Introduction
The United Nations World Conference on Human Rights was held in Vienna from 14 to 25 June 1993, and is also referred to as the Vienna Conference. It was the culmination of many years of progress in human rights work in the world and emphasised that the human person should be the central subject of human rights, marking the beginning of the human rights based approach in development. This approach had great consequences for the position of women in human rights in particular. This World Conference was a watershed moment for women in international development, because it stressed that addressing gender inequality was not only a moral imperative, but also a necessity for achieving development goals.
The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in context
This World Conference was the second ever global conference to focus exclusively on human rights, after the first in Teheran in 1968 and was the first since the end of the Cold War (1990). It was the biggest assembly on global human rights issues yet, with representatives from 171 nations and 800 NGOs. In the years immediately following the end of the Cold War such worldwide UN consultations gained more significance than ever. This was because of the idea that a fresh start, in a world without the ideological competition between East and West, would strengthen the UN in its pursuit of a range of global challenges, including its human rights mission. This conference was intended primarily as a review of the international system for promoting and protecting human rights. An important factor was the mass participation of NGOs from around the world, leading the outcomes of the Conference in a different direction than expected at the onset.
However, while the organisation for the Vienna Conference had started in 1989 in an atmosphere of euphoria and enthusiasm, in 1993 uncertainties and confusions had returned in international relations. The Conference was overshadowed by the ongoing conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina not far away. During this conflict the use of rape as an instrument of war was widespread: highlighting the struggles of women in conflict. Thus, not very far away from Vienna, the failure of the ‘new era’ of international cooperation was demonstrated, while the conference participants in Vienna were reluctant to talk about it.
Leading up to Vienna 1993
In the years leading up to the Vienna Conference several women’s rights groups planned to bring attention to violence against women during the Conference. The Conference was seen as a vehicle to highlight transformative visions on human rights, not just by these women’s groups, but also other NGOs like them. A loose coalition of groups and individuals, the Global Campaign for Women’s Human Rights, sought to demonstrate how human rights abuses were affected specifically by gender and how many violations against women remained invisible within traditional approaches to human rights. Women on all different levels from local to international had been engaged in organising and preparing for the World Conference and found that the UN and governments had, until then, failed to promote and protect women’s human rights. In order to address these issues they developed recommendations for action. These recommendations included: the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the human rights of women; a strengthening of the implementation of CEDAW; and more attention for violence against women. The Global Campaign for Women’s Human Rights was successful. While the original agenda had not mentioned gender-specific aspects of human rights, by the time the Conference ended gender-based violence and women’s human rights were one of the most talked about subjects.
In the Netherlands the international seminar ‘Calling for Change: International Strategies to End Violence against Women’ was organised by the Ministry of Development Cooperation and UNIFEM in The Hague earlier in 1993 in preparation for the Conference. During this seminar the theme of violence against women was made a priority area of Dutch development cooperation. In a speech made during this seminar the Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation at the time, Jan Pronk, said that violence against women was a major obstacle in women’s ability to have agency over their own life and body. When he was installed in 1989 his development cooperation policy immediately had a strong emphasis on violence against women. He believed that institutions concerned with human development have a responsibility to combat violence against women. This seminar was a preparatory meeting aimed at getting violence against women on the agenda of the Vienna Conference later in that year.
Outcomes of the World Conference
The Conference’s main outcome was a common plan for the strengthening of human rights work with the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. This Declaration did not only have a big impact on the human rights discourse, but also on women’s rights. It did so in multiple ways. First of all, the Vienna Declaration stressed the importance of specific attention to the human rights of women and children and confirmed that ‘the human rights of women and of the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights’. Thus, women’s rights were recognised as human rights. The UN member states also recognised that human rights could not only be violated in the public, but also in the private sphere, thereby making governments responsible for what happened within their borders.
Secondly, there was a focus on the issue of violence against women in armed conflicts and a foundation was laid for international action against violence against women. It was stated for the first time that violations of the human rights of women in armed conflicts were violations of fundamental human rights that required an effective response. This allowed for a shift in dealing with violence against women, as it was now considered a human rights issue requiring the State’s intervention, rather than a cultural issue or a private matter. The change in the perception of women from women as victims with specific needs to women as individual civilians with legal and political rights was crucial in these realisations. It was officially agreed upon that protecting women from gender-based violence was an important component in furthering human rights and should be achieved through legal measures and national and international cooperation.
