The pillar of glass: human rights in the development operations of the United Nations.

From such crooked timber as humanity is made of, no straight thing was ever constructed.

-Immanuel Kant

In September 2007, Buddhist monks, students, democracy campaigners, and ordinary men, women, and children took their lives into their hands in the streets of Yangon, Myanmar, to protest against the ruling military regime. The protests had begun a month earlier with peaceful calls by the monks for the ruling authorities to reinstate subsidies on fuel and oil and alleviate crippling commodity prices, but quickly snowballed into mass demonstrations for democratic and social reforms and the release of all political prisoners.

Toward the end of September, a military crackdown was well under way. As reported by one eyewitness, with respect to the events of September 27, 2007, near the Sule Pagoda:

The military tried to disperse the crowd with loudspeakers, saying the people had 10 minutes to disperse or they would shoot. Not many people tried to leave then. A few minutes later, they started shooting in the air. Some people got scared and tried to run, but when they realized the soldiers were only firing in the air, most of them returned. Then, a few minutes later, they shot directly into the crowd. First they shot teargas but then they shot directly into the crowd, using live ammunition [and rubber bullets]. People started to run away, the police started to chase them and began beating people. This is when the Japanese journalist was shot--the soldiers were the ones who fired. In addition to the Japanese journalist, two other people fell, including a woman. (1) Another eyewitness reported:

The soldiers shouted to the people with their loudspeaker, ordering them to scatter: "We have an order to shoot. If you don't scatter, we will have to shoot." Then they counted from 10 to one. When they counted, the people shouted back that they didn't care, and weren't afraid. After they counted, they started firing their guns and also shot smoke bombs. People started running away, and those left behind were beaten by the riot police. I saw three or four students were shot and killed.... (2) This was just one small part of a countrywide pattern of protest and crackdown. Some of these scenes were captured on film and broadcast to a horrified global viewing audience. They also played out directly in front of the eyes of United Nations officials and development workers at UN headquarters in downtown Yangon.

What are United Nations officials meant to do in response to situations of this kind? Should operational-including "development"-agencies and their leaders on the ground, in particular the UN resident coordinator, (3) be obliged to respond, and if so, how? Or, alternatively, should human rights violations be the sole preserve and preoccupation of those with specific mandates and competences in this domain, notably the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and her office (OHCHR), (4) even if-as is often the case-the latter are not in the country? (5) The United Nations is widely perceived as representing a global value system based on human rights, and its very legitimacy hinges on this perception. Yet development agencies-generally speaking-have no specific mandate in the area of human rights protection, reporting, or monitoring. (6)

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in particular, operates in 166 countries. (7) Its functions include supporting the resident coordinator system. But it is frequently noted that to maintain its presences, the UNDP must sustain good relations with its governmental counterparts. Yet, assuming for a moment that its value system precludes the United Nations from ignoring serious human rights violations, is there any inherent contradiction between cultivating and maintaining good relations with governments, on the one hand, and standing up for the organization's value system, on the other? If not, where should a responsible UN staff member, and especially a leader in the field, be expected to draw the line?

Of course, not all violations are as clear-cut or play out on as many television screens as those of September 2007 in Myanmar. Human rights violations are a fact of life in all countries, North and South, to differing degrees and for all kinds of rights: civil, cultural, social, economic, and political. While the crackdown in Myanmar has yet to be properly investigated, the suffering it has caused pales in comparison with that caused by official obstruction of the relief efforts after cyclone Nargis, (8) and the violations witnessed by the United Nations in conflict countries and complex emergencies. But even so, if the United Nations is to retain trust and legitimacy in the eyes of the community as a whole (not just governmental counterparts), can it really stand mute witness to events of this kind?

While this tragedy was unfolding in Myanmar, a human rights drama of an entirely different kind was playing out in the conference rooms of the United N...

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