GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL Global Governance Policy Series: Human rights and democracy for a globalised world
Human rights and democracy for a globalised world GLOBAL GOVERNANCE POLICY SERIES
From Declaration to Implementation The case of the European Union Written by Enrique Barón Crespo, former President of the European Parliament.
Keywords: Human rights> European Union> democracy> international law> globalisation> citizenship> European Convention on Human Rights> legitimacy of law> Nice Treaty> Lisbon Treaty.
10 MINUTES
GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL Global Governance Policy Series: Human rights and democracy for a globalised world
Creating a Vision of Europe Project EU citizens are not excited, not emotionally involved, but bored, despondent and uninspired by the union’s institutionalism. Is there a shared vision for Europeans, a European identity? European citizens are or the most part disenfranchised and distant from the overall EU project. Having successfully accomplished several goals such as preserving peace, increasing human rights, and solidifying democracy, the now larger EU is in need of a vision and brand that clearly communicates its future role, purpose and value to its citizens. A vision that connects with the needs and requirements of the European and global civil society and responds to the challenges facing a globalised world. GOLD MERCURY EU PROJECT SERIES
aims to analyse and create the basis for a larger debate about Europe, the EU and its future vision and identity. Following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, this series aims to reveal the often underestimated issues that need to be taken into account to start a constructive debate about the future of the EU which includes creating a future EU identity and brand. By analysing the current citizens’ perception of Europe, this series will include: an exploration of the meaning and significance of EU identity today, and an analysis of current citizens’ perception of EU. It showcases what the EU has done in the past and what it is doing now to create a European identity. This series aims to present a new framework to understand the complexity that lies behind the EU identity, suggesting new standards to start a constructive debate on EU citizenship and EU identity and drawing on new insights regarding the current situation of EU identity. The EU PROJECT SERIES shines a new spotlight and revitalizes the debate on the EU’s vision and future, suggesting new grounds and parameters to build a fresh paradigm for the EU to clarify its role on the world stage.
  GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL  Global Governance Policy Series: Human rights and democracy for a globalised world
Human Rights is more than a Declaration. The fact that most of the countries of the world have signed and ratified the Declaration does not mean that automatically human rights are respected. Respect for human rights is a continuous process.
This debate on Human Rights, on the eve of the 60th Anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration by the UN on the 10th December 1948, is timely. Having lived myself under a dictatorship for half of my life I can subscribe to the value of the Declaration, that in Francoist Spain was a banner for the democrats and a text despised by the Regime and its sycophants. Human rights are like the air you breathe, you realize their value when you lack them. The most engaging and touching moments I have lived in my political life are related to them. First, as defendant and human rights lawyer against the tyranny, later as Member of the Spanish drafting the Constitution of 1978 and voting the adhesion of my country to the European Convention on Human Rights. As a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 1986, I feel proud of participating in the battle for the introduction of citizenship in the Maastricht Treaty and, as EP representative in the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the Lisbon Treaty, for the solemn proclamation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights that took place in the EP hemicycle on the 12 December 2007.
Eleanor Roosevelt with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Human Rights is more than a Declaration. The fact that most of the countries of the world have signed and ratified the Declaration does not mean that automatically human rights are respected. Respect for human rights is a continuous process; it begins in the school, implies all the spheres in everyday life and requires active government policies, an independent justice and training of the police. It is not a process that is made at once, the whole society must transform itself in a re-education task. It cannot be imposed from outside by force.