceptualized
and articulated in a secular idiom. But it finds perhaps its most
powerful expression in a religious context in which unjust suffering
and the violation of human dignity are viewed not only as an ethical
affront but as a transgression of divine law or an attack on the
cosmic order. Religious communities do not, of course, speak with
one voice on the issue of human dignity. For decades, struggles for
equal rights and respect regardless of race and gender have divided
faith communities internally, and they continue to do so today
around questions of sexual orientation and other issues. Religious
passions can be mobilized for or against social and political change.
Since World War II, however, the mobilization of religious
communities against violations of human dignity and in favor of a
general widening and deepening of the international human rights
regime has been a striking development, unforeseen by the prophets
of secularization.
The path of the Roman Catholic Church is the clearest illustration
of this trend. With the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, the
Church made the turn from an entrenched opponent of liberal
democratic ideas to one of the greatest proponents of human rights
on a global scale. The idea of human dignity provided a pivot of
continuity. In response to what Pope John XXIII called the “signs of
the times,” an established theological prism of dignity bestowed by
God took on a full social and political dimension in Catholic thought
and teaching. In the decades since, successive popes have taken up
the idea of human dignity and, through their global diplomacy,
emerged as influential proponents of basic economic, social, and
political rights. In his first months in office in 2013, Pope Francis
made the plight of the world’s poor his top priority and expressed his
strong support for the UN’s global human development agenda.
In the years and decades to come, progress in human rights and
human development will depend in no small part on the support of
the Catholic Church and other religious communities across multiple
traditions. We still live in a world of nation-states in which politics,
both domestic and international, center on the clash of material
interests. Many have grown inured to violations of human dignity—
what Pope Francis calls the “globalization of indifference.” In this
context, the world’s great secular and religious traditions help to
keep alive the idea of a common humanity bound by mutual
obligation. What religions can add, and interfaith dialogue and
collaboration can support, is a spiritual as well as emotional ground
for indignation and action—a transcendent, ultimate basis for human
fellow feeling and solidarity in practice. Religious communities are
not the only players in the politics of human dignity and human
rights. But their contributions to date have been critical, as is their
potential moving forward.

Notes
1. On the importance of human dignity as a driver of a politics of
human rights, see Jeffrey C. Isaac, “A New Guarantee on Earth:
Hannah Arendt on Human Dignity and the Politics of Human Rights,”
The American Political Science Review 90, no. 1 (March 1996): 61–
73.
2. One exception was Maritain’s purported influence on the
human dignity language in the 1948 Universal Declaration. See Mary
Ann Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: Random House,
2001).
3. Into the 1970s, many national Church leaders continued to
support Catholic dictators in Spain, Portugal, the Philippines, and
parts of Latin America. It was only with the wave of democratization
in the 1970s and 1980s across those regions and countries, much of
it led by progressive clerics and laypersons, that the Church came to
be more clearly identified with the human rights and human dignity
agenda.
4. All passages from the Qur’an come from Muhammad Asad’s
translation. See Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’an, trans.
Muhammad Asad (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1980), accessed
November 29, 2013.
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/private/cmje/religious_text/
The_Message_of_The__Quranby_Muhammad_Asad.pdf.

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CHAPTER 13

Faith-Based Institutions and Human

Dignity
A Growing Presence on the Global
Stage
NICOLE BIBBINS SEDACA

For decades Mother Teresa epitomized the role of religious actors—

faithful people working quietly in the private sphere, serving as
missionaries, running relief agencies serving coreligionists, and
providing basic services to poor and needy around the world.
Today’s profile of faith-based actors is much more diverse and
complex. Since the 1980s, faith groups have been moving
increasingly into the public sphere in an unexpected and
unprecedented way, contributing significantly to the advancement of
human dignity through both policy and programs.
Although globalization was supposed to have stripped religion
from many people’s lives, it has in actuality solidified religion as a
source of global community, a resource for addressing global
challenges, and a key component of international affairs. This
enhanced role of religion, along with increased global connectivity,
the decline of confidence in states, and the growth of civil society
globally, have contributed to faith-based organizations (FBOs)
becoming more public and powerful institutions internationally. This
more influential position for FBOs has allowed them to contribute to
the growing global focus on human dignity, a priority that has been
central to most major faith traditions that believe in the inherent
value of each person endowed by a higher being.
This chapter examines how FBOs have contributed to—and
benefited from—this rise of nonstate actors and the advancement of
human dignity as an organizing principle globally, as characterized by
Mark P. Lagon and Anthony Clark Arend. First, it looks at how and
why faith is playing a more pivotal role in international affairs. Then,
it explores the factors that have allowed faith-based actors to
capture this more prominent international role, and how this
development has impacted the growth of human dignity as an
organizing concept for action. Finally, it makes recommendations
about key policy issues in light of these developments.
A note before starting: “Faith-based” is an expansive term and
can include groups from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to Hamas and
individuals from the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso to Osama bin Laden.
Groups and individuals falling into this wide spectrum can come from
similar faith backgrounds and yet utilize faith teachings and
principles for very different outcomes—some societally beneficial and
others highly destructive. Given this book’s focus on liberal norms of
human dignity, this chapter focuses exclusively on those FBOs and
individuals that respect the broader liberal international legal and
human rights framework and have contributed to peace and human
dignity globally.1 These liberal organizations are focused on universal
or comprehensive human dignity and the inherent value of each
individual as opposed to illiberal groups with narrower objectives—
political, religious, and social—that represent the interests of only
their religious or ethnic group while seeking to disadvantage or
eliminate other groups. In addition, this chapter looks specifically at
those operating internationally or outside of their country of origin,
in light of this book’s focus on international norms. Later, the chapter
returns briefly to the issue of illiberal international FBOs, as it is
important to address the major impact these groups have on both
the international landscape as well as on the work of liberal faith-
based groups.
 Professor Scott Thomas offers a useful definition of faith-based
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as groups which have a
“mission statement [that] explicitly refers to religious faith as a
motivation for its work, its personnel are related to some religious
hierarchy or theological tradition, and … hire all or part of its staff on
the basis of a creed or statement of faith” (Thomas 2005, 101).
These include organizations which are not affiliated with a specific
religion or denomination and those which are an extension of a
specific religious body. Likewise of note are those organizations that
are single or multifaith consortia made up of FBOs, such as World
Conference for Religions of Peace.
Having established that framework, let us turn to the rising role
of faith in the international arena.

Growing Religiosity
In his April 2008 speech in Westminster, former British prime
minister Tony Blair highlighted key global shifts and the centrality of
faith in dealing with them: “Under the momentum of globalisation
the world is opening up, and at an astonishing speed. Old
boundaries of culture, identity, and even nationhood are falling. The
twenty-first century world is becoming ever more interdependent.…
Faiths can transform and humanize the interpersonal forces of
globalization, and shape the values of the changing set of economic
and power relationships of the early twenty-first century” (Blair
2008, 1).
Rising global religiosity is a megatrend that defied what many
scholars and practitioners have held as sacred since the Second
World War: the belief that religion would become obsolete as
modernity swept in and the people were exposed to ideas from
different parts of the world (Thomas 2005, 29). For decades,
scholars and practitioners had upheld the theory of secularization,
which posits that with modernization, societies will progress, and
religion will lose its voice in the public realms. Now there is a
growing recognition among scholars that not only is faith not
receding, it is indeed playing a more prominent role in many
societies as a driving force in the foreign and domestic policies of
many countries and in people’s personal experiences, making it a
pivotal and influential motivating factor in the lives of the majority of
people around the world (Thomas 2005, 26; Abrams 2001, viii;
Johnston 1995, 9).
As faith has maintained its centrality in individual lives and
communities, globalization has further bolstered the growth of faith
globally. Through swift technological developments, significant
movements of people, and tremendous connectivity, globalization
has created unprecedented opportunity for connection between
societies and individuals, which has allowed people to learn about
other faiths and for people of faith to become and stay connected
with fellow believers around the world in an unprecedented way.
Whereas scholars believed that increased exposure to a wider
spectrum of information and a plurality of views would weaken
faith’s impact, today’s increased connectivity has allowed people to
be part of active global faith communities rather than experiencing
their faith only in their local context.
Globalization has also brought significant dislocation, societal
upheaval, and the disintegration of conventional community
structures and traditions. Again, scholars believed that faith would
diminish as such traditional community structures are weakened; the
opposite has proven true. People have turned to faith to deal with
personal dislocation and to faith-based groups to address the
negative factors and affronts to human dignity—poverty, injustice,
and suffering—that have come with globalization. Global institutions
and response mechanisms, which have relied heavily on states and
state-based solutions, have often not adequately addressed these
problems or overlooked the importance of faith to aid recipients.
Local faith communities as well as international FBOs—alongside
secular NGOs—have filled the gap in addressing these issues. For
example, a 2007 World Health Organization (WHO) study reported
that between 30 percent and 70 percent of the African health
infrastructure is currently owned by FBOs (WHO 2007, 1). Globally,
one-third of all HIV/AIDS patients are cared for under the auspices
of the Catholic Church (Ferris 2005, 316–17).
Global demographic trends further reinforce this rising religiosity,
indicating that faith will continue to be relevant for the foreseeable
future. Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life
estimates that in 2010 some 5.8 billion of the world’s 6.9 billion
people are religiously affiliated adults and children, representing 84
percent of the world population (Pew 2005, 1). Faith is growing in all
parts of the world, particularly in the global South where the
population size is also increasing. Where faith is receding, as it is in
Europe, the population is shrinking as well. In 1900, 32 percent of
the world’s population was in the North, whereas this number
dropped to 18 percent in 2000 and is projected to be as low as 10
percent in 2050 (Thomas 2010, 93). The global percentage of world
population that is Christian has remained the same from 1910 to
2010, approximately 32 to 35 percent, but the percentage of those
Christians living in Europe or the United States dropped from 93
percent of the global population in 2010 to 63 percent in 2010.
Global faith communities are also growing significantly; for example,
the world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by
approximately 35 percent over the next two decades, rising from
2010’s level of 1.6 billion to 2.2 billion by 2030 (Pew 2005, 1).
Former administrator of the United States Agency for International
Development Andrew Natsios’s observation that “While most
American and European foreign policy elites may hold a secular
worldview, much of the rest of the world lives in one of the great
religious traditions” highlights the differing lenses of understanding
between the West and the remainder of the world (Thomas 2004,
23).

Recognition of Religious Trends

With faith playing a more important role in the international public
square and in more individual lives, space has been created for—and
claimed by—FBOs to more actively and publicly engage the advocacy
and policy processes, partner with states and international
organizations, and become implementing arms of secular
development organizations and states. Over the last several
decades, states and international institutions, such as the UN and
World Bank, have recognized the relevant contribution of faith-based
activists, the rising role of faith in the public square, and the
importance of faith to the clients they are serving and have sought
to engage in more dialogue and partnership with the faith-based
community. For example, through the Reagan, Clinton, and George
W. Bush administrations, the US government increasingly brought
FBOs into the policy process, and funding of these organizations
increased markedly. The US government’s President Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) provided 34 percent of its NGO funding
through FBOs between 2004 and 2006 (Oomman, Bernstein, and
Rosenzweig 2008, 9). Similarly among international organizations,
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for example,
provided $1.09 billion to FBOs between 1994 and 2006 (UNHCR
2007, 11). By 2010, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and
Malaria (Global Fund) utilized forty-four FBOs as principal recipients
in twenty-two countries and an additional 566 FBOs as subrecipients.
Of the 128 Country Coordinating Mechanisms with active Global
Fund grants, ninety-nine (77.3 percent) had at least one faith-based
representative (Global Fund 2010, 1–4).
Likewise, the World Bank played a pivotal role in bringing FBOs
into the global dialogue on development through its 2000 launch of
the World Faiths Development Dialogue, which strengthened the
bridge between faith-based and mainstream development
institutions. This initiative recognized that FBOs were capable not
only of addressing a growing humanitarian need and partnering with
donor countries and organizations but also of doing it in a way that
recognized the importance of religion in today’s calculations. These
efforts brought secular and FBOs into greater contact with one
another and with the donor community. As faith-based groups have
become more integrated into the global community, they have
contributed to pushing to the forefront the values and focus on
human dignity, which is central to many of these organizations.

It has been told you, O Man, what is good, And what

the Lord requires of you: Only to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

Key Factors Contributing to the Growth of

FBOs
Rising religiosity is not, however, the only trend which has given faith
groups more influence on the global stage. The decline in confidence
in the nation-state, the strengthening of global faith identities, and
the professionalization and diversification of FBOs have also been
instrumental in FBOs taking on a more engaged role.
The global community has been organized almost exclusively
around states since the Treaty of Westphalia, but certainly in a more
intense way at the end of the Second World War and in the creation
of an international architecture based almost exclusively on states.
Although other actors, such as multinationals and nonstate actors,
have been more active since the 1970s, the international community
largely maintained the belief or expectation that states are capable
of and interested in protecting the interests of their citizens and
providing for their basic needs; this has not proven universally true.
Some states—particularly states that resulted from the
decolonization process of the 1950s and 1960s—have rarely, if ever,
been able to provide for the basic needs of all of their citizens,
whereas other states are faltering in service provision in a rapidly
changing world where citizen expectations of states are rising. This
failure has led to a decline in trust of states and state-based
institutions and a demand for nonstate actors to respond. Along with
this lack of confidence in state capacity, there has been a growing
skepticism in the non—Western world about the motivation of
secular Western governments and international organizations, which
has left a greater opposition to the public sector and Western
government aid as well. These factors have allowed NGOs, including
FBOs, to respond, increase capacity, and earn citizen trust. Because
they have paid particular attention to local faith traditions as part of
their operations, FBOs have also gained access where
oversecularization is a particular concern.
In 2009 the Economist highlighted this NGO sector growth,
noting how this was facilitated by numerous factors, including
globalization, economic integration, technological change,
democratization in poorer countries, and the end of communism
(Economist 2009, 2–3). And the NGO sector has indeed expanded,
illustrating a growing acceptance of them. In 1989 there were some
20,000 internationally operating NGOs. By 1999, there were 43,000
and over 56,000 in 2012 (Kaldor, Moorem, and Selchow 2012, 10).
NGOs now deliver more aid than the whole UN system (Economist
2009, 4). The shift in service volume from state-based institutions to
the NGO sector has expanded NGOs’ reach and over time credibility.
FBOs are well positioned at this nexus of religion’s growing public
face and the increasing confidence in NGOs. Two studies have
shown that the level of trust in religious institutions and FBOs is
much higher than that in other governmental institutions, police, and
even some secular NGOs. A 2009 Latinobarómetro poll showed that
although citizen confidence in Latin American governments grew
from 24 percent to 45 percent from 1996 to 2009, it still lagged
significantly behind the church and religious institutions, which
garnered 65-75 percent in this same period (Economist 2009, 56).
Likewise, the World Bank’s Voices of the Poor study also showed
higher marks for faith organizations than government institutions
and officials, which received low evaluations for their delivery of
services and reliability. Based on the interviews with the poor
throughout the world, there was a widely held view that: “[F]ormal
institutions are in crisis. While there are pockets of excellence, the
poor invariably experience formal institutions as ineffective,
inaccessible, and disempowering. The recurrent themes running
through the reports are distrust, corruption, humiliation,
intimidation, helplessness, hopelessness, and often anger” (Narayan,
Chambers, Shah, and Petesch 2000, 222).
The study goes on to state that, “NGOs and religious
organizations are more trusted than state institutions … [and]
receive high praise for being caring and supportive” (Narayan, Patel,
Schafft, Rademacher, and Koch-Schulte 2000, 179). These poll
results are an indication of not only the low trustworthiness of states
but also the high credibility of FBOs, in particular, among the
nongovernmental actors.
Professor Thomas further elaborates on this state-confidence
deficit, arguing that “The global resurgence of religion can be seen
as one of the results of the failure of the secular, modernizing state
to produce democracy or development in the developing world”
(Thomas 2005, 40–41). Taken together, these factors—increased
religiosity, low confidence in states, skepticism about the secular
approach of some international organizations, and a growth in the
NGO sector as a whole—have paved the way for the growth of the
FBO sector.
Another international trend bolstering this growth is the
emergence of global identities and connectivity among faith
communities. With declining confidence in states, many people have
developed a deeper and more profound sense of identification with
their faith or tribal affiliation as opposed to their country or a specific
territory. Author Olivier Roy outlines how globalization has caused
religion, which is now more separated from national and cultural
identity, to supersede or even replace these sources of identification.
As this happens, the disconnect between citizens and their national
identity or country grows, and people identify more closely with
those in other parts of the world who share their global identity. This
trend is further developed in and by diasporic religious communities,
which are connected to their original and new communities,
exercising influence on both. FBOs that adhere to the same faith as
service recipients in other countries have been able to earn more
access or trust. Roy further argues that even when there is a
difference in faith, “the fact that they are both ‘believers of a faith’
has given FBOs some resonance in these societies” (Thomas 2010,
98). This phenomenon also underscores the neomedieval concept,
as discussed by Lagon and Arend, that states will remain important
actors but only alongside a host of other influential players on the
international stage.
These global trends have not only created a niche for FBOs but
has also allowed them to expand their issue areas, access, reach,
and, in some cases, size over the last several decades. Although
most faith-based groups have relatively small staffs and budgets,
some have grown into multimillion dollar operations with a global
reach. For example:

• American Jewish World Service (AJWS) works on four continents

to end poverty and promote human rights “inspired by
Judaism’s commitment to justice” with a 2011 operating budget
of over $53 million (AJWS 2011, 1).
• The Aga Khan Development Network, “underpinned by the
ethical principles of Islam” supports health, education, and rural
development; in 2010 it served in thirty countries with over
$625 million (Aga Khan 2013, 1).
• World Vision International, a leading Christian humanitarian
organization, had an income of $2.79 billion in 2011 and
operated in close to 100 countries (World Vision 2011, 24).

Whereas the size and reach of these particular organizations is

not typical, it is indicative of the fact that FBOs today are growing in
size and scope.
Expanding beyond their earlier focus on missionary efforts and
humanitarian relief, FBOs’ reach has expanded significantly to
include far more issues. In partnership with secular organizations or
in faith-only coalitions, FBOs have been particularly successful in
advocacy surrounding poverty alleviation, trafficking in persons, as
well as opposition to dictatorial regimes and religious persecution.
Likewise although many are programmatically focused, FBOs have
also expanded into engagement and partnership with international
organizations, global campaigns, and governmental advocacy.
A good example of the impact that faith-based institutions can
have is the Jubilee 2000 campaign, an international coalition of both
faith-based and secular organizations from over forty countries that
mobilized international voices for the cancellation of developing
world debt by the year 2000. This alliance argued that the
continuation of heavy indebtedness was immoral because it
burdened countries that would never be able to escape this liability.
The concept of Jubilee derives from the biblical Book of Leviticus and
states that, in the jubilee year, those who are enslaved because of
their debts should be set free and that lands lost because of debt
should be returned to their owners. This effort, since disbanded on
an international level and continued on the national level in
numerous countries, led to the cancellation of more than $100 billion
of debt owed by thirty-five countries.
As FBOs have increased their operational and policy engagement
and received greater access to governmental and international
organizations’ funds, they have also worked to professionalize their
operations. There has been a bridging between secular institutions
and FBOs as the former seeks to integrate faith into their operations
and the latter seeks to operate according to the standards that the
secular development institutions have held for decades. In his book,
Sacred Aid: Faith and Humanitarianism, noted scholar Michael
Barnett highlights that as the professional standards of FBOs have
increasingly moved closer to those of secular organizations, they
have still retained their strong focus on human dignity (Barnett and
Stein 2011, 217-18).

[The righteous are those] who feed the poor, the

orphan and the captive for the love of God, saying:
“We feed you for the sake of God Alone; we seek from
you neither reward nor thanks.”

The Quar’an, 76:8-9

Global Networks
Beyond the aforementioned issues—professionalization, the decline
of confidence in states, the growth of the NGO sector, and the
emergence of global identities—FBOs have also benefited from
strong domestic and international networks that provide
informational, political, and financial support as well as partnership.
At home, FBOs provide domestic faith communities with real-time
information and analysis, raising coreligionists’ awareness about
global issues where the FBOs operate. This ongoing communication
domestically often translates into important political and financial
support for FBOs. In the United States, for example, domestic faith
communities provided crucial political and financial support for the
international work of American FBOs in strong partnership with
secular organizations to have a significant policy impact on issues
such as human trafficking, Sudan, and religious freedom. Because
this support from domestic coreligionists can provide a steady
revenue source, it can partially decrease FBOs’ reliance on
governmental and international organization funding. Naturally,
FBOs, like all NGOs, are impacted by international trends as well as
the interests and will of large donor countries and international
organizations, but this alternative funding source gives some
flexibility to pursue policy or project initiatives independent of
secular donors (Barnett and Stein 2011, 55). This observation does
not minimize FBOs’ fundraising challenges or the fact that many
continue to take government funding but rather highlights their
additional source of nonpublic funding.
Some FBOs have been able to gain access to remote or difficult
areas, which benefits not only FBOs’ connection with fellow believers
at home but also allows FBOs to play a crucial role internationally in
providing real-time, grassroots knowledge to policymakers and the
international community about crises or unfolding situations. This
information also benefits FBOs’ analytical capability and delivery
strategies as well.
 Overseas, FBOs’ networks with local faith communities provide
FBOs with implementing partners that can reach beneficiary
populations effectively and quickly and allow them to capitalize on
the contacts and understanding that local groups have. In South
Africa, for example, as part of an AIDS Relief consortium and with
US government funding, CRS worked closely with the Southern
African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) to establish fourteen
local churches as care and treatment sites. The project has, in turn,
been completely transitioned to the SACBC for full implementation in
rural and urban churches (CRS 2013, 1). Secular or governmental
groups that do not have an immediate network of implementing
partners face the challenge of building these relationships and the
knowledge base from the ground up. The faith link between
indigenous and international faith-based groups, at times, also
minimizes the focus on national differences, thus giving FBOs more
open access not always afforded to secular groups, particularly those
from the West. This link has given FBOs access to information more
easily than many others entering into a country and gives them a
more lasting presence in these countries as well.
Receptivity to FBOs on the ground extends to communities of the
same faith as well as other faiths. In fact, in some countries FBOs
have enjoyed more receptivity from religious communities of
different beliefs than have secular organizations because of a higher
trust in the motivation of FBOs, even if they are from a different
faith. Serge Duss, a well-known humanitarian expert, noted that: “In
some non-Christian countries, Christian identification has enhanced
our ability to work with local communities and national governments.
Unlike Western society, which separates the spiritual from the
physical, Islamic societies in particular integrate the spiritual into
every aspect of their lives. Both Christians and Muslims believe that
there’s a witness of faith through charity that is a way of life and
expression of obedience to God” (Ferris 2005, 324).
In countries where the population has feared the
oversecularization of assistance or the approach of some particular
secular actors, FBOs have offered a welcome alternative or even
replacement, coming from a more traditionalist approach, which is
more palatable to local populations (Pew 2006, 1).

