1NC – HRC bad

Human Rights Credibility low, the plan bolsters human rights

The New York Times Company 2001 April 2, 2001 “U.S. Human Rights Record Criticized”
http://www.mail-archive.com/kominform@lists.eunet.fi/msg06564.html
GENEVA (AP) -- U.N. representatives of North Korea and Cuba on Monday accused the United States of ignoring its own human rights violations, especially among the poor
``Every year the United States accuses other countries of serious problems.
and minorities, even as it judges other countries.
But it is well known that the most serious violator of human rights is the United States,'' said North Korea's
delegate, Jo Sung Ju, speaking at the U.N. Human Rights Commission's annual meeting. He cited the use of the death penalty against minors and widespread
poverty in the United States. ``Racial discrimination, child abuse, killing, trafficking, drug abuse and
police brutality are taking place as a usual practice,'' he said in a rare speech by a North Korean diplomat to the 53-nation body. ``Rape and
murder committed by U.S. troops abroad are a serious problem.” Jo lashed out following a statement Friday by U.S. chief delegate Shirin Tahir-Kheli, in which she described
North Korea as one of the ``world's most serious human rights violators.'' Tahir-Kheli accused North Korea's communist government of using a ``draconian'' legal code to deny
all basic rights, like freedom of opinion, assembly or worship. The U.S. delegate also condemned serious abuses in Cuba and said suppression in China was worsening. On
Monday, Cuban Ambassador Carlos Amat Fores accused the United States of sponsoring U.N. resolutions critical of Cuba merely to justify Washington's own ``genocidal policy
There is a massive and flagrant denial of human rights
of aggression and the economic blockade it has imposed for more than 40 years.'' ``
to tens of millions of people within its own borders,'' he declared, adding that about 15 percent of the
U.S. population lived below the poverty line and were excluded from proper education and health care.
Cuba is routinely criticized by the U.N. commission for suppressing democratic freedoms. Havana hopes to beat the U.S.-backed resolution this year with support from Latin
America and some vote abstentions from Europe. In recent years, the commission also has passed critical resolutions on Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Sudan and Afghanistan under a
procedure whereby a special investigator is appointed to monitor the situation. In the heavily politicized debates, China has managed to use its muscle with other developing
nations to block critical resolutions for the past decade, and will likely head off a U.S.-sponsored resolution again this year. China's ambassador Zonghuai Qiao accused the
`The U.S. concern for human rights is a sham, what it really practices is
United States of double standards in a speech Friday. `
power politics,'' he said. ``The U.S. advocacy for humanity is a fake, what it really pursues is
hegemonism.''
Solving for poverty has shifted to a view of solving for human rights – social services increase
human rights credibility
UNDP 6/03 [“Poverty Reduction and Human Rights”, Practice Note, p. http://www.undp
.org/governance/docs/HRPN_(poverty)En.pdf]
The definition of poverty is steadily moving towards a human rights-based vision highlighting its
underlying multitude of causes. The increased awareness that the respect for human rights is a sine
qua non for socio-economic outcomes challenges the proposition that income should be used as a good
and sufficient proxy indicator for measuring poverty. UNDP’s attempt to capture the multi-dimensional
nature of poverty is expressed in its efforts to develop the Human Development Index, the Gender-
related Development Index, and the Human Poverty Index. These efforts have opened up avenues for
more holistic approaches to poverty analysis, reduction strategies and monitoring. The Human
Development Report 2000 conveyed the central message that poverty is an infringement on freedom,
and that the elimination of poverty should be addressed as a basic entitlement and a human right – not
merely as an act of charity. It calls for a framework for development, trade and investment that
respects, protects and promotes human rights, encouraging greater commitment by donor governments
to provide adequate funding of human rights priorities. Furthermore, it suggests that debt, economic
policies and structural adjustment programmes should be assessed in terms of their impact on human
rights. In mapping out a strategy for poverty reduction within a human rights context, the HDR 2000
stressed that:
Economic growth should be pro-poor, • Budgets must adequately support priority human concerns. •
The political space should be expanded to ensure appropriate participation • Environmental resources
and social capital of poor communities should be protected. • All forms of discrimination should be
removed. • Human rights should be secured in law. Important and valuable insights have also been
gained from the actual experiences of poor people themselves. UNDP’s Poverty Report 2000
“Overcoming Human Poverty” highlighted transparent and inclusive governance as an important
link between the formulation of national anti-poverty policies and actual poverty reduction.
Transparency and accountability are deemed essential by poor people to bring about institutional
change to reduce poverty, including the way the poor are treated by service providers. More recently,
the Administrator described UNDP’s understanding of sustainable human development as the vision
that every individual everywhere, man or woman, girl or boy must have the opportunity to fulfil their
potential, that they must have choices, and the power to make them, over how they live. Equality of
rights for all is the indispensable foundation on which human development must be built. The
Millennium Declaration recognises the importance of human rights. It states: “We will spare no efforts
to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme
poverty. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the
entire human race from want.”

Humans Rights leads to the State of Exclusion and the creation of the “other”
Upendra Baxi, Professor of Law, University of Warwick, Fall 1998, accessed 8/1/05 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems.
The notion of human rights--historically the rights of men--is confronted with two perplexities. The first concerns the nature of human
nature (the is question). The second concerns the question: who is to count as human or fully human (the ought question). While the first
question continues to be debated in both theistic and secular terms, n25 the second--"Who should count as 'human'?"--occupies the center
stage of the "modern" enunciation of human rights. The criteria of individuation in the European liberal traditions of thought n26
furnished some of the most powerful ideas in constructing a model of human rights. Only those beings were to be regarded as "human"
who were possessed of the capacity for reason and autonomous moral will, although what counted as reason and will varied in the long
development of European liberal tradition. In its major phases of development, "slaves," "heathens," "barbarians," colonized peoples,
indigenous populations, women, children, the impoverished, and the "insane" have been, at various times and in various ways, thought
unworthy of being bearers of human rights. In other words, these discursive devices of Enlightenment rationality were devices of
exclusion. The "Rights of Man" were human rights of all men capable of autonomous reason and will. While by no means the exclusive
prerogative of "modernity," n27 the large number of human beings were excluded by this peculiar ontological construction. n28
Exclusionary criteria are central to the "modern" conception of human rights. The foremost historical role performed by them was to
accomplish the justification of the unjustifiable, namely, colonialism and imperialism. n29 That justification was inherently racist;
colonial powers claimed a collective human right of superior races to dominate the inferior ones ("the Other"). The Other in many cases
ceased to exist before imperial law formulations such as the doctrine of terra nullius, following Blackstone's scandalous distinction
between the inhabited and uninhabited colonies. n30 Since the Other of European imperialism was by definition not human or fully
human, it was not worthy of human rights; at the very most, Christian compassion and charity fashioned some devices of legal or jural
paternalism. That Other, not being human or fully human, also was liable to being merchandised in the slave market or to being the "raw
material" of exploitative labor within and across the colonies. Not being entitled to a right to be and remain a human being, the Other was
made a stranger and an exile to the language and logic of human rights being fashioned, slowly but surely, in (and for) the West. The
classical liberal theory and practice of human rights, in its formative era, was thus innocent of the notion of universality of rights though
certainly no stranger to its rhetoric.