60 years on
The Universal Declaration of Human Right’s 60th anniversary puts Lebanon’s human rights record under the spotlight.

Wednesday marks the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly. Passed by the fledgling body during the brief respite between the Second World War and the Cold War, the document was designed to prevent a repetition of that period’s dark excesses by enshrining individual rights.
 
Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Dr. Charles Malik was one of the framers of the declaration. His influential presence on the drafting committee, along with Chinese representative P. C. Chang and Egyptian Mahmoud Azmi, remains one of the strongest demonstrations that the values embodied by the declaration are a universal – rather than a Western – imposition.

Speaking before the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948, Malik expressed his hope that the declaration would “help to transform reality.”

Sixty years on, while the human rights situation in Lebanon compares favorably to other parts of the Arab world, there are many areas in which its “reality” simply does not live up to Malik’s vision.

A report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies found that the status of human rights in the Arab region worsened during 2008, as governments developed increasingly authoritarian tendencies.  Reformists, human rights activists and members of the press have felt the effects of repression across the region. Lebanon, however, suffers from a different malady, with weak state institutions unable or unwilling to uphold and protect the rights of all those within its borders.

Despite recent sit-ins and protests in which demonstrators felt compelled to remind their fellow Lebanese that “we are citizens” too, Lebanese women continue to face discrimination in public and private life. Mothers are unable to pass on their nationality to their children and husbands, while women remain vastly under-represented in parliament. Despite calls for the introduction of a 30% quota of female representatives, no affirmative-action program has been enacted to help address the imbalance.

Several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees, many of whom were born in Lebanon, continue to live in overcrowded and poorly serviced camps on the edges of major cities. Denied Lebanese citizenship, access to healthcare, social security and even the right to work, the country has been described as the worst place to be a Palestinian refugee.

There is also little relief in sight for the 150,000 child laborers working in Lebanon. Despite being a party to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and not legally allowing children to work before they are 15, the absence of strong protections for workers, the pervasiveness of Lebanon’s informal economy and widespread poverty allows employers to exploit the vulnerability of underage laborers.

Domestic work has been excluded entirely from the labor law. Migrant domestic workers, principally from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka or the Philippines, have thus been denied access to basic employment standards that would guarantee a minimum wage. Non-payment of wages, restrictions on movement and not being allowed a day off are common complaints, leading to high rates of suicide among this group.

Torture and ill-treatment in Lebanese prisons is also a regular occurrence, with cases often uninvestigated or resulting in only negligible prison sentences. General prison standards also fall well short of UN guidelines, as overcrowding is common while basic services are not provided by the state.
 
Lebanon is, however, relatively well-placed to fulfill Charles Malik’s transformative dream with respect to human rights. It will require a strong, sovereign and democratic state, supported by competent and uncorrupt security services that can uphold the law without compromising human dignity. This could become a reality, but all Lebanese firstly need to affirm it’s a priority.

- NOW Lebanon