Response to Sean Love of Amnesty Ireland
I don't know what possessed me. My brain was over active in August. I am a big supporter of amnesty, but I guess I was piqued at Love's uninformed swiping at the left. Does he think third generation human rights came from anywhere else except from the left? The Irish Times did me no favours by printing the word justiciable as justifiable, making me appear very right wing indeed.Madam,
It is disappointing to read such an confused article from the director of Amnesty Ireland (Irish Times 11/08/04). Mr Love criticizes government policy for being centrist, but in the next moment he jettisons the entire political spectrum. Left and right arguments "are redundant", he says. Only the language of rights has any meaning, we are told. Human rights are "not capitalist or communist, liberal or conservative, republican or anarchist, democratic or dictatorial".
Actually human rights are closely related to liberal democracy, historically and conceptually. Like liberal-democracy itself, rights are subject to competing interpretations of core consensus ideas such as liberty and equality. Rights do not transcend ideology.
The first substantive issue raised by Mr Love, that of relative poverty, is a case in point. Is relative poverty justiciable? Should it be? Mr. Love implies that "the dilution of governmental control" would be a good thing. Why bother with voting at all, we might ask? Amnesty should concentrate on universal implementation of the core rights on which there is large consensus. Relative poverty within a wealthy democracy should be far down on their agenda.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Dunne
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