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The backgrounds of the Board members of Human Rights Watch
(HRW), Europe-Central Asia section, with an indication of HRW funding
sources. HRW is founded on the idea that the values of the United States
are universal, and that the US must impose them on the rest of the world.
As the largest human-rights lobby, it is partly responsible for the
increasingly expansionist US foreign policy.
No US citizen,
and no US organisation, has any right to impose US values on Europe.
No concentration camps or mass graves can justify that imposition. But
Human Rights Watch finds it self-evident, that the United States may
legitimately restructure any society, where a mass grave is found. That
is a dangerous belief for a superpower: European colonialism shows how
easily a "civilising mission" produces its own atrocities.
Sooner or later, more people will die in crusades to prevent a new Holocaust,
than died in the Holocaust itself.
For a century
there has been a strong interventionist belief in the United States
– although it competes with widespread isolationism. In the last 10
years attitudes have hardened: human-rights interventionism is becoming
a consensus among the "foreign policy elite." Human Rights
Watch itself is part of that elite, which includes government departments,
foundations, NGO's and academics. It is certainly not an association
of "concerned private citizens." HRW board members include
present and past government employees, and overlapping directorates
link it to the major foreign policy lobbies in the US. Cynically summarised,
Human Rights Watch is a joint venture of George Soros and the State
Department.
HRW is an
almost exclusively US-American organisation. Its version of human rights
is the Anglo-American tradition. It is "mono-ethical" – recognising
no legitimate ethical values outside its own. Attitudes to redistribution
of wealth illustrate the limited nature of human rights ethics. In the
Anglo-American human-rights tradition, seizure and redistribution of
the property of the rich is unethical. The human-rights tradition recognises
no inherent value in equality itself: human rights are not, and can
never be, a substitute for a general morality.
I do not
believe that ethical values are culturally specific. However, it is
true that one ethical tradition has become associated with the United
States, with an emphasis on rights. That includes the universal rights
set out in its Declaration of Independence and its Constitution. In
a sense the US was "designed" or "pre-programmed"
as an interventionist power. Universal human rights, by their nature,
tend to justify military intervention to protect them.
Why are human rights linked to interventionism?
Any modern society which wants to engage in a war of
conquest would need an ideology of justification. If nation
state is clearly the victim of an unprovoked attack by another
state, then it can appeal to the idea of national self-defence.
However, such unprovoked attacks are rare, and self-defence
is inherently implausible for super-powers at war with small
countries. A super-power can get involved in hostilities all
over the planet, usually preceded by a complex chain of events.
From its point of view, an ideology is needed to justify these
wars, preferably all of them.
Such an ideology should ideally meet some criteria.
First, it should not be a simple appeal to self-interest. Simply
stating "We own the world!" or "We are the master race, submit
to us!" is not good propaganda. An appeal to higher values is
preferable.
Second, these higher values should be universal. This
is why Islamism would probably fail as an interventionist ideology:
it is specific to Islam. A geopolitical claim to intervene in
support of Islamic values can be answered simply by saying:
"We are not Muslims here." The doctrine of universal human rights
is, by definition, universal and cross-cultural.
Third, the ideology should appeal to the population
of the super-power. In the United States, for historical reasons,
rights doctrines have become part of its national culture. It
would be pointless for a US President to justify a war by appealing
to Islam, or royal legitimacy, because very few Americans hold
these beliefs. Most Americans believe in rights theories: very
few know that these theories are disputed.
Fourth, if possible, the ideology should appeal to the
"enemy" population. It should ideally be part of their
values. This is very difficult, but the doctrine of human rights
has itself succeeded in acquiring cross-cultural legitimacy.
This does not mean it is inherently right, but simply that no
non-western cultures have an answer to the doctrine. The government
of China, for instance, fully accepts the concept of human rights,
and claims to uphold them. So when it is accused of human rights
violations, it can do nothing but deny. It will be perpetually
on the defensive. Even if the US bombs Beijing in support of
human rights, the Chinese regime would be incapable of simply
saying "Human rights are wrong." This effect could be seen as
the Holy Grail of war propaganda: if the enemy leadership is
incapable of presenting an alternative value system, it will
ultimately collapse. If the US was a devoutly Islamic country,
what response would it offer to an invasion of Islamist purists?
If they came to destroy Las Vegas for being "un-Islamic" what
could the US Government do? Offer pathetic denials, that's all.
That is all the Chinese government can offer to international
public opinion, when facing claims of human rights violations.
Human rights are not the only possible option, for a
general ideology of intervention. The "civilising mission"
which justified 19-th century colonisation is another example.
However, it is important to note that human rights can serve
a geopolitical purpose, which is unrelated to their moral content.
It is not possible to show that "human rights" exist,
and most moral philosophers would not even try. It might not
be a very important issue in ethics anyway – but it is important
in politics and geopolitics. And that's what Human Rights Watch
is about – not about ethics.
For more on human rights as ideology, see "Why
human rights are wrong."
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If the United
States was inhabited by pacifist relativists, then probably it would
not go to war so often. However, most US-Americans believe in the universality
and superiority of their ethical tradition. Interventionist human-rights
organisations are, in a sense, a logical result. Human Rights Watch
is not formally an "association for the promotion of the American
Way of Life" – but it tends to behave like one.
Human Rights
Watch operates a number of discriminatory exclusions, to maintain its
character.
- First,
it is linguistically racist. Although it publishes material in foreign
languages to promote its views, the organisation itself is English-only.
- Second,
the organisation discriminates on grounds of nationality. Non-Americans
are systematically excluded at board level. (One 1974 Indian immigrant
was recently appointed, but presumably she is long since an American
citizen). HRW recruits its employees only in the United States, in
English. US readers of this site may be unfamiliar with multilingual
cross-border employment, but it does exist in Europe. HRW has the
option of going multilingual in this way – it would even facilitate
its work – but it remains organisationally Anglophone.
- Third,
the organisation discriminates on grounds of social class. Again,
the list makes clear that board members are recruited from the upper
class, and upper-middle class. Although I traced almost all the board
members' professions, there are none from middle-income occupations
– let alone any poor illegal immigrants, or Somali peasants.
Human Rights
Watch can therefore claim no ethical superiority. It is itself involved
in practices it condemns elsewhere, such as discrimination in employment,
and exclusion from social structures. It can also claim no neutrality.
An organisation which will not allow a Serb or Somali to be a board
member, can give no neutral assessment of a Serbian or Somali state.
It would probably be impossible for an all-American, English-only elite
organisation, to be anything else but paternalistic and arrogant.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Europe Committee, formerly
'Helsinki Steering Committee' or 'Helsinki Watch.'
This is the Europe section of the Board of HRW, which is split into
sections approximately by continent. The section was established in 1978:
in the late 1970's human rights became the main issue in Cold War propaganda.
The Soviet Union had made concessions at the Helsinki summit (1975), allowing
human rights monitoring. Western governments encouraged "private"
organisations to use this concession – as a means of pressuring the Soviet
Union. Human Rights Watch began as a Cold War propaganda instrument.
The committee
is now called the Europe and Central
Asia Division. It is still affiliated with the International Helsinki
Federation for Human Rights, which co-ordinates the "Helsinki committees."
The first version of this web page was compiled several years ago, and
the committee's membership has changed, as noted below. For the exact
current composition of the HRW Board and its subdivisions, check the
web page HRW Board
of Directors & Advisory Committees.
- Jonathan Fanton
-
No longer
Chair of the Committee – promoted to Chair of the HRW Board. An
academic and foundation man. Former Vice President of the University
of Chicago, in 1982 appointed as President of the New School for
Social Research, now the New
School University. He is active in building US academic contacts
with eastern Europe, directed at the new pro-western elites, see
the Transregional
Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) page.
- Peter
Osnos, now Chair
-
George
Soros' publisher. He is Chief Executive of Public
Affairs publishers.
- Alice
H. Henkin, Vice Chair
-
Director
of the Justice and
Society Program at the Aspen Institute, an elite think-tank.
Note their report Honoring
Human Rights: From Peace to Justice proposing United Nations
mission strategies later used in Kosovo.
- Morton
Abramowitz
-
A link
to the US Foreign Policy establishment, one of several at HRW. Abramowitz
was U.S. Ambassador to Turkey (1989-91) and Assistant Secretary
of State for Intelligence and Research (1985-89), among other posts:
see his personal
details at the Council on Foreign Relations, CFR, where he is
a Fellow. The CFR is the heart of interventionist US policy since
1921 (and hated by the isolationist right).
He directed the CFR Balkan
Economic Task Force, which published a report on "Reconstructing
the Balkans".
- Barbara Finberg
-
A donor
of HRW, see the list below. A retired vice president with the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, who donated $1 million to Stanford University.
- Felice
Gaer
-
Human
rights specialist at the American Jewish Committee and chair of
the Steering Committee for the 50th anniversary of the UN Human
Rights Declaration, see this biography:
"Ms.Gaer is Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement
of Human Rights. Author, speaker, and activist, she is a member
of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Directors of the
Andrei Sakharov Foundation, a member of the International Human
Rights Council at the Carter Center, ...Vice President of the International
League for Human Rights."
-
According
to this JTA report, Gaer praised
Madeleine Albright for her "outstanding human rights record."
Felice Gaer was also a non-governmental member of the United States
delegation to a United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in
Geneva, where (according to the Voice of America) she denounced
Sudan, saying the the U.S. "cannot accept those who invoke Islam
or other religions as justification for atrocious human rights abuses."
However, more interesting is this speech
at the Geneva meeting, where she suggested the UN should no longer
investigate prison rapes in the US: "we would urge the Special Rapporteurs
to focus their attention on countries where the situation is the
most dire and the abuses the most severe."
- Michael
Gellert
-
Vice
Chairman of the Board at Fanton's New School for Social Research.
Investment manager and Trustee of the Carnegie Institute.
-
Gellert
is a director of Premier
Parks Inc., owner of the Six Flags and Walibi theme park chains.
Also a director of:
High Speed Access
Corp.,
Devon Energy
Corporation,
Humana
Inc..
- Paul
Goble
- Director
of Communications and political commentator at Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, the Cold War propaganda transmitters that survived the end
of the Cold War. From their website:
-
- "Free
Europe, Inc., was established in 1949 as non-profit, private corporations
to broadcast news and current affairs programs to Eastern European
countries behind the Iron Curtain. The Radio Liberty Committee, Inc.,
was created two years later along the same lines to broadcast to the
nations inside the Soviet Union. Both were funded principally by the
U.S. Congress, through the Central Intelligence Agency, but they also
received some private donations as well. The two corporations were
merged into a single RFE/RL, Inc. in 1975."
- It is still
funded by the US Government, through Congressional appropriation.
-
- Bill Green
-
Is no
longer on the committee. Former Republican member of Congress, a
trustee of the New School for Social Research (where Fanton is President),
with many other public and business posts: see the biography
at the American Assembly, an academic/political think-tank.
- Mark
von Hagen
-
New
on the Committee. Director of the Harriman
Institute – an International Relations institute of Columbia
University in New York. A Soviet and post-Soviet specialist, with
a long list of publications, see his profile
at the institute website.
- Stanley Hoffman
-
A pro-interventionist
theorist (of course that means US intervention, not a Taliban invasion
of the US). Professor at Harvard, see his biography.
Note that his colleagues include Daniel Goldhagen, who openly advocated
occupation of Serbia, to impose a US-style democracy: see A
New Serbia.
- Robert
James
-
Also
on the Board of Human
Rights in China, another Soros-funded organisation.
