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04 April 2000
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Commission on Human Rights
56th session
4 April 2000
Afternoon
A series of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) spoke on economic, social and cultural rights this afternoon, with many of them telling the Commission on Human Rights that more had to be done to eradicate poverty around the world and many others lamenting that economic globalization, high levels of Third World debt, and "structural adjustment" programmes imposed on developing countries by international financial institutions were leaving much of humanity in a situation of hopeless and mounting poverty.
Seven NGOs expressed concern about the effects of high levels of foreign debt on the economies of the world's poorer nations; further debt relief and even debt cancellation were called for. The Federacion de Asociaciones de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos, in remarks typical of the debate, said the countries of the South were burdened by external debt, leaving them in dramatic situations of permanent dependence and subordination within the international economic system. The World Federation of Democratic Youth contended that the effects of foreign debt became more serious and stringent when the borrowing countries diverted cash towards the purchase of military hardware and away from the funding of social and health programmes. Worldview International Foundation said Burma was the most appropriate example of how a resourceful rich country could decline to the level of a least-developed country when a ruling military elite denied basic human rights and fundamental freedoms to its people.
Education was cited in several instances as a way out of poverty and dependence. But Defence for Children International, speaking on behalf of 11 NGOs, said the right to education was currently violated on a massive scale -- that some 125 million children of school age, the majority of them girls, still had no access to basic education, and that the commitment of Governments at the 1990 World Conference on Education to provide every child with a good primary education by the year 2000 had not been honoured.
The International Human Rights Law Group highlighted gender-based inheritance laws and practices in many countries in Africa, saying such laws continued to deny women and girl children equal rights to inherit property upon the death of a husband or father and were a violation of fundamental rights to equality, to freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex, and of the economic social and cultural rights of women.
And several NGOs criticized economic embargoes imposed against Iraq and Cuba, saying they caused poverty and suffering among innocent people and hindered development.
Speaking were representatives of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the following NGOs: Centro de Estudios Europeos; Federation of Associations for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights; Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace; Human Rights Advocates; Earth-Justice Legal Defense Fund; Organization for Defending Victims of Violence; Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America; World Federation of Democratic Youth; North-South XXI; Aliran Kesedaran Negara; International Federation Terre des Hommes; International Commission of Jurists; Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples; International Federation of Social Workers; Rural Reconstruction Nepal; International Educational Development; New Humanity; Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru; War Resisters International; International Peace Bureau; International Organization for Freedom of Education; American Association of Jurists; International Movement ATD Fourth World; Third World Movement against the Exploitation of Women; Women's International Democratic Federation; Permanent Assembly for Human Rights; Defense for Children International; International Human Rights Law Group; National Union of Jurists of Cuba; Association of World Citizens; International Institute of Non-Aligned Studies; and Worldview International.
Representatives of Malaysia, India and Pakistan spoke in exercise of the right of reply.
The Commission will reconvene at 10 a.m. Wednesday, 5 April.
Statements
NAJAT AL-HAJJAJI (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) said the history of Libya had been one of domination of the desert and the struggle against an extremely hostile environment. In light of the country's geographical situation within the Sahara belt and its chronic water shortages, the population depended on ground water for its survival. However, extensive use of ground water had led to a substantial reduction in the subterranean water level, not to mention a high rate of salt in drinking water.
Consequently, Libya had launched an ambitious project designed to make the best use of subterranean water. As part of the project, a system of underground channels had been set up to transport water to reservoirs. The body of subterranean reservoirs had created the largest subterranean lake in the country.
LAZARO MORA SECADE, of the Centro de Estudios Europeos, said the initiative of the G-7 concerning the highly indebted countries served no purpose but to destabilize the current momentum of the movement to cancel foreign debts. If there was a real political will among the G-7 to realize the right to economic, social and cultural rights, the world would not be witnessing the current situation of falling official development assistance. Multinational companies dictated the decisions of the G-7, just as they dictated the decisions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The Commission had to strengthen dialogue with committed actors in this field. The Commission was urged to refrain from implementing political conditionality. The imperative for the Commission was to promote economic, social and cultural rights. This could be done efficiently through more active interaction with non-governmental organizations; together they could create and exercise pressure. The organization supported the recommendation that there be a change in the composition of the staff of the Office of Human Rights based on a more equitable geographic distribution. The Commission was urged to struggle against the prevailing neoliberal ideology and fight against human-rights violations such as the economic blockade of Cuba.
MIKEL MANCISIDOR, of Federacion de Asociaciones de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos, spoke on the situation of the indebted developing countries and said the living conditions of their peoples were declining. The countries of the South were burdened by external debt, leaving dramatic situations of permanent dependence and subordination within the international economic system.
The writing off of external debts and the negotiations to do that should not affect the essential needs of those countries. Such measures should promote social and economic growth of the developing countries. The civil societies of the South and the North should be able to participate in efforts to eliminate poverty in the developing nations. The Commission should urge the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to include human-rights perspectives in their programmes intended to help developing countries.
DULCE JESUS SOARES, of Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace, said that in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, the rights of the indigenous Jammu people continued to be violated. Some three thousand refugees who had returned to the CHT did not get back their land as promised by the Government. Further, their socio-cultural rights had not been protected. Annually dozens of forced marriages and forced religious conversions were taking place in CHT. Customary laws were not respected by the existing administrative system, either.
The Indonesian Government had not as yet ratified the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Indonesia had mostly accommodated the interests of massive foreign and domestic capital without looking at the interests of the people.
TARA-JANE INGRAM-YOUNG, of Human Rights Advocates, commended the Special Rapporteur on illicit trafficking in toxic wastes on her report. It was suggested that her mandate be extended into human rights and the environment. As it stood, her mandate included only hazardous waste and not all countries were party to the relevant treaties. Another human-rights violation was the use of highly toxic pesticides. The Basel Convention explicitly forbade exporting hazardous waste to non-OECD countries. Yet violations were committed, particularly by multinational companies, as not all countries were parties to the convention. The shipping industry was particularly criticized for its continuous human-rights violations.
People were killed and poisoned by highly toxic waste. Two examples were the situation of workers in China and the United States. Oil pollution was an example of this. In Tabasco, Mexico, PEMEX, the nationally owned oil company, had destroyed 60 per cent of the region's crops. The Commission was urged to broaden the mandate of the Special Rapporteur so that these issues could be seriously dealt with.
MIRGHANI IBRAHIM, of Earth-Justice Legal Defence Fund, speaking on the issue of adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products, regretted that the report of the Special Rapporteur was still not available in official form.
Over 3,000 tons of toxic wastes had been dumped in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, by the Taiwanese company Formosa Plastic Corporation. The waste contained high levels of mercury and low levels of dioxin and furan. The substances were extremely toxic; exposure to them could lead to neurological and psychological disorders, depression of the immune system and abnormalities in the endocrine and nervous systems, and even death. In February 1999, after an international campaign and action by the Cambodian Government, the waste was removed by the company and an attempt made to ship it to the United States. The company first attempted to dump it near a Latino minority community in California, then near a native America community in Nevada, but failed in these efforts.
