Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

SOCIAL JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL SOCIETY
ISSUES AND PROBLEMS IN DISSEMINATING “UNIVERSAL HUMAN
RIGHTS” IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES: THROUGH THE EFFORTS
OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS IN THE
PHILIPPINES AND MALAYSIA
Mariko Akuzawa
RATIONALE
The establishment of National Human Rights
Institutions (NHRIs) in the Asian region was started
in the middle of the 1980’s when the move towards
the end of Cold War started and democratization took
place. Human rights, once a concept that symbolized
diplomatic disputes or ideological divisions, became a
practical framework for people to deal with issues in
daily life. Many governments once under dictatorial or
military regimes recognized human rights by ratifying
international conventions and by revising or adopting
new constitutions containing detailed provisions for
human rights. The establishment of NHRI is also a part
of such changes.
NHRI usually has four basic functions for protection and
promotion of human rights. First, it receives, investigates,
and acts upon complaints of human rights violations,
including reporting and recommending of appropriate
action to authorities and concerned agencies. Second,
it reviews state legislature and government policies,
and gives opinions to such bodies. Third, it encourages
ratification and monitors government’s compliance
of international human rights standards. Fourth, it
promotes community awareness through human rights
education. NHRI has minimum standards to follow,
known as the “Paris Principles” adopted by the United
Nations. It prescribes NHRI’s independence from
government, although its position should be secured
by statutory or constitutional provisions, in order to
guarantee that NHRI can justly and fairly process the
human rights violations, especially those committed by
government agencies.
However, the work of such institutions have to be
carefully examined; a NHRI is sometime established
as a token sign to appeal the government’s acceptance
of international standards yet not well implemented
domestically, especially at local and community levels.
It is then necessary to examine how a NHRI tries to
reach out to communities in order to infiltrate human
rights to the general public. In addition, the lack
of human resources and funds also inhibit effective
implementation of such institutions in many developing
countries. The objective of this research then is to know
the role of NHRIs in infiltrating universal human rights
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concepts into general public and local communities i.e.
how NHRIs play such roles and what are the issues
and problems in doing so? The research was conducted
in the Philippines and in Malaysia from March to
September 2005.
SELECTION OF RESEARCH SITES:
PHILIPPINTES AND MALAYSIA
The Philippines and Malaysia were selected as research
sites due to the following reasons. Both countries
established NHRIs, yet there are some contrasting
differences. The Philippines, the first country in Asia
that established a NHRI, leads ASEAN in ratifying
major international human rights conventions, except
the optional protocol on death penalty as is seen in Table
1. Although the number of ratification does not mean
its full implementation, it at least shows the acceptance
of international human rights by the government.
Currently, the Philippine government also promotes
“Rights-Based Approach to Development”, which
is to apply international human rights standards into
development policies in cooperation with UNDP.
On the other hand, Malaysia has been critical of
the UN and Former Prime Minister Dr. Mahatir is
known for advocating “Asian Values”. However, in
the middle of the 1990’s, Malaysia ratified additional
two core human rights conventions and established its
own NHRI, which was a notable change. 1 Aside from
limited number of accepted international standards,
there is another difficulty to be considered in Malaysia.
As a multi-racial society of Malay, Chinese, Indian,
and indigenous peoples with different faith in Islam,
Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, and
animism, there is a division among the people in
applying the different laws on family matters, such
as the Civil Law for non-Muslims and Syariah for
Muslims. Conflicts of international conventions and
Syariah caused reservation of certain articles of ratified
conventions by the Malaysian government.
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows