Canada and the World Backgrounder articles from May 1997

Canada and the World Backgrounder archives from May 1997

Some are more equal than others. (United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights and world economic inequality)(Editorial)
May 1, 1997... "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world..." That's the start of the United Nations Universal...

Fact file. (billionaires' share of the world's wealth)
May 1, 1997... In 1996, the United Nations Developement Program reported that were 358 billionaires in the world. Among them, this tiny group of people possess as much wealth as 45% of the world's population, or 2,300,000,000 people.

Gift of nature? (natural law, philosophy, and the history of human rights)
May 1, 1997... To find out where today's human rights come from, we have to go way, way back, to the ancient Greek philosophers. They were the people who came up with the notion that there is some kind of "natural law." This natural law is a set of...

Fact file. (legal status of the fetus in Queensland, Australia)
May 1, 1997... In March 1997, the parliament of the Australian state of Queens-land ruled that a fetus is alive from the moment of conception.

Rights by numbers. (17th century rationalists' mathematical approach to ethics)
May 1, 1997... The development of the concept of human rights does not follow an unbroken course. Along the way, the development of ideas often takes a wrong turn down a blind alley. One such detour happened in the 17th century. People such as Gottfried...

Struggle for power. (political history of core human rights doctrines)
May 1, 1997... By most accounts, James II was not a good king of England. He had become a Roman Catholic, which didn't go dovwn well in Protestant England. He ruthlessly crushed his enemies, of which he had many. After three years on the throne, the English...

Fact file. (U.S. policy on the proposed human right to sufficient food)
May 1, 1997... At the World Food Summit in November 1996, the United States issued a written declaration that the right to adequate food is "a goal or aspiration" but not an international obligation of governments.

Magna carta. (political significance of the 13th century English document)
May 1, 1997... King John was yet another English monarch who was the architect of his own misfortune. He had a series of military failures in France, he taxed his people unfairly, and he abused his royal privileges. Such arrogant behaviour provoked his...

Rooted in culture.(non-Western countries' positions on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
May 1, 1997... The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations is a document that comes out of Western European cultural traditions. Because of this, it is sometimes attacked by people from other backgrounds as being alien to their...

Heart of darkness: it's hard to see leaders of countries that abuse their citizens as anything other than thoroughly evil people.(political repression in Myanmar, Iran)
May 1, 1997... "If we lose our ability to be outraged when we see others being tortured and killed, then we lose our right to call ourselves civilized human beings." Brazilian journalist Vladimir Herzog wrote that. Shortly afterwards he was tortured and...

Tumbling tyrants. (portion of countries ruled by one-party regimes declined to 31% in 1995)
May 1, 1997... According to New Internationalist magazine 61% of the world's population lived in countries with multi-party systems in 1995; this is up from 40% ten years earlier. The percentage of people living in one-party states dropped from 51% to 31% in...

Clash of values. (differences between Christian and Islamic norms regarding freedom of religion)
May 1, 1997... Most of the human rights we value and enjoy come out of the Judeo-Christian religious and cultural tradition. However, in a global context, Christianity is a minority faith which slightly less than a third of the world's population follows....

Hall of shame.(Freedom House's lists of countries that afford their citizens few or no political rights)
May 1, 1997... Freedom House is an organization that monitors political rights and civil liberties around the world. In its 1996 rankings, the following countries were listed as allowing no shred of political or civil freedom: Afghanistan, Bhutan, China,...

Good people doing something. (human rights activists)
May 1, 1997... Many men and women have taken up the challenge laid down by Edmund Burke two centuries ago. Rigoberta Menchu is one. A Quiche Indian she fights for the rights of Native people in Guatemala. Extreme poverty and unsafe labour conditions led to...

One person's truth. (press freedoms, blasphemy laws, and the Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie)
May 1, 1997... One of the most important guarantees of freedom for the individual is freedom for the media. If no one is keeping a close eye on what the leaders are up to then all kinds of mischief is likely to happen. That's why one of the first things any...

Fact file.(Algeria's high mortality rate for journalists, 1995)
May 1, 1997... In 1995, 24 journalists were murdered in Algeria, making it the most dangerous country in the world for the press in that year.

Helping the helpers. (list of human rights organizations)
May 1, 1997... There are many non-governmental organizations that campaign against human rights abuses. They all need volunteers and donations. Here is how to contact some of the groups: Amnesty International, 214 Montreal Rd., 4th Floor, Vanier, Ont., K1L...

Betrayal of the innocents. (child labor law violations and other human rights crimes against children)
May 1, 1997... A 10-year-old works 12 hours a day beside a furnace at a metal-working factory near the central Indian city of Varanasi. He earns 30c a day. His employer says he's well paid because he is such a good employee. A 9-year-old who escaped bondage...

Fact file. (child labor in Brazil)
May 1, 1997... In Brazil 46% of children 10 to 14 years old work, and 71% of 15- to 17-year-olds.

