David Forsythe lectures on international rights

By Tina Nazerian     10/28/13 7:00pm

On Wednesday, Oct. 23, David Forsythe, the Charles J. Mach Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, gave a lecture on "Human Rights in International Relations: A Balance Sheet after Six Decades" in Herzstein Hall as part of the Visiting Scholars Program.

According to Chair of the Department of History Lora Wildenthal, Forsythe is an expert on the Red Cross, the law of war and American foreign policy.

Forsythe said human rights issues are being given much more attention today than in the past, citing the lack of human rights discussion in the League of Nations covenant.

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"If you go back to 1919 or even 1944, you will not find much on human rights in world affairs, as a sweeping generalization," Forsythe said. 

According to Forsythe, starting with Article 55 of the United Nations Charter in 1945 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, there are many treaties and legal documents primarily directed to the protection and advancement of human dignity on an international basis. 

"If you take just the two core treaties, the covenant, or treaty of civil and political rights, and a companion treaty on economic, social and cultural rights, you have negotiated an international law when you put these documents together, an international bill of rights," Forsythe said. "It's not one document. It's a composite edition."

This international bill of rights is quite different from the U.S. Bill of Rights, Forsythe said. 

"The international bill of rights reflects a social democratic view of human rights and democracy, not a libertarian view," Forsythe said.

There has been institutional progress in human rights over the past 70 years, Forsythe said.An example is the considerable attention given to them in the U.S. National Security Council, regardless of the president's political affiliation.

"The Obama administration actually has an NSC board on atrocity prevention," Forsythe said. "It's built into the bureaucracy to pay attention to these things .... [It] doesn't mean you're going to take action on Syria, but it does mean that's part of the bureaucracy."

Forsythe said reasons to be optimistic about the direction of human rights in the long run include decolonization, electoral democracy and the U.N.'s Responsibility to Protect initiative.

However, Forsythe said that optimism should not get carried away, as problems like state security and nationalism still exist.

Hanszen College junior Becca Kellner said the talk provided a good overview of a broad topic.

"It was obvious that he knew way more than he was able to portray in the hour-long session, and I think he did a pretty good job of presenting the discussion without it being based entirely on his own personal views because it's such a controversial topic," Kellner said. "Having read his book, I think it's a pretty good overview of what has gone into ... the book."

Kellner said Rice students tend to live in a Rice bubble and it is important for them to know what is going on in the world around them. 

"It may not seem like it directly affects us, but on many of these issues, it does or it will," Kellner said.

Baker College sophomore Cristell Perez said she wishes Forsythe would have mentioned some approaches to solving the issues he brought up. 

"I'm taking a course here that talks about the human rights approach and the human capabilities approach, so I wish he would have mentioned something like that," Perez said. "We think everybody should have these human rights, but what if people don't value certain things the same way."

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