Poor Justice

At the conclusion of World War II, during a time of reassessment and rebuilding, the modern human rights movement began to take shape. The efforts of scholars and diplomats that we can now see codified in internationally recognized standards and treaties, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are embedded into multiple individual governments. Even in the developing world, laws and national directives are made known, but the problem is still protecting the poor.

Recently, Gary Haugen, the President and CEO of International Justice Mission, a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression, joined Victor Boutros, a federal prosecutor in the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice in publishing an article for the May/June 2010 issue of Foreign Affairs, called, “And Justice for All: Enforcing Human Rights for the World’s Poor” full article here. Their findings are unfortunately anticipated. In short, the legal reforms and rhetoric of the modern human rights movement rarely improve the lives of those in need of the reforms. With the average income of the global poor reduced to US dollars, it’s not surprising that someone earning $1-2 per day may not be able to afford adequate legal service.

Naturally in many of the contemplated countries dealing with this level of poverty, there is little justice. Even in a more modern climate with a growing middle class, such as the nation of India, where cases are reported and referred to trial, there is such a shortage of public defenders that the backlog of cases cause tremendous delays. According to the UN Development Program, commonly the alleged offender will serve beyond the maximum sentence just while awaiting a trial date. It is estimated that at the current rate, it would take an absurd 350 years just to hear all the cases on the books in the courts of Mumbai, India alone.

How have these good intentions come to such utter failure? The current answer is inaction and a lack of resolve of the offending slave consumer countries to insist on compliance with the International Treaties that have been signed. Obviously if there are no consequences to breaking a treaty the contract is worthless. Looking back however, Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros conclude that the enforcement of these political, civil, economic, and human rights issues were left to utterly dysfunctional institutions developed during the colonial era to serve the elites and appropriated by new authoritarian governments at the departure of the colonial powers. So naturally these systems have had no success in protecting the poor – they were never designed to do so.

International human rights and NGO development organizations rarely focus on improving or building public justice systems that work for the poor. Donations and training efforts are primarily channeled toward transnational criminal issues, such as narcotics, arms trafficking, and terrorism. As such, most funding outside of these areas are by necessity subsequently devoted to anticorruption and good governance programs focused on reducing the theft or misappropriation of the aid dollars sent to strengthen the legal protections for business to stimulate commerce. As needful as it maybe to stop arms trafficking, little if any effort is exerted toward the daily struggles and lack of legal protection of the global poor. Therefore the trafficking of sex and labor slaves continues to flourish while the arms and drug trade have to become more and more sophisticated. Unfortunately, recent trends in organized crime are adopting the same level of military precision in the trafficking of weapons to the trafficking of humans. Inside national borders, the laws are on the books criminalizing forced prostitution and slave labor, but after 60-years of international discussion, the laws affecting the poor are rarely enforced.

The war is still on – declare war today!

Sources

• And Justice For All: Enforcing Human Rights for the World’s Poor, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 3, Number 89
• From Domestic Work to Modern Day Slavery, Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights