I just finished Desai, and I was really impressed with her article. Something I thought of while reading her:
She writes about the rise of the human rights framework as something that feminists around the world, and especially during the Vienna convention, could rally around. They could create a “solidarity of difference” rather than one based on contention, and this was facilitated by the mantra that “women’s rights are human rights.” She then goes on, however, to describe how the “principles and language” of human rights has been co-opted by militarism, rising fundamentalism, and the perpetuation of neo-liberal economic discourses. This has led to the erosion of the efficacy of human rights because it has, at least on her account, not offered a rigorous enough critique of the logic of statehood and national sovereignty. I think this is really something to think about, and a problem that exemplifies its complexity is the problem of Guantanamo Bay, and its detainees who will (hopefully) soon return to the States to re-enter the court system.
Desai writes that human rights discourses have often argued that “the State is the protector, promoter, and enforcer of these rights even as non-state actors are held accountable for some women’s rights violations.”
Although I think this is good, that human rights agencies and courts are trying to hold accountable non-state agents, what about refugees who are not claimed by any country? Refugees are supposed to be people who are not claimed by any state, that they are nationless because no one wants to accept them. Even many detainees from GITMO cannot return to their original nations because they will not accept them. Without a state to enforce human rights, how do you have human rights?
Desai argues (and I agree) that the UN and NGO’s are the privileged sites of transnational social activism, including activities like framing issues. I think Joachim’s article makes this really clear-much of framing happens at international conventions and agencies. So who gets to frame issues for refugees? For GITMO detainees? They don’t have a nation, they have no state to enforce and defend their human rights. International agencies may try to defend them on their behalf, but isn’t that a kind of co-opting too?
My question, then, is that this problem seems to indicate that we might need to talk about a right to have rights. I think Desai makes it clear that with the ridiculously complex terrain of human rights, we have to make sure that the language and principles of human rights is available to those who are being violated, and that human rights are not contingent on citizenship to a state who will enforce those rights for you.
I know I may sound like I am disparaging the human rights discourse – I’m not. I’m rather fond of it, actually. But I think Desai is pointing us towards those vacuums where transnational activism and human rights haven’t been able to permeate, and one of those vacuums has been GITMO. This is something that we have to think through very soon, since GITMO’s days are now numbered.
Global Feminisms Fall 2008 