Chomsky's response to UN's 'Global Crime Against Humanity' and my reply.

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Tuesday January 14, 2014 07:52

by Anthony Ravlich - Human Rights Council (New Zealand)

A Great World can be achieved by Great States ensuring global ethical human rights.

Noam Chomsky's response to UN's 'Global Crime Against Humanity' which is described in my recent article, 'A Great World can be achieved by Great States ensuring global ethical human rights'. It also contains my reply.

Chomsky’s response to UN’s ‘Global Crime Against Humanity’ and my reply.

Anthony Ravlich
Chairperson
Human Rights Council (New Zealand)
10D/15 City Rd.,
Auckland City.
Ph: (0064) (09) 940 9658
www.hrc2001.org.nz

Noam Chomsky’s response to UN’s ‘Global Crime Against Humanity’ described in my article, ‘A Great World can be achieved by Great States ensuring global ethical human rights’, see links, http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/01/08/18748916.php or http://www.indymedia.org.nz/articles/1848 .

Noam Chomsky stated:

“You’re right about the terrible failure to uphold the UD, but one can’t put the blame on the UN. It cannot act on the matter. That is the responsibility of its members, who may accept the UD in words, but not in deeds. And sometimes not even in words. Thus the US rejects 1/3 of the UD – on social-economic rights – and dismisses another third – cultural/community rights” (email, today, 14 Jan 2014).

My reply to Noam Chomsky (via email, today, 14 Jan 2014):

Anthony Ravlich. “I have been trying to get the UN to tell people about the ethical approach to human rights, development and globalization (to replace neoliberal absolutism) since it was first outlined in my book in 2008.
Is the UN bureaucracy so helpless that they couldn’t even include ethical human rights, development and globalization in the public notices of major newspapers (I did it twice in NZ)?
And should they be so helpless in the face of member States who often have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo devoid of dissent by human rights defenders?
After all the ethical approach retains the universality of the UDHR and consequently is a far more authentic reflection of the declaration than when, as at present, the UDHR is made compatible with IMF polices which seriously negates many (and eventually all, in my view) of the individual rights the declaration is meant to uphold.
In addition, about 3m ago I asked Helen Clark, Head UNDP, directly in a packed auditorium at Auckland University why the UN says nothing about the ethical approach and she politically side-stepped my question – shouldn’t the UN bureaucracy have a duty to inform the public of important human rights truths rather than stand in the path of human rights development?”

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Chomsky's response to UN's 'Global Crime Against Humanity' and my reply.