- Kati
Marton
- New on
the Committee. President of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
However this "protection" did not extend to journalists
killed by NATO bombing of the Belgrade TV studios: she declined to
condemn it. This may, perhaps, have something to do with not embarrassing
her husband: Richard C. Holbrooke, former Special Envoy to Yugoslavia,
and US Ambassador to the United Nations. For an idea of the social
world behind Human Rights Watch, and a glimpse of of how US foreign
policy is made, see this article about their cocktail parties...
"Dick
Holbrooke, who's been U.N. ambassador since August, has a different
idea of what sort of people the suite should be filled with. Tonight,
he's hosting a dinner for General Wesley Clark, the granite-faced,
soft-spoken Nato chief, who is leaving his post in April. .... Dressed
in a formal pin-striped suit, crisp white shirt, and red tie, Holbrooke
still manages to look comfortably rumpled – his unruly hair is the
secret to this effect – as he banters his way around the room. Introducing
Clark to billionaire financier George Soros and Canadian press lord
Conrad Black, Holbrooke teasingly calls the general, whose formal
title is supreme Allied commander for Europe, 'The Supreme'..."
"Holbrooke's
wife, the author Kati Marton, is equally adept at the art of the cocktail
party. Dressed in an elegant white pantsuit, she ushers guests into
the dining room, where four tables are set for a meal of crab cakes
and sautéed duck. Marton and Holbrooke, who have been giving twice-a-week
diplomatic dinners, have a carefully choreographed act. 'I give the
opening toast, which is unorthodox in the U.N. village,' she explains.
'Richard and I are making the point we're doing this together.'"
Ambassador A-List,
from the January 3, 2000 issue of New York Magazine.
As "journalist
protector," Kati Marton lobbied for the Soros-funded B92 radio
in Belgrade, which played a central role in the opposition under Milosevic,
at least until his last year in power. The campaign for B92 is illustrative
of the symbiotic relationship of interventionist lobbies and interventionist
governments. Marton was lobbying to protect an "independent"
radio station which was already part-funded by the US government (National
Endowment for Democracy). Partly as a result, it got even more western
funding.
Immediately after the station was banned, Ivor Roberts, the British
ambassador, showed his support by visiting its offices on the fifth
floor of a run-down socialist-style building in downtown Belgrade.
Carl Bildt, then the international High Representative in charge of
the civilian side of the Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia, the US
State Department, and Kati Marton of the Committee to Protect Journalists
also made protests on behalf of the station.
Internet
technology and international pressure proved to be effective weapons
against Milosevic. After two days he withdrew his edict forbidding
B-92 to broadcast. It seems likely that he was convinced that lifting
the ban would win Western praise and deflect international attention
from his electoral fraud. Immediately afterward, B-92 was able –
through funds provided equally by the BBC, the British Foreign Office,
USAID, the European Union, and George Soros's Open Society Foundation
– to gain access to a satellite that linked twenty-eight independent
local radio stations, covering 70 percent of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia, which is now made up of Serbia and Montenegro.
1997 article from the New York Review of Books
A detail:
Kati Marton was also a member of the Honorary Committee of the Civil Society Vision Award
Dinner – Tribute to Madeleine K. Albright by the American Friends
of the Czech Republic. No, I don't invent these committees. In fact,
they are part of a tradition of immigrant politics in the United States,
where exile communities lobby for the "liberation" of their
homeland, by US intervention. George Soros himself is the personification
of this style of politics. In this case, the "liberation"
of former Czechoslovakia has been achieved, so it is a form of victory
celebration.
And an
ironical note: Kati Marton spoke at a panel, funded by George Soros'
OSI, on What
Drives US Foreign Policy?. One answer is of course: George Soros.
And in a more general sense, people like Kati Marton, and organisations
like HRW.
- Prema
Mathai-Davis
-
The
token non-westerner, an Indian immigrant. She is, however, also
CEO of the YWCA (Young Womens Christian Association), which is as
American as can be.
- Jack Matlock
-
Is no
longer on the committee. US Ambassador to the Soviet Union during
its collapse, 1987-1991. Author of Autopsy On An Empire: The
American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union
(Random House, 1995).