MOHAMMADI YADOLLAH TEHRANI, of Organization for Defending Victims of Violence, asked how could one speak about the realization of lofty ideals such as justice, peace, fundamental freedoms and respect for human dignity in a world where over 1.2 billion people lived in extreme poverty, of which 180 million were children? The overwhelming majority of people living on $1 a day or less were located in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and China, but there were many tens of millions also in Latin America, the Caribbean and West Asia.
There was also considerable poverty in developed countries and in countries with economies in transition. One should not forget that poverty was a human-rights violation and that freedom from poverty was an integral and inalienable human right. In this situation, the United Nations had a great responsibility to adopt measures and mechanisms for providing the basic needs of human beings.
LOURDES CERVANTES, of the Organization of Solidarity of Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, said a meeting had been held in Havana between over a hundred NGOs to assess globalization. Neoliberal ideology and market forces had caused the economic and social disintegration of several countries. The IMF and the World Bank had further contributed to this, affecting the world's poor and creating even further injustice. The Organization denounced foreign debt, which was an expression of an unjust economic order. The technological gap was widening due to strict intellectual property laws. Countries should adhere to the level of official development assistance that had been pledged. Unfair and unilateral policies, such as the US economic blockade against Cuba, should be halted, These demands required attention and urgent action to achieve full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.
The former colonizing countries were still robbing the Third World, and as yet there had been no mention of compensation for these human-rights violations.
MOHAMMED AHSAN, of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, said that the effects of foreign debt became more serious and stringent when the borrowing countries diverted their funds to the purchase of military hardware and related sophisticated equipment.
A case in point was Pakistan, a developing country and also one of the heavily indebted countries of the world. If that country spent 35 to 40 per cent of its annual budget on military hardware and the rest in servicing foreign debt, it was obvious that it was done to the detriment of development plans. Most affected were the urban centres of Sindh province, including Karachi, the commercial and industrial hub of Pakistan.
JOAQUIN MBOMIU, of North-South XXI, said that while extensive recourse to force had been made with a view to ensuring respect for civil and political rights, in violation of the fundamental principle of sovereignty enshrined in the UN Charter, numerous international instruments relating to social and economic rights continued to be violated. Unbridled market forces and implacable free trade had led, among other things, to liquidation of the world's farmers, increased unemployment, and increased malnutrition.
Mexico, for example, had been subjected to 14 years of structural adjustment, as a result of which 2.2 million Mexicans had lost their jobs and 40 million now lived extreme poverty. Also, food consumption per capita had decreased. International financial institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, which were part of the UN system, were the spearheads of the market and were characterized by indifference to the social consequences of their policies.
DEBORAH STOTHARD, of the Aliran Kesedaran Negara, said there was a tendency to disconnect economic, social and cultural rights from civil and political rights. There was great poverty in Burma, where there had been no natural disasters and the country had once been described as the rice bowl of Asia. The Government put military spending ahead the well-being of the people.
Public expenditure there was among the lowest in the world. This was in a country where UNAIDS estimated that 440,000 people were HIV-positive.
On the national level many universities and schools were shut. Many schools and universities had only been opened for a total of 30 months in the past 12 years. The organization condemned ASEAN for "constructively engaging" with the Burmese Government. This sent the wrong message to the international community and the Burmese people and further slashed away the rights of the Burmese people. The Commission was urged to remember the situation in East Timor and what had followed when people's human rights were continually violated.
XAVIER RENARD, of International Federation Terre des Hommes, said that despite the increase in world's wealth, very little progress had been made in social development. Unfortunately it was regression and misery that advanced. The direct consequence of that situation was manifested in the living conditions of children, which were unacceptable. Infant mortality, malnutrition, extreme forms of child labour, and violent conflicts involving children had occurred.
In its concluding observations on a report of Mexico, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had shown alarm over the problem of malnutrition, which particularly affected children under 15 years of age. Mexico was not an isolated case; other examples had shown that economic growth in many developing countries did not significantly improve the social conditions of many citizens.
NATHALIE PROVVEZ,of International Commission of Jurists, said that in the current context of globalization, economic, social and cultural rights had to be understood more than ever as an indivisible part of human rights and had to be implemented as such.
The adoption of the draft optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights providing for a system of individual and group complaints was of great importance to ensure that persons and groups who were victims of violations of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights had access to an effective remedy at the international level and could obtain the adequate reparations they were entitled to. Its adoption would also permit the development of a significant body of jurisprudence which was absolutely indispensable if economic, social and cultural rights were ever to be taken seriously. In addition, an optional protocol would help clarify the effect of conflicting obligations imposed upon States through, on the one hand, international human-rights treats, and, on the other, international economic agreements.
JEAN JACQUES KIRKYACHARIAN, of the Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples, said foreign debt had to be cancelled. It was clear that such debts could not be paid, as this would require positive economic growth in countries where there was none. Even if foreign debts could be paid they should not be paid, not only because they had already been paid, but also because this would lead to inflation. It was a classic example through history that creditors did not want loans to be repaid; what they wanted was to assure themselves of a steady income through interest payments.
The Highly Indebted Countries initiative had been presented as a real effort on behalf of the international community. This was not the case. These countries would only be assisted to the level at which they could repay their debts -- the debts would not be cancelled. A more serious criticism was the implication that countries would only be eligible to receive debt alleviation if their Governments were actively promoting the eradication of poverty. How could these countries be expected to do so after the failure of structural-adjustment policies and the increases in poverty they had experienced after involvement with the World Bank and the IMF in the past? The Commission was urged to ensure the right to development and economic, social and cultural rights in all parts of the world, without discrimination.
ELLEN MOURAVIEFF-APOSTOL, of International Federation of Social Workers, said her organization, which was linked to people and communities facing a myriad of social, material and emotional problems through the individual social-worker members of its 71 national member associations, was able to appreciate the solutions attempted by various actors at various levels.
Debt relief, and where possible debt forgiveness for poor countries, was a priority since that would allow funds destined for debt service to be redirected to constructive and developmental in-country measures. As was generally known, there were winners and losers in the economic globalization process, and the losers were unfortunately to be found among the poorest developing countries and among poor and underprivileged people in industrialized countries.
KUA KIA SOONG, of Rural Reconstruction Nepal, said his organization was deeply concerned about the situation in southern Bhutan, particularly the deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights of southern Bhutanese people. Over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees now languishing in Nepal and India had been forcibly evicted from Bhutan after their lands were seized, homes destroyed and citizenship documents confiscated by the royal military in 1990. Further, their right to return home had been denied by the Royal Government of Bhutan.
