Newsstand in Brasilia, Brasil. 18 April 2016. AP Foto / Felipe Dana
Francesc Badia: Thank you for agreeing to meet with Democracia Abierta. My first question is really a reflection on the world-wide retreat of democracy that we are witnessing, with its concomitant impact on human rights. While we see significant progress in terms of formal acknowledgement of human rights, violations are increasing at the same time. So we have a contradiction: growing recognition of human rights, paralleled by backtracking in practice. How do you view this contradiction?
Emilio Álvarez: Overall I am more optimistic than pessimistic. Broadly-speaking, I think we are gaining ground on the evil of authoritarianism. I believe that recognition of human dignity is evolving in a positive way. Of course, I don’t ignore the big problems and challenges, but if we take account, for example, of the fact that the universal declaration dates from 1948, and that subsequent legislative instruments are still relatively new, then we can see that the rate of progress is very rapid. In the days when I taught human rights, I used to ask my students how many years they thought remained to humanity. Some would say two thousand years, others four thousand, six thousand, ten thousand and so on. Let’s assume ten thousand. How long ago was slavery legally abolished? The answer is not until 1985. That’s just about 50 years ago. The truth is that humanity can be pretty torpid. As you can see, the issue of human rights is very new and, despite the legal abolition, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people still living under conditions of virtual slavery in the form of ill-treatment, exploitation, trafficking, the enslavement of children, women….and so on, and nowadays there’s the issue of slave labour.
