Foreign policy and human rights: Is a dialogue possible?

To believe foreign policy can only be the object of the attention and work of traditional international civil society organizations (CSOs), whose headquarters are mostly located in the Global North cities—such as New York, Washington, Geneva or Brussels—is to miss the spot.

Southern countries are increasingly playing a major role in several realms of international life, from security and peacekeeping, to development cooperation, trade and investment, environmental issues, and human rights. Nonetheless, public debate on the contours and impact of this more prominent role is still incipient. How much have African countries invested in peacekeeping in Africa? What has been the vote of the African group in the last Human Rights Council session regarding the resolution on peaceful protest? What has been the position of African countries in regards to the Syrian crisis? And what about Guantanamo Bay?

Advocating for more pro-rights and pro-social justice foreign policies in our home countries requires, above all, active civil society organizations that serve both as watchdogs and as partners in/for action. In order to fulfill this role, these groups must monitor policies and actions, provide knowledge and technical support, and challenge policies and behaviors that are undemocratic or that violates human dignity, at home or abroad.

Working with foreign policy means adding a new layer of work for many of the already deeply busy CSOs in the Global South, requiring them to develop some new skills and institutional capabilities. Some reflection work on this has already been made.

Conectas Human Rights recently launched a publication, Foreign Policy and Human Rights: Strategies for Civil Society Action, based on its work with foreign policy and human rights in Brazil, providing strategies, tips and critical analysis together with concrete examples on how CSOs can engage with foreign policy making in their home countries.

The publication explores five lines of action that currently support Conectas’ advocacy work in trying to influence the formulation of foreign policy in Brazil: researching and producing information, establishing partnerships, making use of governmental checks and balances, fostering media and public scrutiny, and monitoring multilateral fora and mechanisms. The table below summarizes those five lines of action.

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(This table was first published in Asano, Camila L. (2013) ‘Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Emerging Countries: Insights Based on the Work of an Organization from the Global South’, SUR International Journal on Human Rights, vol. 10, no. 19, 2013, pp. 119-137)

Organizations wanting to have an impact on policy need to employ these different strategies throughout the policy cycle (which includes agenda setting, selection of options, implementation and evaluation). According to the issue and political context, the same organization can (and will) interact with different phases of this cycle.

On that note, some concrete examples are worth sharing. On information gathering—understood as “knowledge for action” without which no advocacy will be possible—gathering information about your country’s foreign policy helps understanding the dynamics of policymaking, and enables CSOs to visualize patterns and inconsistencies in their country’s international engagements. Since 2006, Conectas has published the yearbook, Human Rights: Brazil at the UN. The purpose of this publication is to systematize and compile all information available on Brazilian engagement on human rights at the UN, and disseminate it in Portuguese (Brazil’s national language and a non-UN official language) to other organizations in Brazil in order to help other CSOs interested in participating and monitoring Brazil. It also serves as a reminder for public officials that civil society keeps track of government activities and will hold public servants accountable for misdoings. In 2014, Conectas decided to expand this exercise by updating the medium through each those data is presented, creating an online tool called “Database: How Brazil, India and South Africa vote in the UN”.

Another example that speaks to building partnerships and making use of governmental checks and balances mechanisms and media is a cross-regional campaign on Zimbabwe. In 2007, Conectas facilitated a mission of two Zimbabwean human rights defenders (from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights) to Brazil to raise awareness of the political crisis happening ahead of the presidential elections. Back then, Brazil was (and still is) one of the few Latin American countries with a diplomatic mission in Harare, enjoying respect from local rulers. Good relations were built, however, on the basis of mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty, which was often translated into silence when it comes to the human rights situation on the ground.

Taking this into account, in order to raise the cost of Brazilian traditional silence on the matter—which included abstentions in the former UN Commission on Human Rights on resolutions about Zimbabwe—Conectas and its partners organized a meeting with seven Latin American CSOs in Brazil. As a follow-up to the meeting, the organizations took action to influence the foreign policy of their respective governments, as well as at the regional level via Mercosur. In Brazil, the advocacy work conducted after this meeting resulted in one lawmaker heading to Harare to monitor the first round of the elections. In addition, two Brazilian journalists went to Zimbabwe to follow the polls in loco. Since then, Conectas and its partners in Zimbabwe have been working together, before Brazilian institutions and at the UN level, to promote a more vocal stance of the international community regarding fundamental liberties in Zimbabwe.

This campaign has led to useful reflection and learning opportunities. Even when external scrutiny does not prevent human rights violations or violence, it nonetheless progressively raises the costs for local rulers to proceed with them. Civil society mobilization also sends to the Brazilian government a clear message that their good relations with other countries cannot be an excuse to not take a stance when human rights are at risk. Moreover, if diplomats are not willing to take action, there are other venues to explore, such as the legislative branch of government or the media.

The aforementioned examples illustrate how Conectas engages with Brazilian decision makers in the field of foreign policy and human rights. However, African CSOs willing to work in the same field should consider going beyond their own government, and spend some time building bridges with (re)emerging powers (from Africa and other regions), whose footprints are increasingly visible in Africa. The first step could be to recognize and identify the nature of the impact of these new players in African politics and human development. The second step could be to start directly engaging with these emerging powers. This could be done with more frequency by creating channels for dialogue with the embassies of Africa’s emerging powers, but also through specific campaigns or media actions targeting foreign leaders coming for official summits and/or country visits. Creating cross-regional campaigns together with rights groups from the emerging countries themselves could also be used to create leverage.

Emerging countries can play an important role in promoting rights-based engagement toward Africa. They can go beyond aid and/or intervention, but they will not do so unless there is active scrutiny and social pressure to make those foreign engagements accountable. Civil society from emerging countries and from Africa can work together to ensure that this new wave of South-South relations is developed to benefit all citizens. Emerging countries are the champions of the debate on reforming global governance institutions and democratizing international politics. Let us not forget that in order for them to do so they need to democratize their own foreign policy, in form and content. In other words, there must be a democratization of the way in which foreign policy is made (through greater transparency, accountability and citizen participation), as well as in the nature of the decisions that are being implemented, keeping in mind our countries’ non-negotiable international and national commitments to human rights and social justice.

* Laura Trajber Waisbich is Foreign Policy Officer at Conectas Human Rights, a Brazilian rights-group whose mission is to promote the realization of human rights and consolidation of the Rule of Law in the Global South—Africa, Asia and Latin America. Conectas was accorded consultative status with the ECOSOC-UN in 2006, and observer status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2009.

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