Thirdly, the Vienna Declaration called for mainstreaming of gender equality in all areas of policy, including development cooperation. Gender equality was seen as a central component to the success of development cooperation. Striving for more gender equality was not an isolated goal, but became a building block for further development. Through the recognition that there was a need for greater representation of women in political, economic and social life, participating women’s rights groups urged states and international organisations to promote policies that would support women’s participation in decision-making processes and governance. The Conference reinforced the idea that women should be seen as agents of change rather than passive recipients of aid.
All in all, the Vienna Conference is remembered for the opportunity it provided after decades of a stark East-West divide to address the most pressing of global issues: how can commitment to a universal standard of human rights change relations between developed and developing countries? The adopted Declaration can be seen as a representation of the uneasy global consensus on core human rights principles of the nineties and an outline of priorities for action to implement that consensus. While the Conference laid bare the divide between the Global North and Global South, the common cause made between local human rights advocates from around the world was a victory for the human rights idea. The NGOs that made up a large part of the attending groups ensured that the final conference document was more substantial than might have otherwise been the case. This is especially true for the presence and level of organisation of women’s groups.
The role of the Netherlands in the Vienna Conference
Peter Kooijmans, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA) at that time, attended the Conference, whereas Jan Pronk, the Minister for Development Cooperation, did not attend. Joke Swiebel, who was an official in the Directorate for Coordination of Emancipation Policies in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment in 1993, was part of the delegation sent to Vienna. The Netherlands also sent several special advisors to Vienna, amongst them two non governmental organisation members, who were active in Dutch women’s organisations: L. van Wesemael and C. Boerefijn.
Generally, the Netherlands considered conferences like this one as a guide for their international policies concerning women in the Global South, rather than as input for national policies. This was based on the assumption (whether correct or not) that the achievements in the Netherlands were already beyond the resolutions made by the UN. This is why outcomes of these conferences were often seen as important for the MFA but less so for other Dutch ministries. Considering that violence against women had already been a policy priority in Dutch foreign policy and in Dutch feminist circles (at least since the UN Conference in Nairobi in 1985), the Vienna Conference did not change that much. It mainly served as a foundation for following conferences that could build upon the recognition of women’s rights as human rights.
The Netherlands followed the UN agreements: women’s rights were recognised as human rights and combating violence against women was mainstreamed in the Dutch human rights discourse. Following the Vienna Conference combating violence against women was reconfirmed as a Dutch aid priority. The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also a funder for the Global Campaign for Women’s Human Rights.
The impact of the Conference
The World Conference in Vienna led to promotion and protection of the rights of women and children, through:
- Confirming women’s universal human rights
- Supporting the creation of a new mechanism, a Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, who was appointed for the first time in 1994
- Calling for the universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by 1995
- Calling for the ratification by all States of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by 2000
- Agreement between governments to work towards elimination of violence against women in public and private life, including: sexual harassment, exploitation and human trafficking; gender bias in the administration of justice; conflicts between the rights of women and traditional or customary practices, prejudices or religious extremism.
Sources:
Charlotte Bunch and Niamh Reilly, Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women’s Human Rights.
De Volkskrant, “Kooijmans met defensieve agenda naar mensenrechtenconferentie,” 10 juni 1993.
IOB Evaluation: Gender Sense & Sensitivity - Policy evaluation on women’s rights and gender equality (2007-2014), https://www.government.nl/binaries/government/documenten/reports/2015/11/23/iob-gender-sense-sensitivity/gender-sense-sensitivity-policy-evaluation-on-womens-rights-and-gender-equality-2007-2014.pdf.
IOB Evaluation: Women and Development - Policy and implementation in Netherlands development cooperation 1985-1996, https://www.iob-evaluatie.nl/binaries/iob-evaluatie/documenten/rapporten/1998/12/31/vrouwen-en-ontwikkeling/Rapport+-+Vrouwen+en+Ontwikkeling.pdf (in Dutch).
Kevin Boyle, “Stock-taking on Human Rights: The World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna 1993.”
Thera van Osch, Gender Mainstreaming in International Partnership: A Practical Guide for Stakeholders.
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/vienna.pdf.
