The Millennium is a metaphor. Although Milan Kundera warns us that ‘metaphors are not to be trifled with’, we cannot be blinded by such metaphors to look ahead with unfocussed eyes. The well-off will usher in the millennium. The poor will watch it being ushered in. When the party is over, we will be back to face the oppressive realities of every day life.

If the First World War began with the murder of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, it ended with the bombing of Kosovo in Serbia in 1999. If in the year 1900, the sun did not set on the British Empire, in 2000, the sun is not destined to set on the Empire of the WTO. If in 1900, India had 238.4million people, in the year 2000, India will have one billion people. Of these one billion people, over 300 million people in India live below the absolute poverty line – a number greater than the entire population of India in the year 1900. If imperialism stalked the governance of the world one hundred years ago, it has reappeared as global capitalism in ways that makes imperialism a relic.

The glitz will soon be over — leaving only the Y2K imperfects behind. Parallels between 1900 and the year 2000 will always be flawed — except those rooted in human nature. The 20th century has been the most technologically creative centuries of all time. The quill pen has given way to the fountain pen, and the computer. This is the century of the car, railways, airplanes, jets, rockets and travel to and beyond the moon towards the stars. Postage has all but been progressively replaced by the telegraph, the telephone, the fax, internet, the e-mail and what is to follow. To the power of energy, and — perforce — destruction, have been added the embryo of nuclear power to leave a bewildered world wary of itself.

It has been a century of democracy. This does not mean that the poor and disadvantaged have conquered the world or that powerful elites no longer rule us. It simply means that the electoral populace of more countries can vote their governments out of power — albeit by slim or awkward majorities. It has been a century of blood, of world wars, of genocide, of pogroms, of the senseless murder of Jews, of the bombing of little Vietnam by mighty America for years and of the rise of a most terrifying Fascism the world has over known.

If the over-populated peoples of the world are in better health, the same cannot be said for the environmental health of the world. As a result of this century, there is a hole in the Arctic sky, the temperature of the oceans have risen and will continue to rise to engulf low lying islands and countries. Never before in the human history of this planet has there been so technological a century with such a devastating record of death, destruction, exploitation, strife, poverty and hate. All these contradictions spill over into the millennium yet to come.

This century has seen vast changes in the political map of the world. The imperial map of 1900 was sedate but unfinished. The division of spoils continued, as new ‘nations’ emerged or were re-born. Freedom movements throughout the world — of which India’s was amongst the most significant — forced the map of the world to be re-drawn. But, retreating imperialism forced its mischief. Civilizations were dismembered. The Indian sub-continent, which had every reason to come closer, was divided into four fractitious parts: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Burma disappeared into an insular repression which it carries over into the next century. Israel was foisted onto the Middle East to sustain continuing unresolved conflict.

Germany was divided and re-united. Korea and Vietnam were split. China came under the suzerainty of Communist masters to be pitted against a ‘western’ support puppet in Taiwan. Tibet and Tibetans paid an awesome price for appeasing China to find themselves caught in a labyrinth of communist rule from which they cannot escape. Poland, which was lost to the world as a political unit in the 19th century was reborn in the 20th century. The World Wars played musical chairs with the boundaries of the countries of Eastern Europe.

The map of Africa was redrawn in our time. Cyprus lies divided. An Egyptian civilization — longer in time than the Pharaohs — was split for imperial reasons. Yugoslavia was brought together in 1945, but brutally broken up in 1995. The Soviet Union which pulled together a vast people of diverse cultures split into many pieces. Ireland remains divided amidst its killing fields. Indonesia, the country of many Islands, is to be broken up — with referenda in East Timor and, perhaps, Aceh. The map of the world which seemed stable in 1900, and, again, in 1970 or so, has become unstable again — in all but the most powerful nations of the world.

On what basis has the map of the world been re-drawn. On what basis will it be re-drawn in the 21st century? These are questions of some portent. The key concept in all this appears to be the concept of ‘self-determination’. What is this concept of ‘self-determination’ which finds testimony in Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: "All peoples shall have the right to self -determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."

