London Observer, Leading Article on Sunday 24 October, 1999


Sign now for global justice

It is easy to mock idealists, especially those who dare to believe in
international idealism. We all know the brute political reality. The world
is made up of self-interested nation states which jealously protect their
sovereignty; their governments pay only lip-service to democracy,
accountability and justice. They get away with what they can, and as The
Observer 's Human Rights Index discloses today, repression, torture,
despotism and genocide are, if anything, increasing. Idealists may be
well-intentioned, but they are softies.

This is a world where the US Senate throws out the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty. Campaigning for better is simply to ignore reality; it is a waste of
time and effort.

Such cynicism is widespread, but it is wrong, both morally and practically.
Today, Charter 99 is launching itself across the world - in Britain with a
full-page announcement in The Observer - urging people to sign up to demand
global democracy. At face value, the demand seems absurd. Yet, as Charter 99
argues in its manifesto, the Nineties have seen a growing and successful
internationalist movement even as the pace of globalisation and the power of
supranational institutions mount. This has been the decade of Jubilee 2000,
the establishment of a charter for an International Criminal Court and the
Earth Summit in Rio. But it has also been the decade in which Nato has
fought a war in Kosovo and the IMF has organised so-called bail-outs across
Asia, Africa and Latin America that have caused untold suffering. The power
of gigantic private corporations and the global financial markets grow.
There is a scarcely controlled arms trade. Environmental depredation is
exploding. Money salted away in tax havens runs into hundreds of billions.

In short, whether we like it or not, globalisation is happening; private
power is mounting and public institutions, like the World Bank and World
Trade Organisation, take unaccountable decisions with global consequences.
Social distress is increasing and human rights are in peril. If there is not
to be some global response and some global attempt to improve accountability
for decision-making, then what? Is doing nothing and clinging to the current
structures and practices the only alternative?

Last week's visit to Britain by President Jiang underlined British
ambiguities over democracy and human rights. China's record is indefensible,
yet there is no international framework in which the country is held to
account. Instead, it can play its trading partners off against each other,
so that each country colludes in China's record for fear that condemnation
would mean trade being lost to another country. In Britain, the anxiety goes
so deep that, as we report today, we compromise our citizens' democratic
rights to free protest by over-zealous policing. What happened was
disgraceful.

If we want better, we must act. If we want less repression and torture, we
must have effective and accountable systems of international criminal
justice. It's the same story for financial regulation, controlling the
spread of land mines or closing down tax havens. And, as Charter 99 argues,
the first thing to do is to make the existing system of world administration
and governance accountable. And the time to start is at the UN's Millennium
Assembly next September. The Observer was proud to help launch Amnesty in
1961. We offer the same support to Charter 99 today. Sign.

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To sign on to Charter 99, visit http://www.charter99.org/
or email info@charter99.org