[Please circulate widely!] London Observer, Leader on Sunday 24 October, 1999 http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/observer/leaders/0,3883,95265,00.html Sign now for global justice Sunday October 24, 1999 It is easy to mock idealists, especially those who dare to believe in international idealism. We all know the brute political reality. The world is made up of self-interested nation states which jealously protect their sovereignty; their governments pay only lip-service to democracy, accountability and justice. They get away with what they can, and as The Observer 's Human Rights Index discloses today, repression, torture, despotism and genocide are, if anything, increasing. Idealists may be well-intentioned, but they are softies. This is a world where the US Senate throws out the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Campaigning for better is simply to ignore reality; it is a waste of time and effort. Such cynicism is widespread, but it is wrong, both morally and practically. Today, Charter 99 is launching itself across the world - in Britain with a full-page announcement in The Observer - urging people to sign up to demand global democracy. At face value, the demand seems absurd. Yet, as Charter 99 argues in its manifesto, the Nineties have seen a growing and successful internationalist movement even as the pace of globalisation and the power of supranational institutions mount. This has been the decade of Jubilee 2000, the establishment of a charter for an International Criminal Court and the Earth Summit in Rio. But it has also been the decade in which Nato has fought a war in Kosovo and the IMF has organised so-called bail-outs across Asia, Africa and Latin America that have caused untold suffering. The power of gigantic private corporations and the global financial markets grow. There is a scarcely controlled arms trade. Environmental depredation is exploding. Money salted away in tax havens runs into hundreds of billions. In short, whether we like it or not, globalisation is happening; private power is mounting and public institutions, like the World Bank and World Trade Organisation, take unaccountable decisions with global consequences. Social distress is increasing and human rights are in peril. If there is not to be some global response and some global attempt to improve accountability for decision-making, then what? Is doing nothing and clinging to the current structures and practices the only alternative? Last week's visit to Britain by President Jiang underlined British ambiguities over democracy and human rights. China's record is indefensible, yet there is no international framework in which the country is held to account. Instead, it can play its trading partners off against each other, so that each country colludes in China's record for fear that condemnation would mean trade being lost to another country. In Britain, the anxiety goes so deep that, as we report today, we compromise our citizens' democratic rights to free protest by over-zealous policing. What happened was disgraceful. If we want better, we must act. If we want less repression and torture, we must have effective and accountable systems of international criminal justice. It's the same story for financial regulation, controlling the spread of land mines or closing down tax havens. And, as Charter 99 argues, the first thing to do is to make the existing system of world administration and governance accountable. And the time to start is at the UN's Millennium Assembly next September. The Observer was proud to help launch Amnesty in 1961. We offer the same support to Charter 99 today. Sign. To sign on to Charter 99, visit http://www.charter99.org/ or email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regards Brian Jenkins ---------------------------------------------------------------- This is the Neither public email list, open for the public and general discussion. To unsubscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=unsubscribe To subscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=subscribe For information on [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.neither.org/lists/public-list.htm For archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