Member
of the large Board of Directors
of the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is more than a pro-NATO
fan club: it supports an expansionist US foreign policy in general.
Note their recent paper (in pdf format) Beyond
Kosovo, a redesign of the Balkans within the framework of the
proposed Stability Pact.
The Atlantic
Council list of sponsors
is a delight for corporate-conspiracy theorists. Yes, it is
all paid for by the Rockefeller foundation, the Soros foundation,
the Nuclear Energy Institute, Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, Exxon, British
Nuclear Fuels, the US Army and the European Union.
Conspiracy
theorists will also be delighted to see that Matlock attended the
1996 Bilderberg Conference.
- Herbert Okun
- Career
diplomat, former Special Advisor on Yugoslavia to Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance, Deputy Co-Chairman of the International Conference on
the former Yugoslavia. Member of the Board of the Lawyers Alliance
for World Security (LAWS) and its affiliate the Committee for National
Security (CNS) which gives this biography:
Ambassador
Herbert Okun is the U.S. member and Vice-President of the International
Narcotics Control Board, and Visiting Lecturer on International Law
at Yale Law School. Previously, he was the Deputy Chairman on the
U.S. delegation at the SALT II negotiations and led the U.S. delegation
in the trilateral U.S.-U.K.-USSR Talks on the CTBT. From 1991 to 1993
Ambassador Okun was Special Advisor on Yugoslavia to Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance, Personal Envoy of the U.N. Secretary General, and
Deputy Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia.
He also served as Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States
to the UN from 1985 to 1989 serving on the General Assembly, the Disarmament
Committee and the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Amb.
Okun was also U.S. Ambassador to the former German Democratic Republic.
He was
from 1990-97 Executive Director of the Financial Services Volunteer
Corps, "a non-profit organization providing voluntary assistance to
help establish free-market financial systems in former communist countries,"
see his biography
at International Security Studies at Yale University, where he is
also a board member. This Corps is a de facto agency of USAID, see
how it is listed country-by-country in their report. Although
it is not relevant to Human Rights Watch, this curriculum vitae
gives a good impression of the kind of international elite created
by such programs.
Okun is
also a member emeritus of the board of the European Institute
in Washington, an Atlanticist lobby. It organises the European-American
Policy Forum, the European-American Congressional Forum, and the Transatlantic
Joint Security Policies Project. Okun is a special advisor to the
Carnegie Commission on Preventing
Deadly Conflict funded by the Carnegie Corporation. (It links
pro-western international elite figures advocating a formal structure
for control of states by the "international community.")
Okun was
a member of a Task Force (including Bianca Jagger and George Soros)
on war criminals: see their report.
Although it also demands "UN Sanctions Against States Harboring Indicted
War Criminals" it is unlikely that the Task Force members meant the
man quoted at the start of their report, President Clinton.
A curiosity:
this human rights supporter is accused of an attempt to destroy the
right to free speech, in his post at the International
Narcotics Control Board: see A Duty to Censor: U.N.
Officials Want to Crack Down on Drug War Protesters in the libertarian
Reason Magazine.
- Jane
Olson
- A member
of the Executive Committee of HRW Southern California, and until 2000
its co-chair, see this biography. One of the
few who are simply human rights activists, although her views are
clearly 100% acceptable to the US Government. She was appointed a
member of the U.S. delegation to the 1991 Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Moscow. The biography vaguely notes
that she "...served on many delegations to the former USSR and Yugoslavia."
Again
note, that US citizens consider it normal to travel to Europe, to
decide on Europe's "Security and Cooperation." However,
there is absolutely no equivalent "Conference on North American Security
and Cooperation," where Europeans arrive, to tell Americans what to
do.
Olson
is also a member of the Board of the Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation, one of many small globalist groups, advocating
peace and some vague form of world government. So long as they just
sell sunflower
seeds at $2.50 a packet they are harmless, but as a HRW Board
member Olson also lobbies for US military intervention – a less innocent
way to achieve "peace."