The resettlement plan currently being implemented in southern Bhutan violated the right to land ownership of the original occupants who were at present living in refugee camps in Nepal. In Malaysia, vast sectors of the population were demanding greater democracy and basic human rights. The Government was currently building more and more dams, resulting in the displacement of indigenous peoples. Malaysian women faced discrimination, violence and hardship. Malaysian workers were denied minimum living wages. Affordable housing fell far short of demand. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported that Malaysia had the highest rate of income inequality in Asia. The cultural rights of minorities in Malaysia had also been violated.
KAREN PARKER, of International Educational Development, said Iraqi civilians were suffering from a humanitarian catastrophe with severe health implications. The majority of those suffering were children. The instigators of the economic sanctions in Iraq knew that targeting children was against international law. The organization condemned the intransigence of these sanctions in the face of international outcries. Appeals had been heard; two UN representatives and a representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) had resigned in protest. The modification of the embargo had not improved the situation; basic goods were continually blocked. Basic principles were violated. The organization urged the Secretary-General to investigate the impact of the sanctions and the effects of depleted uranium on the Iraqi population.
The organization welcomed the end of the sanctions against Burundi in 1999. However, there were serious effects facing the people of Burundi due to natural disasters and displacements. The Commission was called upon to remedy the effects of the former sanctions, which were incompatible with humanitarian law, and to ensure emergency aid to Burundi. Sanctions against Yugoslavia had not yet been investigated adequately, although 89 per cent of the population was living in poverty. The Commission was called upon to undertake an investigation of the impact of sanctions against former Yugoslavia.
ANDRE B. KALENDE, of New Humanity, said that according to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), some 130 million children were not attending school while about 900 million adults remained illiterate. If education was considered not only a right but also the key to all development, one could question the kind of development worked on by the international community.
Rural areas were always more disadvantaged, and in a number of developing countries the majority of the areas remained rural. Even if children started going to school, many of them did not even complete their primary educations due to lack of resources; in some countries, parents had to pay up to 100 per cent of tuition fees for their children. Many States could not discharge their international obligations to provide compulsory primary education for their citizens.
LAZARO PARRY, of Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru, said economic, social and cultural rights could be summarized as encompassing the rights to work, food and shelter. In this age of globalization, structural-adjustment programmes had a negative impact on these basic rights. The architects of the Bretton Woods Institutions had designed the World Bank and IMF with a view to fostering economic development in the poorest countries. But 55 years after their establishment, the balance sheet of their financial policies was bleak. In contradiction to its objectives, the IMF had imposed on developing countries liberalization, monetary devaluation, freezing of salaries, reductions in health care and the unbridled privatization of State enterprises.
By contrast, the US, which ran a deficit of $300 million, had no structural-adjustment programmes imposed on it by the IMF. The undemocratic character of the World Bank was reflected by the fact that one power, namely the US, had veto power which allowed it to veto any decision which ran contrary to its interests. On the other hand, many indebted countries had lost their sovereignty and had compromised their economic independence and political institutions in the name of the famous conditionality code.
DAVID ARNOTT, of War Resisters International, spoke about the impact of militarization on economic, social and cultural rights. For example, there was the resource-rich country of Burma. The report by the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar was welcomed. The report had raised the issue of excessive military spending, but had not mentioned the direct oppression by the military of the rural population, causing increasing suffering, tensions and displacement. Burma was a good example of the role of Government in producing economic collapse.
The report showed the effects of the ethos of a military regime, policies of militarization, and economic ineptitude. Women and children were particularly affected. The Commission was urged to incorporate the findings of the Special Rapporteur's report in its resolution on the situation in Myanmar.
JOY BUTTS, of the International Peace Bureau, said she was a poor woman from the United States and affirmed that there could be no peace without economic justice. The reality of poor people in the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, was quite different from the image portrayed by the Government and mainstream media. Downsizing, unemployment and poverty-wage jobs existed in the shadows of the reported "US economic boom". The social welfare reform bill passed with the support of the current President in 1996 had effectively repealed the safety net for all men, women and children in the country by placing a five-year limit on Government assistance, limiting economic human rights.
In addition, "American-style" social reform was modelled and replicated throughout the developing world, dismantling States' responsibility to provide for the basic needs of poor people. That was the American contribution to the global race to the bottom.
ALFRED FERNANDEZ, of International Organization for the Freedom of Education, said freedom of education was an integral part of the right to education. Freedom of education, as enshrined in international instruments, comprised the right to teach, set up non-State schools, and, for parents, the right to choose their children's schools.
Parents' right to choose their children's schools was often perceived as a mere consumer's right, whereas international and European instruments considered it an integral part of the right to education. The right to education had to encompass all related freedoms. The Special Rapporteur on the right to education should study State practices with regard to the implementation of the right to education.
JAIRO SANCHEZ, of American Association of Jurists, said major transnational corporations, major powers, and foreign debt were having severe negative impacts on developing countries. The process of globalization had put wealth in hands of only a few. Under this process, economic, social and cultural rights had been neglected and violated. The organization condemned the terrible policy decision made on foreign debts and the actions of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in establishing closer links with transnationals and the World Bank. This was referred to by the Office of Human Rights as a "strategy of participation" and "integrated development".
The World Bank had claimed neutrality but had refused to adhere to the Secretary-General's recommendation in regard to the apartheid regime in South Africa. The World Bank was expanding into every field, education, governance and health, in an attempt to apply the neoliberal policies championed by transnationals everywhere. The organization also criticized UNDP for its interaction with companies such as ABB, Novartis, and Rio Tinto. The Commission was urged to focus its attention on the victims of such power, rather than on the power itself.
MARIE CLAIRE DROZ, of the International Movement ATD Fourth World, said the international community had now reached a consensus that poverty was a violation of rights and responsibilities. In the long path since 1948, the human conscience had affirmed that the high aspiration of humanity was to free itself from misery, which was a terror. Now, what lessons could the international community draw from that consensus? Was it going to pass from a human rights declaration to its real and effective application?
Declaring rights without giving the means to implement them, even progressively, was to entertain illusion and despair. How was the international community going to maintain as a whole the instruments that would ensure the building of societies where rights were guaranteed and respected?
AHMAD HAMID, of Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women, said the attention of the Indonesian Government had been focused mainly on civil and political rights, whereas issues related to economic, social and cultural rights had been neglected. Development policy in Indonesia had failed to improve people's welfare. On the contrary, it had created an economic gap in urban and rural areas and had resulted in lack of control and accountability over the exploitation of natural resources, which prevented sustainable development.
Investment projects such as factories, plantations and mines had not only destroyed natural resources but had caused human-rights violations and environmental damage. Social impacts included the destruction of the livelihood of indigenous and local peoples who owned and managed those resources. For example, many foreign and domestic logging companies had destroyed millions of hectares of tropical rain forest.
DORA CARCANO, of the Women's International Democratic Federation, said the world witnessed the economic crisis caused by neo-liberalist ideology, structural adjustment and foreign debt. It was through the ideology of neo-liberalism that investment in health had been abandoned. The health infrastructure was receiving no investment. This lack of support particularly affected women. Furthermore, it brought about greater unemployment and economic deterioration. This trend was a step back for women in general, and more particularly for women in poverty.
