Mary Robinson

A Challenge for Universities

A lecture at the Europaeum Conference on the Future of European Universities: New Partnerships: Opportunities and Risks, University of Bonn, Germany. 20-21 June 2003

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour to be here at the University of Bonn to take part in this, the third and final conference in a series organized by the Europaeum association to explore the future of European universities.

I should begin by confessing that I have a special personal interest in the subject you have been exploring in this series of events, as I’m a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and now serve as Chancellor of the University. Although not part of the Europaeum association, Dublin University is also deeply committed to the objective of evaluating its role in society at the start of a new century. So I look forward to bringing some of the insights presented here back to Trinity for closer examination!

Almost one year ago, when I received the invitation to address you from Dr. Paul Flather, Europaeum’s Secretary-General I was completing my term as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and just beginning to think through how I could bring my experience of the ‘doing’ of human rights to new actors and new challenges. I was convinced that if the divides in our world between North and South, rich and poor, religious and secular, us and them, were to be bridged, then we needed to give more emphasis to a values-led or ethical approach to national and international policy-making which would draw on the international human rights framework.

I also felt strongly that we needed to engage and involve a wider range of constituencies in the work of building bridges of understanding and shared responsibility. There is a clear case for involving universities in a very direct way. After all, the opening words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights describe it as “…a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms”. And yet, over fifty years later the majority of people in our grossly divided world are completely unaware of their rights and in no position to assert them. There is a gap: one which universities can help to fill. The new project I am currently developing – the Ethical Globalization Initiative – seeks to encourage innovative thinking on how to bridge such divides.

The theme of your conference - New Partnerships: Opportunities and Risks – recalls to mind some of the challenges we faced within the UN as we worked to develop, through the Secretary-General’s UN reform program, deeper engagement and partnership with the private sector and wider civil society to achieve the organization’s objectives. During my time as High Commissioner, I took a number of steps to develop new partnerships for human rights. I worked, for example, with the business sector to promote good corporate citizenship through the UN Global Compact and other initiatives, and I encouraged the World Bank to view the human rights framework as offering valuable tools for empowering grass roots groups to tackle poverty.

We were acutely aware of the potential risks involved in developing public-private partnerships, risks both to the integrity and independence of the United Nations and to the perception that such partnerships could be seen as shifting established responsibilities for implementing public goods from governments to non-governmental actors. But as I was leaving the United Nations last September, I felt that these risks could be managed. We had only begun to scratch the surface of where partnerships in support of human rights could be fostered with other “new actors”, such as academic institutions from all regions.

I would like today to reflect on the potential value of multi-stakeholder partnerships in addressing the complex challenges posed by the forces of globalization, forces which have left the majority of the world’s people feeling less secure and less able to control the decisions that impact directly on their lives.

I would also like to offer some thoughts on how universities might contribute to such partnerships, building on their own evolving responsibilities in a global age. For me, the single most important task of the university lies in teaching the skills which students need to be responsible citizens. But there is an added dimension which needs further exploration. To what degree and through what strategies and methods should institutions of higher education be involved in addressing the moral and ethical challenges of our day? Many universities are already doing a great deal and are actively working in collaboration with governments, international organizations and civil society to address problems at home and abroad. But I want to challenge the Europaeum association of universities to do even more in helping to define the role of universities in seeking to make globalization a positive force in the lives of all people.

For a start, having had this three-part discussion among yourselves, as a group of distinguished European universities, would you consider opening a similar dialogue with universities from the south? Just as there are exchange programmes for students in European universities, could more be done to promote exchanges with students from other regions as part of developing links between universities from the north and south?

The role of universities in “cultivating humanity”

Before going any further, I wish to stress how important I believe the contributions of scholars and academic institutions have been historically to the cause of human rights and social justice. For centuries the work of scholarship survived the passing of kings, tyrants, wars and plagues. It did so with difficulty and through the courage of many scholars, some of whom suffered in consequence. That historic commitment to academic freedom has in itself been an enormous contribution. Equally important, academia has shed light on the origins of rights which exist in every society. It has been instrumental in shaping the legal understanding of human rights at national, regional and international level. Perhaps most important of all, academia has provided a space for students to examine their own beliefs, to see the world through the eyes of others and to understand the importance of honoring the inherent dignity of every individual.