Nor is this all. The Friendly Relations Document 1970 empowers all people "to determine, without external interference, their political status". According to Article 19 of the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on State Responsibility, it is a serious crime to interfere with this right. In the East Timor Case (1995), the International Court of Justice declared respecting the right to self-determination an undisputed obligation.

But, how will this right of ‘self-determination’ work? Can it be claimed by any people anywhere? Were my Catholic students in Queens University right when they claimed that British helicopters could not violate the ‘free’ air space of predominantly Catholic London Derry? And, if this is an extreme and stupid example of the absurd lengths to which the concept of ‘self-determination’ cannot go, what are the limits; and, how are they to be determined?

Unfortunately, the test of ‘self-determination’ is dangerously unclear. If history is an ingredient and each claim of self-determination must be grounded in history, how will these claims be assessed? Earlier, in this century, the Jewish people were agreeable to found a settlement in Uruguay, but, then, made a claim to Mediterranean Israel on a scriptural basis that leapt over centuries to Roman times. If the test of history were to apply, India would suffer obsolescence. Each area, each linguistic conurbation, even each district speaks of historical traditions stronger than those which holds many nations together. India would be split into a thousand parts. Perhaps, that was the post-imperial dream of our erstwhile rulers which misfired.

Migration produces new histories and new historical claims. The Tamils in Sri Lanka sport secession with armed strength for the Northern ‘Jaffna’ areas because they are in a majority there. More populations have moved around the world in the globe since 1945 than ever before. Can each migrating group which has retained its identity and found settlement in a distinct area demand ‘self determination’ — albeit in Birmingham or Southall in England or Greenwich in New York or, perforce, in far off Fiji where Hindustani is officially recognized as a language?

Or is history not enough? Are claims to ‘self-determination’ justified only if ‘oppression’ is added as an imperative to the claims of history? The justification for the secessionist claims of East Timor and Aceh are founded on complaints of Indonesian oppression. Where claims of secession are made, should not the regime under assault try and fight the secession — whether it is in Punjab in India or Chechnya in Russia? And, is the price of imposing a peace, a validation of the secessionist claim of self-determination?

If ‘oppression’ and ‘history’ are the answer, the list of claims for self-determination will, inevitably, be incredibly long. In fact, neither history nor oppression form the basis for such claims. These claims are excavated by the powerful nations whenever they want on the basis of their real politik needs. If there was ever a genuine case to vehicle the cause of self-determination, it is surely the case of Tibet. Autonomous and independent for centuries, with a distinct culture and tradition of its own, a government in exile in India and systemic repression by China to destroy the roots of Tibetan culture, Tibet’s claim lies fallow as the world watches the growing extinctness of the historical and spiritual traditions of these unique people.

Arguments over principle seem irrelevant. It is the brute strength of politics moving the velvet-gloved slogan of ‘self-determination’ which appears to be decisive. The most powerful nations of the world do not want to take on China — even at the expense of Tibet dying a thousand cultural deaths. But, India is unprepared to be bullied over Kashmir; and, awaits how international opinion will respond each time the case of Kashmir is chorused by Pakistan through international fora.

But, Kashmir is an interesting case in point. It would be farcical if a Pakistan, or even Muslim, sponsored claim of self-determination were acceded to in Kashmir. Even its predominate religious population is split into Buddhist-Ladakh, Hindu-Jammu and the Muslim-Hindu ‘valley’ where all these communities have lived in peace for years. Would Kashmir have to be split three ways? To what end? And, how? Yet, the issue of Kashmir could be forced on the arbitrary strength of an irrelevant politics insensitive to either peace or justice.

But, as we transit from the impossible case of Kashmir, how seriously are we taking the Huntington thesis, that the next century will witness the ‘clash of (religious) civilizations’. Even though this thesis may not speak for the American government of the day, if this is the way America views the world, we might see the emergence of a corrosive politics of self-determination founded on religious difference and supported by the exigent politics of expediency. Every group manipulated by ambitious politicians would try to get into the history books for, at least, a year and a day.

If 19th and 20th century nationalism has been characterised by Benedict Arnold as raising the cultural claims of ‘imagined communities’ to become nations with the help of ‘print capitalism’, a new ‘electronic capitalism’ espousing a contrived religious fundamentalism would attempt to re-draw the map of the world of the 21st century along communal lines. This would be a regression — avowedly to be resisted.

