Amnesty International Bucharest Group, the first and only local group of Amnesty International in Romania, was founded in August 2014 gathering at the very beginning 10 members only.Since then, the group developed and it consists now of 30 members who undertook four campaigns in order to raise awareness about refugee and asylum-seekers’ rights, sexual and reproductive rights, women’s rights, freedom of expression, political and civic rights and the ban of torture practices. 

 Ionela Maria Ciolan is the initiator of the Volunteer Facilitators movement of Amnesty International in Romania and the founder and leader of the first Human Rights activists group of Amnesty in her country (Amnesty International Bucharest Group). She has extensive experience in youth work, advocacy and Human Rights (HR) and had organized 9 international campaigns in Romania concerning Rroma/ LGBT /sexual and reproductive rights, women’s rights, refugee and asylum-seekers’ rights, housing rights, freedom of speech, etc.

 

Alexandra: Since 1961, Amnesty International has been involved in major campaigns, investigations and communications in order to promote a world of Human Rights for all. It has more than 7 million activists, members, supporter and donors all around the world. In Romania, you have been working as an Amnesty Volunteer Facilitator since 2011 and afterwards you created Amnesty International Bucharest Group. What were the incentives that led to the establishment of the AI local group in Romania?

Ionela: After 3 years of intensive collaboration and 6 Human Rights campaigns with Amnesty as a Volunteer Facilitator, I have decided that I got enough experience and understanding of the way the organization works in order to move to the next level.  Founding this group came from my desire to promote AI and its values in my country. I wish I couldbring my contribution towards changing the Romanian mentality concerning Human Rights, namely making ordinary citizens more tolerant and open to embrace diversity. A large number of them do not know what Human Rights are and have never had any Human Rights education in school or throughout their life. Thus, the degree of intolerance and discrimination in Romania is, at some extent, worrisome.

Apart from my idealistic goal to improve Romanians’ attitude in this direction, I have also been motivated by my willing to positively change Romania’s image abroad. If my country is internationally perceived as one where various Human Rights (i.e. Roma/ women/ LGBT/ prisoners’ rights, etc.) are persistently violated, I wanted to stand up against such practices and bring my contribution towards building another side of Romania, one, where we care about Human Right, respect them and fight to promote them, both locally and globally.

Alexandra: You have served as a Volunteer Facilitator at AI for almost four years now. What are your responsibilities as a volunteer facilitator/group leader in Romania?

Ionela: As a Volunteer Facilitator, I’ve been in charge with the organization of several Amnesty campaigns over here  (i.e. finding out what are the most efficient ways to organize a campaign on a certain subject, preparing working strategy plans, recruiting volunteers, coordinating and training them, promoting the events through social media, maintaining a constant contact with my Regional Coordinator from the International Secretariat in London, preparing the logistics, facilitating the events, delivering Amnesty messages on all their specific campaigns, collecting petitions and letters of support and sending them to London, etc.).

As a group leader, I would mention that I am in charge with the internal communication of Amnesty International Bucharest Group, the coordination of my team of activists, namely motivating and offering them support, intermediating the communication between the group and our coordinator from the International Secretariat, etc. I also make sure that the message we present through our campaigns and other coordination tasks perfectly matches with the one promoted by Amnesty.

Alexandra: Since 2011, you and Amnesty International Bucharest Group have organized several campaigns that aimed to raise awareness for several causes such as Roma rights (“Stop forced evictions of Roma community in Romania”), the fight against  torture (“Stop torture”), Women’s rights (“My body, my rights”), etc. Could you recall any moment or any lesson about freedom and dignity that had a tremendous impact on your activity as a volunteer for AI in Romania and motivated you to work harder in order to improve the Human Rights situation in Romania?

Ionela: Last year, I was involved in the 3rd Human Rights Action Camp of Amnesty in Bulgaria where we’ve discussed the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers. At that time, the refugee crisis wasn’t so widely covered by International media; however, this does not mean at that time asylum seekers’ rights were not violated. Apart from AI activists from all over Europe, some refugees accepted to attend the camp with us. The stories they shared were simply heartbreaking. Very briefly, I will give you some examples and I wish readers could put themselves in the shoes of these people.

