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Economic crisis increasing human rights violations: Amnesty annual report

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Amnesty International (AI) Secretary-General Irene Khan said Thursday that the global economic crisis is exacerbating the world's human rights failures, urging governments to "invest in human rights as purposefully as they are investing in economic growth." Khan spoke at the release of the 2009 Annual Report, which says that wealthy nations have overlooked "massive human rights abuses, entrench poverty and endanger regional stability," while attempting to assemble economic recovery packages. The report noted that growing wealth inequality in many parts of the world has been widened by the economic crisis, and that "the numbers of people living in poverty and subjected to human rights abuse are likely to grow ... in a recessionary economic climate." Developments in the US, including the June 2008 ruling by the US Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush and a January decision by US President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility tempered AI's continued criticism of human rights abuses resulting from the "war on terror." Previous annual reports, including the 2008 report, have condemned human rights violations reported in the US "war on terror." The 2007 report was critical of the US and other "Western democratic states" for attempts "to roll back some fundamental principles of human rights" in their efforts to fight terrorism. The 2006 report reached similar conclusions, and suggested that Western powers had overlooked human rights violations due to a preoccupation with security. Concern for violence against women, persecution of human rights activists, the rights indigenous peoples and the use of the death penalty in criminal prosecutions also continue to be major themes in the Annual Reports.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).