The doctrine of ‘self-determination’ of the 20th century flowed from the logic of a situation when many of the Asian and African nations were still to be liberated from colonialism. It would seem very strange if the very same doctrine of ‘self-determination’, which was used to liberate peoples from imperialism empowered the new global powers of the 21st century to play political games with the map of the world. We have, therefore, to go to some of the deeper concerns of ‘self-determination’ to find more effective and less divisive solutions.

The late Neelan Thiruchelvam of Sri Lanka looked for these solutions in new federal and devolutionary structures and in guarantees of religious and cultural freedom in an atmosphere of tolerant understanding. Neelan paid for these ideas with his life at the hands of the Tamil terrorists who felt that his quest compromised their territorial claim to northern Sri Lanka. In a spirit of reflective memory, I affectionately call this package, the ‘Neelan’ solutions which seek to find answers within nations rather than pursue opportunistic goals based on contrived notions of self-determination.

The map of the world in the 21st century is a matter of some import. This map was re-drawn by colonialism, its imperial successors and the independence movements of the 20th century. There are threats that under the guise of ‘self-determination’ manipulative usurpers — and there is no dearth of them — might want to re-draw the world along communal rather than communitarian lines under the protective shadow of the super powers of the world. So many questions of self-determination can be resolved within states. Externally, states must come together as much as Europe has done and Africa is striving to do. In the century that is to follow, the map of the world should be re-drawn to bring people together rather than force them apart whilst still retaining that diversity of peoples and cultures that makes this earth and all which it inherits so unique.

From Global Domination to Governance and Back to Domination:

At the beginning of the 20th century, the only real model for world peace was imperial imposition. Pax Britannica was no different from the peace of the Roman Empire or any other kind of imperial peace. Whether any imperial subjugation was enlightened or whether the subjugated peoples were really at peace varied from empire to empire.

Where the ‘empires’ themselves were themselves at loggerheads, peace was negotiated — sometimes, as in the aftermath of Napolean’s defeat in 1815, multilaterally. In a sense, the 20th century ushered in a concept of global governance — first with the League of Nations and, then, with the United Nations. The ‘League’ was not able to withstand the rise of a brutal Nazism. The terrifying import of Nazism is not always fully appreciated by the new millennial generation who look back on it with reverse telescopic eyes as if it was just another aberration which belongs to medieval rather than modern times. Yet, we need to be reminded again and again of this inhumanity which, as the mountain of skulls in Indo-China affirms, remains a continuing possibility — no less in the individual lives of many people of the world as a part of everyday life.

With the advent of the United Nations, a new model of world governance was created which created a permanent institution of limited governance. At the same time the working of this institution was subject to the veto power of any of the big five: the US, Russia, England, France and China. This surrender of the new organization to some of the prominent post-imperial nations produced subdued and ad hoc results. Perhaps, it is necessary to divide the period of the UN’s functioning into the two distinct periods of the Cold War (1945-1990) and the Post-Cold War. During the Cold War period, the United Nations functioned subject to strong and indiscriminate vetos.

Over this period, a paralysed Security Council talked of "aggression" in only the two cases of Israel and South Africa, found a "breach of peace" only in respect of Korea in 1950 and the Falklands in 1986, determined "threats to international peace and security" in 7 cases, authorised the use of force for self-defence in only Korea and Rhodhesia, imposed economic sanctions in the cases of Rhodhesia and South Africa and an arms embargo on South Africa in 1977. It is estimated that since 1945, there have been at least 75 wars. But the major conflicts of the world found little or no response from the UN — including Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan. The long drawn Iraq-Iran War (1980-88) found a response in the Council only towards the end of that conflict.

It was only after the Soviet Union broke up to leave the field wide open for America to do what it wanted that the activity of the UN was speeded up to engage in what has been termed as an ‘hitherto unknown activism’. In less than 10 years, collective measures were taken in 9 cases including, Iraq, Liberia, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Libya, Angola, Haiti, Rwanda and Indonesia. Force was authorised in the 5 cases of Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Haiti.