The Government of Cuba had honoured its commitment to health and education. The levels of literacy and health in Cuba were among highest in the world. This was the expression of the political will of the Government, which had embraced the future of generations to come, equality between genders and full participation of civil society. Cuban women were proud of the inclusive policies carried out by the Cuban Government, even though the country had suffered from the forty year economic blockade of the United States. The organization urged to Commission to condemn the United States for the blockade and the grave consequences it caused.
HORACIO RAVENNA, of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, said that without the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, it was impossible to implement correctly civil and political rights. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), there was some relative improvement in some Latin American countries in the area of human development. However, per capita incomes varied widely from one country to another, while among the developed countries the differences were comparatively low.
It was also apparent that economic growth did not match with levels of "human development" in the region. In some countries, such as Argentina, 3.8 million persons remained unemployed and the social situation and the phenomenon of social exclusion had been the results of policies of economic adjustment.
MAURICE GRABER, of Defence for Children International, speaking on behalf of 11 NGOs, said the right to education was currently violated on a massive scale. Today, some 125 million children of school age, the majority of them girls, still had no access to basic education. The commitment of Governments at the 1990 World Conference on Education to provide every child with a good primary education by the year 2000 had not been honoured. Indeed, the objective of achieving universal access to free primary education had been postponed to 2015.
Poverty was a major obstacle which hampered the overall implementation of the right to education. However, there was ample evidence that lack of political vision had also led to a gross denial of children's fundamental right to education. Structural adjustment and other lending policies imposed by the Bretton Woods Institutions had often paid little regard to social policy objectives related to basic services, including education. The lack of resources allocated to education was not only due to insufficient international assistance, but also to flawed domestic budgeting, poor planning and misplaced national budgetary priorities, such as excessive military spending.
JOY EZEILO, of the International Human Rights Law Group, highlighted gender-based inheritance laws and practices in many countries in Africa. These laws continued to deny women and girl children equal rights to inherit property upon the death of a husband or father. This was a violation of fundamental rights to equality, to freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex, and deprived women of their economic social and cultural rights. It was common that when a man died, his relatives took possession of all property belonging to the couple, including land and the family house. Gender-based inheritance laws and practices were a major impediment to the challenge of poverty at the household, national and global levels.
The Commission was called upon to undertake an investigation of discriminatory inheritance laws and practices, and to urge thematic and country-specific rapporteurs with relevant mandates to include investigation of discriminatory inheritance laws in their work. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women was asked to investigate and document the relationship between denial of inheritance rights and violence against women. Finally the Independent Expert on extreme poverty should carefully examine the linkages between the denial of inheritance rights and extreme poverty.
ODALYS HERNANDEZ FUENTES, of National Union of Jurists of Cuba, said the blockade unilaterally imposed by the United States against Cuba over the last decade had led people to suffer scarcities in food and medicine. The Government of the United States, by seeking to punish the Government of Cuba, which was the expression of the political will of its people, had been committing an act of genocide which was punishable by international law.
The Cuban revolution had ousted the dictator regime which had killed 20,000 Cubans and which was largely supported by the United States. The embargo imposed against Cuba had hampered the country's development and its commercial transactions. A number of Cubans were suffering from the negative consequences of the embargo.
PIERRE PORRET, of Association of World Citizens, said the most diverse factors contributed to making economic and social rights one of the greatest preoccupations concerning human rights and the future of the planet. The development of unbridled ultra-liberalism following the collapse of most socialist regimes was becoming the sole credo of many company managers and politicians and was weakening the power of the State. This new fundamentalism, based on short-term profits, did not respect the well-being of either mankind or the planet. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization seemed to act only in the interests of big corporations.
The appetite and avarice of big companies seemed to have no limit. Their rapid degradation of the environment occurred not only in the poor countries of the south but also in Europe. The ozone layer was being destroyed because of large emissions of gasses as a result of the massive use of non-renewable fossil fuels. Rain forests were also destroyed to satisfy the needs of rich countries. The policies of agro-companies were particularly dangerous. These companies did their utmost to force consumers to consume genetically modified foods despite the fact that the long-term effects of these products were unknown.
REENA MARWAH, of the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies, said most societies today were marked by diversity. Equality of representation and opportunity was essential if each constituent of a society was to experience his or her full human rights. The quest for power by the majority often distorted both the distribution of economic resources and diminished the relevance of the unique heritance of minority groups. Democracy made an effort to ensure that each component of society could play an equal role in society and in the political sphere. The interpretation of democracy varied and had to be respected in its different forms. In traditional societies democracy meant political equality while within the family the traditional structures were maintained. The global media and telecommunications explosion was exposing entire generations in developing countries to lifestyles quite removed from the cultural standards that these countries had prided themselves on.
Economic, social and cultural rights could best be preserved if each society was allowed to evolve according to its own tempo and was not rushed through the various stages of development.
THUANG HTUN, of Worldview International Foundation, said Burma was the most appropriate example of how a resourceful rich country could decline to the level of a least-developed country when a ruling military elite denied basic human rights and fundamental freedoms to its people. Everywhere in Burma, there was evidence of poverty, ethnic conflict and growing threats to the environment. Such concerns transcended every region, war zone, and ethnic community.
The most obvious victims were the 120,000 refugees and half a million migrants in Thailand who had fled the country. Forcible population transfers and other forms of human-rights violations had led to the destruction of the socio-economic fabric of village life, widespread malnutrition and death, internal displacement of about 1 million people, and a continuous flow of refugees into neighbouring countries.
Rights of reply
A representative of Malaysia, speaking in right of reply, said a statement made by Rural Reconstruction Nepal gave the impression that the fruits of development in Malaysia had been unequally distributed. All figures and indicators refuted this. The speaker also seemed to be living in a world of his own making and looking back to the '50s and '60s as a golden age, whereas it was in 1969 that the country had experienced its worse riots. As for the NGO's references to racial quotas imposed in schools, it was this which had led to the success of Indonesia's New Economic Policy.
A representative of India, speaking in right of reply, said Pakistan had again launched a tirade against India. India was appalled by military coup in Pakistan. This was not a road map to democracy. The Pakistani tirade had become an annual tradition. Pakistan was bankrupt due to excessive expenditure on its military. In Pakistan, investment in national institutions was necessary. The repetition of falsehoods did not make them true. The Indian President had even gone to Pakistan which proved the Indian wish to engage in dialogue. In return, all that had been witnessed was intensified border terrorism.
A representative of Pakistan, in a right of reply, said the problem in Kashmir was the illegal occupation of the territory by India. That original crime had been compounded by a wave of repression against Kashmiris to prevent them from demanding their right self-determination. That right had been pledged to them by the Security Council. And it had been pledged to them by the founder of Indian democracy, Mr. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. His country had had no occupying army of 700,000 in Jammu and Kashmir, as India had later.