Yet despite these achievements, we should ask ourselves - is it enough? In a global age, is it enough to teach law, if we are not also concerned with questions of global justice? At a time when different cultural perspectives and interpretations of religious beliefs are locked in ideological battle, is it enough to value the study of philosophy, if it is not informed by current ethical considerations in our divided world? At the start of a new century, is it enough to have amassed more knowledge than at any previous time in human history, without also giving proper attention to how that knowledge will be disseminated and used by and for others, particularly those who have been most excluded from the potential benefits of the technology and knowledge revolutions?

I was particularly interested in learning about the outcomes of your previous conference in which you explored the issues of new responsibilities for universities in a new age. The recommendations that emerged from your conference in Paris this past September were noteworthy in their attention to the underlying role of universities in preparing students for responsible citizenship. As Ben Okri put it in his presentation, a primary responsibility for universities is to set their students up for the “act of self discovery”. I have also heard this notion described as the role of the university in helping students acquire the “skills of freedom”.

Participants at your Paris meeting focused as well on “education for governance”, a helpful concept which underlines the need to prepare students for responsible citizenship and their role in promoting democratic values, human rights and good governance. These central duties of every university are summed up well by University of Chicago Professor Martha Nussbaum in the title of her book, “Cultivating Humanity”. Professor Nussbaum highlights the growing difficulties of providing students with ethical and citizenship skills at a time when “marketable” skills are most in demand.

As you all know well, we find ourselves under pressure from an increasingly market oriented approach to higher education, with all its attendant dangers. A growing number of leading universities today receive sizeable portions of their annual income from non governmental sources. And in order to ensure that the fruits of scientific research can be optimally developed and distributed, universities have entered into new partnerships with multinational companies. I do not mean to suggest that these changes are inherently dangerous, but they are moving into uncharted territory and raise a range of ethical concerns which need to be addressed.

Changes in the global economy have pushed these developments forward. Universities face intense competition for the best students, for scarce resources and for international recognition. Universities recognize that these students are largely focused on pursuing subjects which they believe will be the most useful degrees for them as they seek employment after their studies, such as business, law and medicine.

According to research done in the US by James Engell and Anthony Dangerfield, fields of study such as computer and information services, health professions and business management increased in enrollment up to three fold between 1979 and 1994, while courses in the “humanities” such as philosophy, religion, history and languages all experienced steep declines in new students.

How will universities in Europe and around the world be able to “cultivate humanity” in their students, which you have identified as being a fundamental responsibility of the university, when the fields of study most dedicated to teaching these themes are rapidly losing ground to other disciplines? How will you be able to ensure that every student is exposed to what Professor Nussbaum has proposed as the basic skills needed for citizenship: first, an education that inculcates "the capacity for critical examination of oneself and one's tradition–for living what, following Socrates, we may call `the examined life,"; second, a curriculum that provides students with a greater "knowledge of non-Western cultures, of minorities within their own, of differences of gender and sexuality"; and third, the cultivation of narrative imagination, or "the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, to be an intelligent reader of that person’s story."

The importance of preparing students to be responsible citizens is all the more important today given that the very concept of citizenship, of what it means to belong to a community and to be a responsible member of it, is being transformed by the forces of global communications, technology, markets and transportation.

These are difficult issues. They go to the heart of the university’s role in promoting respect for human rights. Fortunately, I believe students themselves are also beginning to recognize that there is a need for a renewed focus within the curriculum on issues of ethics and responsible citizenship. What has been encouraging for me as I have spoken with a wide range of students over the past 8 months, mainly at universities in the US, is the growing awareness that professional courses are desperately in need of grounding in ethics and values, in the “skills of freedom”.

The Aspen Institute, one of the partners in the Ethical Globalization Initiative, has recently completed a report titled “Where Will They Lead? MBA Student Attitudes about Business & Society 2003”. This survey of student views in leading business schools in the US and Europe shows that ethical conduct in the workplace has become increasingly important to students. But many are concerned that their courses of study may either not address these issues adequately or worse yet, teach questionable values that may later contribute to mismanagement and failure to counter corporate fraud.

How can universities do more to engage their increasingly diverse students in questions of political and public life? How can these issues be not only debated in the classroom but also linked to solving real world problems facing the countries from which your students come? I believe part of the answer lies in drawing on common values, a common framework that applies to all people and a common set of tools that all academic disciplines can use as a guide in addressing these challenges.

Human Rights: The Key to Bridging the Divide

That common framework to which I refer is the body of international human rights standards that have been agreed by governments over the past 55 years, starting with the adoption by the UN of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Some of you will rightly remind me that your institutions already have faculties of law, history, political science, philosophy and anthropology with impressive records in teaching and research on the theory and practice of human rights. And you will likely point out that many of your universities have already taken steps to support students in other countries who are interested in benefiting from your programs.