We do not need to ponder over this sea change for an explanation. It is personified in the statement of Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the "... time had come for the United States to deliver an ultimatum. Either the United Nations reforms quickly and dramatically, or the United States will end its participation".

Since the United Nations is a sitting tenant and guest of the US from which it receives money to run itself, this was not an empty threat but simply blackmail. Yet, surely Professor Matti Koskenniemi of Finland was right when he asked: Why Libya, but not Israel? Why the Council’s passivity during most of the eight year Iran-Iraq war? Why has the Council’s reaction in Africa been markedly less vigorous and effective than in the Gulf? Why the discrepancy between the Council’s forceful attack of Iraq (an Islamic country) and its timidity to defend the Muslims of Bosnia- Hersegovinia?

The choice of targets as well as the manner of reacting has certainly not been automatic. The argument is made that the Council has not reflected the collective interest of United Nations members as a whole, but only the special interests of and factual predominance of the United States and its Western Allies within the Council.

It is the uni-polar power of America that will call the shots — with the Soviet Union becoming an aid-grantee and investment market for the Western nations. There is already an indication in a statement of the Security Council of January 1992 that "non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields have become threats to peace and security".

A new chapter of interference is destined to open up. Interference by the US, will (a) seek to legitimate itself as being on behalf of the whole world and (b) seek an excuse for interference on a variety of fronts other than real threats to peace.

If the early history of the UN raised hopes, the Cold War showed that world politics is not quite ready for world governance. Apart from the US bombing of Vietnam which will rank as one of the unnecessary genocidal wars of human history, the US, England and France were clearly not to be trusted with an impartial world governance. Today, as we look back at Africa, it is difficult to believe that Rhodhesia and South Africa were permitted to continue a ghastly, oppressive and racist apartheid until the end of this century.

It was the former ‘white’ colonial nations and the US which ambiguated and delayed an effective response against the ‘white’ regimes of these two African States. The new-found interference — and, that, too, on new pretexts — were wholly absent from the moral calculus of these nations which, now, led by America, want to rule the world through the United Nations.

Such a unipolar rule by the US is a usurpation which cannot be permitted. The UN needs to be re-organised. Nations like Britain and France cannot be pivotal to the future so as to afford them a veto. We seem to have moved from imperial governance to glimpses of world governance to return to imperial domination. On its own say so, America claims to be the armed policeman of the world. That, by itself, is enough to force a reassessment of the problems and possibilities of world governance.

But, apart from the institutional framework of the United Nations, international governance has also been sought to be achieved through multi-lateral treaties. At first, these multi-lateral treaty efforts were somewhat circumspect. The GATT treaty of 1947-50, with in-built rounds of negotiations, confined itself to the movement of goods and services and tariff and quantitative restraints. Traditional international law had been fashioned on theories of sovereignity which favour the more powerful nations; and was practised till this century through antiquated notions of diplomacy and gun-boat brinkmanship. There was much in the international law inherited by the 20th century law that was loosely drawn.

The law of diplomatic immunity sported many differences which were drawn together in the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations, 1961 even though other aspects of State immunity seem to have acquired greater resolution only regionally and in Draft Text of 1992 of the International Law Commission. Agreement was also required on the resources of the earth — including the sea, air space and, perforce, outer space. Not everything was ironed out, but matters moved forward in relation to the law of the sea in 1982, air space in 1944, 1963, 1970, 1971 and on outer space in 1967 even though the Moon Treaty of 1979 has remained irrelevantly defunct. How much of all this will remain the ‘common heritage of mankind’ will depend more on greedy compromises than moral goodwill.

Since human rights multi-lateral treaties are dealt with later, their progressive movement towards a comprehensive humanitarian law founded on social justice need not detain us here. But, it is the other aspects of the working of the global economy that have been set in motion by the richer and developed nations in an asymmetrical manner to suit themselves. It is well known that it is the industrialized, developed nations of the world which are principally responsible for the increasing pollution of the atmosphere, the loss of the ozone layer and global warming. There is an attempt to blame some of this on the methane emitting consequences of rice fields and the digestive systems of bovines.

