Human Rights?

The laws of physics state that, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And the threat to our personal and collective safety from criminal cartels and terrorist groups is real and growing and causing many to question their commitment to democracy as currently practiced.

Looking at the major issues we face today, especially the threat of organized crime and terrorism, I wonder if the pendulum of national and international human rights legislation has swung perilously close to a point where our laws can no longer protect the average citizen.

Abraham Maslow categorized safety as the second most important human need after health. Yet this imperative human need has for many years been watered down by human rights legislation that appears to enhance the rights of the criminal.

The pendulum may have swung too far in a liberal direction.

At a national level, many democracies ascribe the same rights to criminals as they do to their victims. Philosophically this option is attractive. However, it often appears that victims’ rights are often secondary to the protection of the rights of the criminals. The argument here is that laws protect us all equally. The problem is that we don’t all behave equally. 

Criminal and terrorist gangs use the law to protect their interests and shield themselves from the application of justice by society. The price society pays is the decline of confidence in our legal systems and dissatisfaction on the part of citizens.

And this leads to frustration and a tendency to look for radical alternatives to a system of governance that does not seem to be responsive to the needs of society. 

At an international level, human rights legislation is a joke.

Signatories of the various international human rights charters regularly and cynically ignore these rights and cause their citizens harm and, in many cases, needless death. 

When countries like China and Cuba and Sudan are on the United Nations Human Rights Council, this body loses all credibility. When the U.N. Security Council members appear to pursue their own narrow national interests at the expense of thousands or even millions of victims of abuses, confidence in our multilateral institutions erodes to the point at which they become irrelevant. Many governments thumb their noses at the treaties that they have signed and abuse their people’s rights egregiously with few if any sanctions.

I believe in legal rights and protections.

As a citizen, however, I demand the right to walk the streets of my city with no fear of being accosted or murdered. I demand the right to live with no one attacking me for my religious, sexual, or racial profile. I also demand that those who think differently from me respect my choices and do not force me to think their way. That we agree to disagree rather than violently attack each other though terrorist attacks.

How do we manage conflicting demands?

Criminals and terrorists today don’t play by society’s rules, nor do they have any respect for others. 

A few years ago, El Salvador was the most violent country in Latin America. It had been overtaken by organized criminal gangs whose domination of Salvadoran streets was absolute.

President Nayeb Bukele declared war on organized crime. He has since incarcerated 65,000 known criminals and stated that they will work on civil projects to earn their keep in prison. 

The results are palpable.

San Salvador has become one of the safest cities in the Americas, and some 90% of Salvadorans fully support Bukele. 

Many Latin Americans are looking at El Salvador as an example of what their leaders should be doing instead of negotiating with criminal organizations for their own political or financial benefit.

Honduras’s left-wing President Castro, who campaigned on a platform of demilitarizing the country’s security system and has since done an about-face, implementing a Salvadoran-style state of emergency to combat crime, albeit on a more limited scale.

Our legal systems are premised on the basis that everyone plays by the same rules. They are also premised on the belief that our leaders and those who apply justice are not corrupted by bribes or threats from criminal gangs.

However, criminal and terrorist gangs do not play by our rules. Often, they outgun our law enforcement forces and murder, intimidate, or corrupt our judiciary. Society plays checkers while its enemies play chess – and play it much better than society can with the tools currently at hand.  

So indeed, I wonder if our national and international legislations on human rights are fit for purpose and if our leaders have the courage to act decisively and deliver results to their citizens.

Appeasement of hate speech, racist rallies of all types, drug cartel activities, and criminal and terrorist gangs has not worked anywhere to the best of my knowledge. Without enforcing laws and ensuring that the justice system works for victims, things only go from bad to worse. 

Governments and multilateral institutions are going to have to find a way to better apply laws to meet the safety needs of society all while ensuring that the rights of law-abiding citizens are respected.

And there is no simple path to protecting the rights of the average citizen on the one hand, and pursuing a system of justice that is quick and efficient on the other.

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Edition: Estefanía Cardeña