Amnesty International

Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization with the stated purpose of promoting all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards. In particular, Amnesty International campaigns to free all prisoners of conscience; to ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners; to abolish the death penalty, torture, and other treatment of prisoners it regards as cruel; to end political killings and forced disappearances; and to oppose all human rights abuses, whether by governments or by other groups.

Criticism and rebuttal

Criticism of Amnesty International may be classified into two major categories, accusations of selection bias and ideological bias. In addition, many governments, including those of the Democratic Republic of the Congohttp://www.namibian.com.na/Netstories/2000/January/Africa/aggression.html, Chinahttp://www.uscpf.org/news/2001/02/021601.htm, the Talibanhttp://www.indiapolicy.org/lists/india_policy/2001/Feb/msg00069.html, Vietnamhttp://www.thienlybuutoa.org/Misc/cream_of_the_diplomatic_crop.htm, Russiahttp://www.hrvc.net/news8-03/updates8-03.htmand the United States of America have attacked it for alleged bias, one-sided reporting, or failure to take security threats as a mitigating factor.

Related Topics:
Selection bias - Democratic Republic of the Congo - China - Taliban - Vietnam - Russia - United States of America

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The majority of these criticisms are from governments (or supporters of a government) pleading mitigation for admitted infringements of human rights, either because of special circumstances (such as security threats) or because other countries' records are worse.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Selection Bias

It is widely accepted that there are a disproportionate number of AI reports on relatively more democratic and open countries. This is the major source of the charge of "selection bias", with critics pointing to a disproportionate focus on allegations of human rights violations in for example Israel, when compared with North Korea or Cambodia. The term "selection bias" is however potentially misleading, since it derives from statistics, and AI's intention is not to produce a range of reports which statistically represents the world's human rights abuses. Instead, its aim is (a) to document what it can, in order to (b) produce pressure for improvement. These two factors skew the number of reports towards more open and democratic countries, because information is more easily obtainable, and because their governments are more susceptible to public pressure.

Related Topics:
Israel - North Korea - Cambodia

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A tendency to over-report allegations of human rights abuse in nations that are comparatively lesser violators of human rights has been called "Moynihan's Law," after the late U.S. Senator and former Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who is said to have stated that at the United Nations, the number of complaints about a nation's violation of human rights is inversely proportional to their actual violation of human rights.

Related Topics:
Moynihan's Law - U.S. Senator - Ambassador to the United Nations - Daniel Patrick Moynihan - United Nations

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Examples

One example is the allegation of NGO Monitor, a publication of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which noted that between September 2000 until the beginning of 2003, when AI became active in the crisis in Darfur, AI issued 52 reports on the human rights abuses against Christians and animists in southern Sudan, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives through starvation and ethnic violence, as well as creating 1.2 million refugees (according to the World Health Organization), while AI concurrently issued 192 reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v2n12/NGOsAndSudan.htm (These numbers refer in fact to the total number of documents including press releases, not to reports alone.) As the NGO Monitor report points out, after the start of the Darfur crisis, AI became much more involved in Sudan. The total number of documents from the beginning of 1996 to March 2005 is 315 for Sudan and 398 for Israel. AI defenders respond by asserting that all nations should aspire to absolute respect for human rights, and that the difficulties associated with monitoring 'closed' countries should not mean that 'open' countries should receive less scrutiny.

Related Topics:
NGO Monitor - Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - 2000 - 2003 - Darfur - Sudan - World Health Organization - Israeli-Palestinian conflict

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ideological bias

Amnesty International has been criticized for having an ideological bias both from the right wing and from the left.

Related Topics:
Right wing - Left

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Criticism from some parts of the left includes the view that the very idea of Human Rights is based on individualism, capitalism, colonialism, and classical liberalism (as meant by John Locke, J.S. Mill, et al.), and takes the view that cultural relativism means that the Human Rights are not in fact universal.

Related Topics:
Individualism - Capitalism - Colonialism - Classical liberalism - John Locke - J.S. Mill - Cultural relativism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Conservative commentators have alleged that AI's reporting reflects ideological bias toward a left-wing political viewpoint in opposition to the foreign policy of the United States. To support this they point to AI's treatment of the human rights implications of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Critics of AI have suggested that AI's concern for the human rights implications of this war disproportionately criticize the effects of U.S. military action while in comparison they were less vociferous about the abuses of the Hussein regime and the human rights implications of the continued rule of this government. Examples of this criticism can be found in the links below. Supporters of AI have pointed out that AI was critical of Hussein's regime while Donald Rumsfeld was shaking the dictator by the hand, and that when the White House later released reports on the human rights record of Hussein, they depended almost entirely on AI documents that the US had ignored when Iraq was a US ally in the 1980s.

Related Topics:
Left-wing - United States - Iraq - Hussein - Donald Rumsfeld - White House

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~