Many aspects of pollution in marine areas and to protect the air and species of all kinds have been dealt with in various treaties. But, the movement to have a global look at the world’s environment gathered momentum slowly to culminate in the justly famous Conference at Rio in 1992 resulting in a Convention on Climate Change, the Bio-Diversity Convention and several declarations of principle. But, the global picture kept the interests of the industrialised nations firmly in view, both in the complicated formulas over emissions at the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 as well as on issues of bio-diversity.

With the earth raped of its resources, the largest potential renewable natural wealth of the world is situated in tropical nations in the form of bio-diversity. This is viewed both through the intellectual property regime and the environment global regimes through greedy eyes. The difficulty is that the impoverished nations of the earth find themselves caught within the entrails of the global economy and its market repercussions which weakens their international bargaining position to prevent them from stating their case or defending their interest.

This brings us to the somewhat insidious changes in global trade law. So far, GATT had concerned itself only with trade in goods. But, in 1989, the Uruguay Round of negotiations, India and many other nations capitulated to accept an enlargement of the GATT system to include patents and intellectual property, the movement in services, investments and agriculture. The reason for expanding global control in these areas through a system of sanctions was obvious. America and some of the powerful nations have agricultural, pharmaceutical, seed, fertilizer, banking, insurance and investment designs on the world. These treaties were designed to advance their short- and long-term interests. In Seattle in 1999, further attempts were made to make the playing field for poor nations less level by bringing in labour and environment issues. For the moment, the ‘millennial’ round of negotiations begun in Seattle has been halted temporarily. But the trend to help the richer nations will continue. The global economy is being prepared for the new imperialism.

These new trends in international governance articulate the malleability of international law and policy and the edge acquired by the more powerful nations in the emerging global order of the 21st century. We cannot just accept this as a fact of life and throw our hands up in despair. The struggle for global equity and justice has to continue. But, one important aspect of the emerging trend of global governance needs to be noted. If the world is to be governed by international mechanisms, institutions and processes, how is this law and policy making to be democratised by involving the peoples of the world?

Since the governments of nations claim a free hand to represent their peoples without even consulting the people or even their parliaments, the people find that decisions concerning them are made without reference to them. This is precisely what happened to the Indian people in the GATT negotions in the crucial Uruguay Round. Democracy was given the go-by. Both at Rio in 1992 and at various conferences after that, the people have been welcomed in their incarnation as well known NGOs.

It was the peoples’ protest that brought the millennial round of the GATT (now called WTO (World Trade Organizations)) to a halt, even if temporarily, in Seattle in 1999.

But NGO protest or representation is not enough. All treaties of global governance and significance should have in-built into them mandatory provisions for providing information, consultation and ratification of people. Global governance cannot elude democracy; and should not be permitted to do so as to wholly become a conspiracy between governments, businessmen and their leaders.

Human Rights : Then and Now — But, where Next?

Although we wax eloquent about the importance of human rights at the end of the 20th Century, at the beginning of this century the concept of ‘human rights’ had an unenviably questionable reputation. In a sense, the term ‘human rights’ is really of recent vintage. The slogan that emerged from the so-called enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Centuries was ‘freedom’ as encapsulated by the right to ‘life, liberty and property’. The revolt of the American colonies and the upheaval in France (more popularly known as the French Revolution) added colour but not dimension to the concept of life, liberty and property. The words ‘liberty, egality, fraternity’ bounced with fervour as the revolt of the masses invited Napoleon to save them from chaos and restore national dignity.

The fact that ‘Bills of Rights’ existed did not mean that the 19th century had assimilated a comprehensive approach to human rights for all persons and peoples. Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War equality amendments in America did not find support, sustenance or enforcement until our times — and, that, too with continued deficiency.

But, the problems with declarations of ‘human rights’ was not just that they simply afforded no rights for blacks, the coloured, women and the disadvantaged who needed them most. No doubt, it cannot be overlooked that the suffragettes had to fight for the vote which, in America, had to be guaranteed by constitutional amendment.

But, the entire promise of ‘life, liberty and property’ proved to be a limited package for the rich, powerful and property owners. The travails of the concepts of ‘life liberty and property’ in the Supreme Court at around the beginning of this century reveals exactly how perniciously the concept of ‘life’, liberty and property’ was interpreted.