In 2011, when conflict erupted in Libya, Said, a 10-year old child was playing in a football competition in Libya. Against his will, Libyan authorities put him in an overcrowded boat and sent him to Italy. Apparently, this happened at Gaddafi’s instructions when Italian forces joined the NATO air campaign against Libya. However, there can be no justification for sending away a helpless minor in a foreign country where, as you can imagine, he didn’t know anyone and had zero-knowledge of Italian. Not even today, after 4 years, he couldn’t reconnect with his family. He doesn’t know if they are still alive or not, if they flew away from Libya or not.

Other refugees shared with us critical moments from their life back in their home countries where war is a daily fact. Escaping from war-torn Syria or Iraq was not an easy task at all, but a risky trip by boat towards unknown lands.  All these personal recollections of the refugees’ journey to Europe have touched me so deeply that I returned to Romania with the purpose of creating the AI group we have today. I wanted to fight harder in order to spread the AI Human Rights cases in Romania. If until this camp, I wasn’t very convinced that I was ready to move from a single volunteer activity to leading a group of volunteers, that experience and the courage of the refugees I’ve met, gave me the reasons and the strength to be more determined in promoting human rights and less worried about what if I’ll fail.

Alexandra: 2015 is definitely a watershed moment for all development workers involved in the fight for a better world for all. Human Rights are at the core of all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are about to be adopted in 2015. From your point of view, as an Human Rights activist and a youth worker, how would you evaluate the new post-2015 agenda? If we define it as a new Human Rights agenda, how would you assess both its potential achievements and shortcomings?

Ionela: As we all know, the post-2015 Agenda comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets that are to be attained by 2030. Of course, it is an ambitious, wide-range global plan to create a better world for all. From a Human Rights activist point of view, the new SDGs tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time: ending extreme poverty and hunger, reduce gender inequality, increase access to health care and education, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, etc.; some of these things seem pretty basic and are taken for granted by many of us. One of the most relevant aspect of the new UN agenda is the fact that the SDGs do not focus anymore on developing countries only (like the MDGs used to do), but they strongly claim that even in the most advanced nations, there are people left aside, living at the edge of poverty, people who don’t have access to minimum basic facilities. Therefore, the UN system aims to raise a challenging debate with the participation of each and every country to analyse their own level of achievement in regards to the proposed sustainable development goals.

While the new SDGs framework can make a lasting impact in the world as we know it and improve the current situation, there are many doubts about the results of the post-2015 Agenda. The main critique comes from the fact that some of the targets are vaguely expressed, generally presented and hard to measure and put into practice. Additionally, we have to keep in mind that some goals, although they sound really appealing, cannot (easily) be achieved within the desired timeframe. We also have to ask ourselves if all the countries have the necessary resources (material, technological and the knowledge) to accomplish these objectives. And in this particular case, how would countries select their priority items? Is it there any scale system to measure what goals are the most important or in other words, the first / second priorities in a country?

Alexandra: Keeping in mind the new post-2015 Agenda, what are the goals Romania should place more emphasis on in the next coming years?

Ionela: If we are looking at all the 17 SDGs is hard to select the areas where we have to be more engaged. However, keeping in mind the real concerns of Romanians, I believe that ending poverty (or at least, diminishing it), increasing health care, investing in quality education and promoting sustainable, inclusive economic growth are the areas were we should invest more. Let me also add that achieving greater equality and empower women and girls should be one of our priorities and we need to keep on fighting the battle in order to reduce domestic violence, end human trafficking (affecting young girls and women in general), and ensure access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. In this direction, I totally support the idea of having sexual and reproductive education programs in schools. At the moment, the rates of teen birth and abortion (under 19- year old girls) in Romania are one of the highest in Europe; moreover, 60% of sexual active teenagers (teenagers between 15-19- year old) have never used contraception. This can be a real problem not only in terms of birth or abortion numbers, but also concerning the spread of STDs. Needless to add, the economic impact on the state.

Alexandra: These days, many people are interested in humanitarian and development work.  What is the message you would like to pass on to those who are interested by the activities of the AI group in Romania?

