Human Rights and the Beijing Olympics: Sniping from Home or Making a Point There?
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934410802600201 |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Column |
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 26/2, 169–171, 2008.
© Netherlands I nstitute of Human Rig hts (SIM), Printed in the Net herlands. 169
COLUMN*
HuMan RIgHTs anD THe beIJIng
OlyMPICs: snIPIng fROM HOMe
OR MakIng a POInT THeRe?
Like many others, I am torn by the question of what is the most eective international
strategy to encourage, in China, more respec t for human rights, greater freedom
for t he Tibetans and ot her minorities, fewer res trictions in the area of freedom of
expression and belief and greater plur alism in the political sys tem. Of one thing I am
certain: a boycott of t he Olympic Games (8–24 Aug ust 2008) and merely waving an
admonishing nger wil l not help. Serious violations of human rights in China should,
of c ourse, not be tr ivialised but condemned. However, the fact shou ld also not be
overlooked that, in that vas t country, progress has been made – and in the last een
years even considerable progress.
Aer the lawless period under the leadership of Mao Ze Dong, China began
to re cognise the existence of human rights. is did not happen with a great leap
forward, but has been more of a gradual process wit h every now and then a step
backwards. Initially, China oriented itself principal ly on a number of economic and
social human rights i ncluding those of women and children. China was relatively
quick in rat ifying the U N human rights t reaties in these a reas. From the mid-1980s,
but with an interruption of severa l years following the suppression of the Tiananmen
Square demonstrations (1989), China has cautiously given attention to civi l and
political rig hts. Moreover, China has not gone out of its way to avoid an international
dialogue on these i ssues.
e adoption of civil and politic al rights constitutes an enormous chal lenge for
China, because it is in con ict with old and deeply ingrained pract ices. ese include
the c urtailment of individual freedoms, the lack of a decent guarantee of due legal
process in applying the death penalty, the authority of the police, without trial, to lock
people up and, in the past, even to send them to re-education camps as well as the
curbing if not total prohibition of non-governmental organisations . Despite this past,
there have been signs of change for some time now which hint at a cautious movement
* Nico Schrijver, Profes sor of Public Internation al Law at Leiden Universit y, member of the Board of
SIM and elected to the UN Com mittee on Economic, Socia l and Cultural Rig hts. An earlier version
of this comme ntary appeared i n Dutch in the law jou rnal Rechtsgele erd Magazijn emis, Vol. 169,
No. 3, 2008.
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