This is a very complicated issue embracing political, legal, economic, environmental, cultural, social and other aspects. Though it is an enormous topic, there are some milestones worth discussing here.
Freedom House, "an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world," publishes an annual report, Freedom in the World. The latest report, which covers the situation from December 1, 2004 through November 30, 2005, says that 46% of the world's population (nearly 3 billion) live in "free" countries, "in which there is broad scope for open political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant independent civic life, and independent media."
In 1973, when the world was divided into spheres of influence and globalization was an impossible dream of Western intellectuals, Freedom House reported that only 35% of humankind, or less than one-third, which was also called "the golden billion," lived in free countries. This means that the share of democratic societies has increased rapidly since globalization set in, and there is therefore a mostly positive relationship between globalization and human rights.
At the same time, the share of "not free" countries has dropped from 47% to 36%, and the share of democratic governments has grown to 64%. In other words, nearly two-thirds of UN members are democratic states, according to rather strict criteria of Freedom House. This is a world record, but there are reasons to believe it may be broken in the next few years.
The mutual interaction of the processes connected with globalization, including the global spread and strengthening of human rights, and state sovereignties is frequently seen as one of the world's inherent contradictions. Many sovereign states used to focus on their independence and sovereignty, claiming that human rights were their internal affair. This situation has not changed much in many regions.
In the past years, the European and global media have reported on fierce debates at the sessions of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly that discussed human rights in Chechnya during Russia's counterterrorist operation. But the international community knows very little about the discrimination against the Russian language in Ukraine, where Russian speakers make up about half of the population, or Russians' problems in the Baltic countries, where Russians constitute the biggest national minority (tens of thousands of people) with the status of non-citizens.
Since then, the Baltic countries have joined the European Union (EU) and have been trying to become integrated into the common European legal and cultural space, which promises improvements in the human rights situation.
Globalization is moving alongside regionalization, which means the economic, legal, cultural and other integration of large parts of the planet. Therefore, European integration, which includes processes underway in the EU and across the Caucasus Mountains all the way to the Urals and beyond, can be viewed as part of globalization.
This "Broader Europe" looks like the best region for promoting human rights. A rich historical experience, a common goodwill, and credible and sufficiently effective national and international institutions, primarily the Council of Europe, allow the countries of Broader Europe to maintain a legal regime that maximally suits the provisions of the basic international documents on human rights.
This situation did not appear in Europe overnight. In the 20th century the region was ravaged by two world wars, paid dearly for the defeat of fascism, which was turning it into a humanity-hating butcher shop, and saw the decline and fall of totalitarian regimes.
The European human rights monitoring scheme changed dramatically in the second half of the 1990s, when the Council of Europe admitted new eastern members. In 1998, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was complemented with Protocol 11.
Prior to that, individuals did not have direct access to the European Court of Human Rights; they had to apply to the European Commission of Human Rights, which, if it found the case to be well grounded, would launch a case in the Court on the individual's behalf. Protocol 11 abolished the Commission, enlarged the Court, and allowed individuals to take cases directly to it.
This provided supranational judicial enforcement of the declared human rights. The decisions of the Court are binding on all members of the Council of Europe, and are a fundamental source of precedent for national legislation.
Now the member states are required to modify their legislation to comply with the norms and practices of international law as established by the Court. Russia, which has assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, will carry on this policy.