Heal the sick who are there and tell them, “The
kingdom of God is near you.”

Gospel of Luke 10:9

The Challenges
Although these external and internal factors have combined to pave
the way for FBOs to play a greater role on the international stage,
the picture of FBOs’ engagement is naturally not a perfectly rosy
one. The expanding role of FBOs comes with significant challenges
and complications.
The receptivity that FBOs enjoy with local populations is not
uniform. Although it is impossible to measure the degree and
frequency with which faith, in and of itself, is the singular factor that
spurs rejection, FBOs do experience opposition from local
communities due in part to their faith identity, and at times the
skepticism and mistrust FBOs have met because of their faith or
national origin directly impact their ability to operate. In the
developing world, long histories of colonialism and interventionism
have left some populations skeptical of Western Christian FBOs,
seeing them as part of a broader effort to expand Western influence
or convert locals to Christianity even when Christian FBOs have
humanitarian objectives that are similar to secular organizations.
Related to this, many countries—particularly those for whom the
concept of separating faith and state is unfamiliar—find the notion
that foreign governments hire FBOs solely for humanitarian purposes
suspect at best. Some populations have viewed Western
governments’ use of FBOs as a covert means to infiltrate societies to
spread Christianity as opposed to provide humanitarian or other
services. Likewise, in countries in which Muslim FBOs are active,
Western governments and donors have raised concerns about
whether these groups have links to Islamic terrorist or other radical
organizations (Barnett and Stein 2011, 7). Both of these perceptions
have impacted FBOs’ ability to operate on the ground.
There are ongoing debates about whether secular governments,
international organizations, and financial institutions should fund
FBOs or whether this violates the separation between faith and
public institutions. One particularly contentious element of this
debate has been what the correct balance is between FBOs’
exercising their freedom of religion and expression versus broader
concerns about nondiscrimination in hiring.2 Likewise, many in
Western donor countries and international organizations have
debated the extent to which FBOs should have influence on the
policy process. Some have argued that the growing influence of
FBOs on the decision-making process of governments is another
instance where faith groups overstep boundaries, violating the
separation of faith and state (Haynes 2010, 389). Others argue that
FBOs, just like any other subset of society, should be able to
influence the public policy process. Additionally, some recipient
communities are skeptical that FBOs are capable of or committed to
providing services without proselytizing, given the strong faith
adherence of staff, even when performing nonproselytizing activities.
Similarly, some donor organizations and governments remain
concerned that FBOs will proselytize with public funds meant for
other work (Abrams 2001, 184). Each of these issues adds a
challenging layer to FBOs’ engagement on policy and programmatic
issues.
There continue to be differing views between religious and
secular communities around key family issues, such as sexual
orientation, women’s rights, reproductive rights, and family planning.
How the agency and social recognition dimensions of human dignity
apply to these specific issues has been at the core of significant
substantive clashes between these communities.
These are just a few of the challenges that have emerged with
the changing role of FBOs, making clear that this growing role is not
without serious, substantive controversy or complications. These
important debates, however, also illustrate and reinforce the thesis
of this chapter: Faith and FBOs have moved into the public sphere
and have become global institutions impacting human dignity. If
faith were irrelevant or FBOs largely ineffective, faith and FBOs
would be sidelined or absent from the global stage, and these
debates would dissipate. Because faith has become more central to
the debate on international issues and faith-based actors more vocal
on matters of human dignity, FBOs’ perspectives on human dignity
are germane, whether in congruence or conflict with other voices.
Likewise, if the concept of human dignity did not resonate with such
a significant portion of the global population, it too would not be
gaining traction within the international community.

Illiberal Faith-Based Actors

The factors that created space for liberal FBOs—decline in
confidence in states, increasing religiosity, changing identities, and
growing connectivity across borders—have also created space for
a whole host of illiberal faith-based actors on the international
stage. Many of the aforementioned dislocations that have come
from globalization are the same ones that drive illiberal groups to
fight for increased political influence and expansion of their
ideology’s prevalence. Some even use language about their fight
for “dignity,” defined, however, as a virtue extended only to those
in their specific religious group and as a justification for the use of
violence against those believed to be violating the dignity of their
coreligionists. This naturally leads one to ask how the faith that
compels some to promote universal human dignity can be the
same faith that for others is a source of violence and impetus for
the vitiation of the dignity of others.
Monica Duffy Toft, who has done significant research on what
contributes to religious groups taking an illiberal orientation,
argues that one major factor contributing to this radicalization is
the political theology of religious leaders. If religious leaders adopt
a political theology—their core doctrine of political authority and
justice—that includes liberal ideas, including human rights or
religious freedom for all people, followers are unlikely to use
violence to advance their objectives. And those leaders who
equate religious devotion to violence and eradication of
nonbelievers will lead their followers toward destructive behavior.
Likewise, Duffy Toft argues that the relationship between the
political and religious authorities determines whether a faith-based
person or group will choose radicalization or a more peaceful
expression of their faith. Those groups that are not afforded
religious freedom, are excluded from political processes, or do not
have a significant means of political and religious expression will
turn to radicalized or violent means of expressing their views
(Duffy Toft, Philpott, and Shah 2011, 16). It is when these deeply
held religious views are linked with political or social inequalities or
imbalances and the inability to rectify them politically (matters of
dignity denied) that religious actors use faith teachings to justify
the use of violence to restore the sense of justice, which they see
as consistent with the will of a higher being. Mark Juergensmeyer
also writes that although religion is not completely “innocent” in
its links to violence, it does not “ordinarily lead to violence.”
Rather, he argues religious violence occurs only when there is a
“coalescence of a peculiar set of circumstance—political, social,
and ideological—when religion becomes fused with violent
expressions of social aspirations, personal pride, and movements
for political change” (Juergensmeyer 2003, 10).
As one sees throughout the world, illiberal actors significantly
impact the international arena, global security and stability, and
the realization of universal human dignity. They also significantly
impact the work of the liberal FBOs discussed in this chapter. For
example, the rise of terrorism and illiberal networks invoking Islam
has negatively impacted the perceptions in the global North of
those Muslim charitable organizations dedicated to promoting
human dignity. Violence perpetrated in the name of any religion
has contributed to the polarization between faith communities in
some countries, which over the long term inhibits the work of
 liberal FBOs. Therefore, it is not only important to note the stark
differentiation between the impact the liberal and illiberal groups
have on promotion of universal human dignity. It is equally
significant for scholars and practitioners to continue to look at how
the presence and growth of illiberal groups will impact the role of
liberal groups promoting human dignity, particularly in light of the
efficacy of the latter.

Going Forward: Issues for the

International Community
Faith and FBOs are here to stay as global institutions impacting the
international landscape. Most major faith traditions and FBOs have
had human dignity at the center of their identity and work long
before they took a prominent place on the international stage. As
faith grows and FBOs gain a greater voice, faith-based groups are
contributing to the growing focus on human dignity and raising the
concept of human dignity as the unifying principle that will motivate
the international community. This raises the question whether the
legalistic framework of the human rights regime will be replaced by
this more complex understanding of human dignity, recognizing the
whole person—physical needs as well as political, social, cultural,
and spiritual needs—and the importance of integrating all of these
factors into the analysis and programs of the international
community. FBOs, many of whom are driven by their spiritual
understanding of the inherent value of each person and, in some
traditions, that that person is created in the image of God, will be an
important part of that debate and will facilitate a pivot to a more
comprehensive understanding. They have already had a significant
impact, and all indications are that that will continue in the medium
to long term.
Returning to Lagon and Arend’s original concept, we see that to
be meaningful, human dignity must be institutionalized in practice
and governance. What will this institutionalization look like within the
context of faith groups who are already active in the work of
promoting human dignity?
From a scholarly and practical standpoint, there are many issues
related to faith and the role of FBOs that must be addressed. Three
are listed here:

• Accepting Religion on the International Stage. Although religion

is growing and FBOs are increasingly gaining influence, some
scholars and practitioners continue to downplay or sideline
religion as an element of, and religious actors as important
players in, the foreign affairs arena. Will the impact many FBOs
are having thus far and the connection that FBOs have with
local populations convince policymakers that religion is an
essential component of foreign policy, ensuring that it does not
remain—as Douglas Johnston calls it—“the missing element of
statecraft”? If there is a greater acceptance, the international
community will need to consider more intentionally how it
engages religion as a dimension of analysis, faith-inspired views
of human dignity as an overarching principle, and the FBO
community as a partner in implementation.
• New Partnerships and Sharing Best Practices. In light of the
trends and successes of FBOs, international organizations and
governments will need to consider how FBOs’ unique set of
competencies should be brought to bear on national and
international objectives. It is important to examine whether
successful faith-based methodologies or frameworks focused on
promoting human dignity are especially applicable or successful
in particular country contexts. The mobilization of the unique
approach and assets of FBOs will depend on the aforementioned
debate about the legality and morality of public funding for
FBOs and their integration into the policy process in donor
countries, intergovernmental institutions, and hybrid institutions.
• State-Civil Society Division of Labor. As noted earlier, NGOs,
including FBOs, fulfill many responsibilities that the international
community once assumed would be fulfilled by states. For
 governments that are not fulfilling their responsibilities fully, this
role of NGOs provides an opportunity and a hazard. The
opportunity is that governments can partner with NGOs and
eventually take on these responsibilities (e.g., poverty alleviation
or humanitarian protection). The hazard is that governments
will—by choice or capacity—never accept these responsibilities,
leaving uncertainty about control, the role of the state, and
sovereignty. This poses an important question for those states
and intergovernmental organizations as to how to help define or
guide that relationship between NGOs and governments,
particularly in postconflict or developing countries. How the
international community empowers the NGO or narrower FBO
community vis-à-vis new or weak governments will prove
important to the role of each sector in tangibly advancing
people’s agency and social recognition.

The past and present standing of FBOs’ role is clear—rising and

impactful. The future is yet to be written but all indications point to
the fact that FBOs will remain pivotal actors on the international
stage and will be a key contributor to the growing critical mass in
the international community that is committed to making human
dignity a central focus of the work of international institutions.

Notes
1. In this chapter the term “liberal” refers to the political
philosophy based on the ideals of equality and liberty, as well as
pluralism and tolerance. It should be distinguished from the use of
the word “liberal” within the context of current US political debates
between liberal and conservative political groups.
2. Most FBOs require staff to adhere to specific faith doctrines
and have policies that follow their faith tradition, such as the
recognition of marriage as a union between one man and one
woman or opposition to birth control. Public policy debates have
emerged when FBOs that have internal policies that differ from legal
rights granted in the wider national context have sought public
funding.

References
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Barnett, Michael, and Janice Gross Stein. 2011. Sacred Aid: Faith and
Humanitarianism. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Lectures 2008. Westminster Cathedral. London, April 3.
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care-transition/.
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Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company.
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York: Oxford University Press.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global
Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California
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———. 2006. “Interview: Katherine Marshall.” Accessed August 1,
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———. 2005. The Global Resurgence of Religion and the
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international-annual-review-2011.
CHAPTER 14

Business, Human Rights, and the

Internet
A Framework for Implementation
MICHAEL A. SAMWAY

The primary purpose of this chapter is to offer practical guidance to

companies on how to respect human rights. In the context of this
book, this chapter is also intended to show the increasing role
corporations in the information and communications technology
(ICT) sector have in the lives of citizens globally and how this
growing influence impacts the traditional balance of power between
states and nonstate actors in the international system.
Although focused on ICT companies, many of the
recommendations should apply to companies in other industries. The
key question in this chapter is the following: How can a company
promote and sustain responsible decision making regarding those
human rights impacted by the products, services, or corporate
actions of the business itself?
Whereas global ICT companies, like other businesses operating in
international markets, must grapple with important international
labor rights issues having a bearing on human dignity, this chapter is
not directly about a company’s labor practices, whether related to
their own employees or their suppliers’ or agents’ employees. The
human rights in the spotlight here are freedom of expression and
privacy. The freedom of expression issues discussed are focused on
political speech. The privacy discussion is focused on government
demands for user data and not on the related issues of corporate
collection of user data for purposes of advancing advertising goals.
In this context, the practices by governments or companies, or both,
that give rise to challenges around freedom of expression and
privacy are online censorship and surveillance.
Although covering some of the conceptual background on the
topic of business and human rights, including the UN Framework
prepared by the secretary-general’s special representative on
business and human rights, the emphasis here is squarely on
common sense steps a company should take to create, operate, and
sustain an internal program focused on protecting human rights that
may be implicated by the company’s operations. When businesses
incorporate these types of steps, they also enlarge recognition of the
global voices upon which human dignity rests. And although framed
around ICT companies, a number of lessons offered here should
apply to global corporations as international institutions more
generally.

Technology and Human Rights

America’s online innovation epicenter, Silicon Valley, is replete with
ICT companies founded by and filled with progressive employees—
from engineers to advertising executives—who often reveal an
unflinching belief in globalization, in doing right by their company’s
global customers, and in protecting those customers’ internationally
recognized rights. The online products and services offered by these
international companies, large and small, often have the potential to
promote access, openness, learning, and sharing globally. Many
employees across companies in the global ICT field are inspired by
the potentially transformational impact their companies’ products
and services might have on people and societies around the world.
Today’s ICT company employees, and much of the media and
even the US government, often express the belief that online
products and services—from search to social media—are basic tools,
virtual hammers and nails, essential to building the foundation and
structure of democracies globally, in particular in nations with
repressive governments. This sentiment is evident even when
promotion of democratic values is nowhere to be found in these
companies’ mission statements or Wall Street securities disclosure
language.
Greater access to information and communications tools,
especially in authoritarian regimes, has indeed meant citizens are
more aware than ever before of their own circumstances relative to
the outside world. Those with access to the internet, whether
through a personal computer or mobile device, are no longer solely
force-fed online or traditional media propaganda by their own
governments. They have choices, in this context anyway, like never
before (Clinton 2010).
Information available online has been empowering for citizens
across the globe. Citizens have used the information and
communications products of the internet, including social media
tools, to learn, organize, and report. The political, economic and
social impact of the internet puts ICT companies at the center of
creating, maintaining, and shaping the platform hundreds of millions
of people use to improve their lives. ICT companies have become
agents of change in today’s global system. “Unlike companies that
produce sportswear or toothpaste, the value proposition of internet-
related companies relates directly to the empowerment of citizens”
(MacKinnon 2012, 172).
Though it is not yet clear how large a role these technological
tools played and will play in events like the Arab Spring for example,
the internet has indisputably allowed citizens to speak out, organize,
and communicate with each other and often to the global public on
a scale and with a velocity previously unobtainable. Although
scholars argue about the impact of the tools themselves as well as
the still-pending results of the societal upheavals, the internet has
transformed and propelled issue advocacy and awareness.
Sometimes this citizen awareness, initiated on the internet, fuels
grievances and even violence, as in the case of certain of the global
protests against an antiIslam film trailer distributed online in 2012.
 Readily available and inexpensive access to information and
communications services online forms one side of the empowerment
equation. This information and these tools create power in the hands
of the people thanks to the internet, an apparent equalizing force
against governments. Advancing the cause of human rights might
seem to follow inexorably. That conclusion, however, may be too
simplistic and may not capture the often painful interim steps for a
repressed citizenry to come to live in a society, as the editors of this
book aptly say, in which human dignity is institutionalized in practice
and governance.
States use the same online technologies, developed and offered
by corporations, to limit information or even manipulate it, and
states are becoming more sophisticated in their pursuit of
censorship, propaganda, and surveillance. This is the other side of
the power equation. Although corporations are one of the multiplicity
of actors discussed in this book that threaten to disrupt the
traditional balance of power between states and nonstate actors,
ICT companies themselves have not yet upset that balance and do
not yet maintain shared authority with respect to the rights of global
internet users. Similarly, corporations, even in the ICT sector, do not
challenge the loyalties of citizens vis-à-vis states. Global internet
users are more attached to the platforms of expression and
communication—whether those provided by Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, or Yahoo! Mail—than to the corporations themselves.
The products and services offered by today’s largest ICT
companies do not, in and of themselves, automatically advance the
cause of human rights. Internet scholar Rebecca MacKinnon notes
some companies often feel the internet is like “freedom juice” from
which all things grow in democratic ways. Advancing human rights
requires more than simply pouring well-designed online products
into international markets, including into closed regimes, and hoping
this fertilizes the seeds and soil of democracy.
In authoritarian regimes today there is a technology and
psychological tools arms race between citizens seeking political
openings and those in government trying to preserve a closed
political system (Morozov 2012). Since corporations are the
manufacturers of the technological tools (including software and
hardware) in this arms race, companies are often agents for both
the people and the state—sometimes at the same time.
Governments like those in China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Iran,
among other places, have found an efficient tool for limiting access
to information they find threatening and for spreading information
glorifying their own authoritarian rule. Those same governments
have also found a more nefarious tool—surveillance of their own
citizens’ electronic correspondence, Web postings (whether photos,
whereabouts, or contacts) and general online activities. This
surveillance, which includes demands or searches for historical data,
is sometimes direct through government system architecture and
sometimes conducted by private companies under legal compulsion
to assist state-controlled entities.
Many of these governments cloak the motivation for their actions
behind national campaigns to restrict online pornography or to
intercept electronic messages for national security purposes. These,
and other crime-fighting functions, are the rightful responsibilities of
all governments when content limitation or data demands and
surveillance are conducted for the right reasons and in countries
where the rule of law is strong. The challenge for companies in the
global market arises when those pursuits mask politically driven
censorship and surveillance intended to curtail protected national
and international rights to freedom of expression and privacy.
Although the internet—driven principally by the creative and rapid
technological developments of corporations—has allowed citizens to
challenge state authority, governments use these same high-tech
tools to censor and monitor their own citizens. Further, governments
—in particular in those countries where the rule of law is weak—use
local laws and regulations to compel corporate action that may
undermine citizens’ human rights.
The first-order responsibility of corporations in this context is to
avoid direct violations of human rights or complicity in such abuses.
This, in the language of the UN Framework on Business and Human
Rights, is the responsibility to respect human rights. Once that
primary responsibility is fulfilled, a company may dedicate resources
to, and focus on, advancing or promoting human rights—again, to
the extent its products or services otherwise have the potential to
accomplish that laudable goal. With hope, the internet will eventually
prove to be a great liberating force—politically and economically—for
citizens around the globe. In the meantime, corporations should put
in place internal programs to minimize risks of complicity with those
governments that use these same potentially liberating tools of
technology as means of oppression.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Until about the 1990s, managing a business within the confines of
the law and otherwise remaining good, even active, citizens in local
markets by way of charitable events, sponsorships, community
involvement, and contributions all made for good business practices
and for what was considered good corporate citizenship.
Independent of the financial success of the businesses itself,
employees and local community members had reason to feel good
about those companies that were socially engaged in their
communities and were otherwise contributing to admirable local or
even national causes. Although some of this corporate involvement
was driven by public relations and marketing efforts to enhance the
company brand, the employee commitment was genuine, and the
positive effect was often tangible and meaningful to local
communities.
The most progressive companies tried to address social and
environmental challenges through sustainable business practices and
recognition of international normative standards in their respective
industries. Many companies began to formalize commitments to
community engagement and sustainable business practices by
forming internal corporate social responsibility teams, commonly
referred to as CSR programs. Today, CSR programs abound in
business, but the practices encompassed by CSR groups across
companies vary greatly (Bader 2008). CSR is viewed by many
corporations as an open-ended promise of good corporate actions. It
has often meant doing good for local causes, harnessing the
products or services of the company itself—whether advertising,
clothing and footwear, employee manpower—and generally being a
contributor to charitable causes, leveraging the energy and labor of
company employees.
Unfortunately, the traditional CSR approach, now widely adopted
across business, has not kept pace with the international intersection
points of business and human rights, particularly in the technology
field. The dramatic changes in the role business plays, across
multiple jurisdictions, in the distribution of news and information and
in communication make the touch points with human rights issues
more common, more complicated, and more closely related to the
products and services offered directly by ICT businesses. The
change brought about by globalization and the internet in particular
demands a new, more focused, model for ensuring companies do
not become complicit in government activities inconsistent with
citizens’ internationally recognized—and often locally and
constitutionally guaranteed—rights to freedom of expression and
privacy.

Corporate Challenges
The principal challenge in this context for companies in the ICT
sector arises where the law, or the day-to-day practice by
government entities and officials, in a foreign country in which a
company is doing business comes into conflict with internationally
recognized human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) and other international accords, such as the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the
International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
Companies, once they establish local operations in a certain
jurisdiction, are bound as a matter of corporate legal obligation, to
follow the law in those places, including the laws involving the
regulation of online speech and government access to online records
and activities. Failure by a locally incorporated entity to follow the
laws of that state might jeopardize the freedom, or even the safety,
of the company’s employees, potentially substituting one human
rights challenge for another. Criminal penalties, including
imprisonment, are real risks for locally-based employees who
disobey local laws. The decision to open a locally incorporated
business, with all it entails from a local legal perspective, is a
threshold decision companies should only make after thorough due
diligence on the implications for both users and local employees.
In thinking about these challenges while working at Yahoo!, we
posed questions on the company’s public-facing corporate blog to
give others a sense of some of the freedom of expression and
privacy challenges confronting the business as it expanded into new,
more politically restrictive international markets. These questions
included:

How do we deal with obligations to follow laws of nations

where the laws themselves or their application may have
consequences inconsistent with internationally recognized
values and standards? Are partially censored results, with
notice to users, better than no results at all in a challenging
market? Should we focus our concerns on censorship of
political speech? Should companies draw the line on doing
business somewhere based on the type of speech a
government limits? Would it be a decision based on the
quantity or the quality of limitations? And using which
standards and measures?
Could Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights provide a starting point? Our own First Amendment is
quite broad; could that be a global standard? How do
companies design product approaches that balance legitimate
government rights and requirements for data access with
adequate protections for user privacy? Do we agree neither
right should be absolute and each should live in balance with
 the other? Should we design an approach that works in
Beijing, Paris, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Toronto, and Washington,
D.C. all at once? Is that possible? How far can a company go
in challenging local laws and orders? What if it puts locally-
based employees at risk? These are just a few of the
questions we’ve been asking ourselves recently.1

Companies should anticipate the most likely scenarios involving their

own business where local law or practice may come into conflict with
international norms and where the company may be compelled by
the government to take steps that interfere, indirectly or even
directly, with local citizens’ rights to freedom of expression and
privacy. Companies should develop thoughtful and sustainable ways
to address these types of questions, and hundreds more like them,
as they relate to their own business decisions. These types of
questions merit both thought and action from companies, in an
organized and deliberate way, in order for a company to protect
human rights implicated by their products and services (Posner
2012).

