 I'm Joshua Cooper and welcome to Cooper Union. What's happening with human rights around our world on Think Tech Live, broadcasting from a downtown studio in Honolulu, Hawaii in Moana, Nuiakea. We're looking at the universal declaration of human rights, dignity, freedom, and justice for all, and to stand up in solidarity around our world. Today, we're looking at the right to life, liberty, and security. UDHR Article 3, Live for Life Now, and we're very fortunate to be joined by Bill Shadis. The universal declaration of human rights provides the power of ideas to initiate change in the world. And Article 3 is a foundational right upon which many of the remaining UDHR articles depend on for individual dignity and collective well-being. Bill, thank you so much for joining us. And what inspired you originally to focus your energy and life's passion on this important issue of Article 3, right to life? Well, I became very involved very early in my life working on the subject of capital punishment, the death penalty. And that was really for the, that's I did a doctoral thesis on the subject and I studied how the universal declaration of human rights, I studied all of the drafting of the universal declaration of human rights in order to figure out what was going on with this right to life, which is, you know, in a way it's the central human right. And if you go back beyond, you know, the universal declaration was adopted in 1948. But if you go back to the beginnings of the attempts to write international law about human rights, you find a recognition of the right to life. So it's a very central right. And it raises a number of issues. As I say, one of them is the death penalty, which I was very involved in, but there are other questions that arise as well. No, really important issue, of course. And it's the second, when you were looking at that, what authors of the UDHR allows me, even all the way to the UN Charter, which of course we commemorate today, did you see that were really paramount? Was it Humphrey or more of Cassin or Roosevelt, or share some of those insights? Well, the draft, there was a draft that was prepared by John Humphrey, the Canadian, who I actually knew before he passed away. I knew him personally because I lived in Montreal. I now live in London, in England. And he prepared a draft, the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and had the right to life in it. And to some extent it was derived, he went through national constitutions and extracted it from the national constitutions. So you have, for example, in the United States in the Eighth Amendment, there's this reference to life. It's in the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence. So he looked at various documents like that. Many constitutions had a right to life. And so he made this kind of, he collated all the rights together. And one of them, there were 48 articles and one was the right to life. But I don't think he thought through at the time what it would involve. And in the recognition of it that you had in many constitutions, it was associated with the death penalty, but where the death penalty was presented as an exception to the right to life. So the constitutions would say, everyone shall have the right to life except when a sentence is imposed by a court and so on. But I think that's all changed. So now we see the abolition of the death penalty. In a sense, we fulfill the right as a whole without exception. But so it was presented as an exception and that was in the constitutions. And Humphrey put that in the first draft and then it was knocked out later by others who said no, Eleanor Roosevelt was one of them, said, you know, there's a trend towards the abolition of the death penalty. So let's not put in anything that would prevent that trend. So this was back in 1948 when practically every country in the world had the death penalty. And now that's all changed. And so only a few countries in the world now, I mean a few 20 odd countries in the world actually have it and use it. No, and that's important to really see how much the work that you've been working on with capital punishment, but the world as well and how far we've gone. Maybe you could share some of the best changes that have taken place. We know now it's also optional protocol too of the international covenant on civil and political rights and many countries have agreed to that. Can you share who maybe the outliers are and what kind of pressure people are mounting to change those final two dozen states maybe? Yeah, it's about two dozen in effect. And of them, there's sort of a hardcore of countries that carry out a lot of executions. So China's at the top of the list, but it's probably not per capita the worst executioner because it has such a huge population, 1.4 billion. I think probably the worst is Iran, they execute several hundred people every year and they have a population I think of about 200 million. So although their absolute numbers are smaller than those of China, proportionately they're bigger. And then you have countries in that same region, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, to an extent. So those are the worst. The United States actually it has a reputation as being the worst around the world for the death penalty. Most people would think after China it's the worst, but it's actually been declining a lot. So the numbers in the US are now, it's about 20, 15 or 20 every year. And that's a big drop from even 10 or 15 years ago. So, it's disappearing in the United States. You have 2,500 people on death row and you execute 15 to 20 people a year. Most of those people are never gonna be executed. They're just gonna die of old age in jail. No, really important point. And it's important to see that the trend is moving in that direction. You've also done a lot of exciting work though around the right to life as it applies in wartime and particularly treating aggressive war as violating the right to life. And I remember also meeting you and seeing the amazing program you did at Galway that would bring together people looking who are working at the ICC, the International Criminal Court. Can you maybe expand on some of that exciting work related to the right to life? Well, this is about the right to life in wartime. Is there a right to life in wartime? And there are many provisions about the laws of war that protect life. It seems bizarre. It seems counterintuitive because war is about killing people. But you have the rules, for example, that civilians, non-combatants cannot be targeted. This in effect is a protection of the right to life of the civilian. But you even have protections for the combatants that the combatants cannot be targeted if they've stopped, if they're wounded, if they've surrendered, and so on. So you have some of that. But at the same time, war is horrible because it's about killing people and to some extent the laws governing the laws of war are in effect a legalization of actual killing in wartime. So an idea that I've been trying to promote and develop for the last 15, 20 years is that the killing in wartime is also a violation if the war is itself illegal. In other words, if you're involved in a battle and you're acting in self-defense because you've been invaded by another country and you kill people, well, that's just part of self-defense. And we recognize that in ordinary criminal law. If you kill somebody in self-defense, we don't consider that a violation. It's not a crime if it's properly self-defense because you're protecting life in a way. So we say the same thing about aggressive war, but if you wage an aggressive war and the war is unlawful to begin with, you shouldn't be there, you shouldn't be doing it. The army shouldn't be killing and the problem with the laws of war is that they don't really get to the heart of that. They just talk about, they treat both sides in the war as if they're equal in order to make it, in order to make the actual, it's like, you know, civilized, it's like a boxing match, it's to make it all civilized. But what's wrong with that is that, you know, in a boxing match, the two guys or the two fighters, they agree to go into the ring. But when it's an aggressive war, once I didn't agree to go into the ring. So the idea I've been pushing is that if it's killing that results from an aggressive war, even if the killing in itself is not against the laws of war, then it's a violation of the right to life. And that's now been recognized by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which is one of the main bodies within the UN dealing with international human rights law. So, you know, there's some progress there, but it remains controversial. Some countries don't like that view at all because they wanna have their hands free to kill people in a war. And it's really important, especially if we see how far we've come. Could you share a bit on the important advocacy and academia work that you did, looking at the creation of the International Criminal Court and some of the work that it's been doing as it's looking at the right to life and share some of the insights of how you utilized really a summer program to then reinvigorate people to realize how historic it was and how it was making a difference in people's lives around the world. Well, for the last 30 years or so, and it kind of corresponds to my career as a human rights as an academic working in the area of human rights, there's been this growing movement to create these international criminal courts and tribunals. And there have been several temporary ones that were set up. There were originally, of course, we have the famous tribunals at Nuremberg and at Tokyo after the Second World War. But then for about 40 years or so, there wasn't really any activity in the area for very little. And then it revived in the 1990s. And the reasons for this are complicated and maybe it's not important even to discuss them. But it started up again in the 1990s. And so there were these temporary tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. And then the main act was creating the International Criminal Court. So this is a permanent court. It's now, it's been in existence for more than 20 years. And so it's a part of the international landscape. It's not accepted by every country. So there are 123 countries out of about 195 in the world who joined it. So there are still, say two thirds of the countries, but the one third that haven't joined represent a majority of the world's population because some of the biggest countries, China, India, the United States, Russia, they haven't joined. So it's a mixed bag, it's progress, but it's a work in progress, as they say. And so it's there as, now we're assessing, it's activity has been, in a way, disappointing. It's been in operations, as I say, since 2002, 2003, roughly. And it's only managed to do a handful of trials. So it's struggling to find