Human Rights and Democracy: An ongoing and never ending individual and collective learning process

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Human Rights and DemocracyAn ongoing and never
ending individual and collective learning process

• An introduction to the Swiss
• Helsinki Committee Youth Seminar
• by Andreas Gross (Zurich/St-Ursanne)
• Director of the Scientific Institute for Direct
  Democracy in St.Ursanne and Swiss MP Leader of
  the Social-Democrats in the Parliamentary
  Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
• Kappel a.A., 1 st of July 2008
• www.andigross.ch info_at_andigross.ch

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An overview of my presentation

• I. The banalization of todays democracy/ies
• II. The (utopian) project of Democracy
• III. What more Direct Democracy would really mean
• IV. Democracy/Dignity/Human Rights
• V. The paradoxes of Swiss Foreign Relations and
  Policy
• V. How foreign Foreign Policy is today in the age
  of globalization ?
• VI. We have to learn to trans-nationalize after
  Human Rights also Democracy

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I. We should overcome the banalisation of the
terms Freedom and Democracy

• Democracy is more then a choice
• it enables us to be free.
• Freedom means, to act together
• on our common life
• ( Life is not a destiny )
• Democracy constitutes the rules,
• rights and procedures in order
• to prevent conflicts to be solved violently

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II. The (utopian) project of Democracy

• To be able to participate in all decisions
• which concerns you !
• (procedural (design/institutional) challenge)
• Freedom is not a privilege !
• Democracy has to deliver to -
• enable all to be capable to act and to be free

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III.Representative democracy is an essential
part of Democracy. But it should not have the
monopole of Democracy !

• Indirect Democracy (ID) enables you to vote your
  representatives
• Direct Democracy (DD) enables you to vote on
  important issues you dont want to leave to your
  Representatives
• The citizens should be able to decide, when they
  want to decide themselves - this would also make
  representative Democracies more representative !

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The democratization of Democracy is an ongoing,
never ending processEvery democracy is
unfinished,DD is a little bit less unfinished
than ID !

• Democracy was reduced to represent. Democracy in
  a time, where most people couldnt read or write
  and were enable to make political judgments !
• Today modern citizens know often as much about
  politics as MPs They feel frustrated that ID
  excludes them and reduces them to objects instead
  of the subjects of politics.
• A society in which citizens feel excluded looses
  a enormous amount of creative potentials, misses
  collective learning options and undervalues
  itself !

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A bit more Direct Democracy means that you share
more power with the citizens, the only source of
legitimate political power

• Nobody should have so much power, that he or she
  has the privilege not to have to learn...
• Sharing the political power, that means, giving
  2 of the citizens the power to ask for a
  Referendum on a law voted in the Parliament or a
  legisl.change they propose to the society, means
• Everybody has to listen more -
• Everybody tries to convince and to discuss
• Politics become softer, more inclusive and more
  communicative !

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In order to avoid a alienation between the civil
society and its political system , Direct
Democracy has to be carefully designed !

• No quick fix Everybody (Citizens, MPs,
  administ., society) needs and gets the time they
  need
• A Referendum is a process over 2 - 4 years
• 1 year for the citizens, 1 year for GovParl.,
  1/2 a year for the Public debate and campaign !
• In order to share the power and not to be
  exclusive and make the system responsive you
  should ask more than 1 of the electorates
  signatures for a Referendum and not more than 2
  for a popular proposition (Initiative)
• No quorums They kill communication !

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In a carefully designed DD you have to understand
real change as a collective learning process

• Everybody has the right to propose where and how
  he or she thinks changes are needed (Open Agenda
  Setting and Attention providing)
• More public debates and private discussions (the
  soul of DD) create a much better informed society
• The invitation to decide, creates a sense of
  belonging (Integration)
• The right to participate, reduces distances and
  increases identifications (Democratic
  patriotism)
• After you participated in the decision making,
  you are best qualified to implement the decision

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IV. Without Democracy there is no dignity in
political lifeDignity is the core that wants to
be protected by Human Rights

• After the collective violence in the first half
  of the 20 th the World learned to protect Human
  Rights and the dignity of all Human Beings
  independently of the Nation-States
• 1948 UN and 1952 European Human Rights
  Convention (EHRC) with the individual right to
  bring your state to the Human Rights Court in
  Strasbourg if your state is not respecting Human
  Rights
• What since 1776 and 1789 every democratic state
  guaranteed for its own citizens Europe (CoE-47)
  guarantees for all 800 Europeans

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The 3 groups of Human Rights

• Three generations First (civil and
  political), second (economic, social and
  cultural) and third (Right to truth, development
  , clean environment and peace)
• New categorisation Enabling rights (peace,
  development, democracy), over-arching rights
  (equality and non-discrimination) and end rights
  (Identity, integrity)
• New hierarchy (Prof.Alfred de Zayas) Right to
  life (Civil and political, health and food, clean
  water and enviroment), Right to its own identity
  (education, language, religion, family, privacy)
  Right to ones homeland (selfdetermination, no
  ethnic discrimination) Right to peace (Freedom
  from fear and war)

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V. The paradoxes of Swiss Foreign Relations and
Policy

• 1830 - 1870 Switzerland belonged to the most
  progressive countries in Europe The
  radical/liberal fathers of 1848 wanted to make a
  new beginning for whole Europe, not just a island
  in Europe
• 1871-1920/45 The wars and the Swiss two main
  cultures made out of a economic open country a
  politically very closed one. They survived alone
  and thought they should stay alone after 1945.
• Learning after a catastrophe is easier than to
  learn to reform and change a rather successful
  past and presence.
• Switzerland was made with Europe - it can not
  stay in the future without Europe !

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The paradox of the Swiss pioneer role in
Democracy (1848) and the weak sensitivity in
Human Rights (after 1945)

• 1848 Switzerland managed to realize one of the
  first Democracies in Europe - too many Swiss
  understood afterwards Democracy as the privilege
  of being Swiss and not as a Human Right
• Still today too many Non-Swiss are excluded
  from Democracy and it became in the 20.century
  very difficult to be included in the Swiss
  citizenship

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VI. How foreign Foreign Policy is today in the
age of globalization ?Today the nation-state is
too big for the small things - to small for the
big issues -

• Democracy is today similar to the ruder of a
  boat,which lies in the water, but the ruder does
  not touch the water anymore!
• Thats why the big issues (Climate change, peace,
  migration, development, hunger, energy) are not
  foreign policies anymore, but issues of new
  global home or interior politics !

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VII. In order to overcome the double crises of
democracy, democracy has to be transnationalized
as well as other Human Rights

• Human Rights are constituted and protected in the
  UN-system and the EHRC and the EHR-Court in
  Strasburg
• Democracy is still national and looses more and
  more power to deliver its promises faced to
  global markets

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VII. For building a global democracy we have to
choose between , or combine different
possibilities

• Getting inspired by the European Human Rights
  Convention (EHRC) with its individual right to
  bring your state to a international Court, but
  globalize and enlarge it (Non-state-powers, more
  then the classical freedom rights...)
• Make a global constitution which gives to every
  person a status without founding a world-state
  and destroying the citizenship in and the
  nation-state itself.
• Build a second/third chamber of MPs/NGOs in the
  UN-General Assembly, in order to give the People
  of the world really a representation...