Workshops on South Africa’s Foreign Engagements and Human Rights
A pair of workshops was held on the 25th and 26th of March in Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively. Coordinated by SAIIA’s Governance and APRM Programme and entitled South Africa’s Foreign Engagement: Whither Human Rights?, they interrogated South Africa’s diplomacy which has been widely criticised for having seemingly abandoned a commitment to human rights. Click here for the full report.
Since 1994, South Africa has emphasised human rights as a foundation of its society and governance. At the time of the transition from apartheid to democracy, it was seen as a model of peaceful conflict resolution and reconciliation, and of the triumph of morality. Nelson Mandela pledged that “human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs”.
Over the past few years, however, South Africa's commitment to human rights has come under question, as a result of the positions it has adopted on a range of international issues, such as a perceived reluctance to sanction repression in Zimbabwe and Myanmar and ambivalence on homosexual rights. More recently, considerable controversy was generated when the Dalai Lama was reportedly denied a visa to enter South Africa.
Various perspectives on these issues we offered over some very intense and stimulating sessions. These included reflections on the drivers of foreign policy, and how South Africa’s objectives in reforming the broader international environment have led to a downgrading of the importance accorded to human rights. Legal scholars and human rights activists argued the appropriate relationship between human rights (often seen as a domestic affair) and a country’s foreign engagements. Civil society activists discussed their experiences, including their work around such crises as Zimbabwe. An especially insightful presentation was made by a legal activist on the challenge that Southern African civil society mounted against the delivery of arms to Zimbabwe from the Chinese vessel, Au Yue Jiang. The Department of Foreign Affairs’ representative put up a strong defence of South Africa’s positions, challenging the notion that it had abandoned human rights, and offering evidence of South Africa’s positive contribution to global diplomacy. He also indicated that the DFA would be eager to interact more with civil society.
Although not intended to produce a conference resolution, several issues stood out prominently: there was a general sense by participants that human rights had been severely deprioritised, and the official reasons for so doing were not compelling; there was a large degree of consensus that an international human rights architecture was emerging but had yet to come into its own; and that global institutions needed to be reformed. Click here for the full report.
