Jack Donnelly is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. His most recent book is Realism and International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
The Politics of Human Rights in East Asia
by kenneth christie and denny roy
London, Pluto Press, 2001. 320 pages
Hardback: UK £50.00, US $69.95. Paperback: UK £16.99, US $22.00
In The Politics of Human Rights in East Asia, Kenneth Christie and Denny Roy survey the current state of human rights in eight South-East Asian states (Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Cambodia) plus China, Japan and the two Koreas.
An introductory chapter sets these country studies within the context of the “Asian values” debate of the 1990s, in which various Asian governments argued that the notion of individual human rights—so treasured by the West—is fundamentally at odds with traditional Asian norms such as social cohesion and security. Consideration is also given to the political economy of the region, both before and after the 1997 financial crisis. Another useful and distinctive feature is that fact that most chapters include a discussion of the place of human rights in the diplomatic relations between the country under consideration and the West.
The book should appeal to those looking for a readable, informed overview of human rights conditions in the region. Christie and Roy pull together a considerable amount of material, especially in the chapters on South-East Asia, and they strive with some success to be fair, yet to focus on current problems. They are sceptical about, and fundamentally critical of, the pretensions and evasions of rights-abusive elites.
Nonetheless, I found the book disappointing in many ways. The volume is fragmented. There is no conclusion, or even a conclusion to each of the parts, and very little comparative analysis. Christie and Roy rightly emphasise diversity within the region, which the more or less free-standing individual country studies indirectly document. Most opportunities for comparison and synthesis, however, are ignored, making the book less useful (and less interesting) than it might have been.
In addition, the two parts—Christie wrote the chapters on South-East Asia, Roy those on North-East Asia—are like two separate sets of essays arbitrarily stitched together in the middle. Although some differences in style, and perhaps even focus, are to be expected (and accepted) in a jointly authored work, here they are too extensive. Most notably, Christie’s careful attention to political economy is not really followed through in Roy’s chapters, which are also much less well documented. The two parts even look different, each using a different style from the other for its section headings.
The volume is also marked by an odd ambivalence towards economic and social rights. Christie and Roy rightly note the centrality of such rights in regional human rights debates. But then Christie largely ignores them in his chapters. Only in the discussion of Vietnam is there a section devoted to economic and social rights. And even there, freedom of the press and freedom of religion each receive the same amount of space. Each of Roy’s chapters devotes a section to economic and social rights, although the section in the China chapter is oddly entitled “Socioeconomic Issues”.
This is at best substantively unfair, considering that many regimes in the region claim to have given special priority to economic and social rights. How well have these regimes performed in the areas where they have focused their greatest efforts? We simply do not know from reading this volume. Furthermore, the book’s disproportionate emphasis on civil and political rights is inconsistent with the widely proclaimed interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights. It is also likely to reinforce the unfortunate stereotype of Westerners being concerned only with civil and political rights, to the exclusion of economic and social rights—something that is true of at most one Western country (the United States).
These criticisms, though, are largely matters of lost opportunities and missing elements. The book is full of interesting and informative material on contemporary human rights conditions. The discussions seem basically sound, although devoting only fifteen pages to China is entirely inadequate, especially when the Koreas receive twenty-five pages. The introductory chapter also deserves praise as a valuable and wide-ranging overview of the Asian values debate from a fundamentally critical, post-financial crisis perspective. The Politics of Human Rights in East Asia will be much appreciated by non-specialist readers looking for reliable, up-to-date surveys of human rights conditions in these twelve countries.
