In the ongoing debate on human rights representation in Guyana, the article by Iona Cable excerpted below, “The Complicity of Human Rights in Neoliberalism: Beyond redemption?” provides an interesting perspective. “The human rights framework is heralded as an emancipatory apparatus to promote equality, peace, and representation, based on the assumption that all humans have certain unalienable rights by virtue of being born. Belief in the inherent goodness of human rights has preserved the notion that this framework exists in a celestial vacuum, unsullied by global hierarchies.
“On the contrary, rights are deeply embedded in power structures, and the perception that they are neutral disguises their role in the perpetuation of injustice. Human rights language has been used to globally disseminate neoliberal economic policies which maintain inequality, forcing postcolonial states into the global market and prohibiting development. Can human rights be redeemed, or are they incongruous with true emancipation and resistance?
“The human rights framework emerged following the Second World War, with the creation of the UN and the signing of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and is based on principles such as freedom, equality, and peace.” However, the rise almost simultaneously of neoliberalism saw some leaders co-opt Human Rights for their own ends and in the present we must deconstruct the motives some who profess to champion “human rights” in Guyana today.
“This co-option of rights was particularly pervasive during the period of decolonisation, when many states were emerging from colonial domination and had been economically bankrupted by their rulers. Neoliberals saw the potential for postcolonial states to employ the framework of human rights to pursue economic equality and redistribution of resources, and they sought to create a global economic order that would curtail these demands. As political theorist Jessica Whyte argues in her book “The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism”: ‘The language of human rights offered them a means to legitimise transformative interventions and subject postcolonial states to universal standards aimed at protecting the international market.’ The expansion of the human rights regime internationally has assisted in globalising this economic system in which some states continue to benefit from the exploitation of others.”
Neoliberals employed the language of human rights to paralyze the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing for the right of free capital movement, which would be restricted if the WTO was successful in exempting certain countries from free trade agreements. The impact of this should not be understated—it resulted in the perpetuation of global economic inequality, as postcolonial states were unable to protect domestic industries from competition in order to promote development, which then exacerbated the global polarisation of resources and economic wealth.
“The global dissemination of neoliberal values is also prevalent in the sphere of development and foreign aid. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), largely Western-led institutions, promoted “Structural Adjustment Programs” (SAPs) from the early 1980s, purportedly with the goal of promoting stability and economic growth. Through the SAPs, countries receiving foreign aid from the World Bank and the IMF were required to minimize the role of the state, privatise state enterprises, and implement fiscal austerity and trade liberalization. Receipt of foreign aid was therefore dependent on the introduction of neoliberal economic policies that benefitted rich countries and further bankrupted poorer nations, forcing those countries to become reliant on imports from abroad and thus perpetuating poverty and dependency.
“Are human rights beyond redemption? Rights exist within a system that is inherently neoliberal and unjust and have been used to justify policies which preserve this. It has been said that “rights function to articulate a need, a condition of lack or injury, that cannot be fully redressed or transformed by rights, yet can be signified in no other way within existing political discourse”. We must be vigilant in our analysis of the motivation behind major institutions adopting human rights as a justification for action and investigate inconsistencies. Perpetual critique may be an exasperating position, but the stakes are too high to resist.”
