Human Rights or Rights of Humanity?

I guess it will be an interesting discussion – April 8th I will address the

International Conference on The Communist Party of China and the Progress on Human Rights in China

It is hosted by the China Society for Human Rights Studies, and organised by Jilin University Human Rights Center, Jilin University School of Law, and Center for Jurisprudence Research. My address is titled

Planes, not Stages: A Reply to Karel Vasak’s Classification as Useful Answer to Critiques of China’s HR-Politics

After working on it,  I came across the following chart, published in the update I received from the economist (April 1st, what a day for this …🤔)

Now, this seems to be far fetched, not connected. But let’s think about it a bit further – yes, taking a broad brush, though enough for now.

* The Global North “solving” its problem of environmental stress by externalising pollution from the cities and industrial centres to power stations in less populated areas (yes, the production of energy still is somewhat dirty, even if the pollution in the cities is lower when people use their “clean” e-SUV in the city)

* these e-SUVs or whatever e-engines depend on batteries – and there we arrive at the chart – part of it:

The mining companies pump up 63,113,852,000 liters of brine per year. In terms of quantities, this corresponds to the annual water consumption of 1.6 million Danish households – though the brine is too saline for human consumption.

There are more interesting facts to be found here ; see also here.

* As said, we arrive at part of the chart. Another part has to ask why the cost has fallen. Now, I won’t do the maths but I may ask a question: why are the the poor countries becoming poorer and poorer? Because people are lazy, sitting in the sun? Why is the gap between rich and poor people in the Global South getting larger all the time? Because the soil belongs to everybody and everybody super exploits it is proposed under the title “the tragedy of the commons”? (see for a presentation and some of the critique: Banyan, Margaret E.. “Tragedy of the commons”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 May. 2020).

Well, there is good reason for what had been said: the most serious historical criminal act had been the enclosure of land, i.e. the establishment of private property of the initial “means of production”, Fencing off, the establishment of private property and with this the prioritisation of individual rights brings us back to the question of the presentation: are human rights really first and foremost about individual freedom etc.? Or shouldn’t we first look at the right of societies to prosper in their own terms instead of continued enslavement?