Ionela: I invite all those interested in the work of Amnesty International to visit AI’s website and read about the ongoing campaigns and sign the petitions. By signing a petition, promoting it and encouraging friends to do the same, we are spreading the message of Amnesty and we are gathering support for that case. It’s not a singular example where millions of individuals from different corners of the world supported and promoted the same case, thus helping Amnesty to have a stronger impact and succeed in freeing people, stopping governments from violating human rights and finally changing some people’s lives. Because each of us can have the power to bring his/ her contribute to changing the world in a better place.

They can also join Amnesty by becoming online members. Needless to add, if they consider that they need to acquire more knowledge regarding human rights, they can join Amnesty’s first massive open online course (MOOC) on freedom of expression, which is now open for registration.

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Ionela is the first Romanian in the history of Amnesty International who was selected as an International Movement Delegate for Europe to participate in the 2015 Amnesty’s International Council Meeting. This is the highest position that an activist can have in the organization and Ionela has represented all volunteers and local groups from the European countries where Amnesty doesn’t have an office.

Recently, she extended her experience with a Professional Fellowship granted by the U.S. Department of State and an internship at Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

A PhD Candidate in International Relations, her research is focused on the European Neighbourhood Policy, the EU’s Eastern Partnership and the Union’s relations with Russia.

 

 

After centuries of moral discussions on issues as war and peace, a new wave of thinking in the international relations became the main focus of concern. Once the interdependence between states and actors in the international arena strengthened accompanied by the erosion of sovereignty, and after witnessing the horrendous crimes of the WWII, new standards began to develop in the moral thinking, in the sense that equal treatment for human beings was expected to be guaranteed for everyone on the planet.

This development considers minimum standards at the institutional level that aim to be implemented everywhere in the world for every citizen in and outside the country. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is such a standard, upon the majority of the world states adhered. The European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) along with other international organizations were invested with a part of the national sovereignty of the member stated in order to take more equitable measures of governance, create supranational institutions and limit the powers of the individual states. Other global developments such as worldwide protests, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), technological developments, transnational labor, climate change, biodiversity, and trade required the need to open new ethical measures and discussions in order to keep track of the ethics of the new paradigm; these discussions reflect a struggle for Global Justice everywhere in the world. Issues such as poverty, inequality, extended injustices and the responsibility of governments, corporations and individuals are brought to the table in academic debates, a proper ground of creating equitable principles.

Human rights are now of great importance, being regarded by many advocates as universal and inalienable, yet despite their wide acceptance, many injustices and violations are still taking place under the same institutional architecture in which some others are doing more than well. The 67 richest people are as wealthy as the world’s poorest 3.5 billion,[1] 1,020 million[2] people are chronically undernourished, and 2.5 billion[3] lack access to basic sanitation, while 2,000 million do not have access to essential drugs[4]. 18 million[5] die annually from poverty related causes, half of them being children under the age of 5.

As an issue of Global Justice, this paper is analyzing the global arms trade that is responsible of grave violations of human rights, but also has consequences and implications in causing poverty and preventing the international development to take place properly. I will use an institutional approach to human rights and the arms trade, rather than an interactional approach (actions between individuals). The research question is whether the citizens of the affluent countries are in any way responsible for the catastrophic effects that arms trade has upon the most vulnerable and how this situation can be changed. I will take a further step to connect the decisions that the governments of the affluent countries take when they impose unjust international standards upon the poorest countries to the extent of the idea that they represent the citizens’(of the affluent ones) acceptance of such impositions.

Moreover, the responsibility is seen as a negative duty not to harm which is more stringent and powerful than the positive duty of helping or protecting someone’s rights. The arms trade is a good example of this distinction from the perspective of the participants in the global institutional architecture.

The approach of this paper is shaped by the non-ideal theory which focuses on the question of what makes the actual system unjust, rather than the ideal theory concerned with the question, what a perfectly ideal system should look like; starting with the current institutional order and what can be modified in order to fulfill the minimum standard of the basic rights for everyone.