But I would challenge you to consider whether the subject of human rights has perhaps remained for too long solely the domain of a committed but still relatively small group of lawyers, activists and academics. I would urge you to give thought to the further utility of human rights not only as expressions of shared values or as international legal standards, but also as policy making tools which could assist those charged with making complex decisions about global issues – whether in the areas of trade, development, the environment, security or public health, to name but a few.

This still relatively new concept of taking human rights outside their traditional academic home and applying them to other fields, particularly development and economics, is known as a “rights-based approach”. But to date it has been more rhetoric than reality, lacking in conceptual clarity, practical impacts and academic rigor. Many academics and practitioners remain to be convinced of the relevance of human rights approaches within other policy frameworks.

The new project I am developing – the Ethical Globalization Initiative – seeks to work with others in moving forward rights based approaches to policy making at the national and international level. Our aim is to be a promoter of good practices or model projects of how human rights approaches can produce results. We also plan to be a “chorus leader,” linking local activists and networks with academics and policy development, which together can produce the analysis and recommendations needed to influence decision makers at different levels in government, international organizations, the business sector and civil society.

To give an example, one of the issues to be tackled from a human rights perspective is health, access to life saving treatments and HIV/AIDS. One of the first projects we are developing, in cooperation with the Center for Research on Women, the International AIDS Trust and the Center for the Study of AIDS at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, is to engage with African parliamentarians, beginning with a meeting in Botswana this September, to reduce women’s vulnerability and to combat stigma in the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.

We hope to build greater understanding among African leaders and AIDS experts that the disease could be more effectively addressed by emphasizing the extent to which it is also a women’s rights issue both from the perspective of women as victims of the disease as well as primary caregivers for the sick and orphaned. As one slogan has put it – “The best investment in an AIDS vaccine is an investment in protecting women’s rights”. I would welcome the participation of those of you here who may be researching new strategies for health and development, or gender issues, for example, as this process takes shape in the months ahead.

To give another example, we are developing, in cooperation with the Respect Group in Europe, a new Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights. It aims to involve senior business leaders from multi-national corporations in a consultative process with different stake holder groups to better define the extent of business responsibilities for human rights, particularly in countries facing problems of extreme poverty and deficient governance. This is another area where the input of the academic community would be most welcome. We plan to involve academics in this initiative with the aim of supporting businesses committed to promoting human rights and avoiding practices which may lead to rights violations, while recognizing – indeed emphasizing - that the primary responsibility for human rights protection remains with governments.
Earlier this month I traveled to Thailand to participate in the launch of ESCR-Net an International Network on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The network has brought together social movements and non governmental organizations working in human rights, development and the environment world wide. As it develops, it would benefit from a partnership with universities committed to bridging the divides and seeking to connect concrete local struggles for social justice with international human rights standards and mechanisms for advancing their rights.

Each of the constituencies EGI seeks to influence, from government leaders to business executives, from activists to academics, will need to see the issues we plan to address presented in a way that they recognize. Each will need to understand how human rights standards can be used to help make ethical decisions.

Developing principled partnerships

The key to the success will be in shaping principled partnerships which can bring together groups which may have diverging views but which are committed to using human rights as a shared framework for solving real world dilemmas.

I was interested to read about the new partnership recently launched by two of the founding universities in the Europaeum association - Leiden and Oxford – which aims to provide future leaders in industry and government with the tools to operate more effectively in the politically, legally and culturally complex system of Europe. This new initiative exemplifies the role universities can and should play in helping business and government leaders work more effectively together. I look forward to learning more about this programme and to hearing your views on how issues of ethics and human rights can be part of the curriculum.

Conclusion

I conclude by stressing again that despite the risks, partnerships are in my view the only way that global challenges such as HIV/AIDS, extreme poverty and environmental change, to name only three, will be effectively addressed. In many respects, the future of governance lies in making partnerships work. Universities have a central role to play in making sure that partnerships are not only effective but based on sound principles.

You are well placed to be an objective mediator of political and economic disagreements. You can ensure that decisions about complex issues are made on the basis of sound analysis. And you can help see to it that the viewpoints and concerns of those who have been marginalized are heard when decisions are being made which impact their lives.

I would welcome the involvement of the Europaeum association of universities in the development of the Ethical Globalization Initiative and I look forward to hearing your views on how the ‘doing’ of human rights can contribute to the success of principled partnerships.

Thank you.