- Barnett Rubin
- Academic
and Soros-institutes advisor. Director of the "Center for Preventive
Action" at the Council on Foreign Relations. The center is funded
by the US Government through USIP, and by the Carnegie Corporation
as part of their program Preventing Deadly Conflict. "Preventive
Action" means intervention.
He is
a member of the center's South Balkans Working Group, and edited a
1996 Council on Foreign Relations study Towards Comprehensive Peace
in Southeast Europe: Conflict Prevention in the South Balkans.
Rubin is an Afghanistan specialist, also on the Board of the Asia
division of HRW. He authored and edited several works on Afghanistan.
Rubin apparently has a curious attitude to the Taliban, seeing them
as a bulwark against Islamic radicalism . See this letter to
NPR, entitled Afghanistan Whitewash.
While
the Lyden-Rubin conversation made no mention of US support for the
Taliban, they referred several times to US "pressure" on the Taliban
to now respect human rights. This is a total white wash which distorts
the historical record beyond recognition.
Rubin
is on the Advisory Board of the Soros Foundation Central
Eurasia Project. He is an advisor of the Forced Migration
Project of Soros' Open Society Institute, and he is also on the
Board of the Soros Humanitarian Fund for Tajikistan. Perhaps most
interesting is that the U.S. Institute of Peace (a de facto government
agency) gave him a grant to research "formation of a new state system
in Central Eurasia."
Barnett
Rubin articles on Central Asia
This may
be repetitive, but note once again that there are absolutely no Foundations
or Institutes in Central Asia, which pay people to design "new state
systems" in North America. For people like Rubin "human rights" mean
simply that the US designs the world: at the same time, the US might
accept the Taliban, if it was a strategic interest. See this article
at the Soros Central Asia site, The Political
Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan, advocating a de facto
colonial government in Afghanistan financed by oil revenues.
Rubin
is also a member of the US State Department Advisory
Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. The Final Report of this
Committee also sums up what the United States can do, when it finds
religious freedom has been infringed. The list begins at "friendly,
persuasive: open an embassy" and ends with "act of war."
Rubin
was also involved in the 1997 New York meeting, where the United States
attempted to create a unified Yugoslav opposition, with among others
Vuk Draskovic. (The effort failed at the time, and ever since.)
- Leon
Sigal
- NOTE:
I can find no website matching this info on "Leon Sigal" to HRW. I
assume it is the same person, although I do not understand why an
expert on Asian issues is on the board for the European division of
HRW.
Consultant
to the Social Science Research Council, member of the Board of
Advisors at Globalbeat Syndicate, part of the New York University Dept
of Journalism. See their article on Lessons
From The War In Kosovo.
From Globalbeat:
"He
is a former member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times,
where he wrote frequently on nuclear issues, and is the author of
many books and articles on both international security and media issues."
Sigal
authored Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea
(Princeton University Press 1998). He is a Project member of the Committee on Nuclear Policy.
- Malcolm Smith
-
No online
information available.
- George
Soros
-
From
the Public Affairs site, the biography
of George Soros, financier of HRW and of numerous organisations
in eastern Europe with pro-American, pro-market policies.
George
Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. In 1947 he emigrated
to England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics.
While a student in London, Mr. Soros became familiar with the work
of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his
thinking and later on his philanthropic activities. In 1956 he moved
to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune
through an international investment fund he founded and managed.
Mr. Soros currently serves as chairman of Soros Fund Management L.L.C.,
a private investment management firm that serves as principal investment
advisor to the Quantum Group of Funds. The Quantum Fund N.V., the
oldest and largest fund within the Quantum Group, is generally recognized
as having the best performance record of any investment fund in the
world in its twenty-nine-year history.
Mr. Soros established his first foundation, the Open Society Fund,
in New York in 1979 and his first Eastern European foundation in Hungary
in 1984. He now funds a network of foundations that operate in thirty-one
countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet
Union, as well as southern Africa, Haiti, Guatemala, Mongolia and
the United States. These foundations are dedicated to building and
maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society.
