A short while ago, the world celebrated Freedom Day, marking the fall of the Berlin Wall, a Cold War symbol that thousands tried to cross by going over, under or around. Hundreds of people died in the attempt. The barrier kept Germany and Europe divided into two economically and politically antagonistic systems for 28 years, but then fell as quickly as it had gone up.
Clearly, we should celebrate the Berlin Wall’s passing. But what about other walls, some of which are being erected all across Latin America? My region’s totalitarian governments are not constructing physical walls of concrete, but they are erecting barriers nearly as oppressive. The hopes that came out of the defeat of Soviet communism are now being crushed. These walls may be less visible than the Berlin Wall, but they are just as damaging. The existing human rights machinery, moreover, is not strong enough to tear them down.
As others on openGlobalRights note, simply legalizing economic and social rights does not guarantee compliance. Arguably, we do not need more regulation than what we already have. We need better organization on the part of those of us who work for human rights, but we also need a real commitment of governments to comply with the conventions and treaties they sign. Perhaps most importantly, we need citizens to take ownership and defend those rights, and not to lose them to the hands of authoritarian governments.