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56th session
4 April 2000
Afternoon
A series of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) spoke on economic, social and cultural rights this afternoon, with many of them telling the Commission on Human Rights that more had to be done to eradicate poverty around the world and many others lamenting that economic globalization, high levels of Third World debt, and "structural adjustment" programmes imposed on developing countries by international financial institutions were leaving much of humanity in a situation of hopeless and mounting poverty.
Seven NGOs expressed concern about the effects of high levels of foreign debt on the economies of the world's poorer nations; further debt relief and even debt cancellation were called for. The Federacion de Asociaciones de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos, in remarks typical of the debate, said the countries of the South were burdened by external debt, leaving them in dramatic situations of permanent dependence and subordination within the international economic system. The World Federation of Democratic Youth contended that the effects of foreign debt became more serious and stringent when the borrowing countries diverted cash towards the purchase of military hardware and away from the funding of social and health programmes. Worldview International Foundation said Burma was the most appropriate example of how a resourceful rich country could decline to the level of a least-developed country when a ruling military elite denied basic human rights and fundamental freedoms to its people.
Education was cited in several instances as a way out of poverty and dependence. But Defence for Children International, speaking on behalf of 11 NGOs, said the right to education was currently violated on a massive scale -- that some 125 million children of school age, the majority of them girls, still had no access to basic education, and that the commitment of Governments at the 1990 World Conference on Education to provide every child with a good primary education by the year 2000 had not been honoured.
The International Human Rights Law Group highlighted gender-based inheritance laws and practices in many countries in Africa, saying such laws continued to deny women and girl children equal rights to inherit property upon the death of a husband or father and were a violation of fundamental rights to equality, to freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex, and of the economic social and cultural rights of women.
And several NGOs criticized economic embargoes imposed against Iraq and Cuba, saying they caused poverty and suffering among innocent people and hindered development.
Speaking were representatives of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the following NGOs: Centro de Estudios Europeos; Federation of Associations for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights; Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace; Human Rights Advocates; Earth-Justice Legal Defense Fund; Organization for Defending Victims of Violence; Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America; World Federation of Democratic Youth; North-South XXI; Aliran Kesedaran Negara; International Federation Terre des Hommes; International Commission of Jurists; Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples; International Federation of Social Workers; Rural Reconstruction Nepal; International Educational Development; New Humanity; Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru; War Resisters International; International Peace Bureau; International Organization for Freedom of Education; American Association of Jurists; International Movement ATD Fourth World; Third World Movement against the Exploitation of Women; Women's International Democratic Federation; Permanent Assembly for Human Rights; Defense for Children International; International Human Rights Law Group; National Union of Jurists of Cuba; Association of World Citizens; International Institute of Non-Aligned Studies; and Worldview International.
Representatives of Malaysia, India and Pakistan spoke in exercise of the right of reply.
The Commission will reconvene at 10 a.m. Wednesday, 5 April.
Statements
NAJAT AL-HAJJAJI (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) said the history of Libya had been one of domination of the desert and the struggle against an extremely hostile environment. In light of the country's geographical situation within the Sahara belt and its chronic water shortages, the population depended on ground water for its survival. However, extensive use of ground water had led to a substantial reduction in the subterranean water level, not to mention a high rate of salt in drinking water.
Consequently, Libya had launched an ambitious project designed to make the best use of subterranean water. As part of the project, a system of underground channels had been set up to transport water to reservoirs. The body of subterranean reservoirs had created the largest subterranean lake in the country.
LAZARO MORA SECADE, of the Centro de Estudios Europeos, said the initiative of the G-7 concerning the highly indebted countries served no purpose but to destabilize the current momentum of the movement to cancel foreign debts. If there was a real political will among the G-7 to realize the right to economic, social and cultural rights, the world would not be witnessing the current situation of falling official development assistance. Multinational companies dictated the decisions of the G-7, just as they dictated the decisions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The Commission had to strengthen dialogue with committed actors in this field. The Commission was urged to refrain from implementing political conditionality. The imperative for the Commission was to promote economic, social and cultural rights. This could be done efficiently through more active interaction with non-governmental organizations; together they could create and exercise pressure. The organization supported the recommendation that there be a change in the composition of the staff of the Office of Human Rights based on a more equitable geographic distribution. The Commission was urged to struggle against the prevailing neoliberal ideology and fight against human-rights violations such as the economic blockade of Cuba.
MIKEL MANCISIDOR, of Federacion de Asociaciones de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos, spoke on the situation of the indebted developing countries and said the living conditions of their peoples were declining. The countries of the South were burdened by external debt, leaving dramatic situations of permanent dependence and subordination within the international economic system.
The writing off of external debts and the negotiations to do that should not affect the essential needs of those countries. Such measures should promote social and economic growth of the developing countries. The civil societies of the South and the North should be able to participate in efforts to eliminate poverty in the developing nations. The Commission should urge the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to include human-rights perspectives in their programmes intended to help developing countries.
DULCE JESUS SOARES, of Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace, said that in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, the rights of the indigenous Jammu people continued to be violated. Some three thousand refugees who had returned to the CHT did not get back their land as promised by the Government. Further, their socio-cultural rights had not been protected. Annually dozens of forced marriages and forced religious conversions were taking place in CHT. Customary laws were not respected by the existing administrative system, either.
The Indonesian Government had not as yet ratified the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Indonesia had mostly accommodated the interests of massive foreign and domestic capital without looking at the interests of the people.
TARA-JANE INGRAM-YOUNG, of Human Rights Advocates, commended the Special Rapporteur on illicit trafficking in toxic wastes on her report. It was suggested that her mandate be extended into human rights and the environment. As it stood, her mandate included only hazardous waste and not all countries were party to the relevant treaties. Another human-rights violation was the use of highly toxic pesticides. The Basel Convention explicitly forbade exporting hazardous waste to non-OECD countries. Yet violations were committed, particularly by multinational companies, as not all countries were parties to the convention. The shipping industry was particularly criticized for its continuous human-rights violations.
People were killed and poisoned by highly toxic waste. Two examples were the situation of workers in China and the United States. Oil pollution was an example of this. In Tabasco, Mexico, PEMEX, the nationally owned oil company, had destroyed 60 per cent of the region's crops. The Commission was urged to broaden the mandate of the Special Rapporteur so that these issues could be seriously dealt with.
MIRGHANI IBRAHIM, of Earth-Justice Legal Defence Fund, speaking on the issue of adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products, regretted that the report of the Special Rapporteur was still not available in official form.
Over 3,000 tons of toxic wastes had been dumped in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, by the Taiwanese company Formosa Plastic Corporation. The waste contained high levels of mercury and low levels of dioxin and furan. The substances were extremely toxic; exposure to them could lead to neurological and psychological disorders, depression of the immune system and abnormalities in the endocrine and nervous systems, and even death. In February 1999, after an international campaign and action by the Cambodian Government, the waste was removed by the company and an attempt made to ship it to the United States. The company first attempted to dump it near a Latino minority community in California, then near a native America community in Nevada, but failed in these efforts.