Background
The UDHR was adopted with near unanimity by the UN General
Assembly on December 10, 1948, in the aftermath of World War II
and the state-directed genocide of the Holocaust. Although UN
member states subsequently adopted covenants including the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the focus for
purposes of this chapter is on certain provisions of the UDHR itself.
For the discussion on freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT
sector, UDHR Articles 19 and 12 apply. Article 19 states: “Everyone
has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek,
receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.” Article 12 states: “No one shall be subjected
to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home, or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such
interference or attacks” (UN General Assembly 1948).
Why have human rights become an issue for companies? Nobel
economics laureate Milton Friedman’s theory of corporate
responsibility is that a corporation’s principal task is to follow the law
and maximize value for shareholders. Although he noted that a
company may realize long-term benefits from other activities,
potentially including social responsibility work, his overall point is
clear on the primary responsibilities that should drive corporate
decision making (Friedman 1970). This view is often echoed in the
corporate community, and the argument most often advanced is that
human rights are the responsibilities of governments.
This industry position sidesteps the point that even though
governments have assumed primary responsibility in the
international system to protect human rights, nonstate actors also
have human rights obligations. Whereas the UDHR does not
explicitly mention corporations, its preamble refers to individuals
“and every organ of society,” a term suggesting the obligations
enshrined in the document may indeed apply under international law
to organs such as corporations in addition to states themselves. The
idea that corporations may have responsibilities pursuant to
international legal norms or by some accounts even under domestic
law (with a number of cases filed in the United States under the
Alien Tort Claims Act for example), beyond the treatment of their
own employees, with respect to human rights in the communities in
which they operate, is a newly evolving field.
Until the 1980s, there was only limited public focus on companies
as defenders of human rights. The environmental movement, as
applied to business, was brought further into the international
community’s focus by the chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, India in
1984 with the devastating loss of human life resulting from industrial
gas leaks at a corporate pesticide-producing facility. In the 1990s,
supply chain and labor rights abuses in the apparel industry became
global issues, as newspaper headlines announced stories of
sweatshops and child labor. At the same time, the oil, gas, and
mining industries came under the spotlight for environmental
degradation, labor abuses, and community safety and security
concerns. With the growing focus on the sometimes direct role of
companies infringing on human rights, company codes of conduct
became common by the end of the 1990s.

UN Framework on Business and Human

Rights
The Global Compact, a voluntary policy initiative for businesses
committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten
universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor,
environment, and anticorruption, was established by then UN
secretary-general Kofi Annan in 2000. By design, the Global Compact
does not monitor its participants’ commitments to the elaborated
principles even though it does maintain integrity measures that
determine ongoing participation in good standing.
In 2005, Secretary-General Annan appointed Harvard University
professor John Ruggie as special representative on Business and
Human Rights, a role mandated by the UN Commission on Human
Rights to advance the discussion on business and human rights. In
2008, Ruggie delivered a framework based on three principles:
protect, respect, and remedy. Ruggie’s mandate was extended for
three years, and in 2011 the UN Human Rights Council endorsed the
“Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing
the UN ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework” (Ruggie 2011).
In short form, the three pillars of the framework are as follows:

State Duty to Protect. There is a state duty to protect against

human rights abuses committed by third parties, including
businesses, through policies, regulations, and adjudication.
There are significant deficiencies in state regulations in the
area of human rights, and one of the largest problems is the
 gap between the letter of the law and enforcement of those
laws in practice.
Corporate Responsibility to Respect. Corporations must act with
due diligence to avoid infringing on people’s rights. This is
not necessarily a legal duty that applies directly to
corporations under international law but a “global standard
of expected conduct for all business enterprises wherever
they operate.” This responsibility extends to a company’s
business partners, agents, suppliers, and other entities in
the value chain. This responsibility is interpreted to mean
corporations should have a human rights policy and due
diligence process.
Access to Effective Remedy. Both states and corporations must
support access to effective remedy for victims of corporate-
related abuses. States have a responsibility to ensure
remedies are available through judicial, administrative,
legislative, or other means. Companies must also develop
and employ grievance mechanisms that demonstrate a
certain set of principles, including dialogue and engagement.
In these mechanisms, the company should not sit as the
sole adjudicator of the issues.

Recommendations
The practical approach set out in this chapter is based principally on
a business and human rights program created at Yahoo! and
formally launched in 2008.2 This section recommends steps essential
to building and sustaining a human rights program in the ICT
industry. Although each company should tailor its human rights
program to meet the needs of its multiple internal and external
stakeholders, these steps should form a common thread in any
program.

Executive Commitment
A corporate human rights program must have executive level
commitment within the company. The board of directors, corporate
executive officer, and senior executives must actively support the
company’s commitment to human rights and understand their own
roles and responsibilities in ensuring the company fulfills its
commitments in this area. The message, importance, and urgency of
human rights in a corporation emanates from the top of the
personnel hierarchy, much in the same way business priorities are
established for a company and then implemented throughout the
corporate ranks. The executive commitment should be
communicated directly to employees to have maximum impact. The
corporation should also make a public commitment to human rights.
In the ICT sector, this is becoming increasingly important since
global intersection points with freedom of expression and privacy
have become commonplace.
Many socially responsible investment firms (SRIs) and other
individual and institutional investors have suggested, often through
corporate shareholder resolutions, that company boards of directors
form human rights committees responsible for overseeing corporate
human rights practices. Corporate legal teams usually respond to
these proposals with the argument that given the role of directors
versus management teams, the direct responsibility for human rights
oversight is more appropriately aligned with executive and
operational management than board direction. This mostly
persuasive response emphasizes that day-to-day decision making on
human rights at the board level confuses the role of a board and its
executive management team.
Informing board members in detail of the potential human rights
issues associated with the industry and giving in-depth background
on a company’s responsibilities must be a part of board of director
training, whether for new or existing board members. Bringing
strategic issues to the board’s attention in a timely manner is
essential; however, relying on regular board decisions is less
effective than positioning that responsibility in the hands of a
dedicated team that has executive officer input and support and the
ability to act with sufficient speed, understanding, and resources.
Whatever corporate approach taken with respect to senior-level
commitment and oversight, a company must have inward and
outward facing executive and senior-level commitment to human
rights, including from its board of directors. This is particularly true
in a global ICT business where the nature of the business itself
directly implicates two internationally recognized human rights.

Dedicated and Cross-Functional Teams

A program should be closely connected to the operations teams and
integrated into the business decision-making process. The nexus of
corporate actions and human rights risks typically arises with legal
and regulatory questions in local markets. A company’s legal or
public policy team, each internally independent of the direct financial
pressures that often drive operations or sales teams, is often the
most appropriate corporate home for a business and human rights
program. A human rights program should not rest under the
umbrella of a public relations or marketing function, in part because
the internal or external perception, accurate or not, is that those
corporate functions have less input and decision-making authority on
critical legal, regulatory, and policy decisions. Given the history of
CSR, companies should also distinguish the role of a human rights
program from traditional corporate giving, philanthropy, and
community involvement, which sometimes strike outside observers
as attempts to gloss over corporate malfeasance in other areas of
the business.
Although companies maintain teams dedicated to priority
business areas, human rights challenges have traditionally been
viewed as emergency issues, usually requiring impromptu gatherings
of knowledgeable employees. Supporting an internal team structure
and protocol not only allows for more rapid responses to crises, it
allows more advanced planning and thoughtfulness in crisis
anticipation, resolution, and avoidance. Maintaining a formal
structure, in the form of a dedicated team, also allows a company to
sustain its practices beyond the interests, experience, or drive of a
single employee or small group of employees.
The employee who leads the human rights program at a
company should be senior enough that he or she has decision-
making authority and regular access to executive level management,
if not already a member of that group. This employee, in addition to
providing leadership inside and outside the company must also
regularly update and receive feedback from the company’s senior
executives regarding the company’s human rights challenges,
responses, and overall strategy. This feedback and strategic input
loop lays the groundwork for ongoing executive commitment and
involvement in human rights issues.
An effective program also requires centralized senior-level
leadership on global strategy, industry initiatives, business decision
making, and internal and external stakeholder engagement. In a
company’s decision-making process—sometimes called its business
issues decision tree—the human rights team must have a respected
voice in the process early on when business decisions have potential
human rights implications and operational choices can be shaped by
responsible decision making on human rights issues. Companies can
tailor this approach based on their size and resources, and the
process might range from a list of employees to consult in certain
circumstances to a set of more formal corporate steps (e.g., formal
sign-offs) that must be taken before a certain type of decision is
made.
A company should form and maintain a business and human
rights team with a clear mandate, mission, priorities, budget, and
personnel. This includes a core group of employees who work as a
dedicated human rights team. Although a human rights program
may begin with a single employee (even if that employee has other
responsibilities), it should broaden the number of employees with
knowledge in the area so one employee’s departure does not deplete
the institutional memory or capacity of the program. Effective
management and sustainability of a business and human rights
program requires personal leadership, and it must also count on a
group with an overall design and architecture that allows it to
survive and thrive through leadership or management changes
internally and at the company more generally.
Ideally, once the business and human rights team grows it will
span a number of corporate disciplines, bringing cross-functional
expertise to the team, including engineering, product, editorial,
operations, legal, policy, and so on. One effective approach may be
to create virtual team members or members of different
departments who are responsible for thinking about and acting on
human rights issues in their area of the business and delivering
support or feedback internally to the core human rights team.
An argument frequently made by corporations in the ICT sector—
where the product reach is wide but the corporations themselves
may be small—is that creating a business and human rights program
is too expensive. This argument often reflects deeper concerns by
companies about a human rights program’s necessity or usefulness.
The argument made by ICT company executives is that, when boiled
to its essence, human rights is not yet a high enough priority to
demand greater attention or resources when compared to other
business priorities.
Leaving aside the mistaken prioritization point, the ICT industry
suffers from a misconception regarding the costs of a human rights
program. Most companies already have the core elements of a
program’s personnel in the form of legal and public policy
departments, privacy experts, editorial staff, producers, engineers,
and so on. Creating a position and hiring or assigning—internally or
externally—someone to direct a human rights program and bring
together the expertise in the company is hardly cost prohibitive for
ICT companies, even considering travel expenses or fees associated
with participating in a multistakeholder initiative. In a start-up or
small company, the person directing the program may have other
responsibilities on the legal or public policy teams, adding workload
of an overlapping nature but not necessarily adding personnel costs.
Using virtual teams helps contain costs and also enhances the
effectiveness of a program. Furthermore, a small but deeply
knowledgeable group of boutique consulting and law firms offers
guidance in the area of business and human rights and can be both
an excellent starting point as well as an ongoing support mechanism
for any company serious about building capacity to make responsible
decisions in this area.

Guiding Principles and Operational Guidelines

A company’s board and executives should agree on the overarching
principles that guide the company with respect to human rights. A
company should also publicly announce its commitments to these
guiding principles, in most cases the UDHR and related international
norms. With ICT companies’ global reach, this type of public
commitment can have a broader impact than in nearly any other
industry. A company should supplement those high-level principles
with more tailored and specific commitments. High-level and
operational principles in the ICT sector might be contained, for
example, in an industry-wide initiative establishing a set of principles
and guidelines on freedom of expression and privacy.
A company should also translate those principles into practical
steps to be followed by employees, partners, and agents. These
operational guidelines may or may not be public in their entirety but
should be detailed and should anticipate the intersection points
between the company’s business and potential human rights issues.
Some of the information in the detailed steps may be proprietary,
competitive, or involve sensitive information and should be treated
accordingly. In some cases, disclosure of detailed corporate policy or
practices may be limited by law, including in most national security
cases for example. A company should, however, be as transparent as
it can be with its users on how company decisions are made with
respect to censorship and surveillance demands from governments.
A company should also recognize that detailed guidelines may not
address even a majority of situations, and guidelines must provide
both flexibility and adaptability to ensure the operational steps allow
the company to remain in conformance with the company’s guiding
principles. Translating principles into practical steps also includes
ongoing training for both new hires and veteran employees. Practical
steps may include implementing policies directly where a company
has operational control of a corporate partner or subsidiary. Where a
company does not have the business authority to direct the decision
making of a partner or subsidiary, a company should use its best
efforts, meaning its influence commensurate with its corporate
authority in the relationship, to have the partner implement the
policies.

Human Rights Touch-Point Inventory and

Clearinghouse
In creating a program, a company should take an inventory of the
potential intersection or touch points between its products and
services and human rights issues. Company leaders should ask
themselves when, where, and why they will encounter human rights
challenges. The internal hurdle in creating this inventory is often
corporate resistance to what appears to be an internal audit.
However, corporations should frame this process as an internal
review and assessment and not an exercise to unfairly pry or search
for presumed negligent acts by corporate employees. Some form of
review will eventually come, whether by lawsuit discovery, public
demands, congressional subpoena, external assessment, or media
investigations. Beginning with an internally-driven review makes
most sense for a company since its own employees not only know
where to look for risk areas but can best digest the information in
the first instance and translate that into improved policies to protect
human rights.
Once a company has created the inventory of human rights touch
points, it should create an internal and ongoing clearinghouse so
human rights questions and issues are properly routed to the
employees charged with decision making or at least with providing
substantive input on human rights. The means might be a protocol
that employees follow or it may be automated in some ways, with
software for example, that alerts certain employees when a
particular event occurs. The event might be a government take-
down demand regarding content or a law enforcement order
compelling data disclosure. The clearinghouse would be part of the
operational guidelines and the process by which items surface to the
appropriate parties inside and outside the company.
Each of these steps requires constant vigilance and updating. Too
often companies rely on important issues escalating by virtue of
employees who know the importance of human rights and take the
initiative on their own to raise an issue up the corporate ladder. That
is a necessary but insufficient approach. With data and events
moving rapidly, and employees having a different set of
understandings or even values, corporations must have a formal
structure and protocols in place. In the ICT industry, with its reach in
international markets, employees often face conflicting laws and
customs across jurisdictions.
A common misperception by the general public is that an
American company must directly apply US law within all its
operations and for all its global users, even where the company
maintains locally incorporated subsidiaries outside the United States
that are entirely staffed by local citizens. Although a US company’s
foreign subsidiaries may be held legally accountable under certain
US laws, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, locally
incorporated companies are required to follow local laws, and US law
may not always trump those local regulations. The First Amendment
to the US Constitution offers an example of a challenging area for
American ICT companies with local operations in other countries.
Many other countries, including other democracies, do not guarantee
as wide a range of free expression rights to their citizens. A US
company doing business in one of those countries must apply local
laws even if the law is more restrictive regarding free expression
rights.

Human Rights Impact Assessments

Companies must be committed to exploring human rights risks that
arise based on corporate products, services, and actions, especially
in challenging markets where the rule of law is weak. Companies
should conduct extensive research on the human rights landscape in
these markets, much as they might do research on a country’s tax
code or on the backgrounds of the officers of a company they plan
to acquire. The idea is not to create from scratch a report that looks
like a US Department of State country report or an international
nongovernmental organization (NGO) report on human rights. Those
reports, prepared by experts, are available to the public. Companies
must consult those sources, as well as numerous others, and
members of a company’s human rights program should also call on
individual, academic, NGO, policy, government, and other experts for
input and analysis. Forming institutional partnerships and developing
relationships of trust in those stakeholder communities allows for
confidential consultations and input invaluable to companies in
mitigating risk and in creating value.
Using those among many other sources is a starting point for the
research or due diligence a company should conduct in the field of
human rights as it relates to the ICT sector. From its research, a
company should prepare a human rights impact assessment (HRIA).
HRIAs are particularly useful when entering new markets or
launching new products or services. HRIAs should not be static and
should be updated as market circumstances or business plans
change. Ultimately, the HRIA informs and guides the evolving
corporate strategies to protect ICT company customers’ rights to
freedom of expression and privacy. As part of a company’s executive
commitment to human rights, employees should be aware of, and
engaged in, the human rights due diligence process. Companies
should also publicly commit to this process to demonstrate to the
public the company is committed to making responsible decisions
where its business may intersect human rights. An HRIA should be
in writing and should help form a library of reports inside a company.
The detailed report may have significant sensitive and proprietary
information and may need to remain confidential in part and
redacted if disclosed. The company should also treat the information
about local circumstances in a careful manner. For example, publicly
criticizing local officials can poison key relationships and undermine
business entry into a market. Certain disclosures might present risks
of retaliation by state officials against local employees. Local
employees should also be made aware of potential risks so they
know the parent company’s actions may be seen as unfriendly
toward the local government and that the repercussions may be felt
by the local employees.
One way to route a completed HRIA internally is to send it to
corporate executives for review, signature, and assurance they will
share the relevant messages or instructions with their own business
teams. That may be a message of emphasis and acknowledgement,
with the human rights team communicating the detailed operational
points to the involved employees and to the executive team
members.
An HRIA in the ICT sector should include at least the following
topic areas:

The international legal and moral foundations for the rights to

freedom of expression and privacy. This section should
review the UDHR and covenants, which were later adopted
by UN member states, plus the state of customary
international law on the subject. The review should also
cover the conclusions reached in the UN Framework on
Business and Human Rights, including the principles of the
state duty to protect, corporate responsibility to respect, and
both actors’ obligation to provide reasonable avenues for
remedy.
The general human rights landscape in the relevant country or
region, with a particular focus on rule of law, freedom of
expression and privacy. This is the research that gives a
company and its employees in-depth background on the
issues that relate to the operations or business of the
company. Companies perform due diligence on a local
market’s economy, business conditions, and regulatory
climate. Companies must consider the human rights
implications in a manner just as in-depth and detailed. Much
 of this information is already in the public domain and
produced by various international human rights
organizations, the UN, and national governments
themselves.
Local laws regarding free expression and privacy. Companies
should have a clear sense of what the law in a local
jurisdiction requires of local businesses. This review would
include not only the corporate aspects such as registration
and filing requirements but also the laws that apply to the
area of the business where human rights may be implicated.
A company should become familiar with the laws,
regulations, court decisions, or administrative practices
regarding the protections of free speech and privacy.
Business and product plans for entry into the market. In order
to map the company’s products and services to the potential
risk areas, the team leading the HRIA should outline the
projected business plans for the particular market. Support
for the HRIA process must come from across disciplines in
the business. The operations and strategy teams, for
example, must provide input on current plans for product
development and distribution in certain markets. This
ensures the core team conducting the HRIA knows what the
business teams (whether sales, product, engineering,
operations, or other) are planning and can develop
strategies to limit human rights risks.
The potential to promote human rights. To the extent an ICT
company’s products have the potential to promote social
good and human rights—whether through access to
information or communications tools or both—the company
should reiterate this objective in the HRIA. It is, after all,
part of the decision calculus on entry into a challenging
market.
Risk scenarios based on the company’s products and
operations. In this section, the team leading the HRIA
process should explain the possible intersection points
 between the business and human rights issues. This should
be based on experience at the company and also based on
what industry counterparts, NGOs, academic experts, media,
diplomats, and others might say about likely risk scenarios.
One example of a risk area may be where the laws as
written provide protections of certain rights, but the laws as
enforced in practice do not provide that protection.
Proposed strategies for mitigating those risks and protecting
human rights. This section may offer technical detail about
system architecture and jurisdictional choices. For example,
an ICT company may establish business operations in a local
market but limit local employees’ editorial decision making,
where feasible, in order to limit exposure to content take-
down requests by governments. Similarly, a company may
limit local employee access to user information. If feasible
from a business and engineering perspective, for example, a
company may locate computer servers with sensitive
information in markets where access can be more effectively
limited in a jurisdiction with a stronger rule of law
environment. This concluding section of the HRIA should
also explain the company’s overall commitment to high-level
principles and ongoing engagement with internal and
external stakeholders.

Internal and External Stakeholder Engagement

The most important stakeholders with respect to freedom of
expression and privacy are a company’s users—those whose rights
are potentially at risk. ICT companies should communicate regularly
with their users, and the public more generally, about their beliefs
and practices with respect to freedom of expression and privacy. A
company must also regularly engage and update its own employees,
especially those located in the jurisdictions where human rights
challenges may be most present and even more particularly those
employees handling the sensitive matters and decision making,
around free expression and privacy matters.
 ICT companies should also maintain strong relationships with
industry peers, human rights groups, academics, lawmakers, and
diplomats among other domestic and international actors and
institutions. Companies should engage actively in the network of
information and thinking on freedom of expression and privacy and
in the issues at stake in the ICT industry. Companies should also
participate in multistakeholder initiatives with industry peers, NGOs,
academics, SRIs, and individual experts. The Global Network
Initiative (GNI), founded in 2008, is the principal multistakeholder
initiative in the ICT industry and is an example of an emerging
hybrid global institution referenced elsewhere in this book.3 As of
this writing, company members include Evoca, Facebook, Google,
LinkedIn, Microsoft, Prosera, Websense, and Yahoo!. These
companies are among the largest in the industry, with enormous
global reach among them. Similarly, the NGOs, SRIs, academics, and
individual experts who are GNI members are among the most
experienced and knowledgeable in the world. Other ICT companies,
large and small, that remain outside GNI risk erosion of user trust
and will also miss opportunities for collaboration on issue spotting,
public policy advancement, and crisis resolution.

Accountability Framework
Companies working to protect human rights should design and
implement an effective accountability framework beginning with an
internal human rights system and results assessment. This
framework should also include incentives for employee compliance
as well as consequences for failure to follow company guidelines. An
internal review, which may follow many of the same principles used
by existing internal financial or other audit and compliance teams,
can combine systems review, data analysis, and in-person
assessments to measure and evaluate a company’s compliance with
its own operational guidelines. The accountability framework should
be closely connected to the human rights touch-point inventory,
following the nexus between business operations and human rights
issues.
 An internal assessment is also essential to pave the way for
external review and assessment. Public credibility for companies’
respect for human rights will also come from submitting to an
independent external assessment. Initiatives like GNI should model
the way for assessments. GNI’s assessment system is designed
around third-party review of a member company’s process for
anticipating and dealing with human rights issues, and the
assessment progresses into results analysis—all with a view to
assisting companies to strengthen their processes and operational
steps to protect freedom of expression and privacy. It is designed to
be compatible with a highly competitive industry and as a result
does not reveal sensitive corporate data between companies or to
the public. Numerous safeguards are in place to ensure
confidentiality in key areas. The direct goal of the GNI assessment is
to assist the companies in strengthening their internal systems
designed to protect human rights.
Another aspect of an accountability framework is for companies,
similar to those in multistakeholder initiatives, to create dispute
resolution channels for users with legitimate complaints regarding
corporate actions impacting human rights. With the global reach of
the products and services in the ICT sector, an effective corporate
dispute resolution process, or grievance mechanism, must be
manageable and scalable—a substantial challenge given the universe
of company consumers online.

