Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Response by Ian Martin
Vice-Chancellor, graduates, ladies and gentlemen:
When I hesitated before accepting the invitation to be honoured in this way,
the factor which overcame my hesitation was the pleasure I have taken, and
continue to take, in my association with the University of Essex through its
Human Rights Centre. This has consisted not just in my rather occasional
presences on this campus. Far more significant has been the fact that I have
worked with many students of this University in the field, in countries of
conflict, after they have studied human rights and humanitarian law here. In
many cases I have encouraged those with whom I have worked to come on to study
here; and from this I can testify to the commitment and quality of the students
who come to these courses, and to the practical value in real life human rights
protection which they derive from them. I have no doubt that those graduating
today will represent another contribution of this University to the defence of
human rights and humanitarian standards around the World.
Such a contribution could not be more necessary. At another time I could have
been lighter in my response than I feel I have to be today. I did not imagine
when this invitation was extended to me that I would stand here at a moment when
the principles I regard as most fundamental would be so deeply threatened. Over
many of the years since it has been my chosen field of work, I was able to
believe that we were making at least gradual progress in the worldwide respect
for human rights. As has been said, it was a particular privilege to be
Secretary General of Amnesty International as the Cold War came to an end. I
began working for the United Nations when the possibilities of principled and
effective multi-lateral action for peace and human rights seemed greatly
enlarged. My greatest privilege has been to work in East Timor, where the United
Nations finally upheld its Charter principle of self-determination, and where,
when this was challenged by the Indonesian army’s crimes against humanity, the
Security Council authorised, unanimously, a genuinely humanitarian military
intervention. I now work for an organisation which seeks to promote
accountability for past human rights abuses. The Pinochet case, and the coming
into existence of the International Criminal Court, are indicators of real
progress in that field.
But now I am afraid we are in terrible times for respect for international
law in general and for international human rights law and humanitarian law in
particular. In the reaction to September 11th governments around the world,
including our own, have torn up their human rights commitments, in the name of
fighting terrorism, when in fact respect for human rights is essential if we are
not to breed future generations of terrorists. I live and work now in the USA -
a country with the most highly developed constitutional protection of civil
liberties, yet whose government can claim that by labelling its own citizen an
enemy combatant, it can exclude him from access to lawyers, and that by holding
captives on a base outside its territory, they are outside any legal protection.
The fact that these captives include British citizens appears of little concern
to our Government. Terrorist suspects are deliberately delivered for
interrogation to countries we criticise, or used to criticise, for the use of
torture. Those seeking asylum are increasingly abused, and when our courts find
this unlawful, ministers display contempt for the judgement of the courts, and
for the Human Rights Act this Government was once proud to have introduced.
And that was before the current war, in which the support of our Government
has been invaluable, perhaps even decisive, in encouraging the United States
administration to launch war in defiance of international law. I have less right
to offer legal opinions, as you have heard, than those graduating today, after
more legal education than I have ever had. Indeed I have always regarded human
rights as too important to be left to lawyers. But I have no doubt that we can
disregard the self-justifying contrivances of law officers of belligerent
governments in favour of the opinions of those teachers of international law,
who have declared that there is no justification under international law for the
use of military force against Iraq.
All my work has taught me that human rights are not promoted by the powerful,
despite their rhetoric, but depend on genuine internationalism, on real multi-lateralism.
Our Government presents itself as standing for multi-lateralism, but in New York
in recent weeks I watched with dismay the way the United Nations has in fact
been abused in the interests of the superpower.
So those graduates here who have equipped themselves with a training in
international law, with the ability to apply in practice the principles of human
rights and humanitarian law, and I trust with a commitment to genuine multi-lateralism,
set out with a heavy task: the responsibility to stem and then reverse the
setbacks to these values. I hope those graduating, and I congratulate them all,
whose field is not in law and human rights will none-the-less share the same
responsibility we all have as citizens of the World. Ultimately this is not a
pessimistic conclusion, because I know from my work with those who have
graduated here before you, the real contribution that you are capable of making.
For that reason I am proud of my association with this University, which is
being deepened today. I thank you very much.
Ian Martin
3 April 2003