Mr. Soros has also founded other major institutions, such as the Central
European University and the International Science Foundation. In 1994,
the foundations in the network spent a total of approximately $300
million; in 1995, $350 million; in 1996, $362 million; and in 1997,
$428 million. Giving for 1998 is expected to be maintained at that
level.
In addition to many articles on the political and economic changes
in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Mr. Soros is the author
of The Alchemy of Finance, Opening the Soviet System,
Underwriting Democracy, and Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead
of the Curve.
Mr. Soros has received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School
for Social Research, the University of Oxford, the Budapest University
of Economics, and Yale University. In 1995, the University of Bologna
awarded Mr. Soros its highest honor, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in
recognition of his efforts to promote open societies throughout the
world.
- Donald
J. Sutherland
-
Not
the actor. Also on the advisory board of
the World Policy Institute.
- Ruti
Teitel
-
Professor
of Constitutional Law at the New York Law School, see his biography. In the last
few years he has specialised in the Constitutions of eastern European
countries, and advised on the new Ukrainian constitution.
- William D. Zabel
-
George
Soros' legal advisor, on foundation and charity law. An estate and
family financial lawyer for the rich at Schulte, Roth, and Zabel.
His biography lists his involvement with these Soros Foundations:
"Newly Independent States and the Baltic Republics, Hungary, Romania,
Bulgaria and Central European University and Open Society Fund."
See this biographical article originally from the National Law Journal:
"When fate knocks, rich ring
for Zabel."
He is
a trustee of Fanton's New School of Social Research, and member of
the Advisory Board of the World Policy Institute at the New School.
Zabel
is a director of the Lawyers Committee for
Human Rights. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights is one of
the partners in the "Apparel Industry Partnership," a group set up
by the Clinton administration and the US clothing and footwear industries
to defuse criticism of conditions in their factories. The (not particularly
radical) US trade union federation refuses to co-operate with it.
Zabel
is also on the Board of Doctors
of the World, the USA branch of Médecins du Monde, founded by Bernard
Kouchner in 1980. Kouchner is now the UN Representative (the "governor")
in Kosovo. Despite the name, Médecins du Monde is a purely western
organisation, see the affiliate list.
- Warren
Zimmermann
- US Ambassador
to Yugoslavia during its break-up, author of Origins
of Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and Its Destroyers. A Cold-War
career diplomat, long active in US human rights campaigns against
eastern Europe. See this site for an extreme pro-Bosniac
assessment of his book by Branka Magas, alleging he appeased Milosevic:
"In the event, by pursuing Yugoslavia's unity rather than supporting
Slovenia and Croatia in their demands for either the country's confederal
transformation or its peaceful dissolution, the United States helped
ensure its violent break-up." (I think it is logically consistent
with US values and interests, that the US supported one policy around
1990 and another in Kosovo. The real problem is that so many people
in Europe expect the US to design their states and write their Constitutions.
It is because of this attitude, that people like Zimmermann, and organisations
like HRW, can flourish.) Zimmermann
is now a professor of Diplomacy at Columbia University. If you think
the "amoral diplomat" is a stereotype, look at his Contemporary
Diplomacy course. This is his assignment for the young future
diplomats:
Imagine
that you are a member of Secretary Albright's Policy Planning Staff.
She has asked you to write a strategy paper for one of the following
diplomatic challenges:
- Dealing
with NATO expansion and with the countries affected;
- Crafting a more energetic and assertive US approach to the Israeli-PLO
deadlock;
- Raising
the American profile in sub-Saharan Africa;
- Developing a US initiative to improve relations with Cuba;
- Forging
an American approach to Central Asia and its energy wealth;
- Making
better use of the UN and other multilateral organizations like OSCE;
- Weighing the relative priorities between pursuing human rights
and keeping
open lucrative economic opportunities;
- Increasing interest in, and support for, US foreign policy among
the American people.
With Barnett
Rubin, Zimmermann is a member of the Advisory Board of the Forced
Migration Project at Soros Open Society Institute.