its place, but at the same time, it's the birth of something that is taking time to mature and ripen. And so that's where we're watching. And we're frustrated with it now, with the conflict in Ukraine, for example, because it's actually not able for technical reasons to deal with the aggressive nature of the war. It can deal with the violations of the laws of war during the conflict, but it can't deal with the aggressive nature of the war as such. So it's, as I say, it's a work in progress and that's a lot of what doing human rights work is all about. It's about taking a problem and helping to push the pieces forward on the chessboard, but we haven't won the game yet. No, very much so, but it is interesting if you look at Luis Moreno Ocampo's latest book, where he looked at it during that time as the first chief prosecutor, also in bringing in Ben Forenz, who recently just passed. But if you look at those lifetimes, then we can see the gains that we've made, but like you said, it's not complete yet because we have to make sure that people will still be able to live and not be able to face aggressive nature by neighbors who believe they can, as we look here on the anniversary of the UN Charter, that people are safe and that they don't have to worry about being invaded by more powerful neighbors and the rule of law really dominates our discourse and how we live with one another. Well, you mentioned Benjamin Forenz who passed away, what, two months ago, roughly. He was 90, 102 years old, and I know him very well. We had worked together on different projects and he was, I just love the man, he was a wonderful person and he campaigned until he was over 100. I think by the time he was about 101, he started losing steam, but he was really extraordinary and he just kept going, fighting for international justice and for human rights. He'd been doing it all his life. He was an amazing person. In the spirit of Ben Forenz, can you share some NGOs that you think are champions to create a culture of human rights around Article III or maybe some other major heroes and sheroes of this human right? Well, it may sound obvious, but Amnesty International has to be at the top of the list in terms of fighting on the death penalty. They started working on this subject back in the 1970s, so I think Amnesty was created in the early 1960s and at some point in the middle of the 1970s, they developed a focus on the death penalty and it was actually related to them winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I think in 1977 or 78, but they managed to, you know, they campaigned to put the issue on the international agenda and pushed it forward and still do. They still have a, you know, very devoted to a campaign. They're the go-to place for statistics. If you want to know what countries have the death penalty, what countries don't, they're there, they're in the middle of the campaign and they developed the methodology for examining it, for comparing, you know, for measuring, for example, I mean, one of the things we have with capital punishment is that you have countries that have abolished the death penalty in their laws and in their constitution. That's easy to measure, but you also have countries that have stopped executing people, but they haven't changed the laws. And what we find is that a lot of countries stop executing the death penalty and they never go back. They, in effect, they've finished, but it may take them decades to abolish the death penalty in law because it's an issue that gets people's blood boiling a bit and politicians don't like to touch it, but finally, they stop using it and we see that, we see that in a lot of the United States and the American States, where in effect, although they still have the death penalty on the books, they're not carrying it out. And we have that in many countries. So I am, let's de-develop the methodology for studying and measuring all of that as well. And so they, yeah, they were very, you know, a central organization and doing it. You have specialized organizations that work on it as well. So there's a younger body that's been around for, I guess a couple of decades now, based in Paris, together against the death penalty. They just work on that. Amnesty International works on lots of things, but this French-based body just work on the, on capital punishment. And every three years, they have a big international conference on the subject so it brings together the converted. It's not about debating about the death penalty, but they bring together people from around the world and they focus and they raise a lot of money to do this. They go to the countries in Africa and Asia where they still have the death penalty and they bring the politicians to the conference and help to mobilize them and convince them of the importance of doing it. So they're called together against the death penalty, a great organization. Good example of both. And what's also important is, I know recently the Human Rights Committee actually passed a general comment and updated on Right to Life. Any insights on that? And if you think that was a strong move, that then advanced it even further? Oh, yes, absolutely. So the Human Rights Committee is, of course, the body created by the big international treaty, the international covenant on civil and political rights with the mandate. So the Human Rights Committee do a number of different things, including receiving petitions from people who claim