In 1898, the Supreme Court of the US invalidated income tax as being inconsistent with the life, liberty and property provisions. In 1902, in the Lochner case, the Court refused to countenance legislation for a 10- hour working day because the Court’s majority regarded such labour legislations as "mere meddlesome interferences with the rights of the individual". Despite, Justice Holmes’s celebrated protest that the Constitution did not enact Spencer’s Social Statics, it was precisely this kind of privileged individualism which continued to be espoused till the mid-thirties.

Linked to notions of ‘life, liberty and property’ were notions of freedom of contract. According to decisions in England, America and elsewhere, freedom of contract was to be valued for its own sake. This prevented the State or society from interfering with this freedom in trying to humanise ‘labour’ contracts or mandate improvement in working conditions.

When in 1898 and later, trade unions demanded their rights, the courts in England ruled that the pressure created by such demands induced breaches of contract and were actionable as part of the tort of conspiracy. So, if labour claimed their rights through protest and strike, such acts rendered them liable for huge amounts for interfering with the freedom of contract of capitalists. The fact that Parliament had to intervene in 1904, and, again, in 1965, just shows the continuing ideological influence of the ‘life, liberty and property’ and ‘freedom of contract’ provisions.

It is hardly surprising that the Left and others were wary of the slogan of human rights. Something more was required. A ‘Fabian’ Nehru tried to add to the agenda of governance when he introduced ‘social justice’ issues in the Karachi Resolution of 1931 and in the much contested Objectives Resolution of the Constituent Assembly in 1946-7, which later became the Preamble to India’s Constitution.

Yet, the distrust continued. It took two forms. First, there was a general distrust that ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ were bourgeois concepts intended only to preserve the power and status of the rich and powerful and enlarge their capacity to do what they like. The second distrust was both of the law and the judiciary. It was felt that the judiciary was, in fact, a regressive institution opposed to progress founded on social justice for all.

‘Law’ and ‘judges’ were allegedly class biased and supported the status quo. Socialists felt that the power of the judges should generally be kept to a minimum so that there was no scope for judges to interpret social justice laws in ways that favoured the status quo and the advantaged. America’s problems with the judiciary over the ‘New Deal’ sent uneasy signals to the rest of the world — no less to India at the time when the Constituent Assembly was discussing issues of fundamental rights for the future Constitution of India.

The upshot of this distrust was reflected in the text of the Indian Constitution which refused to permit a full-fledged due process clause, made elaborate restrictions on the guaranteed rights almost as ‘fundamental’ as the rights themselves and carved out huge exceptions.

As the Indian Constitution came into being, Nehru’s government — supported by large Parliamentary majorities —, felt that much that was said about ‘law’, ‘judges’ and ‘human rights’ was, in fact, true. The Indian judiciary had blocked various aspects of India’s agrarian reform legislation — seeking to make the provisions more favourable to the ancient regime zamindars and property owners whose properties were being taken away for re-distributive justice. Nehru complained that lawyers had purloined the Constitution.

A continuing tussle ensured between the judiciary and both the Nehru and Indira Gandhi governments that eventually culminated in the right of property to being taken out of the fundamental rights chapter, massive amendments to the Constitution by parliament and the historic decision in the Fundamental Rights case (1973) that even the plenary power to amend the Constitution cannot violate its basic structure.

We are not concerned with the details of this well known controversy — except to illustrate that they belong to an era which continued till the mid-seventies when the concept of ‘human rights’ was viewed with equivocality, if not suspicion.

What caused the changes towards notions of ‘freedom’, ‘human rights’ and life and liberty and the law? There were many watersheds. Even the Left of the thirties felt that there was ‘darkness at noon’ in many socialist regimes. Socialism was an honourable goal, but Stalinist liquidation was hardly a way to achieve it. After Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Poland in the 1980’s, there was a feeling that unless a plimsoll line was drawn, over-empowered States would corrupt themselves to treat people with abysmal cruelty.