With Felice
Gaer, Zimmermann is also on the Board of the
quasi-commercial International Dispute Resolution Associates. (Peacemaking
has become big business, but IDR is also funded by the US Government
through the USIP.)
He is
a Trustee of the Carnegie Council
on Ethics and International Affairs.
Also new on the Committee (from the 2001 list) are:
- Fredrica
Friedman
- Karl
Meyer
- Joel
Motley
- Colette
Shulman
- Adele
Sweet
- Mark
Walton
HRW Council
The Human Rights Watch
"Council" is primarily a fund-raising group. However, its members
no doubt expect some influence on HRW policy, for their $5 000 minimum
donation. The Council describes itself
as "...an international membership organization that seeks to increase
awareness of human rights issues and support for Human Rights Watch."
The
interesting thing about the Council is that it shows how much HRW is not
international. It is Anglo-American, to the point of caricature. The Council
is sub-divided onto four "regional committees." You might expect
a division by continents (the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia-Pacific).
But instead the "regions" of the HRW global community are New
York, Northern California, Southern California, and London. There is also
a "Committee At-Large" but it does not appear to organise any
activities. The Council members are not publicly listed, but its regional limitations
are clear. Although Human Rights Watch claims to act in the name of universal
values, it is an organisation with a narrow social and geographical base.
If HRW Council members were truly concerned about the welfare of Africans,
Tibetans or eastern Europeans, then they would at least offer them an
equal chance to influence the organisation. Instead, geographical location
and the high cost restrict Council Membership to the US and British upper-middle-class.
HRW Donors
Taken from an older
version of the HRW website, this 1995 list is apparently the latest available
online. HRW is not legally obliged to disclose who donates money. About
half of its funds come from foundations, and half from individual donors.
In its latest financial statement,
HRW claims that it "accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly."
However, that is not true with respect to the 1995 list. The Dutch Novib
is a government-funded aid organisation. Oxfam also gets funds from the
British government, and the European Union, see their annual report.
Possibly they are still contributing, but Human Rights Watch is apparently
not prepared to disclose present sources of funding.
- DONORS
OF $100,000 OR MORE
-
Dorothy and Lewis Cullman
The Aaron Diamond Foundation
Irene Diamond
The Ford Foundation
The Lillian Hellman & Dashiell Hammett Fund
Estate of Anne Johnson
The J. M. Kaplan Fund
The Fanny and Leo Koerner Charitable Trust
The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The John Merck Fund
The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation
Novib, The Dutch Organization for Development Corporation,
The Overbrook Foundation
Oxfam
Donald Pels
The Ruben and Elisabeth Rausing Trust
The Rockefeller Foundation
Marion and Herbert Sandler, The Sandler Family Supporting Foundation
Susan and George Soros
Shelby White and Leon Levy
- DONORS
OF $25,000 – $99,999
-
The
Arca Foundation
Helen and Robert Bernstein
Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
Nikki and David Brown
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Compton Foundation, Inc.
Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Davis
The Dr. Seuss Foundation
Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller
Jack Edelman
Epstein Philanthropies
Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L'Homme
Barbara Finberg
General Service Foundation
Abby Gilmore and Arthur Freierman
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
Katherine Graham, The Washington Post Company
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
Hudson News
Independence Foundation
The Isenberg Family Charitable Trust
The Henry M. Jackson Foundation
Robert and Ardis James
Jesuit Refugee Service
Nancy and Jerome Kohlberg
Lyn and Norman Lear
Joshua Mailman
Medico International
Moriah Fund, Inc.
Ruth Mott Fund
Kathleen Peratis and Richard Frank
Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation
Ploughshares Fund
Public Welfare Foundation, Inc.
Anita and Gordon Roddick
Edna and Richard Salomon
Lorraine and Sid Sheinberg
Margaret R. Spanel
Time Warner Inc.
U.S. Jesuit Conference
Warner Brothers, Inc.
Edie and Lew Wasserman
Maureen White and Steven Rattner
Malcolm Wiener and Carolyn Seely Wiener
The Winston Foundation for World Peace
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