A More Peaceful World

Global Index of Human Rights in Green Party Policy

The Green Party will press for the use of a United Nations Index of Human Rights to monitor governments that commit human rights abuses and to provide an explicit basis for seeking to restrain such regimes.
IP333 All governments will have their human rights record continuously assessed by a UN agency set up for that purpose. A scale will be established measuring several indicators of human rights performance. The scale will be finalised by agreement at the UN level, but will be centred on the following abuses:use of torture
use of death penalty
scale of ‘disappearances’
abuse of political prisoners
denial of right to fair trial
denial of free speech
denial of free movement
denial of right to political or religious freedom
denial of rights to women
denial of child rights
denial of minority rights
denial of rights to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people

A score reflecting their performance will be allocated to each state on an annual basis.

IP334 Once the Index is installed, governments with the worst record of human rights as measured on this Index will be referred to the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. If the Court finds that their human rights performance falls below accepted legal standards, the regimes will be given time and assistance to improve their record. In the event of non-compliance, the matter will return to the Court, and if found at fault, the regime will suffer penalties in terms of its members’ privileges in the fields of finance, diplomacy, transport and trade. The severity of the penalties will increase as their human rights performance deteriorates, and decrease as their human rights performance improves. The penalties will be targeted to hurt the ruling elite rather than the general population.

IP335 At the same time, countries lying just above the level at which legal action will be taken will be offered help and advice to improve their human rights performance.