If India needed reminding of the need for this plimsoll line, the dictatorship of the Emergency (1975-77) confirmed its worst doubts. But, it was not just the political facts of the Emergency that called India to book. The events of everyday life spoke of atrocities by the police, blinding of prisoners, barbaric conditions in jail and places of detention and protection, bonded labour, the degradation of women and children and the mal-treatment of minorities that culminated in the destruction of Babri Masjid in 1992.

In England, EP Thompson’s influential Whigs and Hunters (1975) contained his qualified but effervescent tribute to the rule of law which he demonstrated had saved, at least, some poor people from the gallows under the Black Acts of the eighteenth century. Coming from such a reputable left-wing source, the ‘law’ was now seen by the Left as double edged — containing, along with human rights, at least a partial promise of liberation.

The judges of many countries — notably those of India — responded to this challenge with creative zest. India’s public interest law movement is an example of how the judicial system can be made to respond to create an anti-atrocity jurisprudence and lay the foundations for a more comprehensive social justice to encompass all people, all living creatures and the environment.

The international community of nations responded positively to this resurrection of ‘law’ and ‘human rights’. To the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) were added the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). Although few nations adhere to the optional clause permitting individual complaints, the reporting requirements of signatory countries under these Covenants is becoming more and more rigorous so as to bring greater transparency (and, perforce, embarrassment) about the true state of human rights violations. Since 1967, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations has been empowered to ‘examine information relevant to gross violations of human rights’ which has resulted in some investigations.

Following the Vienna Convention in 1993, there is now a High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1994 — the first of whom is Ayala Lasso from Ecuador. To ensure that a humanitarian plimsoll line is maintained conventions have been brought into effect on Genocide (1948), racial discrimination (1965), discrimination against women (1979), torture (1984), the rights of the child (1989) and other areas.

In the most remarkable decision of Visaka (1997), the Indian Supreme Court has taken the view that international treaties dealing with universal human rights were to be incorporated in the Indian Bill of Rights as part of the ‘life’ and ‘liberty’ guaranteed by the Constitution. In this case, the convention in question related to discrimination against women; and, the Supreme Court created a new actionable tort of ‘sexual harassment in the workplace’.

Apart from the regional human rights arrangements in Europe, Africa and Latin America and the affirmation of human rights by the International Court at the Hague, there is concern about how human rights can be investigated, exposed and violations dealt with and compensated and remedied. Within nations, such protection is given through the ‘judiciary; and, more recently through national human rights institutions of various kinds.

So far, the principal mechanism for providing human right protection internationally had been the outmoded doctrine of State responsibility goodwill and, more recently, weak investigative and reporting-back mechanisms. But, more endeavours are being made. Private ‘watch’ and ‘oversight’ agencies — such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch — have played a significant role in drawing attention and public opinion to transgressions and infractions of human rights. In particular, the United Nations has created new kinds of Working Groups and Rapporteurs as the eyes and ears of the world community.

These include the Working Group on Enforced or Voluntary Disappearances (1980), Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions (1982), Special Rapporteur on torture (1985), Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance (1986), Special Rapporteur on the use of mercenaries as a means of impending the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination (1987), Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (1990), Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (1991), Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons (1993), Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (1993), Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression (1993), Special Rapporteur on adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products and waste on the enjoyment of human rights (1995), Special Representative on the impact of armed conflict on children (1996), Independent expert on structural adjustment (1997), Special Rapporteur on effects of foreign debt on the full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights (1998), Special Rapporteur on the right to education (1998), Independent expert on human rights and extreme poverty (1998), Independent expert on the right to development (1998), Expert to prepare a revised version of the basic principles and guidelines on the right to restitution, compensation and rehabilitation for victims of grave violations of human rights (1998).

Although this catalogue of persons and institutions seems formal and uninspiring, some of these institutions have been known to be effective. When the Rapporteur on the Judiciary made a comment on the judiciary in Malayasia, he was sued in their courts. The matter was eventually resolved by the International Court at The Hague in the Rapporteur’s favour in 1999.