The Future of Business and Human Rights

Given the nature of the ICT industry and the growing intersection
points with human rights challenges around freedom of expression
and privacy, the business world is due for a new approach to these
issues. Governments, in particular where the rule of law is weak, are
using internet technology to infringe on the rights of their own
citizens—often rights guaranteed in these same states’ constitutions
as well as under international law. Unfortunately, governments are
manipulating their own regulatory and judicial systems—either in the
letter of the law or in practice—and putting ICT companies in
positions where they are at risk of complicity in violations of free
expression and privacy.
This new corporate model on business and human rights
recognizes the growing influence of nonstate actors—in this case
corporations—in the lives of citizens globally and the corresponding
responsibilities to respect the rights of people whose lives are
directly impacted, in good ways and bad, by forces in the ICT sector.
The new corporate model requires corporations to focus on building
capacity to make responsible decisions, even where these decisions
create tension between a company and a government entity.
From a practical perspective, a business and human rights
program must have executive support and a dedicated team
sufficiently integrated into the business itself, with sufficient
resources and a senior voice in operations decision making. The
human rights team and the company’s employees must also have a
road map with detailed directions on how to make decisions on
freedom of expression and privacy issues, anticipating different
scenarios employees will confront. In creating a decision-making
protocol, a company should conduct an internal review of the areas
in the business where employees, products, or services may
encounter censorship, surveillance requests, or demands by
governments.
When considering new products or markets, and in assessing
existing ones, companies should conduct HRIAs, using this tool to
understand the human rights landscape of a market and developing
a strategy to limit the risk to human rights that may arise from
company actions in that market. In developing an HRIA, a corporate
human rights team should also remain actively engaged with
company employees from other departments and with external
stakeholders, including users, industry peers, human rights
organizations, academic experts, SRIs, and even governments.
Of all the aspects of developing an effective human rights
program, companies to date have been most concerned about
developing accountability mechanisms, both internal and external.
Companies that are not yet members of GNI often mention publicly
that the financial costs are too high or that they already have
sufficient systems in place to address their users’ freedom of
expression and privacy concerns. Reading between the lines,
however, many companies believe the accountability process is too
intrusive and may interfere with their daily operations or, worse,
uncover substantial inadequacies in their approach to human rights.
The GNI assessment process was designed with this corporate
concern in mind and is a reasonable process in depth, focus, timing,
and scale. The assessors are independent and treat findings in
confidence, recognizing their review is of an ongoing business in a
rapidly evolving and highly competitive multibillion dollar global
industry. At the same time, the review is intended to independently,
expertly, and credibly assess the systems in place to address human
rights issues and also to review the results in a selection of cases. A
result of the review should be a detailed description of the strengths
and weaknesses in a company’s approach to human rights and
recommendations for remedying deficiencies and continuing good
practices. Corporate accountability is an essential component in
protecting freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector and
corresponds to the role corporations must play today in relation to
citizens around the globe.
Today’s ICT companies are increasingly confronted with difficult
choices on questions of freedom of expression and privacy.
Censorship and surveillance are growing practices around the world
as governments, in repressive regimes in particular, seek to unfairly
restrict access to information and monitor the activities of their
citizens. Given the private sector’s central role in the infrastructure,
management, tools, and content of the internet, governments
continue to enlist corporations—through legal compulsion and even
extralegal threats—in their broader efforts to restrict political content
they find unfavorable and to monitor the activities of citizens who
criticize or otherwise oppose those in power.
The internet allows nonstate actors—from individuals to
corporations—to challenge the existing international order of state
primacy. The information and communications services offered by
the ICT industry to citizens across the globe may indeed be tools
vital to building more democratic societies, where human dignity is
institutionalized in practice and governance. Governments in
repressive regimes, however, are using those same tools as wrecking
balls against democracy and human dignity, censoring information,
expanding propaganda campaigns, and surveilling their own citizens
all for unjust purposes. The conflict between the two uses of
technology often leaves companies in the middle of the competing
forces of citizenry and government. Companies in the ICT sector in
particular must adopt a new common sense business and human
rights model and build capacity to make responsible decisions when
confronted with growing human rights challenges around the world.

Notes
1. I raised these questions in a previously written blog for Yahoo!
Inc. The 2007 post can be accessed on the Yahoo! Business and
Human Rights Program website: http://yahoobhrp.tumblr.com/press-
archive.
2. More on this can be found in my 2008 blog on the Yahoo!
Business and Human Rights Program.
3. The Global Network Initiative, a multistakeholder group of
companies, civil society organizations (including human rights and
press freedom groups), investors, and academics, was created in
2008 to foster a collaborative approach to protect and advance
freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector globally. For
more information, see http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org.

References
Bader, Christine. 2008. “Beyond CSR: How Companies Can Respect
Human Rights.” Stanford Social Innovation Review 6 (4).
Clinton, Hillary. 2010. “Remarks on Internet Freedom.” The
Newseum. Washington, DC, January 21.
Friedman, Milton. 1970. “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to
Increase Its Profits.” The New York Times Magazine, September
13.
MacKinnon, Rebecca. 2012. Consent of the Networked: The
Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. New York: Basic
Books.
Morozov, Evgeny. 2012. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet
Freedom. New York: Public Affairs.
Posner, Michael. 2012. “Assistant Secretary Posner’s Speech on
Internet Freedom” (speech). State of the Net Conference.
Washington, DC, January 17.
Ruggie, John. 2011. “Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights, Implementing the United Nations ‘Protest, Respect and
Remedy’ Framework.” UN Document A/HRC/17/31, March 21.
UN General Assembly. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR). December 10.
PART III

INSTITUTIONS AND VALUES: THE

FUTURE
CHAPTER 15

Constructing a Dialogue on Dignity

The Path Ahead
MARK P. LAGON AND ANTHONY CLARK AREND

In the introductory chapter of this book we set forth the two goals
of our project: First, we sought to explore the extent to which
human dignity is already embedded in the practices of international
institutions. Second, we sought to develop ways in which human
dignity can play more of a role in the work of these institutions. As
this book reaches an end, it is clear that there is still much work to
be done. On one hand, the book points to areas of future research
by others. On the other hand, the conclusions of the authors of this
project invite a more thorough discussion in this chapter about how
a dialogue on dignity can be constructed. What can be said about
these two areas?

Questions for Others

As is the case with any work of this nature, our book raises more
questions than it answers and thus invites future research to explore
a variety of areas. Although we will not be able to examine these
questions in this conclusion, we want to point to two broad
questions that merit this exploration:
First, how has the concept of human dignity evolved over time?
Even though we developed a particular definition of human dignity
that we believe captures the essence of the term today, how has the
concept been understood historically? Are there indications in its
historical usage that might give us guidance as to how the term’s
perceived meaning may change in the future?
Second, whereas a number of the chapters in this book explore
methods for implementing human dignity in practice, much more
research needs to be done about the ways in which human dignity
can be realized. In particular, it would be fruitful to explore the
effectiveness of international institutions in implementing human
dignity. How can such effectiveness be measured? And are there
ways in which we can better assess whether certain types of
institutions are more conducive to promoting human dignity in
specific circumstances? For example, are there circumstances where
hybrid institutions are more successful in promoting human dignity
than, say, intergovernmental institutions?
It is our hope that future scholars and practitioners of global
politics will be able to engage these and other questions that spring
from the work in this book. But in this conclusion, we want to
propose the next steps in the process to further an intellectual and
intercultural dialogue that will enable institutions and partnerships to
more conclusively advance dignity in the experienced lives of
humankind.

Why: Unity in a Neomedieval World

The premise of this book is that we live in a neomedieval world.
Although the international system is populated with nearly 200
states, alongside these states is a wide variety of dissimilar
international actors that make claims for political power and vie for
the authority and control over and loyalty of individuals. In medieval
Europe, despite the many actors and overlapping authorities, there
was a vital force that provided unity: Christianity. Prior to the
destructive Thirty Years’ War, the Christian religion was able to
create a common belief system and shared identity for the
kingdoms, principalities, and other actors that existed upon the
medieval stage.
 In the neomedieval world of the twenty-first century, there is no
common religion upon which the political order can rely. According to
recent estimates (Central Intelligence Agency 2013), approximately
33.39 percent of the world’s people are Christian, 22.74 percent
Muslim, 13.8 percent Hindu, 6.7 percent Buddhist, 0.35 percent Sikh,
0.22 percent Jewish, 0.11 Baha’i, 10.95 percent other religions, and
the remaining percentages nonreligious or atheist. Clearly, the kind
of religious unity that existed in the European Middle Ages does not
obtain in today’s world. But here is where the work of this book
provides an alternative. In the diverse and complex neomedieval
world, we argue that the concept of human dignity can provide such
a unifying force. Just as Christianity could serve as the unifying idea
in the past, we believe that human dignity can play that role today.
To be sure, others have asserted both the need and potential for
a unifying idea in today’s world. As Thomas Banchoff alludes to in
chapter 12, just as the Cold War was winding down, theologian Hans
Kung championed an effort to advance a postmodern global ethic
bridging cultures and faiths—and even nonbelievers (Kung 1990;
Kung and Schmidt, 1993). Recently, Michael Ignatieff also resurfaced
the idea of imagining a transcendent “global ethic” (Ignatieff 2012).
Why, then, do we put forward human dignity as that unifying idea?
As we have argued throughout this book, the concept of human
dignity is primordial. It is philosophically prior to the global political
system, and yet at the same time, it is the natural end of
international society. Moreover, the essence of human dignity is
reflected in the sacred texts of the great religions of the world. And,
human dignity serves as the underlying justification for international
human rights law. The three great human rights instruments—the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, and the Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social
Rights—all begin with a preamble affirming the “inherent dignity” of
“all members of the human family.”
But if human dignity is to provide the unifying idea for the
twenty-first century, guiding the activities of global institutions, one
must ask several questions: First, what would the ideational content
of human dignity be in this context? Although we have proceeded
from a basic definition of human dignity, how would this concept—as
it is envisioned—need to be further developed as the unifying idea of
the global system? Second, how would human dignity come to play
this unifying role? Third, where would such a dignitarian dialogue
take place? In other words, in what fora would this idea develop?
Moreover, who would be the agents that would work to promote this
idea? Given the multiplicity of actors in the system, which of those
actors would most appropriately work to promote human dignity?
It is to these questions we now turn.

What: The Idea Animating a Dialogue

The Idea
The goal of our project is to construct a robust international
consensus on human dignity. If this consensus can be achieved and
human dignity can be embedded as an element of the social
structure of the international system, we believe that international
system will be more just and prosperous. In order to create that
consensus, we need a better understanding of the content of human
dignity. Again, we posit the following working definition: Human
dignity is the fundamental agency of human beings to apply their
gifts to thrive. As such, it requires social recognition of each person’s
inherent value and claim to equal access to opportunity. To be
meaningful, human dignity must be institutionalized in practice and
governance.
Among other influences, this definition draws insights from Plato’s
and Aristotle’s notions of eudaimonia (human flourishing), Amartya
Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s notions of capabilities-based
development, and Francis Fukuyama’s interpretation of the Ancients’
concept of thymos as recognition (Bloom 1991; Aristotle 1999; Sen
1999; Nussbaum 1997; Nussbaum 2001; Fukuyama 1992).
Chapters in this book offer numerous examples of global
institutions’ efforts to advance both of the pillars of human dignity—
agency and recognition. Anoop Singh shows how the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) as a traditional intergovernmental organization
(IGO) helps build domestic legal institutions yielding agency to
individuals to prosper in a predictable and corruption-free economy.
Nicole Bibbins Sedaca explores ways that faith-based institutions, in
partnership with other actors, can enlarge the agency of
marginalized or dispossessed people that they assist through
humanitarian, poverty-alleviation, development, and conflict
resolution programs. Tod Lindberg enumerates how the International
Criminal Court as an IGO offers mechanisms for restitution to
survivors of atrocities. He argues that these mechanisms are as
important to their recognition as human beings as is prosecution of
those who violated them. Benjamin Boudreaux offers
recommendations for a hybrid institutional arrangement to deliver
social recognition to stateless people.
What exactly is the relationship between human dignity and
human rights? As a public health specialist at the Joint UN
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Bank, and the
International Labour Organization (ILO), Rosalía Rodriguez-García
observes in her examination of anti-HIV/AIDS policy in this book that
“Rights spring from inherent dignity at the macro level, while at the
micro level, especially when human dignity has been suppressed or
attacked, the application of human rights would aim at restoring
dignity.” In short, the relationship between dignity and rights is
twofold. First, as noted earlier, human dignity is the premise behind
human rights. It is a larger, foundational concept: that all human
beings have inherent worth. But second, at the practical level,
human dignity is the product of human rights. That is, if human
rights are to have meaning beyond norm elaboration in resolutions,
treaties, and law and are to be enjoyed in practice, the test of
impact is whether they actually yield the agency and social
recognition that constitute human dignity.
It is in arguing that human dignity, rather than human rights,
should be the idea shaping the mission of the global institutions that
the first of two major potential critiques of this book arises. Some
might argue that by embracing human dignity one is distancing the
work of global institutions from human rights and abandoning hard-
fought achievements to embed human rights into international law
and institutional practice. Lest we be misunderstood, human rights
are indisputably crucial. In his Preface, John J. DeGioia rightly
focuses on the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. A project to
construct an international system that is dignity centered is an
exercise in building upon the concepts of human rights, not
jettisoning them. Indeed, human dignity helps transcend the
misplaced segregation and prioritization between political-civil and
socioeconomic rights respectively. Property and land rights
protecting the global poor’s means of subsistence, nondiscrimination,
and access to antiretroviral drugs for the populations vulnerable to
HIV/AIDS, or social protections for human trafficking victims before
or after being identified are all cases where political-civil and
socioeconomic access to justice is intermingled.1 Human dignity
helps conceptually justify dealing with both types of rights
holistically.
Moreover, as Lagon and Kaminski note in chapter 6 on the global
architecture on human rights, effective implementation of human
rights has fallen far short of the norms promulgated on the national,
regional, and global levels as a function of lacking institutional
capacity and will. Human dignity offers a philosophical basis for
broader consensus for action.

Dimensions of a Dignatarian Dialogue

To build a consensus on human dignity, there must be a
philosophical and political dialogue on a global level. There are three
necessary dimensions to this dignitarian dialogue.
One dimension relates to first principles. At the outset, open
discourse is needed concerning whether there really is a common
teleology of human dignity that crosses the divide between cultures,
between faiths, and between faith-inspired and secular thought. As
noted earlier, the essence of human dignity is reflected in the sacred
texts of the great religions all over the world, as Thomas Banchoff
notes in chapter 12 in this book. Moreover, Nicole Bibbins Sedaca
observed that some societies with a majority population practicing
one faith tradition surprisingly often welcome faith-based
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of another faith that are
conducting programmatic work to help the disadvantaged. This
observation, although deserving deeper empirical exploration, is
encouraging regarding the potential for consensus between faiths
and cultures on first principles.
A second dimension deals with operationalizing dignity—on how
to better turn norms into action. As just noted, according to Lagon
and Kaminski, it appears human rights norms have stalled in their
implementation, whether their goal is to shrink atrocities, unfetter
political dissent, or economically empower the impoverished. The
dialogue must focus on how to build on the achievements of human
rights by taking advantage of the power of human dignity as an
idea. After all, the aim of dialogue is not dignity asserted, but dignity
realized. The emotive and mobilizing power of the dignity concept
that Thomas Banchoff emphasizes in chapter 12 has potential to
advance the realization of dignity in practice.
Even as a variety of institutions place dignity questions on their
agendas, much of the dialogue on operationalizing dignity will take
place in the messy, day-to-day world that is global politics. In other
words, the dialogue will take place as actors struggle to realize
human dignity in practice—when IGOs, NGOs, and states respond to
a humanitarian crisis, when groups from the private sector address
supply chain issues to prevent human exploitation, and when faith-
based organizations assist dispossessed individuals. What is required
is that the notion of human dignity figures in these interactions as
these diverse groups struggle with real problems in the international
system.
The third dimension of dialogue addresses goal prioritization in
implementation efforts. In particular, when prioritizing goals in
practice, are there any tensions and trade-offs between agency and
social recognition as the two major aspects of dignity? Is there a
necessary priority of sequencing where recognition must precede
agency, or vice versa? Consider, for instance, Mark P. Lagon’s chapter
11 in this book on what makes for truly transformative institutional
partnerships to combat human trafficking. Victim protection for
survivors of human trafficking involves trade-offs pertaining to
realization of dignity. Should a humanitarian visa from a national
government that regularizes a victim’s status as an undocumented
migrant or as eligible for state-supported medical and social services
be conditioned upon cooperation with law enforcement as a witness
against a trafficker? Such conditionality favors social recognition—
prosecuting the victim’s tormenter—over agency—the victims’
freedom to avert deportation or to decide if repatriation is desirable.
And even regarding social recognition itself, such conditionality
favors one form of recognition—affirming victims’ worth by
vigorously pursuing prosecution of their trafficker—over another—
being treated as inherently worthy of access to state-supported
care.2
There are numerous other questions of priorities in
implementation that a dialogue on dignity could fruitfully address.
For example, if human dignity has the potential to bridge the areas
of political-civil and the socioeconomic rights and empowerment,
what questions of sequencing or balancing still remain? Or for the
degrading atrocities, human trafficking, poverty, or pandemic disease
addressed by at least six chapters in the book, should remediation
for those whose dignity has already been robbed take precedence
over prevention of others being robbed of it? Or, although measuring
the impact of global institutions’ programs based on sound metrics
would help show which ones enhance dignity most, what percentage
of finite funding should be diverted from directly benefiting
beneficiaries into conducting assessments of how much they are
benefiting?
In short, a dialogue on dignity must address strategies and
tangible priorities for implementation as much as they address first
principles.
How: Dialogue by Dialectic and
Incorporation
But if our goal is to encourage a dialogue on dignity, what exactly is
meant by the term “dialogue” in this context? In the international
relations literature on constructivism, there is much discussion of
“norm entrepreneurs,” a term legal scholar Cass Sunstein helped
bring into prominence (Sunstein 1996). A norm entrepreneur is an
actor—state, intergovernmental institution, nongovernmental
institution, individual, or other participant—who seeks to promote a
given norm with a view toward gaining its acceptance and ultimate
implementation in the international community. So for example,
Canada as a state, its then foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, and the
International Coalition to Ban Landmines might all be understood as
entrepreneurs who played a critical role in international efforts to
establish a norm against the use of landmines. Their actions led to
the development of a norm to ban the use of landmines that was
ultimately codified in the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use,
Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on
their Destruction (Dolan and Hunt 1998).
As the chapters in this book demonstrate, there are critical roles
to be played by a variety of norm entrepreneurs in advancing the
concept of human dignity. Abiodun Williams, for example, explicitly
examines the dynamic role of the UN secretary-general as a norm
entrepreneur in promoting norms such as the Responsibility to
Protect in situations of human rights atrocities. But we want to be
clear at the outset that our goal is not simply to gain acceptance of a
concept of human dignity that is static and set in stone. Rather our
goal is to promote a dialogue on human dignity. What does this
mean? Although we believe that our working definition offers the
basic contours of human dignity, a true dialogue means mutual
exchange and mutual learning.
An example of how this dialogue can work can be illustrated by
the development of international human rights law. Following the
adoption of the UN Charter, one of the first tasks of the new global
organization was to develop an international bill of rights. In the
debates that produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and subsequent treaties on human rights, there was a clash of
definitions. Western states, led by the United States, emphasized
civil and political rights as the true human rights, whereas the Soviet
Union and its Allies, focused on economic, social, and cultural rights.
As the debate continued in subsequent decades—even while still in a
Cold War context of suspicion of Soviet-aligned states conveniently
seeking to deprioritize political freedom—it led the United States to a
greater appreciation of economic, social, and cultural rights. Indeed,
in his Law Day speech of April 30, 1977, US Secretary of State Cyrus
Vance was clear in acknowledging the “right to the fulfillment of
such vital needs as food, shelter, health care, and education” (Vance
1977). And although it took a bit longer as the Cold War came to an
end, the former Eastern-bloc states came to recognize, even if
imperfectly, the importance of civil and political rights. This was a
dialogue. There were both mutual exchange and mutual learning.
This kind of discourse is what we are proposing for human
dignity. As we have posited a working definition of human dignity,
we hope that the great diversity of actors in the international arena
will engage that definition. And we hope that this discourse will
modify, improve, and ultimately construct an even better, more
workable definition of human dignity. In a constructive dialectical
tension, contending ideas can be accommodated and incorporated.

