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Throwing Water at The Sun
I N T R O D U C T I O N:
Arguably, international norms and ideas about human rights have had some impact on the domestic situation in modern Burma however the extent to which these norms have resulted in real social change and improvements in the human rights situation of Burmese people is subject to considerable debate. Some would argue that the Burmese military regime, considered one of the world's most notorious human rights violators, has been slowly but incrementally moving towards a greater engagement with human rights concerns as the international community has moved to 'constructively engage' with the regime. This view or approach can be evidenced in the Australian government's foreign policy commitment to conduct human rights training for the Burmese government, and in the United Nations Secretary-General's move to deploy a Special Envoy to Burma to help engage the regime in discussions on 'national reconciliation'. Further, recent articles about international law on women and children's rights have appeared in English language newspapers in Burma, some would say, indicating a greater engagement1. On the other hand, however, many would argue that there has been no real impact, evidenced by the nature and level of human rights violations that continue to be documented inside Burma.
To some degree the Burmese opposition movement both inside Burma, and exiled into other parts of the world, has utilised the language of human rights and international mechanisms for their protection and promotion, to bring the situation of Burma to the attention of the world. However, many would argue that the language of human rights and its institutional mechanics remains largely irrelevant to the situation inside Burma, as it has delivered few tangible, and, some would say, necessary outcomes, such as the release of political prisoners and the guarantee of freedom of movement and expression. Again, evidence of this can be seen in the inability of human rights institutions to bring about regime change, as well as release of political prisoners, the end to forced labour, or the end to the systematic, state-sanctioned use of rape as a weapon in the ongoing civil war.
Risse, Ropp & Sikkink (1999) have suggested that human rights change can be effected at the domestic state-level in a dynamic five-phased spiral model of socialisation 2. The first phase is where state repression results in the activation of advocacy networks; secondly, where the norm violators engage in denial and the advocacy networks become more sophisticated in their approach; thirdly, the norm violator engages in a process of tactical concession-making or cosmetic change; fourthly, where prescriptive status is given to the human rights norms, and fifthly, the exhibition of rule-consistent behaviour by the state.
I consider this model useful in that it accounts for a range of both state and non-state actors in bringing about human rights change. But how useful is this model to understanding the impact of human rights in Burma? Limited, in my view. Two key points that need to be made here are that firstly, Risse, Ropp & Sikkink's model might make good theoretical sense when approaching countries with liberal democratic traditions, where certain social and political activity produce certain results. This, however, is not the case in Burma. Evidence might be seen in the failure of the 1988 student led nation-wide strike against military rule to result in real human rights change. A strict application of the model to Burma is perhaps not as useful as it may be in understanding other states behaviours as Burma is located endlessly between a state of Phase 2 denial 3 and Phase 3 tactical concession-making 4 in which it has flailed for almost 40 years. The theory does not pose any suggestions as to how Burma might be shifted from Phase 2 to 3, given that traditional 'neo-liberal' methods for pressuring for change do not work. It does not address how Burma may be buoyed further along this seemingly 'natural' progression towards inevitable human rights change. The theory speaks more of the process of liberal democratic institution building, rather than grass-roots human rights change for Burmese people.
Secondly, Risse, Ropp & Sikkink's model, they themselves acknowledge, is based upon the "prior existence of international institutions which regulate human rights norms" that work 5. Realism constructs the state as essentially rational actor and foreign policy and international action as taking actions to achieve the most efficient outcomes in terms of ends, but this process is not value free. For example, in relation to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights there still remains no real consensus among governments on which criteria should apply when dealing with a state's non-adherence to human rights standards. This realist notion of the rational state actors and rational international institutions that, I argue, impedes the development of a clear understanding of the impact of human rights in Burma where the UN institutions have little or no influence in bringing human rights change. I think that Risse, Ropp & Sikkink, like many international relations theorists have, in this sense, fallen somewhat short of a global theoretical approach to understanding the impact of human rights norms. When we give some attention to the way in which the regime has engaged with human rights, and I do this later in my paper, it has mostly been at philosophical and ideological level- the regime engages with the language and institutions of human rights insofar as it can promote a positive image of itself in an international context and insofar as doing so is consistent with the regimes fundamental ideological approach.
In this paper, in considering the impact of norms and ideas about human rights in Burma, I attempt to critically evaluate universal notions of human rights. I do this to better identify and understand the norms and ideas underlying dominant debates about human rights in Burma. I also give some critical attention to the regimes ideology and sources of power, which is constructed in opposition to this approach, what I will refer to as the "Burmese way" to human rights change 6. This paper searches then, for a different approach to understanding human rights change, which moves beyond the limits of current debates about human rights in Burma which are polarised on the one hand around pro-democracy movement claims to the generic application of universal human rights in the Burma context, and on the other hand, junta claims that human rights are culturally contingent concepts constructed from a Western point of view and as such, do not apply to Burma. This approach allows me to expose the ways in which both these approaches contain & limit conceptualisations about human rights generally, and restrict the possibilities that can be thought to address the practise of 'human wrongs' in Burma. In doing so, I give particular attention to discourses on human rights in Burma both within and without of the formal international human rights system.
An analysis of impact of norms and ideas about human rights in Burma provides us with a useful case-in-point for two reasons. Firstly, Burma clearly highlights the contradictions & tensions within theories about statehood, the construction of state sovereignty, and the competing & conflicting norms behind notions of state sovereignty & universal human rights. It is only through highlighting these contradictions & tensions, and locating debates about human rights in Burma in the very systems of power that manufacture and reproduce them, that we can see beyond the limits of current debates. Shifting our focus to the relationship between knowledge & values about human rights brings into question the underlying interests of mainstream international relations theory. As Devetak (1996a) notes, contemporary critical international relations theory looks for "historical transformations and complicity between various forms of domination and exclusion… in order to remove unnecessary constraints on universal freedom and equality" 7.
Secondly, Burma is a useful case study in that it provides us with an opportunity to expose the normative & political project behind the international human rights regime, which privileges western liberal democratic notions of human rights above all others in a hierarchy of knowledge. Western liberal democratic notions of human rights construct 'Burmese' notions of human rights as somehow lacking and unsophisticated. They construct Burmese people as ignorant of human rights (for example, in need of training on human rights), and work to render non- Western political & social values largely invisible in the debate 8. This last notion is particularly relevant in considering the role of the Malaysian-born Special Envoy to Burma, Ismail Razali, shrewdly marketed to the regime as a neutral mediator from an Allied ASEAN country, but in effect operating to the realisation of United Nations General Assembly resolutions.