MOHAMMADI YADOLLAH TEHRANI, of Organization for Defending Victims of Violence, asked how could one speak about the realization of lofty ideals such as justice, peace, fundamental freedoms and respect for human dignity in a world where over 1.2 billion people lived in extreme poverty, of which 180 million were children? The overwhelming majority of people living on $1 a day or less were located in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and China, but there were many tens of millions also in Latin America, the Caribbean and West Asia.
There was also considerable poverty in developed countries and in countries with economies in transition. One should not forget that poverty was a human-rights violation and that freedom from poverty was an integral and inalienable human right. In this situation, the United Nations had a great responsibility to adopt measures and mechanisms for providing the basic needs of human beings.
LOURDES CERVANTES, of the Organization of Solidarity of Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, said a meeting had been held in Havana between over a hundred NGOs to assess globalization. Neoliberal ideology and market forces had caused the economic and social disintegration of several countries. The IMF and the World Bank had further contributed to this, affecting the world's poor and creating even further injustice. The Organization denounced foreign debt, which was an expression of an unjust economic order. The technological gap was widening due to strict intellectual property laws. Countries should adhere to the level of official development assistance that had been pledged. Unfair and unilateral policies, such as the US economic blockade against Cuba, should be halted, These demands required attention and urgent action to achieve full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.
The former colonizing countries were still robbing the Third World, and as yet there had been no mention of compensation for these human-rights violations.
MOHAMMED AHSAN, of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, said that the effects of foreign debt became more serious and stringent when the borrowing countries diverted their funds to the purchase of military hardware and related sophisticated equipment.
A case in point was Pakistan, a developing country and also one of the heavily indebted countries of the world. If that country spent 35 to 40 per cent of its annual budget on military hardware and the rest in servicing foreign debt, it was obvious that it was done to the detriment of development plans. Most affected were the urban centres of Sindh province, including Karachi, the commercial and industrial hub of Pakistan.
JOAQUIN MBOMIU, of North-South XXI, said that while extensive recourse to force had been made with a view to ensuring respect for civil and political rights, in violation of the fundamental principle of sovereignty enshrined in the UN Charter, numerous international instruments relating to social and economic rights continued to be violated. Unbridled market forces and implacable free trade had led, among other things, to liquidation of the world's farmers, increased unemployment, and increased malnutrition.
Mexico, for example, had been subjected to 14 years of structural adjustment, as a result of which 2.2 million Mexicans had lost their jobs and 40 million now lived extreme poverty. Also, food consumption per capita had decreased. International financial institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, which were part of the UN system, were the spearheads of the market and were characterized by indifference to the social consequences of their policies.
DEBORAH STOTHARD, of the Aliran Kesedaran Negara, said there was a tendency to disconnect economic, social and cultural rights from civil and political rights. There was great poverty in Burma, where there had been no natural disasters and the country had once been described as the rice bowl of Asia. The Government put military spending ahead the well-being of the people.
Public expenditure there was among the lowest in the world. This was in a country where UNAIDS estimated that 440,000 people were HIV-positive.
On the national level many universities and schools were shut. Many schools and universities had only been opened for a total of 30 months in the past 12 years. The organization condemned ASEAN for "constructively engaging" with the Burmese Government. This sent the wrong message to the international community and the Burmese people and further slashed away the rights of the Burmese people. The Commission was urged to remember the situation in East Timor and what had followed when people's human rights were continually violated.
XAVIER RENARD, of International Federation Terre des Hommes, said that despite the increase in world's wealth, very little progress had been made in social development. Unfortunately it was regression and misery that advanced. The direct consequence of that situation was manifested in the living conditions of children, which were unacceptable. Infant mortality, malnutrition, extreme forms of child labour, and violent conflicts involving children had occurred.
In its concluding observations on a report of Mexico, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had shown alarm over the problem of malnutrition, which particularly affected children under 15 years of age. Mexico was not an isolated case; other examples had shown that economic growth in many developing countries did not significantly improve the social conditions of many citizens.
NATHALIE PROVVEZ,of International Commission of Jurists, said that in the current context of globalization, economic, social and cultural rights had to be understood more than ever as an indivisible part of human rights and had to be implemented as such.
The adoption of the draft optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights providing for a system of individual and group complaints was of great importance to ensure that persons and groups who were victims of violations of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights had access to an effective remedy at the international level and could obtain the adequate reparations they were entitled to. Its adoption would also permit the development of a significant body of jurisprudence which was absolutely indispensable if economic, social and cultural rights were ever to be taken seriously. In addition, an optional protocol would help clarify the effect of conflicting obligations imposed upon States through, on the one hand, international human-rights treats, and, on the other, international economic agreements.
JEAN JACQUES KIRKYACHARIAN, of the Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples, said foreign debt had to be cancelled. It was clear that such debts could not be paid, as this would require positive economic growth in countries where there was none. Even if foreign debts could be paid they should not be paid, not only because they had already been paid, but also because this would lead to inflation. It was a classic example through history that creditors did not want loans to be repaid; what they wanted was to assure themselves of a steady income through interest payments.
The Highly Indebted Countries initiative had been presented as a real effort on behalf of the international community. This was not the case. These countries would only be assisted to the level at which they could repay their debts -- the debts would not be cancelled. A more serious criticism was the implication that countries would only be eligible to receive debt alleviation if their Governments were actively promoting the eradication of poverty. How could these countries be expected to do so after the failure of structural-adjustment policies and the increases in poverty they had experienced after involvement with the World Bank and the IMF in the past? The Commission was urged to ensure the right to development and economic, social and cultural rights in all parts of the world, without discrimination.
ELLEN MOURAVIEFF-APOSTOL, of International Federation of Social Workers, said her organization, which was linked to people and communities facing a myriad of social, material and emotional problems through the individual social-worker members of its 71 national member associations, was able to appreciate the solutions attempted by various actors at various levels.
Debt relief, and where possible debt forgiveness for poor countries, was a priority since that would allow funds destined for debt service to be redirected to constructive and developmental in-country measures. As was generally known, there were winners and losers in the economic globalization process, and the losers were unfortunately to be found among the poorest developing countries and among poor and underprivileged people in industrialized countries.
KUA KIA SOONG, of Rural Reconstruction Nepal, said his organization was deeply concerned about the situation in southern Bhutan, particularly the deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights of southern Bhutanese people. Over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees now languishing in Nepal and India had been forcibly evicted from Bhutan after their lands were seized, homes destroyed and citizenship documents confiscated by the royal military in 1990. Further, their right to return home had been denied by the Royal Government of Bhutan.