Where and Who: Venues and Catalytic

Actors for Dialogue
But if there is to be a dignitarian dialogue, where is it to take place?
Some of the great foundational documents of global politics have
been fashioned at a grand international conference—the Paris Peace
Conference that produced the League of Nations Covenant or the
San Francisco Conference that produced the UN Charter. It might
seem that there should be a similar convening to conduct the
dialogue on human dignity. But even the San Francisco Conference
was preceded by years of negotiations that took place among the
Allies during the Second World War. In the current neomedieval
system, there can be no literal San Francisco Moment for human
dignity. First, it is impossible to bring all the constitutive actors
together in one place at one moment in time. Second, a true
dialogue on human dignity requires much time and nonadversarial
deliberation.
A number of global institutions differing in character could play a
particularly valuable role in the three dimensions of building
consensus on (1) first principles, (2) operationalizing dignity, and (3)
grappling with priorities and trade-offs in implementation. Two types
of global institutions in a neomedieval world that would advance this
practice and governance are treated in this book. First are the
traditional institutions. This category includes states and IGOs,
including those discussed in this book, such as the UN, the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the International Criminal
Court, and a variety of regional organizations. As noted above, some
of these institutions—like the UN and regional organizations—can
often provide a forum for other actors to engage in a dialogue, but
these institutions are also themselves actors and can work in such a
way as to promote human dignity.
Second, the book also explores the role of what might be called
emerging institutions and partnerships. These include such entities
as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis (Global
Fund), a variety of faith-based institutions, and private sector actors,
such as Yahoo! or Google. These actors offer great potential in the
human dignity dialogue in part because they can often make things
happen more quickly than states or traditional IGOs that have
entrenched bureaucracies and structures that can slow down
policymaking and agenda-setting. The emergence of such hybrids,
partnerships, and nonpublic institutions is not merely a symptom of
a more complicated and less accountable landscape of global
institutions in a neomedieval world; it offers vital new agents with
potential to promote human dignity.
 Among these two kinds of global institutions, which ones would
be most promising for pursuing the dignitarian dialogue? First,
among traditional intergovernmental organizations, universal
membership bodies may not be the best place to begin. Just as
Lagon and Kaminski focus on regional organizations in their
recommendations on the international human rights architecture, so
too might these institutions serve the broader dignity project. As
Chester Crocker notes in chapter 4, despite the challenges of
sovereignty and national security, it is not only regional organizations
comprised primarily of democracies—such as the European Union,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Organization of American
States—that could prove successful in advancing dignity.
The Arab League, for example, has proven it is a positive voice
and force urging action by other actors in recent humanitarian crises
in Libya and Syria and elsewhere. It may be counterintuitive that a
regional group with nondemocratic governments could advance
human dignity, but it is striking how in these cases they adopted
such a posture. Perhaps individual Arab states will follow suit and
use the Arab League as a forum to address issues such as
governance reform, diversifying the bases of their economies and
political orders from petroleum, and tapping the squandered social
and economic asset of women. Just as governance accountability
and dispatching peacekeepers on each other’s soil became more
palatable topics within the African Union, so too the Arab League
shows that promise to engage human dignity.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has an
opportunity to evolve from what is called the ASEAN Way—the
emphasis on economic coordination and the deference to
sovereignty on political matters (Weber 2011, 222). ASEAN avoided
candidly confronting the government of Myanmar before its post-
2011 reforms, save for circumstances when Myanmar was poised to
assume the body’s rotating chair. Yet now ASEAN has an opportunity
to assist Myanmar’s reentry into the regional and world economy
and in the process highlight how transparency and free flow of
information serve the goals of dignity. Perhaps the occasion of
Myanmar’s reform might prompt ASEAN to find its voice on dignity
too.
Finally, there might be a heightened role for the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on dignity, beyond its
current work on election monitoring, conflict resolution, and
combating human trafficking. After all, the OSCE springs from the
body set up by the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 that provided a
framework for the East and West to dialogue on the three baskets of
issues—security, economic relations, and human rights. The dialogue
on human rights in particular helped create benchmarks for Eastern
European populaces to demand basic freedoms from their
governments. Moreover, the OSCE offers an asset where the
dignitarian dialogue involves bridging the false dichotomy of civil-
political and socioeconomic rights, respectively championed by the
global North and the global South. The OSCE encompasses the
nations of the global North, which would need to engage the global
South in discourse about these two realms of rights being
inextricably tied together. The global North could caucus within the
OSCE in a new role for that body with the purpose of pursuing that
North-South dialogue.
Another possible advocate for human dignity is the G–20. Unlike
treaty-based or highly formal IGOs, the G—20 offers a more flexible
potential for dialoguing on and applying the idea of human dignity. A
number of scholars in the wake of the 2008–2009 global financial
crisis expressed wildly overambitious aims for the G—20 (Alexandroff
2010; Shorr 2012). Hopes for broader economic or even geopolitical
roles (where the Security Council deadlocks and cannot plausibly in
the foreseeable future be enlarged to incorporate more voices)
proved unwarranted. But a body whose twenty members represent
over 80 percent share of the world’s combined GDP and population
and is flexible in character offers an opportunity to go beyond
financial policy coordination to facilitate dignity-centered dialogue
and policy implementation.
Second, emerging institutions and partnerships could also have a
special role to play. As proposed in Anthony Clark Arend’s chapter 7
on matters of terrorism, the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) has an opportunity to play a role in advancing dialogue
and practice at the nexus of security, counterterrorism, and
humanitarian protection of civilians. In particular, the ICRC can seek
to draft a new Geneva Convention or related protocol to address the
lacunae in the existing agreements in an effort to assure that
detainees other than prisoners of war are treated with dignity. It can
also play a critical role in educating governments and the global
population at large about the importance of affirming human dignity.
There is also an opportunity for emerging partnerships to address
the broad nexus of health, development, and human rights. The way
has been paved by UNAIDS and the Global Fund in dealing with one
pandemic in particular, as discussed in this book by Rosalía
Rodriguez-García. Yet a larger dignity-related agenda could be
addressed by such partnerships. Mark Dybul, Peter Piot, and Julio
Frenk have proposed something akin to a new Bretton Woods
agreement on global health. Although according a central role to the
World Health Organization as a traditional institution to convene and
sustain the effort, they observe that: “Governments, civil society
organizations, and the private sector all have a key role to play in
designing a new global health architecture and sustainable financing.
… A focus on the health of a person could provide insights for a post
—MDG era that focuses on creating the opportunities needed for
every human being to realize his or her full potential” (Dybul, Piot,
and Frenk 2012, 18).
This hybrid effort would draw lessons from partnerships more
narrowly aimed at combating HIV/AIDS that explicitly sought to
advance national ownership of strategies; accountable governance;
mobilization of resources from public, private, and philanthropic
actors; and a premise of investing in individual people’s productive
and prosperous futures.
Beyond these two broad types of global institutions, which
comprise the focus of most of this book, there are two other special
institutions or venues where a dignitarian dialogue can fruitfully take
shape.
 First, the university is a critical if often overlooked global
institution.3 A liberal education is tremendously pertinent to the
exercise of the agency that characterizes human dignity. Moreover,
the classic ideals of liberal education embody the values of reason,
ethical responsibility, and duties towards others associated with the
dignity-centered Universal Declaration on Human Rights and
numerous religious and philosophical traditions.
With the advent of globalization, fierce economic competition and
cutbacks of public resources have propelled some educational
institutions to focus narrowly on business, professions, trades, and
technologies. Hence, a liberal education, including in the humanities,
is under threat at precisely the time when a complex, integrated
neomedieval world demands the kind of broad, holistic knowledge
and attention to ethical and cultural dimensions of political,
economic, and social issues that demand collective action.
The university can be a crucial vessel in which to achieve the
third element of meaningful human dignity posited in this book: that
it “be institutionalized in practice and governance.” It can nurture the
critical thinking, self-reflection, moral reasoning, and engagement
with difference needed to set and implement an agenda of realizing
human dignity. It can advance a deeper understanding of what
connects all human beings in their pluralism: a common longing for
agency and recognition as beings acting on reason and conscience.
Moreover, the university can become even more of a veritable global
institution through student and faculty exchanges, partnerships
between far-flung institutions, and creative use of online teaching
and inquiry.
As for online inquiry, the second special additional venue for a
dignitarian dialogue is the internet and its place in a world with
unprecedented connectivity. The electronic medium will allow all
actors—including individuals—to discuss, debate, and advance
human dignity. It will also provide a virtual forum where the day-to-
day challenges to human dignity can be brought to the attention of
institutions in ways that were heretofore impossible (Jorgensen,
2013). During the so-called Arab Spring, for example, the use of
social media—Twitter in particular—was able to make the world
aware of events that would have previously gone unnoticed (Ghonim
2012). It is unlikely that the dignitarian dialogue will culminate in
one place, as in San Francisco where the UN Charter was created.
Indeed, the answer to the question, “Where will the dialogue
unfold?” may not be in particular places or bodies but in cyberspace.
In short, in addition to the traditional IGOs and emerging
nonpublic and hybrid institutions examined in chapters 2 through 14,
the university and the internet are essential venues for the open and
pluralistic dialogue we propose—on basic premises, implementation,
and prioritizing tasks to advance the dignity of humankind.

US Role in a Post-Unipolar World

As noted above, both traditional and hybrid global institutions are
crucial as the venues for (1) carrying out the dignitarian dialogue
and (2) implementing a common vision of human dignity in order to
fulfill that element of the definition of being “institutionalized in
practice and governance.” Yet it will not just happen organically. In
socially constructing a consensus on human dignity to be embedded
in the international system, the role of the United States as catalyst
deserves attention. It is a post-hegemonic world. Acute American
unipolarity has passed. Yet the United States has a crucial catalytic
role to play, arguably more important than any other single state or
even the European Union as an amalgam of states.
On the one hand, the United States must not and cannot be a
power attempting to force-feed the idea of human dignity down the
throats of the world.4 That is neither desirable nor feasible. On the
other hand, the United States must not act as a timid bystander for
fear of tainting a dialogue about human dignity. It can and should
back the idea enthusiastically, if not dogmatically, in a dialectical
dialogue.
John Ikenberry of Princeton University suggests that the liberal
norms and institutions to which the United States applied its
hegemony to build in the twentieth century can persist in the
twenty-first century now that that hegemony has passed (Ikenberry
2011). Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—as well as
South Korea, Turkey, and Indonesia for that matter—do not seem
poised today to act as singular or collective guarantors of liberal
norms. Some do not seem even that inclined to share burdens of
leadership (Kupchan 2012). One must hence remain skeptical about
how Ikenberry’s vision will transpire in a neomedieval world without
making two revisions. First, the liberal norms the United States
helped institutionalize need to be broadened under a human dignity
umbrella.5 Second, vital to that first refinement, the United States
will need to play a greater catalytic role than Ikenberry
acknowledges.
In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright asserted that the United States is the
“indispensable nation” (Albright 1998). Varied observers who identify
or even hail the passing of US hegemony reject this characterization
—from commentators as different as Chalmers Johnson and Andrew
Bacevich (Johnson 2007; Bacevich 2008). Yet in an effort to
construct a dignity-centered order, Clinton and Albright were and are
still right. With that said, the United States needs to take on a new
kind of leadership role. That role is neither boldly gathering a posse
as sheriff nor quietly leading from behind. It is not that of a didactic
teacher, preacher, or scold on the one hand nor that of a mere
exemplar on the other hand—however badly getting its economic
and political house in order is desperately needed.
Perhaps the best analogy for the indispensable leadership role of
the United States in constructing a dignity-centered international
order is that of cultivator. The United States cannot be the
overzealous planter of the seeds of a dignitarian dialogue nor
overzealous reaper of its fruits—lest it be seen as seeking zero-sum
rather than positive-sum gain. But it can and must cultivate needed
dialogue on first principles, on modalities for making dignity
operational, and on priorities of implementation. The dialogue will be
a lot less likely to bear fruit if the United States fails to judiciously
but assiduously cultivate it.
 And here lies the second of two major potential critiques of this
book that we anticipate. Some might say that a dialogue about
human dignity is a Trojan Horse for sustaining US power. Put
differently, it might just be pouring the old wine of liberal norms into
a new bottle labeled “dignity.” Dignity is not a vehicle to perpetuate
American exceptionalism—neither in a positive sense of conferring a
special role for the United States to extend freedom, nor in a
negative sense of allowing the United States to escape the scrutiny
by the international system, as Arend’s chapter 7 explores in the
area of counterterrorism policy. Dignity is not a vehicle for American
hegemony redux. It could not succeed as such, nor should it.
Yet constructing a dialogue and then an order based on the
dignity idea would benefit from and justify self-conscious US efforts
as a key catalyst. Global institutions will be more likely to embrace
and indeed apply the idea. Conversely, this project offers desperately
needed cues for what refashioned global role the United States
should play in the twenty-first century, characterized as much or
more by diplomatic and intersocietal dialogue on an idea as by its
vast capacity to project military power, extend the reach of
globalization, and technologically innovate.

Hope for a Neomedieval World: Kant

Reconsidered
To sum up, a neomedieval world is one in which states are no longer
the only participants. In that context, the idea of human dignity
offers both the inspiration and an implementation yardstick for global
institutions. In particular, focusing intentionally on the twin pillars of
agency and recognition for all people—equally deserving of justice
and opportunity—makes it possible to operationalize and realize that
idea.
Global institutions are essential vehicles for building a consensus
about dignity and then for implementing it. Intergovernmental
institutions like the UN, the International Criminal Court, the World
Bank, and the IMF retain important roles, especially if their work is
reoriented to focus even more on dignity. New partnerships and
hybrid institutions add flexible, nimble, and inclusive means to
address dignity on the ground—from the Kiva development
partnership using crowdsourcing to direct microloans to deserving
entrepreneurs that Raj Desai and Homi Kharas explore to the Global
Fund that Rosalía Rodriguez-García assesses to those efforts in Brazil
described by Lagon to fight forced labor, which take the form of
partnerships involving the ILO, the state, NGOs, and even
businesses like Ford (Ford Motor Company 2010/2011).
Taken together, these two kinds of global institutions can help
make a neomedieval world more peaceful, prosperous, and
pluralistic rather than chaotic. Based on a human dignity consensus,
a mosaic of global institutions can help tame globalization’s hard
edges. A dignity-centered mission for global institutions helps offer
useful meaning to the expression “global governance,” which is, alas,
as vaguely defined to date as it is ubiquitously invoked by scholars
and policy specialists.
The thinking of Immanuel Kant, refashioned in a few respects,
helps define the way forward. First, Kant stressed the basic dignity
of every human being—equal in his or her inherent worth. The
implication of that emphasis was that human beings must not be
treated as mere means; their value entitles them to be treated as
ends in themselves. Second, Kant’s work focused on institutional
arrangements favorable to peace. Those arrangements lay both at
the domestic level and at the international level. In his view, liberal
institutions were the most promising foundation of durable peace.
Juxtaposing these two legacies of Kantian thought, one can
reimagine his vision to apply it to the twenty-first century. His legacy
regarding institutional arrangements favorable to peace not only
influenced the creation of the League of Nations and the UN as
intergovernmental institutions but the idea of a “democratic peace.”
As no one has explored more subtly than Michael Doyle, Kant
posited that institutionalizing democracies will advance the aim of a
“perpetual peace” (Doyle 1983; Doyle 1986). The contemporary
policy implication is that the international community should actively
promote democracy. And even as an organization made up of
democracies and nondemocracies as members of equal standing, the
UN has embraced that aim from postconflict peace operations to
electoral capacity-building to a UN Democracy Fund (whose board
Doyle has chaired) (Newman and Rich 2004).
Of course, if democracy is defined to encompass more than just
periodic elections and to include access to justice, tolerance,
minority rights, and educational opportunity, it would contribute to
the establishment of peace and prosperity. We contend, however,
that the advancement of human dignity by global institutions is even
more critical to the establishment of a peaceful and prosperous
world. Reconsidering Kant’s two pillars of individual dignity and
institutions favorable to harmony of humankind suggests that what
is needed even more than a democratic peace is a dignitarian peace.
Building a concept of dignity—which draws, in part, from the
thinking of Francis Fukuyama—does not imply a claim of an
imminent or inevitable end of history once the idea of dignity takes
hold following dialectic struggles between contending ideas. Nor do
we claim that a dignitarian peace is perpetual and perfect.
Nonetheless, the best hope for the twenty-first century as an
epoch is not solely a great power shaping the order, nor is it a
particular religion or democratization as an end in itself or
technology and networked connectedness (Slaughter 2009). It is the
idea of human dignity. This collaborative book offers not the end but
something closer to the beginning of a process of constructing a
dignitarian order. That process would first construct and refine
consensus on dignity—incorporating insights from challenges raised
in an intercultural dialogue, in part within a mosaic of global
institutions. Then it would involve constructing new, and redirecting
existing, global institutions to make human dignity not merely an
aspiration but an enjoyed reality. Global institutions would serve as
the primary means to ensure that human beings are treated as more
than means, namely as the justly recognized agents of their own
prosperity.
Notes
Many thanks go to Mathew R. Caldwell of Georgetown University
and Andrew Reddie of the Council on Foreign Relations for their
comments and assistance.
1. We thank Dylan Groves who works on a Millennium Challenge
Corporation-funded development impact assessment project in
Namibia for insights on land rights. On legal empowerment and land
rights to combat poverty, see also Irene Khan, The Unheard Truth:
Poverty and Human Rights (Westford: Courier, 2009), 119, 201–5.
2. The authors want to thank Director of Communications and
Policy Outreach for AidData and Georgetown University Master of
Science in Foreign Service alumna Samantha Custer for her insights
about the tensions between agency and social recognition in
implementation and her thoughts on how it applies in the case of
human trafficking.
3. Appreciation and credit goes to Thomas Banchoff for raising,
and helping to develop these observations about the university as a
global institution in our own dialogue among contributors to the
book, notably at a conference at Georgetown University School of
Foreign Service on March 19, 2013.
4. The uncomfortable allusion to the US response to Guantanamo
hunger strikes is intended.
5. Ikenberry and co-author Daniel Deudney emphasize the
importance of John Dewey and FDR’s New Deal as inspirations for
the United States applying its hegemony to institutionalize liberal
norms globally after World War II. They argue for engaging rising
developing world powers in burden-sharing to sustain liberal norms.
Some of their insights about FDR’s economic thinking (the fear from
fear and from want among his Four Freedoms) are consonant with
developing consensus on a widened concept of human dignity that
includes not just political-civil rights but socioeconomic rights. See
Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, “Democratic
Internationalism: An American Grand Strategy for a Post-
Exceptionalist Era,” International Institutions and Global Governance
Working Paper, Council on Foreign Relations, November 2012.
Accessed October 1, 2013 at http://www.cfr.org/grand-
strategy/democratic-internationalism-american-grand-strategy-post-
exceptionalist-era/p29417.

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CONTRIBUTORS
Anthony Clark Arend
Professor of Government and Foreign Service and director of the
Master of Science in Foreign Service at the Walsh School of Foreign
Service at Georgetown University. He is author of Pursuing a Just
and Durable Peace: John Foster Dulles and International
Organization; Legal Rules and International Society; co-author of
International Law and the Use of Force: Beyond the UN Charter
Paradigm; editor and contributor of The United States and the
Compulsory Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice; co-
editor and contributor of The Falklands War: Lessons for Strategy,
Diplomacy, and International Law; International Rules: Approaches
from International Law and International Relations.

Thomas Banchoff
At Georgetown University, he serves as vice president for global
engagement; director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and
World Affairs; and professor in the Government Department and the
School of Foreign Service. His research centers on religious and
ethical issues in world politics. He is the author of Embryo Politics:
Ethics and Policy in Atlantic Democracies; The German Problem
Transformed: Institutions, Politics, and Foreign Policy, 1945–1995;
co-author of Legitimacy and the European Union: The Contested
Polity; editor of Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics;
Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism; and co-editor of
Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights.

Benjamin Boudreaux
Foreign affairs officer at the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber
Issues at the US Department of State, where he is responsible for
the Middle East and South Asia portfolio. He holds a Ph.D. in
philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley with an area of
specialty in political philosophy, and a master of science in Foreign
Service from Georgetown University. He formerly worked at the US
Institute of Peace.

Chester A. Crocker
James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at the Walsh
School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served as
assistant secretary for African Affairs at the US Department of State,
chairman of the board at the US Institute of Peace and is founding
member of the Global Leadership Foundation. He is the author of
High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough
Neighborhood; co-author of Rewiring Regional Security in a
Fragmented World; America’s Role in the World: Foreign Policy
Choices for the Next Administration; Taming Intractable Conflicts:
Mediation in the Hardest Cases; Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of
Managing International Conflict; Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation
in a Complex World; Managing Global Chaos: Origins of and
Responses to International Conflict; African Conflict Resolution: The
US Role; co-editor of Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict
Management in a Divided World; Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing
Cases of Intractable Conflict.

John J. DeGioia
President of Georgetown University and member of the faculty of the
Department of Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Raj M. Desai
Associate professor of International Development at the Walsh
School of Foreign Service and in the Department of Government at
Georgetown University. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution. He formerly served as a private sector
development specialist at the World Bank. He is an author of World
Development Report 2005: A Better Investment Climate for
Everyone.
Ryan Kaminski
Leo Nevas human rights fellow with the United Nations Association
of the USA. He is a former research associate in the International
Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on
Foreign Relations.

Homi Kharas
Senior fellow and deputy director in the Global Economy and
Development program of the Brookings Institution in Washington,
DC. He is formerly lead author and executive secretary of the
secretariat supporting the High Level Panel advising the UN
secretary-general on the post—2015 development agenda.
Previously, he spent twenty-six years at the World Bank, serving for
seven years as chief economist for the World Bank’s East Asia and
Pacific region and as director for Poverty Reduction and Economic
Management. He is co-author of After the Spring: Economic
Transitions in the Arab World and Catalyzing Development: A New
Vision for Aid.

Mark P. Lagon
Chair for global politics and security and professor in the practice of
international affairs within the Master of Science in Foreign Service
Program at Georgetown University. He served as ambassador-rank
director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons;
deputy assistant secretary of state for International Organization
Affairs; and as executive director and CEO of Polaris Project. He is
author of The Reagan Doctrine: Sources of American Conduct in the
Cold War’s Last Chapter.

Tod Lindberg
Research fellow at the Hoover Institution and adjunct faculty at
Georgetown University. He was previously editor of the journal Policy
Review. Formerly senior staff member, Genocide Prevention Task
Force, US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is author of The Political
Teaching of Jesus; co-author of Means to an End: U.S. Interest in
the International Criminal Court; editor of Beyond Paradise and
Power: Europe, the United States and the Future of a Troubled
Partnership; co-editor of Bridging the Foreign Policy Divide.

Rosalía Rodriguez-García
Currently, adviser to the International Labor Organization, UNAIDS,
and the World Bank. Formerly the World Bank’s team leader of a
major research portfolio on community-level effects of HIV/AIDS
investments and co-Chair of the UN Cosponsoring Agencies Group of
UNAIDS (2012). Previously, senior adviser in the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; and professor and chair of
International Health at George Washington University, from which
she holds a PhD. She is co-author of Investing in Communities
Achieves Results: Findings from an Evaluation of Community
Responses to HIV and AIDS; Self-Assessment in Managing for
Results: Conducting Self-Assessment for Development Practitioners;
Microenterprise Development for Better Health Outcomes.

Michael A. Samway
Former vice president and deputy general counsel of Yahoo! Inc. He
is founder of Yahoo!’s Business and Human Rights Program and a
co-founding board member of the Global Network Initiative.

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca

Director of the Washington, DC Office of Independent Diplomat. She
is adjunct faculty at Georgetown University. She serves on the
boards of directors for the Institute for Global Engagement and the
International Justice Mission. She previously worked for the
Department of State and in nongovernmental organizations
promoting democracy and human rights.

Anoop Singh
Managing director and head of regulatory strategy and policy, Asia
Pacific, with JP Morgan in Hong Kong. He wrote his chapter herein
as director of the Asia-Pacific Department of the International
Monetary Fund. He previously served as director of the Western
Hemisphere Department, and director of Special Operations, at the
IMF. He has been adjunct faculty at the Master of Science in Foreign
Service Program at Georgetown University. He is co-editor of
Australia Benefiting from Economic Reform; Stabilization and Reform
in Latin America; and Macroeconomic Issues Facing ASEAN
Countries.

