Pacific citizens: Though 50 years ago there was not much contact ...

Pacific Cooperation Foundation: Just as the Asia 2000 Foundation was ...

Tackling Pacific Island problems from within the Parliament: Strategic thinking about ...

The agenda: THEN: Social issues were important ...

Improving partnership: There is a need to revive the Pacific Islands ...

Tackling blindness among Pacific peoples: Tongan public health specialist ...

HIV AIDS - moral and medical solutions: Public health and other policy planners...

Tongan job solution: Managed employment is a Tongan New Zealander's private ...

The new tertiary landscape - what's in it for Pacific peoples?: Education is ...

Making good citizens: In our Pacific region, and elsewhere in the world ...

Involving Pacific peoples in local decisionmaking: The question all New Zealand ...

Tangata Pasifika? Michael Powles, who has worked ...

Endorsing good governance: Former New Zealand career diplomat Gordon Schroff ...

Need not be conflict: Issues in Pacific governance - where one size does not ...

Cooperation wins: Greater regional cooperation on common issues might ...

APEC and PECC: Though New Zealand seeks to be a good international ...

Advocacy on market access: The Pacific Islands Trade and Investment ...

Being Pa'alagi: The Being Pa'alagi programme, in which I looked back ...

Collaboration key to achieving vision: The vision of the Ministry of ...

Talk to all pacific cultures with one voice:
Ethnic Communications

Need not be conflict

By Anthony Haas

Issues in Pacific governance – where one size does not fit all – lead to the ques-tion as to what might be done to arrest trends. New Zealand may have some relevant experience.

Former New Zealand diplomat and human rights specialist Michael Powles says, at rock bottom, it is a question of attitude to governance, human rights – and the rights of others in the society.

It is in these issues that one sees some of the worst problems, particularly in Fiji, Solomon Islands and certainly in Papua New Guinea.

There are some very real difficulties in talking about universal human rights in a situation in which people believe very strongly about the power of their cultures, and to some degree that their cultures should come first while outside notions should come second.

NZ seeks answer

As New Zealand works on such issues, without having any immediate answers, there is already signif-icant interest in Fiji, Samoa and other parts of the Pacific in what it is doing, “and wanting to make use of the way we are looking at these issues,” says Powles.

New Zealand has begun to grapple with precisely these kinds of issues in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi and human rights:

• the extent to which there are human rights dimensions in the Treaty; and
• the extent to which Māori taonga, and tradition and culture generally, might come into conflict with universal human rights, and how one works through those kinds of issue.

Controversy remaining

While there is a lot of controversy remaining, there is a prospect that we can work through it sensibly, he says.

Basically his line is that there need not be a conflict between fundamental human rights, and culture and tradition.

There are, of course, issues between universal human rights and a powerful culture and tradition, particularly because of a belief pushed in some parts of the world, not so much in the Pacific, but a little in Fiji recently, that universal human rights are a Western imposition on the world.

A good deal has been written on that by Indian and Chinese historians and philosophers, who regard it as another Western arrogance to claim universal human rights to be their own when they are, in a sense, universal.

“ One can dispose rather well of the argument that it is a Western imposition,” says Powles.

Published 3rd qtr, 2003

There need not be a conflict between fundamental human rights, and culture and tradition

Affiliated programs Sitemap Privacy Accessibility Terms of use

Search powered by

Copyright © 2006 Asia Pacific Economic News Ltd. All rights reserved. Users of the Guide are free to make copies or entire pages for personal or educational use, but not for commercial purposes. Copies of individual photos or ilustrations may not be made without the permission of the copyright holders. Use of this website signifies your agreement to the Terms of Use.