The resettlement plan currently being implemented in southern Bhutan violated the right to land ownership of the original occupants who were at present living in refugee camps in Nepal. In Malaysia, vast sectors of the population were demanding greater democracy and basic human rights. The Government was currently building more and more dams, resulting in the displacement of indigenous peoples. Malaysian women faced discrimination, violence and hardship. Malaysian workers were denied minimum living wages. Affordable housing fell far short of demand. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported that Malaysia had the highest rate of income inequality in Asia. The cultural rights of minorities in Malaysia had also been violated.
KAREN PARKER, of International Educational Development, said Iraqi civilians were suffering from a humanitarian catastrophe with severe health implications. The majority of those suffering were children. The instigators of the economic sanctions in Iraq knew that targeting children was against international law. The organization condemned the intransigence of these sanctions in the face of international outcries. Appeals had been heard; two UN representatives and a representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) had resigned in protest. The modification of the embargo had not improved the situation; basic goods were continually blocked. Basic principles were violated. The organization urged the Secretary-General to investigate the impact of the sanctions and the effects of depleted uranium on the Iraqi population.
The organization welcomed the end of the sanctions against Burundi in 1999. However, there were serious effects facing the people of Burundi due to natural disasters and displacements. The Commission was called upon to remedy the effects of the former sanctions, which were incompatible with humanitarian law, and to ensure emergency aid to Burundi. Sanctions against Yugoslavia had not yet been investigated adequately, although 89 per cent of the population was living in poverty. The Commission was called upon to undertake an investigation of the impact of sanctions against former Yugoslavia.
ANDRE B. KALENDE, of New Humanity, said that according to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), some 130 million children were not attending school while about 900 million adults remained illiterate. If education was considered not only a right but also the key to all development, one could question the kind of development worked on by the international community.
Rural areas were always more disadvantaged, and in a number of developing countries the majority of the areas remained rural. Even if children started going to school, many of them did not even complete their primary educations due to lack of resources; in some countries, parents had to pay up to 100 per cent of tuition fees for their children. Many States could not discharge their international obligations to provide compulsory primary education for their citizens.
LAZARO PARRY, of Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru, said economic, social and cultural rights could be summarized as encompassing the rights to work, food and shelter. In this age of globalization, structural-adjustment programmes had a negative impact on these basic rights. The architects of the Bretton Woods Institutions had designed the World Bank and IMF with a view to fostering economic development in the poorest countries. But 55 years after their establishment, the balance sheet of their financial policies was bleak. In contradiction to its objectives, the IMF had imposed on developing countries liberalization, monetary devaluation, freezing of salaries, reductions in health care and the unbridled privatization of State enterprises.
By contrast, the US, which ran a deficit of $300 million, had no structural-adjustment programmes imposed on it by the IMF. The undemocratic character of the World Bank was reflected by the fact that one power, namely the US, had veto power which allowed it to veto any decision which ran contrary to its interests. On the other hand, many indebted countries had lost their sovereignty and had compromised their economic independence and political institutions in the name of the famous conditionality code.
DAVID ARNOTT, of War Resisters International, spoke about the impact of militarization on economic, social and cultural rights. For example, there was the resource-rich country of Burma. The report by the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar was welcomed. The report had raised the issue of excessive military spending, but had not mentioned the direct oppression by the military of the rural population, causing increasing suffering, tensions and displacement. Burma was a good example of the role of Government in producing economic collapse.
The report showed the effects of the ethos of a military regime, policies of militarization, and economic ineptitude. Women and children were particularly affected. The Commission was urged to incorporate the findings of the Special Rapporteur's report in its resolution on the situation in Myanmar.
JOY BUTTS, of the International Peace Bureau, said she was a poor woman from the United States and affirmed that there could be no peace without economic justice. The reality of poor people in the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, was quite different from the image portrayed by the Government and mainstream media. Downsizing, unemployment and poverty-wage jobs existed in the shadows of the reported "US economic boom". The social welfare reform bill passed with the support of the current President in 1996 had effectively repealed the safety net for all men, women and children in the country by placing a five-year limit on Government assistance, limiting economic human rights.
In addition, "American-style" social reform was modelled and replicated throughout the developing world, dismantling States' responsibility to provide for the basic needs of poor people. That was the American contribution to the global race to the bottom.
ALFRED FERNANDEZ, of International Organization for the Freedom of Education, said freedom of education was an integral part of the right to education. Freedom of education, as enshrined in international instruments, comprised the right to teach, set up non-State schools, and, for parents, the right to choose their children's schools.
Parents' right to choose their children's schools was often perceived as a mere consumer's right, whereas international and European instruments considered it an integral part of the right to education. The right to education had to encompass all related freedoms. The Special Rapporteur on the right to education should study State practices with regard to the implementation of the right to education.
JAIRO SANCHEZ, of American Association of Jurists, said major transnational corporations, major powers, and foreign debt were having severe negative impacts on developing countries. The process of globalization had put wealth in hands of only a few. Under this process, economic, social and cultural rights had been neglected and violated. The organization condemned the terrible policy decision made on foreign debts and the actions of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in establishing closer links with transnationals and the World Bank. This was referred to by the Office of Human Rights as a "strategy of participation" and "integrated development".
The World Bank had claimed neutrality but had refused to adhere to the Secretary-General's recommendation in regard to the apartheid regime in South Africa. The World Bank was expanding into every field, education, governance and health, in an attempt to apply the neoliberal policies championed by transnationals everywhere. The organization also criticized UNDP for its interaction with companies such as ABB, Novartis, and Rio Tinto. The Commission was urged to focus its attention on the victims of such power, rather than on the power itself.
MARIE CLAIRE DROZ, of the International Movement ATD Fourth World, said the international community had now reached a consensus that poverty was a violation of rights and responsibilities. In the long path since 1948, the human conscience had affirmed that the high aspiration of humanity was to free itself from misery, which was a terror. Now, what lessons could the international community draw from that consensus? Was it going to pass from a human rights declaration to its real and effective application?
Declaring rights without giving the means to implement them, even progressively, was to entertain illusion and despair. How was the international community going to maintain as a whole the instruments that would ensure the building of societies where rights were guaranteed and respected?
AHMAD HAMID, of Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women, said the attention of the Indonesian Government had been focused mainly on civil and political rights, whereas issues related to economic, social and cultural rights had been neglected. Development policy in Indonesia had failed to improve people's welfare. On the contrary, it had created an economic gap in urban and rural areas and had resulted in lack of control and accountability over the exploitation of natural resources, which prevented sustainable development.
Investment projects such as factories, plantations and mines had not only destroyed natural resources but had caused human-rights violations and environmental damage. Social impacts included the destruction of the livelihood of indigenous and local peoples who owned and managed those resources. For example, many foreign and domestic logging companies had destroyed millions of hectares of tropical rain forest.
DORA CARCANO, of the Women's International Democratic Federation, said the world witnessed the economic crisis caused by neo-liberalist ideology, structural adjustment and foreign debt. It was through the ideology of neo-liberalism that investment in health had been abandoned. The health infrastructure was receiving no investment. This lack of support particularly affected women. Furthermore, it brought about greater unemployment and economic deterioration. This trend was a step back for women in general, and more particularly for women in poverty.