Nancy E. Soderberg
Senior fellow at the Enough Project. She is former president of
Connect US Fund. She served as ambassador-rank alternate
representative to the UN and as deputy assistant to the president for
national security affairs on the National Security Council. She is
author of The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American
Might; co-author of The Prosperity Agenda: What the World Wants
from America—and What We Need in Return.

Abiodun Williams
President of The Hague Institute for Global Justice. From 2008 to
2012, he served at the United States Institute of Peace, first as vice
president of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention and later
as senior vice president of the Center for Conflict Management. From
2001 to 2007, Dr. Williams was director of Strategic Planning for UN
Secretaries-General Ban Ki-Moon and Kofi Annan. He served as
associate dean of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the
National Defense University in Washington, DC, and held faculty
appointments at Georgetown, Rochester, and Tufts universities. He is
author of The Brilliant Art of Peace: Lectures from the Kofi Annan
Series; Preventing War: The United Nations and Macedonia; and the
editor of Many Voices: Multilateral Negotiations in the World Arena.
INDEX
Abu Ghraib prison scandal, 153
accountability measures: atrocity response, 132–34
corporate responsibility in human rights and, 312–13
global human rights regime and, 124
Acemoglu, Daron, 105
advanced democracies, human dignity in, 260–62
Afghanistan, de facto statelessness in, 216
Africa: anticolonialism in, 259
atrocity prevention organizations in, 39–40
human dignity discourse in, 260–62
International Criminal Court and, 44–45
Multi-country AIDS Program (MAP) in, 173
patrilineal descent and citizenship in, 213
sexual rights in, 142
statelessness in, 222–23
African Union (AU), 85
Constitutive Act of, 93
empowerment and action from, 142
human rights monitoring and, 131
regionalism in, 90, 127
security architecture in, 91–93, 96
U.S. ambassadors to, 89
Aga Khan Development Network, 284
agency: costs of, 196–202
HIV/AIDS management and, 182–83
human dignity and, 15–16, 322
 microlending programs and, 199–200
poverty alleviation and role of, 190–91
private aid and personal agency, 196–202
aggregate indicators, 121n5
AIDS Relief consortium, 286
Albright, Madeleine (Secretary of State), 331
Alien Tort Claims Act (U.S.), 302
Alliance against Trafficking in Persons, 237
Alliance Export Coordination Team (ACET), human trafficking
initiatives and, 236–37
Alm, James, 193
al-Qaeda: September 11, 2001 attacks by, 154
Syrian crisis and, 35, 154
American Jewish World Service, 284
American Revolution, human dignity and, 259
American Service-Members’ Protection Act of 2002, 44–45
Amnesty International, human rights discourse and, 7
The Anarchical Society (Bull), 2–3, 5
ancient philosophy: Fukuyama and, 14
human dignity in, 9, 15
Andreoni, James, 192
Annan, Kofi (UN Secretary-General), 18, 23, 36
atrocity prevention and, 133–34
career highlights of, 69
economic rights and, 136–37
Global Compact and, 302–3
HIV/AIDS initiatives and, 175
human dignity and case study of, 67–83
human security concept and, 87–88
institutional reform for promotion of human dignity, 76–78
Kosovo crisis and, 31
 legacy of, 81–82
norm-creation and norm-implementation by, 70–75
program operations and evaluations under, 78–81
Responsibility to Protect doctrine and, 28
“Annan doctrine,” Responsibility to Protect and, 75
anti-demand efforts, human trafficking prevention and, 247–49
anti-money laundering and countering the Financing of terrorism
(AML/CFT) policy, 118–20
Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, 127
antiretroviral therapy (ART), regulatory approval of, 169
anti-stateless regime, proposal for development of, 220–23
Aquinas, Thomas, 263
Arab League: dignitarian dialogue and, 327–28
Libyan crisis and, 34, 127
regional security and, 92–93
Syrian crisis and, 35–37. See also League of Arab States
Arab Spring, 39–40, 99, 135, 268, 297
social media tools and, 330–32
women and children’s rights and, 137–38
Arab states, atrocity prevention organizations in, 39–40
Arbour, Louise, 78
Arend, Anthony Clark, 18, 23, 151–63, 195, 199, 209, 228n6, 251,
277, 319–34
Arendt, Hannah, 207–10, 212, 217, 221, 227
Aristotle: on human dignity, 9, 322
on role of state, 212
ASEAN Way, 246–47, 328
Asia: anticolonialism in, 259
Confucianism in, 269–70
human dignity discourse in, 260–62
human trafficking in, 236
 regional human rights organizations in, 127
regional security in, 94
statelessness in, 222–23
Assad, Bashar al-, 35–37
Assembly of States Parties, 45, 59–60
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 89, 96, 127, 142,
246–47, 328
Association of Volunteers in International Service and Interplast
Holland, 57–48
asylum seekers, de jure stateless persons and, 214
ATEST alliance (Alliance To End Slavery and Trafficking), 250
Atrocities Prevention Board (U.S.), 45
atrocity prevention: global human rights regime and, 123–28
human rights/human dignity language and, 61–63
institutionalized response to, 132–34
International Criminal Court and, 50, 58–60
regional organizations for, 39–40
selective action concerning, 132–34
UN Security Council and, 30
attachment, de facto statelessness and, 218–20
Aum Shinrikyo, 158
Aung San Suu Kyi, 1, 20n1
Australian Aid, 246
authoritarian regimes, information and communications technology
in, 298–99
Axworthy, Lloyd, 325–26

Baader-Meinhof Group, 158

Ba’ath Party, in Syria, 35–37
Bacevich, Andrew, 331
Bachelet, Michelle, 138
Backpage.com, 247–48
Baghdad, terrorist attack on UN headquarters in, 79
Bahrain, uprising in, 40
Bales, Kevin, 234–35
Banchoff, Thomas, 19, 257–72, 320–21, 323
Bangladesh: citizenship requirements in, 213
HIV/AIDS in, 183
statelessness in, 222–23
UN peacekeeping missions in, 43
Bank of International Settlements (BIS), 117
Barnett, Michael, 285
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, 117
Bashir, Omar al- (President), 44, 132–34
Bekkers, Rene, 191–92
Bellah, Robert, xiv
Benedict XVI (Pope), 266
Benghazi crisis, 34
best practices: for advancement of human dignity, 18–19
faith-based organizations and, 291
regional security organizations and, 98–99
Bhutan, Nepalese minority in, 213
Bihari Urdu minority (Bangladesh), citizenship denial for, 213
bilateral agreements: capacity building and, 131–32
HIV/AIDS programs and, 180–83
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 190, 194
prosecution of human traffickers and, 242
bin Laden, Osama, 158, 278
birth registration, statelessness and absence of, 213–14, 224
Blair, Tony (Prime Minister), 73, 278–79
Chicago Speech, 73
blood diamonds, 25
The Blue Campaign, 244–45
Body Shop Corporation, 139
Bolívar, Simón, 259
Bouazizi, Mohamed, 33
Boudreaux, Benjamin, 207–27
Boutros, Victor, 7, 244
Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 71
Brahimi, Lakhdar, 36, 79–80
Brahimi Report. See Report of the Panel on UN peace operations
Brazil: human trafficking in, 233, 236–37, 243, 247–48, 251–52
rulings against spousal abuse in, 127
sexual rights in, 141–42
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), 29
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 97–98
Bull, Hedley, 2–3, 5–6
Bush, George W., 1, 20n1, 185n3
economic and social rights and, 136
faith-based organizations and, 280–81
forced labor prevention and, 247–49
human trafficking initiatives and, 231–32
International Criminal Court and, 44
regional security organizations and, 89
business groups: economic rights and responsibilities of, 135–37
forced labor prevention and, 247–48
future human rights initiatives and, 313–15
human rights and, 295–315
human trafficking initiatives and, 236, 238–39
information and communication technology, 295–99. See also
corporate responsibility
Buzan, Barry, 89
Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, 268
Cambodia, human trafficking in, 238, 240, 244–45
Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center, 245
capabilities-based development, human dignity and, 13, 15
capacity-building: human rights and, 130–32
rule of law and, 143–44
CARE, 190–91
Caritas in veritate (Pope Benedict XVI), 266
Catholic Church: HIV/AIDS care by, 280
human dignity initiatives of, 19, 262–72
support of dictators by, 272n3
Catholic Relief Services (CRS), 278, 286
Catholic Social Teaching, 263
causal-logic theory of change, HIV/AIDS stigma and, 171, 185n6
“The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and
Sustainable Development in Africa” (Annan), 78–79
CdeBaca, Luis, human trafficking victim job database proposal and,
242
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (U.S.), 167
Centesiumus annus (John Paul II), 265
Central African Republic, International Criminal Court and, 44–45
Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, 2
Chechnya: crisis in, 27
UN Security Council and, 32
chemical weapons, in Syrian crisis, 36
child labor, economic and social rights and, 137
children’s rights: anti-demand efforts in human trafficking prevention
and, 247–49
HIV/AIDS policies and, 173–74
human dignity discourse and, 260–62
human trafficking and, 237–40, 244–45
 institutional progress and implementation barriers, 137–40
International Criminal Court initiatives for, 59–60
right to nationality, 221–23
child sex trafficking, prevention of, 247–49
child soldiers, international focus on, 139–40
Chile, HIV/AIDS policies in, 181–82
China, People’s Republic of: Confucianism in, 269–70
HIV/AIDS in, 183
information and communications technology in, 298–99
International Criminal Court and, 44
Kosovo crisis and, 31
Libyan crisis and, 34–35
Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal and, 25
sovereignty ideology in, 225
Syrian crisis and, 35–37
technology and free expression in, 134–35
Tibetan minority in, 216
UN Security Council membership, 27
Christian humanism, 263
Christianity: developing countries’ suspicion of, 287–88
human dignity in, 10–11, 267–72
as medieval unifying force, 5
population statistics for, 280. See also Catholic Church; Judeo-
Christian thinking
Citizen’s Charcoal Institute, 247–48
Citizenship: concepts of, 228n2
de facto statelessness and, 216–20
de facto statelessness in, 217–20
states’
rights to determination of, 209–11
transformative concepts of, 226–27. See also nationality
civilian protections: Annan’s advocacy of, 78–81
regime change and, 34–35
UN peacekeeping missions and, 29–30
civil law systems, victims’
rights in Europe and, 51–52
civil society initiatives: economic rights and, 136–37
faith-based organizations and, 291
HIV/AIDS and, 172–78
human rights success with, 127–28
political rights and, 134–35
Clark, Helen, 13
Clinton, Bill, 31, 44, 331
Annan and, 71
faith-based organizations and, 280–81
HIV/AIDS initiatives and, 175
human trafficking initiatives and, 231–32
Clinton, Hillary (Secretary of State), 89–90, 231, 243
CNN Freedom Project, 246
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), 248–49, 251
Codova, Roberto, 228n10
Cohen, Roberta, 225–26
Cold War: Catholic Church and impact of, 265
human dignity discourse and, 260, 261–62, 326
human rights discourse and, 7
regional security organizations and, 89
right to nationality and, 210–11
United Nations and end of, 69–70
United Nations Security Council and, 27–28
collective action: advancement of human dignity through, 251–52
constraints in private aid on, 191–96
faith-based organizations and, 281–85, 285–86
 on human trafficking, 233–52
private aid coordination and, 191–92
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), 85, 94, 96–98
Collins, Clay, 216–20
Colombia, HIV/AIDS in, 183
Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 236
Committee Against Torture (CAT), 129–30
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 97
community activism, HIV/AIDS policies and, 181–82
competition, in foreign aid, 203–4
confidentiality, victims’ rights and, 55–56
conflict management, regional security organizations and, 90–91
Confucianism, human rights and human dignity in, 269–70
Confucius Institutes, 270
consensus building: HIV/AIDS policies and, 169
human dignity and, 17, 20
regional consensus, 34–35
terrorism warning systems and, 160–61
women and children’s rights and, 138–40
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment, 129–30, 260
Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of
Nationality Laws, 228n1
Convention on Organized Crime, 231, 238
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW), 6, 129, 137–38, 260
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racism, 140–41
Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, 211
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production,
and Transfer of Anti- Personnel Mines and on their Destruction,
325
Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 221–23
Convention on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, 140–41
Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families,
128–29
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 136, 144–45
Convention on the Rights of the Child, 137–38, 139–40, 209, 260
Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 212–15,
220–21
corporate responsibility: accountability framework in, 312–13
dedicated and cross-functional teamwork and, 305–7
economic rights and, 136–37
executive commitment to, 304
future human rights initiatives and, 313–15
guiding principles and operational guidelines, 307–8
human rights and, 299–315
impact assessments of human rights initiatives, 309–12
internal/external stakeholder engagement in, 312
touch-point human rights inventory and clearinghouse, 308–9
Costa, Antonio Maria, 235–36, 243–44
Cote d’Ivoire, statelessness in, 213
Council of Europe, 128
human rights monitoring, 131–32
counterterrorism: human dignity and, 151–63
international focus on, 157–59
recommendations for global institutions concerning, 159–63
Counter-Trafficking Module Database, 235
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. See International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. See International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
Craigslist.com, child sex trafficking on, 247–48
Crime Convention on Trafficking in Persons, 137
criminal justice systems, victims’ rights and, 50–52
Crocker, Chester, 18, 24, 85–99, 327
crowdfunding aid, 196
motivation of philanthropists in, 200–202
research on, 198
crowding-out effect, for domestic charities, private aid and, 191–92
Cuba: forcible quarantine of HIV-positive, 168
information and communications technology in, 298–99
cultural values: Confucianism and, 269–70
global human rights regime and, 126
regional security organizations and, 89
religiosity and, 278–80
statelessness and, 212–20
currency demand, underground economy size and, 106

Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), 1, 20n1, 258, 278

Darfur: atrocity prevention in, 133–34
genocide in, 28
UN Security Council and, 32
data collection and analysis: on human trafficking, 233–37
terrorism warning systems and, 161
underground economy and institutions, 111–12
Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, 270
decolonization, regional security organizations and, 89
de facto statelessness, 215–21, 226
Definition of Aggression Resolution (U.N. General Assembly), 3
DeGioia, John J., 323
de jure statelessness, 212–15, 221–23
Delivering as One report, 79
demand-focused human trafficking prevention, 247–49
democracy: Islam and, 268
Kantian philosophy and, 332–34
multilateral human rights policy and, 145
Democratic Republic of Congo: genocide in, 26, 28
International Criminal Court and, 44–45, 58–60
Trust Fund for Victims reconciliation projects, 57
Deng, Francis (Dr.), 225–26
Desai, Raj M., 19, 189–204
De Soto, Hernando, 104–5
Deudney, Daniel, 334n5
developing countries: children’s rights in, 139–40
child sex trafficking in, 247–49
human rights discourse and, 7
poverty alleviation and economic development in, 19, 189–204
public opinion on foreign aid in, 197–202
technical assistance to, 142–43
underground economy and inclusive growth in, 104–21
Dewey, John, 334n5
difference, human rights discourse and role of, 8
dignitarian dialogue: dialectic and, 325–26
dimensions of, 323–25
venues and catalytic actors for, 326–32
Dignitatis humanae (Of Human Dignity), 264
Dignity: Its History and Meaning (Rosen), 15
Dillon, Justin, 248–49
diplomatic relationships, regional security organizations and, 96
Dirty List (Brazil), 251
of companies using forced labor, 247
discrimination: faith-based organizations and issues of, 287–88
HIV/AIDS stigma and, 168–85
of stateless persons, 212–20
disgust, politics of, HIV/AIDS stigma and, 168
Ditchley Foundation, Annan lecture to, 72
domestic law, statelessness and, 209
Dominican Republic: Haitian refugees in, 214
statelessness in, 222–23
Doyle, Michael, 333
Draft Constitution of Tunisia, 268
drug users, HIV/AIDS and, 169
Duss, Serge, 286
Dybul, Mark, 329

Eastern Europe: human dignity discourse in, 260–62

statelessness in, 222–23
economic development: collective action problem in, 191–92
competitiveness in aid programs for, 203–4
crowdfunding aid and, 196
global human rights institutions and, 189–204
human dignity and, 19
inclusive growth, institutions, and the underground economy, 103–
21
information and communication technology, 295–99
justice and, 7
long and short paths of aid programs and, 191–96
private aid as direct transaction and, 194–95
recipients’ perspective on aid for, 197–202
economic institutions, underground economies and, 109–11
economic rights: global human rights regime and, 126
increased focus and engagement on, 135–37
long-term economic viability for human trafficking survivors, 240–
42
rethinking of policies for, 144–45
Economist, 282
Ecuador, Peru and, 93–94
education, gender inequality and, 139
Education for All-Fast Track Initiative, 139
Egypt, human rights crisis in, 33
electricity demand, underground economy size and, 106
Emancipation Network (TEN), 240–42
emergency responses, HIV/AIDS stigma and, 168
emerging institutions: dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
HIV/AIDS stigma and, 167–85
overview of, 165–66
End Child Prostitution and Trafficking, 139
The End of History and the Last Man (Fukuyama), 14
Engels, Friedrich, 259
Enlightenment: Catholic Church and, 262–63
human dignity in, 258–62
Epicurus, eudaimonia concept and, 9
ETA (Basque group), 158
ethnic cleansing, in Kosovo, 31–32
ethnic identity: de facto statelessness and, 216–20
de jure statelessness and, 213–14
group rights and, 140–41
regional security organizations and, 89
religion and, 283
eudaimonia (human flourishing), 15, 322
Aristotle’s concept of, 9
European Economic Community (EEC), 3
European Rapid Reaction Force, in Kosovo, 32
European Union: dignitarian dialogue and, 327
evolution of, 3
human rights monitoring and, 131
 regional human rights activities and, 127
regional security and, 85, 92–93, 95–98
United Nations Security Council and, 39
Evans, Garth, 28
executive commitment on human rights, 304
experts, proliferation of, 129–30

faith-based organizations (FBOs): acceptance of other faiths by, 323

challenges for, 287–88
definitions of, 278
dignitarian dialogue and, 327
factors in growth of, 281–285
global networks of, 285–286
growth in religiosity and, 278–80
human dignity initiatives and, 19, 162–63, 277–91, 322
illiberal actors in, 288–89
international community and, 290–91
joint counterterrorism actions by, 162–63
poverty alleviation and economic development and, 189
religious trends and, 280–81. See also religious organizations
Falun Gong groups, technology and free expression by, 134–35
family planning, faith-based organizations and, 287–88
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 239
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, victims’ rights and, 51–52
Fedotov, Yuri, 243
Financial Action Task Force, 117
financial instruments, regional security and, 99
financial regulation, IMF reforms and, 116–17
Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), 110, 117
Financial Stability Board (FSB), 117
first principles of human dignity, consensus on, 20
fiscal legal reforms, IMF and, 117–18
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): human rights and, xiv
Pope Francis’
address to, 266
Force: Annan on use of, 78
Darfur intervention and limits on, 32–33
jus ad bellum criteria for use of, 154–55
recommendations for credible use of, 37–38
regional security organizations and use, 91
state use of, 4
substate actors’ use of, 3–4
against terrorism, justification of, 153–55, 163n2
UN provisions on use of, 30–31, 37
UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorizing, 34
U.S. reluctance to use in Syria, 37. See also terrorism; violence
Ford Foundation, 190
Ford Motor Company, 237
forced labor prevention and, 247–49
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 309
for-profit approach to foreign aid, 194–95
France: International Criminal Court and, 44
United Nations Security Council and, 27, 39, 126
Francis (Pope), 266, 272
Freedom Project (CNN), 246
free expression, backlash against, 134–35
Free Syrian Army, 36–37
Free the Slaves (FTS), 241
French Revolution, human dignity and, 259
Frenk, Julio, 329
Friedman, Milton, 301–2
Friends of UN Plus, 177
Fukuyama, Francis, 14–15, 322, 334
Fukuyaman synthesis, human dignity and, 14–15
Funk, T. Markus, 52

G-20 countries, dignitarian dialogue and, 328

Gandhi, Mahatma, 258
Garrett, Thomas, 192
Gates, Melinda, 1, 20n1
Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the
Modern World) (Paul VI), 264
gender equality: HIV/AIDS policies and, 173–76
human rights and, 137–39
statelessness and, 213–15
Gender Equality Strategy, 173–74
Geneva Conventions of 1949, 154–55
Article 3, 155–56, 159
recommendations for revisions to, 159–60
on Treatment of Prisoners of War, 156–57
genocide: International Criminal Court and, 50–52
in Kosovo, 30–33
in Rwanda, 26
in Syria, 36–37
Genocide Convention, 6, 74
Germany, Nebenklage procedure in, 52
Ghana, 177
public foreign aid in, 193–94
Glaser, Daniel L., 99
Glendon, Mary Ann, 11–12, xiii–xiv
Global Competitiveness Survey, 109–11
global compliance on human rights obligations, weakness in, 125–28
global economic institutions, human rights promotion and, 145–46
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, 136–37, 161
criticism of, 174–75
dignitarian dialogue and, 327, 329
establishment of, 169–70
faithbased organizations and, 281
funding activities of, 180
HIV/AID investments and, 19, 171–76
HIV/AIDS stigma and, 167
HIV and Human Rights Note of 2011, 178
human rights and, 16, xiv
national tensions with, 177–78
Global Giving, 196
global human rights regime: assessment and renovation of, 123–46
atrocity response, institutionalization and selective action
concerning, 132–34
capacity building and, 130–32
Catholic Church and, 263–72
dignitarian dialogue and, 326–32
discourse vs. action on HIV/AIDS, tensions concerning, 176–78
future issues for, 146
group rights and ethnic identity, 140–41
HIV/AIDS and, 169–85
human trafficking and, 231–33
vs. individual human dignity in HIV/AIDS initiatives, 178–83
Kantian philosophy and, 332–34
long-term strategies for, 144–46
monitoring in, 129–30
near-term strategies for, 141–44
norm and treaty creation and, 128–29
poverty alleviation and, 189–204
priorities and trade-offs on human dignity in, 20
 private aid programs and, 203–4
religious organizations and, 257–72
rule of law and, 143–44
terrorism policy recommendations for, 159–63
globalization: Catholic Church and impact of, 265
faith-based institutions and, 277–78
regional security organizations and, 89
religiosity and, 278–80
Global Network Initiative (GNI), 312–13, 314–15, 316n3
Global Philanthropy Forum (GPF), 203
global politics: Catholic Church and, 267–72
Confucianism and, 269–70
dignitarian dialogue and, 323–24
human dignity and, 258–62
Global Report on Trafficking of Persons, 236
Global Trust for Governance (proposed), 161–62
Global Trust for Rule of Law (proposed), 143, 161–62
Global Witness, 136
Golden Rule, human dignity in, 10–11
Google, 327
human trafficking data and, 238
technology and free expression in China and, 134–35
Google Foundation, 194–95
Goulding, Marrack, 81
Governance: building a Global Trust for, 161–62
de facto statelessness and, 217–20
impact of private aid on, 203–4
Government Accountability Office (GAO) (U.S.), 193–94
grassroots movements, global human rights regime and, 125–28
gross domestic product (GDP), underground economy and, 106
group rights, racism and ethnic identity and, 140–41
Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, U.S. mistreatment of detainees
at, 125–28
Gulf Arab States: human trafficking initiatives in, 240
patrilineal descent and citizenship in, 213
statelessness in, 222–23
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), 34
military actions by, 40
regional security and, 85, 92–93