There is a fear that nations like America would use, and have used, the rubric of human rights to interfere with the sovereignty of other nations. When the US did so in relation to Nicaragua, the International Court of Justice condemned such intervention as unwarranted in law in 1986. In order to obviate such judicial condemnation, the US has now hi-jacked the United Nations as its vehicle for interference, as in the case of Iraq and Kosovo.

Such a state of affairs is unsatisfactory. Yet, massive genocide — of the kind we have seen in Rwanda and Serbia — continues. This has underlined the need for not just ad hoc "War" and "Genocide" Tribunals but a permanent International Criminal Court of the kind set up in Rome in 1997. But, irony, inevitably, paints its gray in gray. The opposition to such an International Criminal Court comes from amongst others, the two great democratic champions of human rights — America and India.

It is only natural that doubts about human rights continue to exist. The fear that ‘human rights’ are being used to empower powerful nations to interfere in the governance of less powerful nations cannot be doubted. But, resisting this abuse cannot destroy the need to refine the concept of human rights to merge it with the larger concept of human justice.

Still wary about the revival of human rights and the interventions engendered by it, some countries argue that human rights cannot be accepted as a universal right, but only one of relativistic significance in the light of the culture and traditions of any particular country. Such a response is significant for many reasons. In one sense, it is really a re-statement of the political objection that culturally different countries will not permit their governance to be invaded or interfered with on the basis of ‘western’ intimations of human rights.

But, this intellectual re-formulation of claims of sovereignty have to be read as part of the overall drift of global, governance into the hands of the unipolar ‘white’ nations of the North. It is difficult to argue against the plimsoll line principle that no people can be permitted to go below certain humanitarian and democratic limits. In order to determine how and where this plimsoll line is to be drawn, we do not have to draw the plimsoll line at a necessarily low level of compromise — derived from the lowest common denominator agreed by way of compromise. People have a right to live, not to be maltreated or tortured, a right to speak their minds and express themselves, a right to freedom of belief, conscience and religion, a right to preserve their diverse cultural identities and way of life, a right to be treated equally and to gender justice.

The earth has a right to be treated well so that its resources are not depleted; and, its peoples and species are not blown apart by nuclear devices. Human rights may be differentially applied. But the application of human rights and their individuation in particular fact situations cannot undermine the importance of the enterprise. The advent of human rights in its new comprehensive incarnation as a vehicle for enhancing and achieving both democracy and social justice has many discontents. But, it remains an important platform for the governance of the future.

Even as we stand on the brink of a millennium, the pluses and minuses of human history never add up. The idea of a millennium is simply a construct which conjures many magical tricks. For those in fear of freedom, it weaves human history in manageable proportions instead of the open-ended vistas of time and space. Representing a move forward, millennial images support the idea of history as progress — as something that has come from somewhere in the past and is travelling somewhere into the future. These are all important illusions.

In fact, our transition to the next millennium will be much more common place. Even so, it provides us an opportunity to think things over. At the end of this millennium, the world has well over three billion people — more than half of whom live under conditions of abject poverty and malnutrition. It is difficult to say to this half of the earth’s populace that they will be saved by some manna from heaven sent by some otherwise forgetful or unknown God. To say this, would be an insult to God himself — for the only form in which God can dare to those in such penury is food. And, yet even food and shelter and freedom from want cannot be enough. Without a social justice in which there will be equal opportunities for all, the complex tasks of governance can never be complete. Ambedkar’s warning to the Constituent Assembly in 1949 must serve as prophecy.

"On the 26th of January (for which substitute the 1st. of January 2000), we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have quality and in social and economic life, we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising one man one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure defy one man, one vote, one value. How long shall be continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we shall do so by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which ... has (been) so laboriously built up".

That earliest possible moment has not come. It is for the twenty first century to yield to these demands to become the century of social justice. But, as powerful nations and multinationals and nationals re-group for yet another attack for the riches of the world and its markets, the quest for social justice will not reach its goal without a struggle.

This century leaves the earth in relative disarray. Governance has collapsed in many parts of the world. The earth has been exploited, raped and pillaged. It will continue to be subjected to such degradation — even under conditions of enlightened self interest. The quest for power has, and will, generate divisiveness unless those imbued with secular toleration can preserve the unique diversity of all people — and all creatures and varieties of life, however great or small.