Summer profiles: International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)

Sometimes, words and concepts seem to go out of fashion. Right now, gender equality, diversity, or inclusion are all terms – and the ideas that they express – that the US administration seems uncomfortable with.

So much so that its diplomats are working to remove them from various United Nations strategy papers, and from humanitarian programmes the United States still funds.

In 2011, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Geneva and declared that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights,” committing the US to protect and promote LGBTQ rights worldwide. It was a historic speech that made headlines everywhere. Today, it seems like another age, even another planet.

Other words, and deeds, that once had the power to shock, seem to have lost their impact: torture, sexual violence, war crimes, genocide. Journalists who work in Geneva know all too well the brutality with which human beings can treat one another, but there was a time when it was thought the UN’s forensic investigations of atrocities, from Syria to Myanmar to Ukraine to Gaza, would bring, eventually, some justice and accountability.

A year after that speech by Hillary Clinton, I stood in front of the cameras at the UN in Geneva and described the very first UN Commission of Inquiry report into violations in Syria. It was horrific to read, but I do remember suggesting that the very detailed report would likely lead to accountability for the perpetrators, and might even send a message to other potential war criminals that their acts could not be hidden, and would be judged.

Today, while a few universal jurisdiction cases over Syria have led to convictions in Europe, President Bashar al Assad lives in a comfortable gated community in Moscow. Other government leaders – President Vladimir Putin in Russia, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel – have been indicted for war crimes, yet continue to prosecute their conflicts with complete impunity. Meanwhile, the US has promised to “dismantle” the very body designed to bring war criminals to justice, the International Criminal Court.

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Big challenges ahead

So who will defend human rights today, and how do they measure the challenge? On this week’s Inside Geneva podcast we profile the International Service for Human Rights, and its director and deputy, Phil Lynch and Pooja Patel.

ISHR may not be the human rights organisation people automatically think of – it doesn’t make splashy headlines like the giants Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. But I have had the pleasure of reporting on its work in Geneva for many years. It offers tireless support to courageous human rights defenders worldwide, people trying to protect and promote their rights under repressive regimes, or during brutal conflict.

Director Phil Lynch describes the organisation he leads as “a bridge.” “We provide solidarity and support to defenders to turn to the international system for justice and protection that’s denied at the national level,” he told Inside Geneva. “Whether that’s defenders working on democracy in China, whether that’s defenders pushing for accountability for atrocity crimes in Sudan.”

Lynch admits the current climate is challenging. “Certainly we’re seeing a challenge to universal human rights standards; widespread impunity for atrocity crimes such as we see in Israel Palestine, such as we see in Russia Ukraine, such as we see in Sudan.”

Tellingly, in the same breath, Lynch cites a “pushback against long recognised women’s rights”, in particular reproductive rights, as all part of the challenge.

Scapegoating

Lynch’s deputy Patel points to another challenge; the “narrative of scapegoating by political parties the world over, that seeks to drum up hate and mistrust against very particular communities in order to distract from their lack of good governance.”

It feels like a perfect storm; some of the world’s most developed democracies, the very ones who crafted the universal declaration on human rights, are pushing back on its basic principles. They are making huge cutbacks in their funding for human rights work worldwide, while at the same time furthering, or at least tolerating, a narrative which blames foreigners, immigrants, asylum seekers or simply the vulnerable for longstanding societal problems.

What can an organisation like ISHR do in the face of such change? Continue, Lynch and Patel say, to support human rights defenders. Help them to put their case to the UN’s diplomats in Geneva, who are, in case some may have forgotten, tasked with upholding universal human rights via the UN human rights council.

Shared interest in freedom

But is this a lonely uphill battle these days? That’s what I wanted to find out from Patel and Lynch when they came into the Inside Geneva studio. ISHR, like all the other NGO’s in Geneva, has not escaped funding cuts. And as Patel pointed out, some of the money once supplied by the US has not just disappeared, it appears to have been diverted, through a new US policy, to right-wing thinktanks in Europe, organisations Patel describes as “basically fascist groups.”

“We’re going to have to fight against groups that are going to be extremely well networked and well resourced,” she told Inside Geneva. “I think the worst is yet to come but that doesn’t scare me, it actually motivates me.”

Both Lynch and Patel hold on to their conviction that, away from the bitterly polarised political debates, ordinary people do cherish human rights, and understand the concept of universality.

“The overwhelming majority of people in countries have a shared interest in freedom, justice, equality and fairness” said Lynch. “We don’t like being bullied. We don’t like being subject to discrimination. The international human rights framework is a bulwark against that.”

“More rights for you doesn’t mean less rights for me, it’s not pie” added Patel. “My freedom and your freedom are connected. What’s good for me is good for you. We coexist, and that coexistence also requires some give and take. We need to work again on this idea of solidarity.”

Listen to the full inspiring conversation on Inside Geneva!

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