Hague Convention on Nationality (1930), 209

Hague Conventions of 1899–1907, 154–55
Haitian refugees: in Dominican Republic, 214
U.S. detention of HIV-positive refugees, 168
Hamas, 278
terrorism in Israel by, 28
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 155–56
Hampson, Fen Osler, 93
Handbook for Parliamentarians (UNHCR), 216
Haugen, Gary, 7, 244
Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of (U.S.), 238
Hegel, G. F. W., 14–15
Help Wanted initiative (Verité), 245–46
Hewlett Foundation, 190, 194
Hezbollah: goods and services provision by, 3–4
terrorism in Israel by, 28
HIV/AIDS: Catholic Church care for patients with, 280
discourse vs. action, global and national tensions concerning, 176–
78
global commitments vs. individual human dignity, 178–83
human dignity and social stigma of, 19
human rights vs. human dignity dialogue and, 322–25
 milestones in policies concerning, 171–76
Millennium Development Goals concerning, 172
transcending stigma of, 167–85
Hobbes, Thomas, 210, 212
Holocaust: human dignity and legacy of, 259–60
human rights discourse and, 6–8
Homeland Security, U.S. Department of: de jure stateless persons
data from, 214
human trafficking initiatives and, 236, 244
Hu Jintao, 269–70
Human Development Index, 13
Human Development Report, 13
human dignity: ancient concepts of, 9
best practices and innovations in advancement of, 18–19
capabilitiesbased development and, 13
Catholic Church and, 267–72
concepts of, 8–12
Confucianism and, 269–70
consensus building on, 17
constructivist dialogue on, 20
faith-based institutions and, 19, 162–63, 277–91
Fukuyaman synthesis and, 14–15
future research issues concerning, 319–20
global politics and, 258–62
HIV/AIDS stigma and, 168–57
humane treatment of terrorists and, 155–57
human rights and, 322–25
of individual, global HIV/AIDS commitments and, 178–83
institutional reform for promotion of, 76–78
International Criminal Court and protection of, 43–46
International Criminal Court language of, 60–63
 international dialogue on, 319–34
international institutions and, 49–50
Islamic concepts of, 267–68
in Judeo-Christian thinking, 9–11
in Kantian idealism, 11
modern definitions of, 1–2
in New Haven School, 12–16
operationalization of, 323–24
overview of research on, 16–17
public-private partnerships for advancement of, 250–52
regional security organizations and, 85–99
regional security
organizations’ promotion of, 91–93
religious organizations and global politics of, 257–72
in secular universalism, 11–12
statelessness and, 212–20
terrorism and counterterrorism and, 151–63
as unifying idea, 320–21
U.S. power and, 330–32
working definition of, 15–16, 87
Human Dignity (Kateb), 10
humane treatment, of terror suspects, 155–57
humanitarian intervention, Annan’s advocacy for, 73, 79–81
Humanity United, 249–50, 251
human rights: Annan’s advocacy for, 71–75
architecture for, 23
Arendt’s comments on, 207–8
business groups and, 295–315
Catholic Church and, 264–72, 267–72
Confucianism and, 269–70
corporate responsibility concerning, 299–315
 discourse and divisions on, 6–8
global regime for, 123–46
HIV/AIDS stigma and, 170–85
human dignity and, 322–25
impact assessments of corporate initiatives in, 309–12
International Criminal Court language of, 60–63
international organizations for, xiv
internet and, 295–315
introduction and implementation of, xiii
Islamic concepts of, 267–68
justification for, xiii–xiv
monitoring of, 129–30
regional differences concerning norms of, 71–72
technology and, 295–99
touch-point human rights inventory and clearinghouse, 308–9
weak global compliance concerning, 125–28. See also right to
have rights
Human Rights Committee, 129–30
human rights impact assessment (HIRA), 309–12, 314–15
Human Rights Watch, 127, 136
human trafficking: 3 P’s of, 231, 233
anti-demand preventive efforts against, 247–49
economic and social rights and, 137
funding marshaling and coordination for fighting against, 249–50
global initiatives on, 138–39
long-term economic viability for survivors of, 240–42
partnerships for fighting against, 231–52
prevention of, partnerships for, 244–49
prosecution of offenders, partnerships for, 242–44
prosecution statistics for, 232
 publicprivate partnerships for advancement of human dignity for
victims of, 250–52
research and mapping of, 233–37
resources partnerships for combating, 249–50
survivors’
immediate care and, 239–40
victim identification in, 237–39
victims’ protection, partnerships for, 237–42. See also prostitution
sex workers; slavery; Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report
Hussein, Saddam, 29
hybrid institutions: atrocity response, institutionalization and
selective action concerning, 132–34
dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
human dignity and, 19

Ignatieff, Michael, 321

İhsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin, 94, 268
Ikenberry, John, 331, 334n5
implementation of human dignity initiatives, 324
inclusive growth, state institutional capacity and, 103–21
indefinite detention, as violation of human dignity, 156–57
Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission, 94–95
India: HIV/AIDS policies in, 181–82
human trafficking in, 233, 240–42
International Criminal Court and, 44
microfinance institutions in, 201–2
sovereignty ideology in, 225
statelessness in, 222–23
UN peacekeeping missions in, 43
indigenous peoples, group rights and, 140–41
Indonesia, International Criminal Court and, 44
information accessibility, technology and human rights and, 295–99
Information and Accession Package to the Stateless Conventions
(UNHCR), 215, 221
information and communications technology (ICT): corporate
responsibility and, 300–315
human rights and, 295–315
human rights impact assessment in, 309–12
internal/external stakeholder engagement in corporate
responsibility and, 312
touch-point human rights inventory and clearinghouse, 308–9
Information Note on HIV and Human Rights, 174–75, 180
In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human
Rights for All (Annan), 74–78, 133
Institute for Human Rights and Business, 136
Institute for Medicine (IOM) (U.S.), 180
institutional capacity, underground economies and, 103–21
institutional quality assessment, size of underground economies and,
112–15
InterAction Council, 270
Inter-American Democratic Charter, 92–93, 142
interfaith dialogue: Catholic Church’s efforts to initiate, 263–72, 267–
72
faith-based organizations and, 278
Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, 219–20
intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), 5
capacity building and, 130–32
dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
heightened attention to human rights and, 125–28
human dignity and, 322
human trafficking initiatives and, 236–37
neomedieval institutions, 2–6
 political rights and, 135
regional empowerment of, 141–42
research on, 18
technical assistance to developing countries, 142–43
traditional institutions in, 23–24
underground economies and, 105–21
internally displaced persons (IDPs): de facto statelessness in, 216
sovereignty-as-responsibility principle and, 225–27
International Accounting Standards Board, 117
international aid organizations, growth of private institutions, 190–91
International Association of Deposit Insurers, 117
International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 139
International Coalition to Ban Landmines, 325
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS), 28, 74
atrocity prevention and, 133
International Committee on the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC),
159, 176–77
dignitarian dialogue and, 329
tax rules and deductions and, 194
international community doctrine, Blair’s Chicago Speech concerning,
73
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearances, 135
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 6–8,
129–30, 135, 209, 260, 301
human dignity promoted in, 6, 76
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR), 6, 260
human dignity promoted in, 76
International Criminal Court (ICC), 16, 18, 23
 critical review of, 58–60
dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
human rights/human dignity language and, 60–63
member states in, 50
peacekeeping operations and, 79–81
procedures of, 52–58
regional security organizations and, 87
Responsibility to Protect doctrine and, 49–64
U.S. support for, 43–46
victim rights and, 50–52, 322
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 43–
44, 138
International Federation for Human Rights, 136
International Finance Corporation (IFC), human rights and, xiv
international human rights organizations: dignitarian dialogue and,
326–32
faith-based organizations and, 281–85, 290–91
growth in 1990s of, 70
root causes of terrorism and, 157–59
statelessness and, 223–27
violators’
undermining of, 124
international institutions, human dignity and, 16, 49–50
International Justice Mission (IJM), 238, 242–45
International Labor Organization (ILO): economic and social rights
and, 137, 139–40
forced labor prevention and, 247–49
HIV/AIDS investments and, 19
human trafficking and, 231, 234–35, 237–39, 250
prevention of human trafficking and, 246–47
prosecution of human traffickers and, 243–44
 underground economies and, 110–11
international law: economic rights and, 136–37
human rights and, 6–8, 207–8
jus in bello (laws of war) and, 154–55
regional security organizations and, 86–87
right to have rights and, 207–27
statelessness and, 209–11, 225–27
International Law Commission, statelessness and, 228n10
International League for Human Rights, 136
International Monetary Fund (IMF): anti-money laundering and
countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) policy, 118–20
capacity building and, 131–32
dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
financial reform and regulation and, 116–17
fiscal legal reforms and, 117–18
human dignity and activities of, 18, 25, 322
human rights and, 146, xiv
LEG Financial Integrity Group, 121n7
promotion of financial integrity by, 118–20
underground economies and, 105–21, 115–20
International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA), 239–40
International Organization for Migration (IOM), human trafficking
data from, 235, 250
International Organization of Securities Commissions, 117
international security, regional security organizations and, 88–91
internet: charitable giving on, 196, 198, 200–202 (See also
crowdfunding aid)
dignitarian dialogue and, 330–32
human rights and, 295–315
protection of freedom on, 135
sex trafficking on, 247–49
interregional security organizations, 96
intrastate conflict, UN peacekeeping missions and, 29–30
Iran: human rights in, 28
information and communications technology in, 298–99
Syrian crisis and, 36–37
Iraq War, UN Security Council and, 32–33
Irish Republican Army (IRA), 153, 158
Islam: faith-based organizations in, 287–89
freedom of expression and, 135
human dignity and human rights and, 267–68
population statistics for, 280
Islamic Council of Europe, 268
Israel, U.S. protection of, 28

Janjaweed forces (Sudan), 133–34

Jaramillo, Gabriel, 174, 186n8
John of Salisbury, 163n2
John Paul II (Pope), 11, 265–66
Johnson, Chalmers, 331
Johnston, Douglas, 290
Johnstone, Ian, 68–69, 78–79
John XXIII (Pope), 264–65
Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, 167, 322
Jordan, patrilineal descent and citizenship in, 213
journalism, attacks on, 135
Jubilee 2000 campaign, 284
Judeo-Christian thinking: human dignity in, 9–11, 15, 258–62
Islam and, 268
Juergensmeyer, Mark, 289
jus ad bellum criteria, use of force and, 154–57
jus connectionis (law of connectedness): de facto statelessness and,
218
transformative concepts of citizenship and, 226–27
jus in bello (laws of war), use of force and, 154–55
jus sanguinis rules, statelessness and, 222, 228n8
jus soli rules, statelessness and, 222
justice: economic empowerment and, 7
genocide and war crimes and, 26
prosecution of human traffickers, 242–44

Kaminski, Ryan, 18, 23–24, 123–46

Kampala Review Conference, 45
Kant, Immanuel: human dignity and philosophy of, 258–62
idealism and human dignity in, 11, 15
neomedieval institutions and philosophy of, 332–34
public-private partnerships and philosophy of, 252
Kara, Siddharth, 234–35
Kateb, George, 10
Kenya: Nubian minority in, 213
violence in, 44
Kernig, Claus-Dieter, 158
Kerry, John, 36
Khan, Irene, 7, 244
Kharas, Homi, 19, 189–204
King, Martin Luther Jr., 258
Kiva, 196, 198–200
motivation of philanthropists for, 200–202
Kojeve, Alexander, 15
Konrad, Helga, 236
Korean War, 29–30
Kosovo: Annan on crisis in, 73, 133
 UN Security Council and crisis in, 30–33, 73
Kosovo Liberation Army, 30–31
Kung, Hans, 320–21
Kuwait, Iraq invasion of, 29

labor force: human trafficking victims in, 237–39, 239–40, 245–49

prosecution of human traffickers and, 243–44
underground economy size and, 106
Lagon, Mark P., 18–19, 23–24, 123–46, 161–62, 195, 199, 209,
228n6, 231–52, 277, 319–34
Lancet magazine, 181
language of human dignity: in human rights treaties, 129
International Criminal Court and, 60–63
Lasswell, Harold, 12, 17
lateral learning, regional security organizations and, 92–93
Latin America: faith-based organizations in, 282
human dignity discourse in, 260–62
regional human rights organizations in, 127
revolution and human dignity in, 259
Latvia, Slavic minority in, 213
League of Arab States, human dignity interventions and, 39–40. See
also Arab League
League of Nations, 2, 11, 27, 220, 326
leakage problem in foreign aid, 192–95
legitimacy: of regional security organizations, 86
United Nations Security Council, issues of, 28–29
in use of force, 155
Leo XIII (Pope), 263
Lesotho, HIV/AIDS policies in, 182
Liberia, 177
Libya: Arab League and, 39
 human rights violations in, 28, 30, 33
International Criminal Court and, 44–45
judicial system in, 130–32
suspension from UNHRC, 126
UN Security Council, 33–35
Lindberg, Tod, 16, 18, 23–24, 49–64, 322
literature resources, on underground economies, 109–11
local organizations: coordination with, 191–92
faith-based organizations and, 286–88
Locke, John, 163n2, 212
Lord’s Resistance Army, 57
Lubanga case (International Criminal Court), 54–55

MacArthur Foundation, 190

MacKinnon, Rebecca, 297–98
Made by Survivors, 240–42
Mali, violent conflict in, 26, 28
Mandela, Nelson, 70
Mann, Jonathan, 169, 183, 184n2
ManpowerGroup, 242, 245–46, 251
Maritain, Jacques, xiii, 263
markets: economic rights and, 135–36
human trafficking prevention and, 251–52
prevention of forced labor through use of, 247–49
Marx, Karl, 259
Massey, Hugh, 217, 219
Mazrui, Ali, 90
Mbeki, Thabo, 90
McDougal, Myres, 12, 17
Médecins San Frontières, 190
Memorandum on Statelessness (Intergovernmental Committee on
Refugees), 219–20
Mencius, 269
men who have sex with men (MSM), HIV/AIDS and, 169, 174, 181–
82
Michels, Nicole, 249–50
microfinance institutions (MFIs), 198–200
in India, 201–2
motivation of philanthropists in, 200–202
Middle East: human dignity discourse in, 260–62
regional human rights organizations in, 127
regional security in, 94
sexual rights in, 142
migrant workers, human trafficking initiatives involving, 239–40
military force, laws of war and use of, 155
Millennium Challenge Corporation, 193–94
Millennium Development Corporation: gender inequality and, 139
human rights and, xiv
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 172, 178, 261–62
Catholic Church and, 266
Millennium Report 2000, 73–74
Millennium Summit, 261–62
Milosevic, Slobodan, 30–32
Minow, Martha, 63
money laundering, IMF policies concerning, 119–20
monitoring of human rights, 129–30
moral sentiments, Smith’s theory of, 259
Mother Theresa, 277
mother-to-child HIV transmission, initiatives for elimination of, 174
Mozambique, 177
MTV corporation, 246
MTV Exit campaign, 246–47, 251
Mubarak, Hosni, 33
Muhammad (Prophet), 267–68
Multi-country AIDS Program (MAP), 173
multilateral agreements: capacity building and, 131–33
democracy and, 145
human rights obligations in, 6–8
regional security organizations and, 89–90
multiple indicators, multiple causes model, underground economy,
106
multistakeholder institutional partnerships: corporate responsibility in
human rights and, 312
HIV/AIDS policies and, 180–83
human dignity and role of, 19
human trafficking and, 231–33, 248–49
mission identification for, 251–52
mutual support and cooperation, regional security organizations and,
89
Myanmar: HIV/AIDS in, 183
Rohyngya minority denied citizenship in, 213
My Lai massacre, 153

Nansen, Fridtjof, 220

narco-trafficking, regional security organizations and, 87
National Action Plan (NAP) on Women, Peace, and Security, 138–40
national governments: global HIV/AIDS commitments vs. individual
human dignity and, 179–83
global human rights regime and, 124
National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC), 238
National Interest (Fukuyama), 14
Nationality: Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 221–23
 de facto statelessness and, 215–20
definitions of, 228n2
de jure statelessness and, 212–15
provision to children of, 221–23
right to, 209–11. See also citizenship
National Program on Human Rights (Mexico), 131
national self-determination, human dignity and, 259
Natsios, Andrew, 280
Nebenklage procedure, victims’
rights and, 52
necessity criteria, use of force in, 154
neomedieval institutions: dignitarian dialogue and, 326–32
international relations and, 2–6
Kantian philosophy and, 332–34
religion and, 283–84
unity in, 320–21
Nepal, human trafficking in, 240
Nepalese minority, in Bhutan, 213
New Haven School, on human dignity, 12–16
New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), 142
Niger, rulings against slavery in, 127
Nigeria, UN peacekeeping missions in, 43
Nobel Peace Prize: to Annan, 72
to Mandela, 70
to Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, 36
Non-Aligned Movement, 75
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 5
birth registration efforts by, 224
capacity building and, 130–32
critical review of, 58–60
evaluations of, 195
 faith-based organizations and, 19, 281–86
funding resources for fighting human trafficking and, 249–50
growth of, 190–91
HIV/AIDS and, 172–76
human rights successes of, 127–28
human trafficking initiatives and, 235–49
International Criminal Court proceedings and, 53–58
motivations of, 198
poverty alleviation and economic development and, 189
protection of stateless persons by, 224–25
recommendations on terrorism for, 159
regional empowerment of, 141–42
survivors’
immediate care for human trafficking victims, 239–40
nonmilitary targets, prohibitions on use of force against, 155
nonprofit approach to foreign aid, 194–95
nonstate actors: protection of stateless persons by, 224–25
as terrorists, 153
violence by, 151–63
norm-creation and norm-implementation: global human rights
regime and, 128–29
human dignity and, 17
human trafficking and, 231
regional security organizations and, 86–87
statelessness and, 225–27
UN Secretary-General advancement of, 70–75
norm entrepreneurs: Annan and, 71–72
dignitarian dialogue and, 325–26
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): African operations in, 40
dignitarian dialogue and, 327
EU security policies and, 95–96
 Kosovo crisis and, 31–32
Libyan operations of, 34, 39
regional security and, 92–93
security dialogues and programs, 97–98
Northeast Chili Producers Association, 57
Nostra aetate, 264
Nottebohm case, 209, 218, 229n12
Nubian minority, in Kenya, 213
Nusrah, Jabhat al-, 35
Nussbaum, Martha, 13, 15, 168, 322

Obama, Barack, 1, 20n1

Chinese censorship and, 134
economic and social rights and, 136–37
human trafficking initiatives and, 231–32
International Criminal Court and, 44–46
regional security organizations and, 89–90
Syrian crisis and, 35–37
UN peacekeeping missions and, 41–42
Obasanjo, Olusegun, 90
Office of Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV), 53–58
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 77–78
capacity-building, 131
micromanagement of, 144
Omar, Mullah, 158
Omidyar, Pierre and Pamela, 249–50
Omidyar Network, 195, 204n3, 249–50
Oneness of God, Islamic belief in, 267
online resources. See internet
operationalization of human dignity, practices for, 20
Operation Allied Force, 32
Operation Little Girl Lost, 239–40
Operation Odyssey Dawn, 34
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):
Development Assistance Committee, 193
human dignity discourse and, 261
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 94–98
dignitarian dialogue and, 328
human rights monitoring, 130–31
human trafficking initiatives and, 236–37, 250
regional empowerment and action and, 142
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, 36
Organization of African Unity, 71–72
Organization of American States, 85, 127–29
dignitarian dialogue and, 327
regional security and, 91–93
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), 34, 94–96, 135, 267–68
Organization of the Islamic Conference, 34, 135, 268
The Origins of Totalitarianism (Arendt), 207–8
Oung, Chanthol, 245
overhead costs in foreign aid, 192–95
Oxfam, 190–91

