Description
The promotion and protection of human rights is a pillar of the United Nations, enshrined in the Charter, the international bill of rights, General Assembly resolutions and declarations, and buttressed by monitoring mechanisms, expert committees and regional human rights courts. After WWII the world demanded respect for collective and individual rights and freedoms, including the right to live in peace, i.e. freedom from fear and want, the right to food, water, health, shelter, belief and expression. Human dignity was understood as an inalienable entitlement of every member of the human family, rights that were juridical. justiciable and enforceable.
It did not take long for these noble goals to be politicized. Many States systematically weaponize human rights for geopolitics. A “human rights industry” operates at all levels and instrumentalizes values with the complicity of diplomats, politicians, non-governmental organizations, academics, journalists, «independent experts», rapporteurs, secretariat members and media conglomerates.
This book addresses the decisive role played by major governmental and private agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, elite think tanks, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, World Economic Forum and others in shaping a “perception” of human rights that primarily serves geopolitical interests. Major non-governmental organizations that once were truly independent, including Amnesty and HRW, today belong to the leading narrative managers.
The voting record in the General Assembly and Human Rights Council by China, Russia, the United States, Canada, UK, EU, OIC, Group of 77, Non-aligned movement, etc. documents who supports and who subverts human rights. Why do the Council and NGOs practice double-standards and allow States to brazenly lie, blackmail and bully weaker States? Under the pretext of providing humanitarian assistance, lethal military interventions are conducted, e.g. in Libya, emblematic example of how the noble idea of the “responsibility to protect” was corrupted. Propagandistic use of the words “human rights”, “democracy”, “rule of law”, « freedom » demean them and subvert rational discourse.
Drawing on more than four decades of working in the field of human rights as UN staff member, rapporteur, consultant, member of UN expert panels, professor and NGO president, Alfred de Zayas examines how the tools of implementation of human rights serve to entrench political narratives promoted by the “industry”.
JEREMY KUZMAROV –
“De Zayas’s book, The Human Rights Industry, focuses on the politicization and weaponization of human rights discourse at the UN and double standards of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which has evolved into a neo-colonial instrument that prosecutes primarily African leaders and enemies of the U.S. and West….The Human Rights Industry further spotlights the fact that human rights NGOs have been compromised by corporate foundations and Western intelligence agencies. De Zayas writes that he supports the work of many NGOs and idea of people’s power but finds that too many NGOs “go to foreign countries primarily to create confusion, interfere in the internal affairs of those states, and pave the way for ‘color revolutions’ and undemocratic regime change.”[4] JEREMY KUZMAROV, CovertActionMagazine
Midwest Book Review –
“A timely, informative, insightful, and thought-provoking study, “The Human Rights Industry” by Aldred de Zayas is a seminal work that is unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, college, and university library Contemporary Political Science collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, political activists, and governmental policy makers that “The Human Rights Industry” is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $22.00, http://www.amazon.com).” CHRIS TRAVIS, Midwest Book Review
DR HANS KOCHLER, IPO –
“The Human Rights Industry is the most comprehensive and honest assessment and critique to date of the performance of institutions the international community has set up to monitor respect of those principles that underlie justice and the rule of law at the global level. Whether domestically or in relations between sovereign states, politics must conform to human dignity, and the authority of the state must only be used to enforce the law, but not to subvert it just for the sake of mere power. This is the rationale of all international instruments and institutions established under the Charter of the United Nations and particularly in response to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the organization’s General Assembly in 1948. …” DR HANS KOCHLER, International Progress Organization, Vienna
GUY METTAN –
In a book just published in the United States (The Human Rights Industry, Clarity Press), the Geneva expert Alfred de Zayas dissects, analyzes and highlights the behaviors and, too often, the biases and biases that these organizations show despite their impartiality and proclaimed independence. From the International Criminal Court (budget: €150 million) entirely financed by Western countries and NATO members, to information agencies funded by intelligence services and defence ministers (such as the Bellingcat website very popular with the major European media) and the myriad of NGOs and more or less official bodies that gravitate around the United Nations, It paints a contrasting picture of their activities, to say the least. GUY METTAN, AGEFI (French, machine translation.)