(2004) 8 SYBIL 41–91 © 2004 Singapore Year Book of International Law and Contributors “PRAGMATISM AND REALISM DO NOT MEAN ABDICATION” 1 : A CRITICAL AND EMPIRICAL INQUIRY INTO SINGAPORE’S ENGAGEMENT WITH INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW by THIO LI-ANN * Singapore acceded to three United Nations (UN) human rights treaties in 1995 on women’s rights, children’s rights and the genocide convention. It recently commenced engaging with the treaty-monitoring bodies through state reports. Drawing upon state practice, this article examines Singapore’s human rights practice and its “pragmatic realist” approach, this being an instructive case study in demonstrating how “rights” play out within a “communitarian” society which valorises collective interests and favours consensus and a “responsibilities” dis- course over adversarial rights language. It addresses themes central to understanding Singapore human rights practice in terms of substantive content, dominant rights theory, interpreta- tive and enforcement approaches, including interactions with UN human rights institutions and non-government bodies. It contends that human rights policy is ultimately informed by state objectives prioritising economic growth, development and social order, often justified by reference to culturally relativistic “Asian values”. I. INTRODUCTION The international law on human rights is not a value-neutral ideology; historically, it is rooted in revolt against the barbarism human governments are universally capable of. 2 Human rights law is committed to the vulnerable individual’s welfare, recognising, as pru- dential necessity dictates, that the state can both protect and abuse its people. It seeks, through international standards and external modes of accountability, to promote and protect human dignity, through the legal technique of “rights” or justiciable entitlements asserted against the modern state. It effectively removes a state’s treatment of individuals from the insulated province of “domestic jurisdiction” to that of international concern, conditioning state sovereignty not merely on effective control but legitimacy standards associated with a “civilised standard of governance.” 3 * B.A. (Hons) (Oxford); LL.M. (Harvard); Ph.D. (Cambridge); Barrister (G.I.); Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. This article draws from a conference paper presented at “Human Rights in Asia, France and the USA: A Comparative Empirical Study of Values, Institutions and Practices” hosted by Hong Kong University Centre for Comparative Public Law and City University, School of Law, 14 -15 May 2004. I thank Chen Huiyi Dian Melati for her research assistance. This article is fondly dedicated to the memory of Professor (Dr.) James W. Harris, Fellow & Tutor in Law, Keble College, Oxford, who passed away on 22 March 2004. Though our undergraduate jurisprudence classes did not discuss human rights, one of our last communications was about his recent theoretical human rights scholarship and lecture on “Human Rights and Mythical Beasts” (2004) 120 Law Q.Rev. 428. I would have liked to have conversed with him more on the subject, but that will have to wait: 1 Cor. 15:51-57. 1 Foreign Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng, “The Real World of Human Rights”, 16 Vienna 1993, Singapore Government Press Release No: (20/JUN, 09-1/93/06/16) reproduced in [1993] Sing.J.L.S. 605 at 607. [hereafter, “Vienna Statement”] 2 On human rights as a bulwark against the modern state’s incursion on civil liberties, see Adamantia Pollis, “Cultural Relativism Revisited: Through a State Prism” (1996) 18 Hum.Rts.Q. 316. 3 David Fidler, “The Return of the Standard of Civilisation” (2001) 2 Chicago J.Int’l L. 137.