Paine, Thomas, 259

Pakistan: International Criminal Court and, 44
UN peacekeeping missions in, 43
Palermo Protocol. See UN Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons
Palestine Liberation Organization, 158
Palestinians, UN protection of, 220
Panikkar, P. N., 90
Paris Peace Conference, 326
Parliament of the World’s Religions, 270
Partnership for Peace (PfP) (NATO), 97
patrilineal descent, statelessness and citizenship linked to, 213–15
Paul VI (Pope), 264–65
Pax Africana proposal, 90
Payne, A. Abigail, 192
Peacebuilding Mission, proposal for, 77–78
peacekeeping missions: Annan’s operation and evaluation of, 78–81
in Darfur, 133–34
norm-creation and normimplementation and, 70–75
United Nations Security Council role in, 29–30, 41–43
Peace of Westphalia (1648), 2, 28, 209, 281–82
peer-based scrutiny, human rights monitoring and, 129–30
People Living with HIV Stigma Index, 183, 185n12
Perpetual Peace (Kant), 11
Perron, Walter, 52
person-to-person aid, 198–200
Peru, Ecuador and, 93–94
Pew Research center, Forum on Religion and Public Life, 280
Philippines: human trafficking initiatives in, 239–40
prosecution of human traffickers in, 242
statelessness in, 222–23
Piot, Peter, 172, 329
piracy, regional security organizations and, 87
pitié, Rousseau’s concept of, 259
Pius IX (Pope), 263
Pius XI (Pope), 263
Pius XII (Pope), 264
Pizzi, William T., 52
Plato, 14
on human dignity, 9, 322
on role of state, 212
Polaris database, 238
political institutions: human dignity and, 258–62
right to nationality and, 210–11
underground economies and, 109–11
political rights: human dignity and, 129–30
statelessness and, 212–20
uneven institutionalization of, 134–35
Populorum progressio (Paul VI), 265
postrights discourse, human rights and, 8
post-unipolar environment, human dignity and, 330–32
poverty alleviation: Catholic Church and, 271–72
collective action problem in, 191–92
competitiveness in aid programs for, 203–4
crowdfunding aid and, 196
faith-based organizations and, 282–85
global human rights institutions and, 189–204
HIV/AIDS and, 169
human dignity and, 19
impact of private aid on, 202–4
new institutions and policies and, 190–91
private aid as direct transaction and, 194–95
recipients’ perspective on aid for, 197–202
Pragati Gramodyog evam Samaj-kalyan Sansthan (PGS), 241
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), 137, 144–45,
169, 185n3
Blueprint for Creating an AIDS-free Generation, 180
evaluation of, 180–83
faith-based organizations and, 281
preventive awareness, human trafficking prevention and, 244–47
prisoners of war, treatment of, 156–57, 160
private aid: absence of research on, 198
 coordination of, 191–92
crowdfunding aid, 196
current and future trends in, 202–4
as direct transaction, 194–95
intermediaries for, 191–96
limitations of, 195
long and short aid programs and, 191–96
microlending programs, 198–200
motivation of philanthropists in, 200–202
new institutions and poverty alleviation policies and, 190–91
personal agency and, 196–202
person-to-person aid, 198–200
poverty alleviation and economic development and, 189
private sector actors, dignitarian dialogue and, 327
property rights, underground economy and inclusive growth and,
104–21
proportionality, use of force in, 154
prostitution, 138, 139, 180, 240, 246. See also human trafficking;
slavery
public aid: administrative costs of, 192–94
chain of official aid, 192–94
long chain of action for, 191–96
public health policy, HIV/AIDS stigma and, 167–70
public opinion: of faith-based organizations, 282–85
on foreign aid, 196–85
recipients’ perspectives on economic aid, 198–202
Syrian crisis and, 37
public-private partnerships: advancement of human dignity for, 250–
52
anti-demand preventive efforts against human trafficking and,
247–49
 faith-based organizations and, 291
in human trafficking initiatives, 231–33
for long-term economic viability for human trafficking survivors,
240–42
prevention of human trafficking and, 244–49
for prosecution of human traffickers, 242–44
resources for fighting human trafficking and, 249–50
survivors’
immediate care for human trafficking victims, 239–40
victim identification in human trafficking and, 237–39

Qaddafi, Muammar, 33–35, 39, 130

Qatar, Syrian crisis and, 36
Quadragesimo anno (Pope Pius XI), 263
Qur’an, 267–68

racial sovereignty, 90
racism, group rights and, 140–41
Reagan, Ronald, faith-based organizations and, 280–81
Reagan Doctrine, 3
recipients’ perspectives on economic aid, 197–202
faith-based organizations and issues of, 287–88
recognition, human dignity and, 15–16, 322
Red Army, 158
Red Brigade, 158
Redress institution, 58
Refugee Convention (1951), 212–15, 214–15, 220–21
refugee regime, right to nationality and, 210–11
Refugees International, 223–24
regime change, human rights interventions and, 34–35
regime security, regional security organizations and, 94
regional consensus, human rights interventions and, 34–35
regional courts, atrocity response, institutionalization and selective
action concerning, 132–34
regional development banks, 146
regional human rights organizations: atrocity prevention and, 39–40
conflict management and human dignity in, 18
dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
empowerment of, 141–42
norm and treaty creation and, 128–29
uneven efforts of, 125–28
regional integration, Europe as example of, 3
regionalism, emergence of, 88–91
regional security organizations (RSOs): growing importance of, 88–
91
human dignity and, 85–99
promotion of human dignity agenda and, 91–93
strategies for strengthening of, 93–99
regulatory burden, underground economies and, 109–11
relativist approach to human rights, 72
religiosity, global growth of, 278–80
religious blasphemy laws, 135
religious organizations: freedom of expression for, 135
global politics of human dignity and, 257–72
growing influence of, 5
human dignity and, 19
illiberal actors in, 288–89
joint counterterrorism actions and, 162–63
pluralism in religion and, 320–21
trends in, 280–81. See also faith-based institutions
Renaissance humanism, human dignity in, 258–62
reparations, International Criminal Court and, 56–58
Report of the Panel on UN peace operations (Brahimi Report), 42,
79–80
Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs), 117–
18
reproductive rights, faith-based organizations and, 287–88
The Republic (Plato), 9, 14
Rerum novarum, 263
Rescue Foundation (India), 240–41
reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs), human rights
evasions, 128–29
Reserve Bank of India, 201–2
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, 18
Annan’s work for, 68
atrocity prevention and, 133–34
corporate responsibility for human rights and, 303
development of, 28
dignitarian dialogue and, 325–26
formation of, 73–75
International Criminal Court and, 49–64
limits of, 38
regional security organizations and, 87
statelessness and, 225–27
The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World
Economy (Strange), 5
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC, goods and services
provision by, 3–4
Rewards for Justice, 45
Rhine, Russell, 192
Rice, Susan, 25
right to have rights, international law and, 207–27. See also human
rights
Robinson, James, 105
Robinson, Nehemiah, 216
Rockefeller Foundation, 190
Rodriguez-García, Rosalía, 16, 19, 322, 329
Rohyngya minority, Myanmar denial of nationality for, 213
Rome Statute (creating the International Criminal Court), 44–45, 50,
52–53
Article 68, 53
Article 75, 56
Article 79, 56
critical review of, 59–60
norm and treaty creation and, 128–29
violence against women and, 138–39
Roosevelt, Eleanor, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, xiii,
11–12, 228n5
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 334n5
Rosen, Michael, 15
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 259
Roy, Olivier, 283
Ruggie, John, 136, 302–3
Rule of Law: a Global Trust for, 143–44
prosecution of human trafficking and, 244
Rules of Procedure and Evidence (RPE) (ICC): critical review of, 59–
60
victims’
rights and, 52–58
Russia: International Criminal Court and, 44
Kosovo crisis and, 31
Libyan crisis and, 34–35
NATO security programs and, 97
Serbia and, 34
 Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal and, 25
sovereignty ideology in, 225
Syrian crisis and, 35–37
UN Security Council membership, 27
Rwanda: genocide in, 26, 74
HIV/AIDS advocacy and, 177, 183
international criminal tribunal in, 43–44
public foreign aid in, 193–94
UN peacekeeping missions in, 43

Sacred Aid: Faith and Humanitarianism (Michael Barnett), 285

Salvation Army STOP-IT Program, 239
sampling techniques, human trafficking research and mapping and,
234–37
Samway, Michael, 19, 295–315
sanctuary cities, protection of stateless persons and, 224–25
San Francisco Conference on International Organization, 17, 326.
See also United Nations Charter
Saudi Arabia: de facto statelessness in, 216
human rights initiatives in, 129
Syrian crisis and, 36, 39–40
Save the Children, 190
Scheffer, David, 45
Scotland, HIV/AIDS in, 183
Second Vatican Council, 258, 262, 264, 266, 271–72
secular universalism: faith-based organizations and, 285–86
human dignity and, 11–12
Islamic concerns about, 267–68
security exporters, regional security organizations and, 89
Sedaca, Nicole Bibbins, 19, 239, 277–91, 322, 323
self-defense, states’ right of, 154
self-help groups (SHGs), human trafficking survivors and, 241–42
self-worth: ancient concepts of, 9
right to nationality and, 210–11
Sen, Amartya, 13, 15, 212, 322
Senegal, 268
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 4, 92, 151, 154
intelligence failures before, 160–61
Serbia: Kosovo crisis and, 30–31
Russia and, 31, 34
sex trafficking, public-private partnerships against, 247–49
sexual orientation: faith-based organizations and, 287–88
group rights and, 141–42
sex workers, HIV/AIDS and, 169, 174, 182. See also human
trafficking
shadow economies. See underground economies
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), 94, 96
Sidibé, Michel, 175–76
Sierra Leone: Special Court for, 132–134
war crimes tribunal for atrocities in, 25–26
Silicon Valley, technology and human rights and, 295–99
Singh, Anoop, 18, 24, 322
Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson, 138
slavery: economic and social rights and, 137
in India, 240–42
prosecution of slave labor contractors, 243–44
rulings against, 127. See also human trafficking; prostitution
Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report
slaveryfootprint.org, 247–49, 251
Slavic minority, in Latvia, 213
Smith, Adam, 259
social institutions: HIV/AIDS stigma and, 167–70
 underground economies and, 109–11
social media tools: crowdfunding aid and, 196
dignitarian dialogue and, 330–32
globalization and proliferation of, 5
Kiva program and, 198–200
political rights and, 134–35
social recognition. See recognition, human dignity and
social responsible investment firms (SRIs), 304
social rights: focus and engagement on, 136–37
global human rights regime and, 126
HIV/AIDS stigma and, 170–85
rethinking of policies for, 144–45
social transformation: HIV/AIDS and, 181–83, 185n11
microlending programs and, 199–200
Soderberg, Nancy, 18, 23, 25–46, 133
Sollicitudo rei socialis (John Paul II), 265
Somalia, genocide in, 26
Soros, George, 127
South Africa: end of apartheid in, 70
faith-based organizations in, 286
HIV/AIDS policies in, 181
human dignity discourse, 261
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, 127
Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC), 286
sovereignty: global HIV/AIDS commitments vs. national sovereignty,
178–83
human rights and, 6–8
Libyan crisis and, 35
neomedieval institutions and principle of, 2–3
racial sovereignty, 90
regional sovereignty concept, 85–86, 90, 94
 as responsibility, Annan’s concept of, 72–75, 83n1, 225–27
right to have rights and, 207–27
Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal and, 25
statelessness and, 209–11, 225–27
United Nations and, 28
Soviet Union: collapse of, 69–70
human dignity discourse and collapse of, 261
UN Security Council membership, 27
Special Court for Sierra Leone, 26
spousal abuse, regional rulings against, 127
Srebrenica, atrocities in, 73
Sri Lanka, human rights violations in, 45
state institutions: building global trust in, 161–62
denial of human rights by, 207–8
dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
discourse vs. action on HIV/AIDS, tensions concerning, 176–78
faith-based organizations and, 282–85, 291
internet and, 295–96
necessity of, 212
regional security organizations and, 86–87
right to nationality and, 209–11
transnational corporations influence on, 5
underground economies and, 103–21
UN intervention in, 29–30
statelessness: anti-stateless regime, proposal for development of,
220–23
components of, 212–20
data collection and analysis problems and, 228n9
de facto statelessness, 215–20
de jure statelessness, 212–15
growth of, 208
 responsibility for, 223–27
right to have rights and, 207–27
right to nationality and, 209–11
state parties rejection of conventions on, 222–23
Stevens, J. Christopher, 34
Stoicism, human dignity in, 258–62
Strange, Susan, 5
subregional competence, regional security organizations and, 89
substate actors, legitimization of violence by, 3–4
Sudan: atrocity prevention in, 133–34
Darfur genocide in, 28
human rights in, 28
International Criminal Court and, 44–45
Summers, Todd, 181
Sunstein, Cass, 325–26
Supreme Court (U.S.), rulings on terrorism suspects, 155–56, 159
Swaziland, 177
Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX), 263
Symbionese Liberation Army, 158
Syria: de facto statelessness in, 216–17
geopolitics of conflict in, 133–34
human rights violations in, 28, 30
International Criminal Court and, 45
Russian defense of, 35
UN Security Council and crisis in, 35–37
war crimes and atrocities in, 26, 123–24
Syrian Opposition Coalition, 35

Taiwan, human rights in, 27

Tanzania, public foreign aid in, 193–94
tax burden, underground economies and, 109–11
tax collection process, public foreign aid and, 192–94
Taylor, Charles, 25–26, 132–34
technical assistance, to developing states, 142–43
technology: crowdfunding aid and, 196
globalization and, 5
human rights and, 295–99
political rights and use of, 134–35
Ten Commandments, human dignity in, 10–11
terrorism: acts, groups, and terrorists, distinctions among, 153
anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism
(AML/CFT) policy, 118–20
building global trust for governance as defense against, 161–62
definitions of, 151–52
early warning system for, 160–61
forcible response to, 153–55
former terrorists’
rejection of, 153
global institutions, recommendations concerning, 159–63
human dignity and, 19, 151–63
humane treatment of terror suspects, 155–57
leadership structure in, 158
networks of terrorists and, 99
without goals, 158
Thailand, human trafficking in, 240, 244
Thomas, Scott, 278, 283
thymos (Platonic concept), 14, 322
Tibet, human rights in, 27
Tingley, Dustin, 197
Toft, Monica Duffy, 288–89
torture, U.S. use of, 156
Torture Convention, 6
touch-point human rights inventory and clearinghouse, 308–9
toxic waste, economic and social rights and, 136–37
traditional institutions, human dignity initiatives and, 23–24
Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, 231–32, 235–36, 238, 243
Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), 137, 231, 238, 242–44
transgender people, 174
transnational corporations (TNCs), 5
transnational human rights organizations, human dignity discourse,
260–62
transnational NGOs, 190–91
transnational political movements, 4–6
transstate organizations, proliferation of, 5
Traub, James, 70
treaties: codification of use of force in, 154–55
global human rights regime and creation of, 128–29
Trust Fund for Victims (TFV): human rights/human dignity language
and, 60–63
Rome Statute provision for, 56–58
Tunisia, human rights crisis in, 33, 268
Turkey, 268
Tu Weiming, 269
twenty-first century global power structure, United Nations Security
Council recognition of, 38–39

Uganda: capacity-building in, 131

human trafficking in, 240
International Criminal Court and, 44–45
recipients’ perspectives on economic aid in, 198
Trust Fund for Victims reconciliation projects, 57
Uighur dissenters, technology and free expression by, 134–35
UNAIDS, 169–76, 185n7, 329
 discourse vs. action on HIV/AIDS, tensions concerning, 176–78
statistics on global programs of, 179
UN Charter, 11
Annan’s interpretation of, 72
Article 51, 154
Article 52(2), 90
Articles 97–101, 68–69
Chapter VIII, 89
preamble, 6
Preamble to, 259
regional human rights organizations and, 127
Secretary-General role defined in, 68–70
UN Security Council established under, 27
use of force in, 30
UN Children’s Fund. See UNICEF
UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), 76–78, 126, 129–30,
303
UN Convention Against Torture. See Convention Against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
UN Convention on Organized Crime. See Convention on Organized
Crime
UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racism. See
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racism
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. See
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
UN Crime Convention on Trafficking in Persons. See Crime
Convention on Trafficking in Persons
UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF), 142–44, 333
underground economies: inclusive growth and, 103–21
institutions and, 111–12
literature resources on, 109–9
 size of, 106–9
UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 76
human dignity in constitution of, 259
non-governmental organizations and, 127
Resolution 1994/24, 171–72
UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 161
human rights and, xiv
UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, 138.
See also UN Women
UN Framework on Business and Human Rights, 298–99, 302–3
UN General Assembly: Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS,
169, 179
Definition of Aggression Resolution, 3
non-intervention principles and, 28
Outcome Document of 2005 World Summit, 225
Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, 179–80
Resolution 40/34, 52
Resolution 60/147, 52
Resolution 3379, repeal of, 140
Special Session (UNGASS) in HIV/AIDS, 172–73
Syrian crisis and, 133–34
UN Millennium Declaration, 172
UN Global Compact, 80–81, 136, 302–3
UN Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking (UN.GIFT), 243–44, 250
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 133–34, 208
de facto statelessness and, 216–20, 228n7
de jure statelessness data from, 212–15, 228n7
faith-based organizations and, 281
UN Human Development Reports, 261
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), 129–30
Annan’s promotion of, 76–77
 birth registration advocacy and, 224
economic rights and, 136–37
establishment of, 68
freedom of speech and assembly and, 134
global human rights regime and, 125–28
internet freedom and, 135
norm and treaty creation and, 128–29
renovations of, 144–46
statelessness advocacy and, 224–27
Syrian crisis and, 133–34
UNICEF: “25 by 2005” initiative, 139
children’s rights and, 133–34, 139–40
human trafficking and, 250
stateless children and, 224
UN Interagency Program on Human Trafficking, 139
United Arab Emirates, human trafficking and, 250
United Kingdom: International Criminal Court and, 44
Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal and, 25
United Nations Security Council and, 39, 126
United Nations: dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
discourse vs. action on HIV/AIDS, global and national tensions
concerning, 176–78
faith-based organizations and, 280–81
health and human rights framework developed by, 169
New Horizon Plan, 43
Paul VI’s address to, 264–65
renovation of human rights architecture in, 124–46
Secretary-General’s role in, 67–70
stateless persons and, 220–21
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 13, 138, 261
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 220
United States: child sex trafficking in, 247–49
detention of HIV-positive Haitian refugees, 168
economic and social rights promotion and, 144–45
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and, 137
HIV/AIDS discrimination in, 169
human trafficking in, 231–33, 240
International Criminal Court and, 43–46
mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees and, 125–28
post-unipolar environment and, 330–32
poverty alleviation and development assistance in, 190–91
regional human rights organizations and, 142
rejection of statelessness conventions in, 223–24
sanctuary cities in, 224–25
Syrian crisis and, 35–37
technical assistance to developing countries, 142–43
terrorism laws in, 163n3
UN peacekeeping missions and, 41–43
UN Security Council and, 27, 126
Victims’
Bill of Rights in, 51–52
war crimes by, 153
United States Africa Command (Africom), 40, 96–97
unity, in neomedieval institutions, 320–21
universal access to health care, HIV/AIDS initiatives and, 175
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, 270
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 11–12, xiii
Article 15, 209
corporate responsibility and, 300–315
HIV/AIDS stigma and, 170
human dignity promoted in, 76–78, 259–60, 323
stateless persons and, 213–15
Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, 268
universalist approach to human rights, 72
Universal Periodic Review (UPR), 126, 130
Human Rights Council and, 77–78
universities, dignitarian dialogue and, 329–30
UN Millennium Declaration, 172
Unobserved Components Model (UCM), 121n5
UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 138–39
human trafficking and, 231, 235–36, 243–44, 250
technical assistance to developing countries, 142–43
UN Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons, 137, 231, 238, 242–
47
UN Plus advocacy group, 177–78
UN Secretariat, regional security organizations and, 89
UN Security Council, 18, 23, 25–46
Chechnya crisis and, 32
Darfur genocide and, 32
establishment of, 27–28
expansion of membership in, 38–39, 46n1
heightened attention to human rights in, 125–28
International Criminal Court and, 43–46
Iraq War and, 32
Kosovo crisis and, 30–33
legitimacy of, 28–29
Libya crisis and, 33–35
members of, 27
P-5 members of, 27, 32–33, 37–38
peacekeeping initiatives of, 29–30, 41–43
politics within, 126–28
purpose of, 26–27
recognition of twenty-first century global power structure, 38–39
 recommendations for human rights initiatives for, 37–46
regional organizations for atrocity prevention and, 39–40
Resolution 1199, 31
Resolution 1325, 138–40
Resolution 1373, 151, 153
Resolution 1970, 44
Resolution 1973, 33–35
Secretary-General and, 81–82
Sudan violence and, 32
Syrian crisis and, 35–37
veto powers in, 38–39, 126
UN Women, establishment of, 138. See also UN Entity for Gender
Equality and Empowerment of Women
UN World Conference against Racism, 140
UN World Summit on Social Development, 74–75, 77, 133, 225,
229n16, 261
US Agency for International Development (USAID), 132, 246
US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 132
US Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 245
US State Department: antitrafficking office of, 248–49
Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, 40
Trafficking in Persons Report, 138–39
US Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. See Trafficking
Victims Protection Act (TVPA)

Vance, Cyrus, 326

Verité (nonprofit organization), 245–46, 251
victim assistance and restitution: identification of human trafficking
victims, 237–39
implementation of initiatives in, 324–25
International Criminal Court and, 50–52
 long-term economic viability for human trafficking survivors, 240–
42
prosecution of human trafficking and, 244
protection against human trafficking and, 237–42
research on, 18–19
Rome Statue provisions concerning, 53–54
survivors’
immediate care in human trafficking and, 239–40
Victims and Witnesses Unit (VWU) (International Criminal Court),
55–56
Victims’
Bill of Rights (U.S.), 51–52
Victims Participation and Reparations Section (VPRS) (International
Criminal Court), 53–58
Vietnam, information and communications technology in, 298–99
Village Voice, 248–49
violence: as human dignity violation, 152
by nonstate actors, 4–6, 151–63
regional rulings against, 127
religion and, 289
by substate actors, 3–4
against women, 127, 138–39
virtual team building, corporate responsibility and, 306–7
Voices of the Poor (World Bank), 282
Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking (UNODC),
243–44

Waever, Ole, 89
war crimes, terrorism vs., 153
War Crimes Issues, ambassador for (U.S.), 45
war crimes tribunals, in Sierra Leone, 25–26
weapons of mass destruction (WMD), proliferation of, 99
Weis, Paul, 208, 211
Weissbrodt, David S., 216–20
Welch, Jack, 1, 20n1
Wesley, John, 259
Why Nations Fail (Acemoglu and Robinson), 105
Wiepking, Pamala, 191–92
Williams, Abiodun, 23–24, 66–82, 325
Williams, Archbishop Rowan, 1, 20n1
Wokai, 196
women’s rights: faith-based organizations and issues of, 287–88
HIV/AIDS policies and, 173–74
human dignity discourse and, 260–62
human trafficking and, 237–40, 248–49
institutional progress and implementation barriers, 137–40
International Criminal Court initiatives for, 59–60
in Islam, 268
regional rulings against spousal abuse and, 127
right to nationality and, 211
A World Made New (Glendon), 11–12
World Bank: capacity building and, 130–31
dignitarian dialogue and, 327–32
Doing Business database, 110
faith-based organizations and, 280–81
gender inequality and, 139
Governance database of, 112
HIV/AIDS funding by, 19, 169–70, 173–76, 182–83
human rights and, 145–46, xiv
poverty alleviation and economic development and, 189
underground economies and, 110–11
World Conference for Religions of Peace, 278
World Drug Report, 236
World Economic Forum, 80–81
World Food Program, 133–34
World Health Organization (WHO): big data used by, 161
children’s rights and, 139–40
faith-based organizations and, 279–80
global health initiatives and, 329
HIV/AIDS antidiscrimination resolution, 168
human rights and, xiv
rule of law and, 143
World Trade Organization (WTO), 176
capacity building and, 131–32
Chinese censorship and, 134
World Vision Cambodia (WVC), 244–45
World Vision International, 139, 284

xenophobia, racism and ethnic identity and, 140–41

Yahoo! Inc., 327

Business and Human Rights Program, 19
human rights initiatives and, 300–301

Zambia, HIV/AIDS in, 183

Zealots, 151
Zidisha, 196
Zionism, 140