The aim and scope of this work is to understand the paradigm shift brought by the phenomenon of globalization as a starting point for finding pragmatic solutions for this important change that is continuously taking place based on philosophical moral arguments. The idea of Global Justice is to help address avoidable current global issues in such a manner that the following evolutions in alleviating world poverty and human rights violations to be aligned with today world’s needs. The SDGs that are about to be implemented starting with 2015, for example, are aimed to respond to the failures of the previous actions in this respect, are an example of some Global Justice efforts.

The significance of this approach is to address an issue of Global Justice that is insufficiently studied, which only gained more importance in the last decade, namely the global arms trade and the unjust system that governs it. Undertaking this direction of study is crucial because the global arms trade is tightly linked with systemic poverty.

To make a short overview, I will further summarize the structure and I will explain why I chose this specific order of the chapters.

Chapter 1 starts with the first three articles of the UDHR, which, as the reader will notice throughout the paper, are not fulfilled for a large part of the world’s population in the context of arms trade, through direct or indirect effects of this global activity. It continues with a historical and a literature review of human rights and several ways of understanding them from a philosophical perspective. I used Gewirth’s theory of Principle Absolute, Pogge’s alternative understanding of human rights from the moral cosmopolitanism perspective and Rawls’ approach of a minimum set of rights in the interaction between states.

Chapter 2 is explaining why and how the global arms trade is responsible for human rights violations, addressing a structural problem that is caused by the very rules meant to prevent a malfunctioning of this sector. The International Law (IL) is not properly built to prevent genocides, atrocities and civil wars – I will explain why in a detailed analysis of the loopholes in the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and also why the peremptory customary law of jus cogens fails to be respected. The negative duty approach is helping us to determine why IL is not suitable when it comes to arms trade because it is mostly based on the positive duty – the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

Chapter 3 explains the concept of responsibility and makes the transition from the idea of states’ responsibility alone to the responsibility of citizens from affluent countries in facilitating grave human rights violations, by contributing through votes, taxes and tacit acceptance of the unjust system that is governing the circulation of arms around the world.

Chapter 4 shows the horrific fear that vulnerable people and societies are constantly living with and why it is of great importance to eliminate it as soon as possible, so the personal and social development of the affected ones can start taking place.

Read more: Issues of Global Justice_Diana VELICA

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[1] Moreno, “The 67 People As Wealthy As The World’s Poorest 3.5 Billion”

[2] FAO, “1.02 Billion People Hungry” in Pogge, 2010, p. 11

[3] WHO and UNICEF, 2013, p. 5 in Pogge, 2010, p. 11

[4] Fogarty International Center, “Strategic Plan” in Pogge, 2010, p. 11

[5] ‘In 2004, there were about 59 million human deaths. The main causes highly correlated with poverty were (with death tolls in thousands):  diarrhea (2,163) and malnutrition (487), perinatal (3,180) and maternal  conditions (527), childhood diseases (847 – measles accounting for about half), tuberculosis (1,464), malaria (889), meningitis (340), hepatitis (159), tropical diseases (152), respiratory infections (4,259 – mainly pneumonia),  HIV/AIDS (2,040) and sexually transmitted diseases (128) (WHO, Global  Burden of Disease, table A1, pp. 54–9). To be sure, some deaths from these causes would still have occurred even in the absence of poverty. But these are greatly outnumbered by the contribution that poverty makes to deaths from globally common causes such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, traffic accidents, and violence. It is likely then that rather more than one third of all human lives are substantially shortened by severe poverty.’ (Pogge, 2010, p. 205, n. 10)

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Ms Diana Velica is currently researching issues of Post 2015 Development Agenda and Human Rights. Diana earned her M.A. from the University of Bucharest in International Development Studies and International Relations Ethics with a dissertation called Issues of Global Justice: Is the Arms Trade Violating the Human Rights?; she holds a B.A. from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, with a thesis focused on small arms and light weapons’ proliferation in the context of globalization. Diana was a Visiting Assistant in Research at Yale University within the Global Justice Program in the fall of 2013, where she was focused on issues like global arms trade, international law and world poverty. Her expertise is built through research, volunteer work and internships in various organizations such as Making Commitments Matter, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Romanian Association for International Cooperation and Development, and Academics Stand Against Poverty.

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Photo credits: .UNAMID / Albert Gonzales Farran