Dear Claire, this article is all over the place. Some horrific examples of HR abuses worldwide, the identification of some guilty parties to various degrees, the existing mechanism for dealing with violations, the body responsible for action and their failures to take action.

So what’s new? Where is this going? What do you recommend?

This is full of squishy platitudes about commitment, failures of government, legal rights, accountability, whilst you rightly also point to political power plays being inhibitors to progress. The UN is a political body, what do you expect?

The UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council are the responsible body and our government is represented like many others. In all this wishy washy “Egyptian Wave” stuff, where is the direct action that needs to be taken with those charged with the responsibility? More importantly, since Amnesty International has assumed a role in all this, what and when are you going to do something about it?

Surely, if AI has positioned itself to have influence in these matters, with the help of public funds, when is AI going to accept its responsibility to actually doing something with the funds we provide and act where it counts, at the UN?

Stop bleating and finger pointing and do something.

Yes, later this year there will be an "opportunity for world leaders to move from promises to legally enforceable commitments."

The author is right, and the message must be spread - despite the fact that there will always be some wanting to 'kill' the messenger, to spread negativity, and to point fingers - without providing any constructive support whatsoever.

The recalcitrant kill-joys, whingers and stick-in-the-muds don't understand what doing things in a "legally enforceable" way means.

It will be this same recalcitrance that could scuttle the whole process - a malaise that appears to be symptomatic of our 'enlightened and cultured' society today, not.

Amnesty International has lost all credibility since it became an abortion advocate.

The three most useless things on earth, Amnesty International, the United Nations, & t1ts on a bull.

Two give the world useless talk fests, & the last nothing at all. I think that makes the last less useless, doesn't it?

qanda, just read your post, again and again and again and yes, again. I could not make any sense out of it so yes, I read it again. What utter “gobbledygook”.

Do you have an automatic “phrase generator? You may need to get checked for a virus.

OH! And get your computer checked whilst you’re at it.

Spindoc - the article is obviously a 'teaser' intended to publicise the release of the 'Amnesty International Report 2010: State of the World’s Human Rights' to which it links.

<< if AI has positioned itself to have influence in these matters, with the help of public funds, when is AI going to accept its responsibility to actually doing something with the funds we provide and act where it counts, at the UN? >>

Amnesty International receives no funding from any governments, and exists primarily on donations, subscriptions and bequests from its members and supporters. When did you last donate?

In producing such reports as the 'Amnesty International Report 2010: State of the World’s Human Rights', AI is doing exactly what it was formed to do, which is to draw attention to human rights abuses where they exist throughout the world.

I'm intrigued as to why so many from the far Right find their activities so threatening. Maybe it's because they're doing their job.

CJ, when I said public funds, I meant just that, not government funds.

When did I last donate? Feb, 1997, when I left West Africa, prior to which I donated on a regular basis.

That AI’s job is to “highlight human rights abuses throughout the world”. This is a futile, counterproductive, ineffective pursuit that has been hijacked and neutered. It is time they did some real work and produced “results” instead of producing more “reports”. As I saw in West Africa, they are useless. I stopped donating when I realised how useless and ineffective they had become.

And your point about the “far right” and “AI doing their job” is what precisely?

Oh, so by "public" you meant Amnesty's members and supporters. Thanks for clearing that up, since when most commentators talk about "public funds", they're talking about taxpayers' money.

No wonder you call yourself spindoc.

Those of us who voluntarily support Amnesty International's work are quite happy with their performance, otherwise we wouldn't give them our money. Besides gathering information, publicising human rights abuses and pressuring governments via public campaigns, what do you expect them to do?

They're obviously having some effect, since the lunar Right seems quite threatened by them.

spindoc

Going by your statements in this thread (and others), I doubt very much you understand the role and contribution of an NGO in the UN process. I doubt even more your understanding of the MDG's.

Therefore, I'm not surprised you don't understand that there are certain things that can be done, and certain things that cannot be done - all with the caveat of "legal enforceability".

As to your virus jibes ... that just demonstrates to me (and probably others) that you are an example of the malaise that appears to be symptomatic of our not so enlightened and cultured society.

One thing is sure - people with ardent negativity, people that continuously snipe from the sidelines, and people that cannot provide constructive input to the issues at hand - will curtail (if not derail) any meaningful progress that Amnesty International (and others) and the UN are trying to achieve.

I am not surprised that you show all these characteristics.