The Government of Cuba had honoured its commitment to health and education. The levels of literacy and health in Cuba were among highest in the world. This was the expression of the political will of the Government, which had embraced the future of generations to come, equality between genders and full participation of civil society. Cuban women were proud of the inclusive policies carried out by the Cuban Government, even though the country had suffered from the forty year economic blockade of the United States. The organization urged to Commission to condemn the United States for the blockade and the grave consequences it caused.
HORACIO RAVENNA, of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, said that without the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, it was impossible to implement correctly civil and political rights. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), there was some relative improvement in some Latin American countries in the area of human development. However, per capita incomes varied widely from one country to another, while among the developed countries the differences were comparatively low.
It was also apparent that economic growth did not match with levels of "human development" in the region. In some countries, such as Argentina, 3.8 million persons remained unemployed and the social situation and the phenomenon of social exclusion had been the results of policies of economic adjustment.
MAURICE GRABER, of Defence for Children International, speaking on behalf of 11 NGOs, said the right to education was currently violated on a massive scale. Today, some 125 million children of school age, the majority of them girls, still had no access to basic education. The commitment of Governments at the 1990 World Conference on Education to provide every child with a good primary education by the year 2000 had not been honoured. Indeed, the objective of achieving universal access to free primary education had been postponed to 2015.
Poverty was a major obstacle which hampered the overall implementation of the right to education. However, there was ample evidence that lack of political vision had also led to a gross denial of children's fundamental right to education. Structural adjustment and other lending policies imposed by the Bretton Woods Institutions had often paid little regard to social policy objectives related to basic services, including education. The lack of resources allocated to education was not only due to insufficient international assistance, but also to flawed domestic budgeting, poor planning and misplaced national budgetary priorities, such as excessive military spending.
JOY EZEILO, of the International Human Rights Law Group, highlighted gender-based inheritance laws and practices in many countries in Africa. These laws continued to deny women and girl children equal rights to inherit property upon the death of a husband or father. This was a violation of fundamental rights to equality, to freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex, and deprived women of their economic social and cultural rights. It was common that when a man died, his relatives took possession of all property belonging to the couple, including land and the family house. Gender-based inheritance laws and practices were a major impediment to the challenge of poverty at the household, national and global levels.
The Commission was called upon to undertake an investigation of discriminatory inheritance laws and practices, and to urge thematic and country-specific rapporteurs with relevant mandates to include investigation of discriminatory inheritance laws in their work. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women was asked to investigate and document the relationship between denial of inheritance rights and violence against women. Finally the Independent Expert on extreme poverty should carefully examine the linkages between the denial of inheritance rights and extreme poverty.
ODALYS HERNANDEZ FUENTES, of National Union of Jurists of Cuba, said the blockade unilaterally imposed by the United States against Cuba over the last decade had led people to suffer scarcities in food and medicine. The Government of the United States, by seeking to punish the Government of Cuba, which was the expression of the political will of its people, had been committing an act of genocide which was punishable by international law.
The Cuban revolution had ousted the dictator regime which had killed 20,000 Cubans and which was largely supported by the United States. The embargo imposed against Cuba had hampered the country's development and its commercial transactions. A number of Cubans were suffering from the negative consequences of the embargo.
PIERRE PORRET, of Association of World Citizens, said the most diverse factors contributed to making economic and social rights one of the greatest preoccupations concerning human rights and the future of the planet. The development of unbridled ultra-liberalism following the collapse of most socialist regimes was becoming the sole credo of many company managers and politicians and was weakening the power of the State. This new fundamentalism, based on short-term profits, did not respect the well-being of either mankind or the planet. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization seemed to act only in the interests of big corporations.
The appetite and avarice of big companies seemed to have no limit. Their rapid degradation of the environment occurred not only in the poor countries of the south but also in Europe. The ozone layer was being destroyed because of large emissions of gasses as a result of the massive use of non-renewable fossil fuels. Rain forests were also destroyed to satisfy the needs of rich countries. The policies of agro-companies were particularly dangerous. These companies did their utmost to force consumers to consume genetically modified foods despite the fact that the long-term effects of these products were unknown.
REENA MARWAH, of the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies, said most societies today were marked by diversity. Equality of representation and opportunity was essential if each constituent of a society was to experience his or her full human rights. The quest for power by the majority often distorted both the distribution of economic resources and diminished the relevance of the unique heritance of minority groups. Democracy made an effort to ensure that each component of society could play an equal role in society and in the political sphere. The interpretation of democracy varied and had to be respected in its different forms. In traditional societies democracy meant political equality while within the family the traditional structures were maintained. The global media and telecommunications explosion was exposing entire generations in developing countries to lifestyles quite removed from the cultural standards that these countries had prided themselves on.
Economic, social and cultural rights could best be preserved if each society was allowed to evolve according to its own tempo and was not rushed through the various stages of development.
THUANG HTUN, of Worldview International Foundation, said Burma was the most appropriate example of how a resourceful rich country could decline to the level of a least-developed country when a ruling military elite denied basic human rights and fundamental freedoms to its people. Everywhere in Burma, there was evidence of poverty, ethnic conflict and growing threats to the environment. Such concerns transcended every region, war zone, and ethnic community.
The most obvious victims were the 120,000 refugees and half a million migrants in Thailand who had fled the country. Forcible population transfers and other forms of human-rights violations had led to the destruction of the socio-economic fabric of village life, widespread malnutrition and death, internal displacement of about 1 million people, and a continuous flow of refugees into neighbouring countries.
Rights of reply
A representative of Malaysia, speaking in right of reply, said a statement made by Rural Reconstruction Nepal gave the impression that the fruits of development in Malaysia had been unequally distributed. All figures and indicators refuted this. The speaker also seemed to be living in a world of his own making and looking back to the '50s and '60s as a golden age, whereas it was in 1969 that the country had experienced its worse riots. As for the NGO's references to racial quotas imposed in schools, it was this which had led to the success of Indonesia's New Economic Policy.
A representative of India, speaking in right of reply, said Pakistan had again launched a tirade against India. India was appalled by military coup in Pakistan. This was not a road map to democracy. The Pakistani tirade had become an annual tradition. Pakistan was bankrupt due to excessive expenditure on its military. In Pakistan, investment in national institutions was necessary. The repetition of falsehoods did not make them true. The Indian President had even gone to Pakistan which proved the Indian wish to engage in dialogue. In return, all that had been witnessed was intensified border terrorism.
A representative of Pakistan, in a right of reply, said the problem in Kashmir was the illegal occupation of the territory by India. That original crime had been compounded by a wave of repression against Kashmiris to prevent them from demanding their right self-determination. That right had been pledged to them by the Security Council. And it had been pledged to them by the founder of Indian democracy, Mr. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. His country had had no occupying army of 700,000 in Jammu and Kashmir, as India had later.
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