Foul ball. (Pakistan's Sialkot soccer ball industry exploits children as poorly paid laborers)
May 1, 1997... The Sialkot (Pakistan) sporting goods industry, which produced about 70 million soccer balls in 1995. admitted in 1996 that its local suppliers employ thousands of children. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates about...

A crime is a crime is a crime. (Canada, other countries have extraterritorial laws to prosecute people who commit sex crimes against children)
May 1, 1997... Tens of thousands of foreigners visit Thailand and other developing countries each year to pay for sex with child prostitutes. Last year, our federal government passed a new law designed to stem the growth of the child-sex-tourism business....

It's under the carpet. (Rugmark Foundation certifies carpets made without child labor)
May 1, 1997... In response to reports of child carpet workers in the early 1990s, a German-Indian export-promotion association, along with groups lobbying against child labor, formed the Rugmark Foundation in 1995, which certifies carpets that are made in...

Work versus labour. (distinction between exploitative child labor and permissible work by children)
May 1, 1997... The United Nations Children's Fund differentiates between child labour and child work, saying that the former inhibits a child's physical, mental, social, emotional, and cultural development. Exploitative child labour prevents a child from...

Fact file. (estimated number of homeless children, children as casualties of war)
May 1, 1997... In addition to the million of children who are forced to work, it's estimated that 100 million are living on the streets, and five million are injured each year by war.

Rogue regimes. (conflicts between human rights initiatives and trade policies regarding China, Nigeria)
May 1, 1997... Late in 1996, Liu Xiabo was taken from his home by China's security police. A few hours later, without trial, the pro-democracy activist was ordered to serve three years in a labour camp. The previous summer, veteran dissidents Liu...

Playing by the rules. (South Korea's labor laws allegedly violate international norms)
May 1, 1997... Laws adopted in December 1996 give greater powers to companies in South Korea to fire workers, allow the use of strikebreakers and deny employees freedom of association in the workplace. One result has been violent confrontations between...

Making a statement. (limited but significant impact of economic sanctions on tyrannical regimes)
May 1, 1997... International sanctions against South Africa are generally credited with helping speed the end of the racist policy of apartheid. However, the African National Congress's 30-year internal struggle for majority rule was the major cause of...

Keeping our own house in order. (human rights in Canada)
May 1, 1997... Canada has earned a reputation as an international champion of human rights. And, while violations of human rights at home pale compared to some of the horrors taking place in other parts of the world, there still are a few areas that need...

Fact file.(Canadian Human Rights Commission's 1996 caseload)
May 1, 1997... In 1996, the Canadian Human Rights Commission dealth with 1,048 discrimination complaints. It received 1,275 new complaints. Of the new complaints, the largest proportion (36%) involved discrimination on the ground of disability. Sex...

Righting wrongs. (case law on human rights violations in Canada)
May 1, 1997... We may live in one of the best countries in the world but many people still are victim of human rights violations. While they can't undo damage done, it's the job of our courts and human rights commissions to help correct injustices by at...

Fact file. (Alberta law forbids discrimination against low-income people)
May 1, 1997... In July 1996, the Alberta government outlawed, discrimination against the poor, saying landlords will not be allowed to turn away tenants because they're welfare recipients or pensioners.

Fact file. (Canadian Supreme Court's 1996 ruling on mainstreaming handicapped students)
May 1, 1997... In 1996, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that students with disabilities do not have the right to be integrated into a regular classroom.

War crimes.(United Nations International War Crimes Tribunal plans trials for people who allegedly committed human rights abuses in the former Yugoslavia)
May 1, 1997... The Yugoslav tribunal was set up by the United Nations in 1993. It is the first international body for the prosecution of war criminals since the trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II. By 1996, it had charged more than 70 Serbs,...

Small requests. (made by families of apartheid regime's victims in South Africa)
May 1, 1997... After all the tears shed in telling their stories. many victims of apartheid in South Africa are not asking for much. One report tells of a woman who wanted a tombstone for her dead husband and another, whose husband disappeared in 1987,...

Searching for truth.(truth commissions look into past human rights abuses in Chile, Argentina, and other Latin American countries)
May 1, 1997... The need to uncover atrocities has led to truth commissions in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Their aim was to find out what had happened to the thousands of innocent people killed or tortured by the military juntas during the 1960s and 1970s....

Fact file. (Rwanda's huge number of genocide defendants)
May 1, 1997... In April 1997 there were 92,392 people in jail in Rwanda awaiting trial on mass murder charges; at the same time, the country had just 33 lawyers in private practice.

Nothing to boast about. (Canada's spotty record on prosecuting Nazi war criminals)
May 1, 1997... In 1985. Mr. Justice Jules Deschenes of the Quebec Superior Court was given the job of investigating Canada's record on prosecuting Nazi war criminals. Canada has a history of delay and neglect in its treatment of war crimes. For decades...