Chapter 4 The Case of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights
4.2 Global Interaction
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the future. But, as mentioned before, international interaction has also been an integral part of TAHR’s operations starting in the 2000s.
4.2 Global Interaction
While the Taiwan Association of Human Rights initially focused on defending human rights throughout Taiwan’s democratization process, it began in the 2000s to engage in substantial international interaction. According to E-ling Chiu, TAHR’s secretary general who I interviewed at her office at TAHR’s Taipei headquarters on April 25, 2019 for this thesis, a breakthrough for TAHR’s international operations came when members of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) visited Taiwan to meet with TAHR representatives. While here, FIDH representatives accompanied TAHR representatives on tours of prisons and discussed abolishing the death penalty. FIDH is an international federation of human rights NGOs. According to its website, it is “an international human rights NGO federating 184 organizations from 112 countries. Since 1922, FIDH has been defending all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (FIDH, The Worldwide Human Rights Movement).
In 2009, TAHR became an official FIDH member. TAHR is now one of 184 NGOs that constitute FIDH’s member organizations. According to FIDH, member organizations make up a core pillar in its three-pillar structure, as visualized on its website (FIDH, Our Organization).
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Figure 4.1 Three Pillars of FIDH Source: FIDH
On a webpage, FIDH explains that its operations revolve around its global partner organizations by combining their local know-how and cultural understanding with the FIDH headquarters’ expertise in international law to take action on human rights abuses and encourage good governance (FIDH, Interaction: Local Presence - Global Action). In becoming a member of FIDH, TAHR became part of a global human rights movement in a more real and direct way.
This partnership will manifest itself in a high-profile way in October 2019, when FIDH will hold a Congress in Taipei. FIDH Congresses take place once every three years, and involve hundreds of participants from NGO partners in dozens of countries.
At these meetings, important matters like leadership succession and admittance of new NGO members are deliberated. In a press release from FIDH after the 39th Congress, it announced the leadership accession of new FIDH president Dimitris Christopoulos, mentioned that delegates from its 178 member organizations from 120 countries
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attended, and outlined areas the alliance will give particular attention to in the coming years (FIDH 2016).
In an email from TAHR and FIDH to the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents Club inviting journalists to cover a press conference about the upcoming Congress, TAHR and FIDH pitched the importance of the event:
For the first time in its nearly 100-year history, FIDH will hold its Congress in Asia. At the invitation TAHR, the Congress will take place in Taipei, Taiwan. From 21 to 25 October 2019, Taipei will become the human rights capital of the world, hosting around 400 human rights defenders from more than 100 countries.
The FIDH movement, Taiwanese civil society, international experts, local authorities, and foreign guests will gather to discuss the mounting threats to the universality of human rights and the possible strategies and responses to such challenges. (TAHR and FIDH 2019)
Holding FIDH’s 40th Congress in Taipei will put center stage global concerns about China’s rise and its determination to bowdlerize human rights discourse around the world. It will also reinforce Taiwan’s status as a safe haven for civil society activity in Asia, and consequently reinforce Taiwan’s status as a society quite different than that of mainland China, where a symposium like this would be out of the question due to China’s repressive human rights record and iron-fisted approach to preventing meetings of civil groups, especially those which meet to discuss ideas pertaining to liberal values the Chinese Communist Party deems troublesome Western ideology that could destabilize China.
In holding the Congress in Taipei, FIDH is giving Taiwan the limelight, and also drawing the world’s attention to the dire situation for human rights practitioners in China.
The decision by FIDH is likely a sign that, in the minds of many in the global human
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enjoyed a period of expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but which now seem to be in retreat in the face of rising authoritarian countries like China, belligerent authoritarian countries like Russia, vulnerabilities in voting processes to hacking, and the rise of right-wing leaders with authoritarian tendencies in democracies like Turkey, the U.S., the Philippines, Brazil, and Hungary.
Taiwanese citizens at TAHR will play a central role in organizing the event and determining discussion topics for the meeting’s agenda, according to Chiu. When I interviewed her, she did not divulge specific panel topics, but she said China and Russia will feature largely in the itinerary, as well as issues like LGBT rights, the death penalty, and migrant rights. When I visited TAHR’s office, a FIDH representative was temporarily working there to assist in planning and logistics preparation for the event.
Playing such a fundamental role in FIDH’s international Congress will likely provide ample opportunity for Taiwanese citizens at TAHR to play a big role in shaping upcoming global human rights discourse. It also seems likely that the Congress’s proceedings will boost Taiwan’s soft power while undermining China’s ethical standing.
But because this Congress is now still in the preliminary planning stages, I will not focus too much attention on it in this thesis.
In addition to its connection with FIDH, TAHR has worked with Forum Asia (Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development), a human rights NGO headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand, as well as the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), which describes itself as, “an open and growing network consisting of more than 340 civil society organizations and individuals from 28 countries committed to advancing the rights of refugees in the Asia Pacific region” (APRRN, Who We Are).
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In addition to working with these specific organizations, TAHR periodically joins coalitions of NGOs to make joint statements in areas of common interest. This will be discussed in detail in the next section.