Viet Nam Human Rights
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Human rights shall not be above national sovereignty (Part 1)
Human rights shall not be above national sovereignty (Part 1)
29/7/17
Amidst vibrant globalization, human
rights garner constant international attention. Against this backdrop, hostile
forces are stepping up their activities against Vietnam’s Communist Party
and political regime. They claim “superiority of human rights over national
sovereignty”. Is this the case? Chief among hostile forces’ sabotage is
Vietnam’s human rights record. It should be noted that hostile forces have
expanded in size, ranging from non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
financially and politically abet by foreign countries such as Freedom House
(FH), Amnesty International (AI), Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ), Human Rights Watch (HRW), to anti-communist Members
of Parliaments in Europe, Canada, Germany, Australia, reactionary Vietnamese in
exile and various opportunists, including owners of illegal websites and
administrators of anti-communist Facebook pages. Their main artifice is to
employ the label of democracy and human rights issues via Annual Reports with a
view to slandering and libeling the Vietnamese State. They keep a remarkably
close watch on Vietnam’s situation, especially detentions of offenders of
“conducting propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”
(under Article 88 of the Penal Code), acting against law
enforcers and fomenting social unrest. They “call for” the release of
“prisoners of conscience” and “denounce” functional agencies’ illegal
detention. They repeat such obsolete labels as “Vietnam’s political regime is
dictatorial and totalitarian”, “Vietnam seriously infringes human rights,
especially rights to freedom of speech, the press and internet, which are
“inherent” to people”. In addition, they deliberately misquote regulations in
Chapter II of Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution on “Human rights, fundamental rights
and obligations of citizens” in order to excuse their misdeeds. With
misquotations of Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution, many a self-proclaimed and
“political scientist” and “scholar”, maintains that “Human rights are above
national sovereignty” or “Human rights are borderless”, and so on.
On account of those claims, they
incite illegal activities, thereby providing a pretext for external
interference in Vietnam’s internal affairs with willing accomplice by extremist
forces, self-proclaimed dissidents at home and reactionary organizations
abroad. A case in point is the advent of the “Global Magnitsky Human
Rights Accountability Act (S.2943)” under the “ “National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (NDAA)”, resulting from
intense political pressure by the US’s far-right forces and imposed on other
countries, including Vietnam on the pretext of the latter’s breaches of human
rights.
Are their deeds and claims in tune
with the international public awareness of human rights? What are their
political motives?
First and foremost, what is the
international public awareness of human rights? Historically, pundits and
scholars tend to rely on the most universal documents as follows: the UK’s 1689
Bill of Rights, the US’s 1776 Declaration of Independence and 1789 Bill of
Rights, France’s 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the
1945 UN Charter, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and other international covenants on human rights adopted by the
UN. Among those are two fundamental covenants, the 1966
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Alongside with the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, both of them constitute the
International Bill of Human Rights.
Accordingly, the concept of human
rights is comprised of two fundamentals. As a philosophical and humanistic
value, human rights cover the followings: (1) Dignity, construed as material
conditions (food and housing, etc.) and spiritual ones (recognized as a human
person entitled to statutory rights) (2) Freedom, construed as the right to do
anything which is not prohibited by law (3) Equality. Everyone is
entitled to all the rights without distinction of any kind as to race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status. (4) Humanity and clemency (5) Social
responsibilities. Despite being entitled to all the rights, everyone may be
subject to certain restrictions “to protect public safety, order, health, or
morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others” (Item 3, Article 18,
the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)
and “for the protection of national security or of public order (ordre
public), or of public health or morals” (Item 3, Article 19, the 1966
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). As such, there
is no question of “superiority of human rights to the national sovereignty”, or
“individuals’ immunity from social responsibilities”. In other words, human
rights shall be subject to national law while not infringing the rights of
society and other individuals without distinction of national or social
origin.
As a legal value, human rights cover
statutes (by international and national law) on protecting and ensuring
dignity, material and spiritual needs and benefits of all persons as well as
their duties to other individuals and to the community. As such, this concept
clearly points out that every person is the subject of the rights while the
State undertakes to respect and protect the rights. It should be noted that
according to fundamental documents adopted by the UN, instead of being confined
to the individual rights, the concept of human rights covers the rights of
States, peoples and collective rights, especially those of vulnerable social
groups. Concerning the rights of States and peoples, under Article 1 (Part I,
1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), “All peoples have
the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine
their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development”. This stipulates that any State has the right to freedom of
political regimes and legal systems without interference from any individual,
State, and even the UN. Under the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of
Action, the World Conference on Human Rights reaffirms “the denial of the
right of self-determination as a violation of human rights”. At the Conference,
the concept “particularity” of human rights came into existence for the first
time: “The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair
and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis. While the
significance of national and regional particularities and various historical,
cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of
States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to
promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms”. This lays a
philosophical and political foundation for differences in human rights between
States and peoples. That is to say that not a single national legal system
serves as a yardstick of others’, thereby denouncing the latter as being
against “global benchmarks of human rights” and “violation of human rights”.
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All comments [ 10 ]
Traditionally, the promotion of Human Rights and the concept of state sovereignty have been fundamentally opposed.
It is important to note that theoretically, any such promotion of universal Human Rights by the international community is a restraint on a states’ sovereignty.
From what we have explored so far, it would seem that the promotion of Human Rights has embarked upon a successful challenge to the concept of state sovereignty.
Dominant understandings of sovereignty (and Human Rights) have indeed been significantly reshaped. Nevertheless sovereignty remains strong and, at least with respect to Human Rights, largely unchallenged.
The sovereign state is the predominant form of political organization in the modern world. Sovereign states confer rights on individual citizens, using laws and policies to secure these rights within the territory of the state.
Treaties and trade policies are made between sovereign states, and state leaders guide the decisions made through the United Nations.
When a sovereign state cannot, or will not, fulfill its obligations toward its citizens, what should happen?
States human right duties are exclusive to their own nationals.
The international community is well informed of Human Rights violations and abuse, but has very little statutory power to do anything.
The implementation and enforcement of such rights are left to individual states and their respective territories.
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