their rights are violated and they deal with many, many dozens of those every year. But they also write these things called general comments which are kind of statements on the law. And when they do it, because they're a very authoritative body, the covenant has been ratified by more than 170 countries. So including the United States. So it's a very well accepted, the treaty's well accepted and what we call it a treaty body, the Human Rights Committee is very authoritative. So when they issue a statement on the Right to Life, they're talking about the Right to Life generally almost, not just in the covenant on civil and political rights, but even for the countries that haven't ratified the covenant on civil and political rights, it speaks to them as well. So they wrote this terrific general comment, what I referred to a little earlier about killing in aggressive war. They put a paragraph in there in that general comment which came out in 2018. And this was traumatic. It's the first time it's been said in such a place and this was great. And they lay down standards. It's a terrific document. I tell my students that if they want in a nutshell to know what the law is on the Right to Life, read the general comment. It's 70 paragraphs. It's about, I don't know, six or seven pages long. It's easy to digest. And it's actually been inspiring. I know that the nuclear abolition movement as well as those focusing on climate justice and civil and political rights have begun to use it are the general comments who actually looked during the UPR to actually bring up those issues on nuclear weapons and other aspects even related to the aspects of climate change and linking interconnectedness of all three of those issues. So it has been very valuable. And it's great to know that you share with your students as an important tool to see where we can go. And it builds on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that outlined the opportunity for a new direction rooted in inherent dignity and an admirable rights for dynamic sustainable development and social democracy and also inspiring new international institutions to meet the current challenges and respond to civil society campaigns demanding universal justice. I know it's also been very important in your work though, the other aspect of the Twin Covenant, the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and you've been very involved with that. Can you share this important dimension on the right to life in terms of economic, social, and cultural rights as well? Yes, absolutely. I mean, in a way, as you mentioned we have these two covenants, they were split. Originally there was only supposed to be one. And then the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it's not split, it's just one document. And it's because you can't pull apart these rights and separate them and the right to life is fundamental not just to sort of these core civil and political issues like the death penalty and so on and armed conflict but it's also central to rights like the right to, the right to food, the right to water, the right to health and these are the rights that are protected in the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. So the split between these two covenants was really an artificial construct that was something it developed in the early years of the Cold War. It was a very unfortunate development because you can't separate them. And so one of the things the Human Rights Committee does in this general common is kind of knit them back together and remind us that the fact that the right to life means that people are also entitled to have proper, they have to have, they have a right to proper medical care. They have a right to, and it deals with other issues as well like it deals with some of the, in a way, the hardest issues in an intellectual sense, certainly an emotional sense like euthanasia and abortion and so on. They confront it all. And so it's a terrific document. The issue of economic, social, and cultural rights is something that I work on a great deal. And although we're maybe straying a bit from Article III because there are other articles in the Universal Declaration, but I think that some of the rights, we talk about what are the rights that are the most essential and that are recognized as part of, like one of the terms we use in international laws, peremptory norms. We talk about norms that are so fundamental and people, when you ask people, most people will say, oh, it's the prohibition of torture or of slavery. And I say, yeah, okay. But if you ask me, some of the most peremptory norms are things like the right to education. There's not a country in the world today that would challenge the idea that everybody is entitled at least to primary education. There might be a handful that say they can't provide it for economic reasons, very few. And they'll say, maya culpa, we can't do it. We're trying to do it. We have to do it. And that's a dramatic change in humanity. I mean, we talk about these hardcore criminal law issues like the death penalty. But think of education when 100 years ago, it was just widely accepted that lots of people just didn't get educated. They didn't need to be educated. And today, everybody on the planet should be literate and numerate. And we accept that. So there are a lot of things that are there in that universal declaration of human rights. And to some extent, they all flow from this right to life provision article three. Excellent point on peremptory norms. Also linking economic, social, and culture rights. And it even evolves and is once again, reinforced with the UN Sustainable Development Goals in that sense, looking at SDG4, but many of them as well, that bring all of those together and focusing on furthest behind first and leave no one behind. So that's powerful. Also with economic, social, and culture rights, the progressive realization aspect. Could you maybe build on that as well? Because that was such a powerful aspect of article two. Yeah, well, I mean, this is a, you know, people when we start to deconstruct the human rights, we find that some of them are, they're sort of black and white in the sense that you either have them or you don't. And they're also often about they're negative in the sense that you're just saying to the government, don't stop me doing this. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech is simply saying, don't limit me, let me do what I want to do. But a lot of our fundamental rights require the government to do stuff or the state. They require the state to do something as an organization of society. We all pay into it, we pay our taxes and they get the money and then we expect government is supposed to look after us. We saw some of that recently. I thought it was quite astonishing during the COVID crisis around the world where so many governments that in general were kind of, were many ways in different to the welfare of the people, certainly the poorest in their countries, but they almost immediately sort of addressed the fact that they had to make sure that their people didn't die and that they got food when they couldn't find it, when the supermarkets had run out of food, they had to address those things and of course I think that's correct and the whole point is they have to do it not just when we have a pandemic crisis, but full time, full time, ensure that the people subject to their jurisdiction, this is a large part about what human rights are about. It's about the relationship between the government or the state and the people and that's the idea that the government has responsibilities and those rights include not just not bothering you, leaving you alone, letting you do what you wanna do, freedom and so on, not throwing you in jail and not executing you, but also ensuring that you're healthy and that you're well fed and that you're educated and education, it's a wonderful idea too because why do we need all this? People now talk about artificial intelligence and everything and say, what's gonna happen? We're supposed to have free time and not just I know you do a lot of lying on the beach in Hawaii, but it's not just a lie on the beach, but it's to do constructive stuff. It's to read books, to do paintings, to participate in cultural life and that's what we're supposed to get all of that too. We can only do that if we're healthy and well educated and not struggling every minute to find enough food for ourselves. Beautiful connection of showing the rainbow rights and how they're all there. Could you share with us just briefly a vision for the future of this right, of the right to life? Well, I mean, I think that the right to life will, first of all, will prohibit the stay from killing people that'll be a first. It's pretty much accomplished now in most countries in the world to be frank, but beyond that, we'll carry out this mission of the economic and social rights and the other thing and it's so desperately needed right now is that we need global peace. We still have too many big armies in the world. We have nuclear weapons, not only a handful of countries have them, but they can destroy us. It's still true. I read a quote from Albert Einstein some years ago, talked about, he said, if the third world war is a nuclear war, if it's fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth world war will be fought with sticks and stones. It's gonna destroy the planet. That's for sure. We're worried about the climate change, but I think that before nature wipes us out through climate change, nuclear weapons could do it. So I grew up, I'm over 70 years old now and I grew up, I was born after the second world war, but for the first decades, we were my parents and we were all terrified that there was gonna be a third world war, that there'd be one every 20 years or so. We haven't had one, but we can't afford, we just can't afford to relax on that. We cannot have a third world war. It will wipe us out and so this, so the right to life is about global peace and that means nuclear disarmament and it means finding ways to end wars rather than win wars. So now we're in the middle, there's a conflict of importance going on in Europe where I live and from my point of view, there's too much talk about winning the war and not enough about ending it. That's what we have to do. Really important and I agree, Article 3 is paramount for peace on our planet and the right to life, liberty and security does provide the basis for personal wellbeing and a better world for all. And on this 75th anniversary, it's important to reflect on the role of human rights in our daily lives and world affairs and we thank you for your commitment, to Article 3 for an entire lifetime and guaranteeing that a little bit better on the ground and around the globe for everyone. Mahalo. Mahalo, thank you. Thank you, Joshua. Bye. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.