Community Matters – Law and Pre-legal/Informal Settings – Video Link
On May 6, 2024, the HRUG regular seminar on “Community Matters–Law and Pre-legal/Informal Settings” was successfully held. The seminar was chaired by Professor Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz of Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Peter Herrmann (a researcher of CSU Human Rights Center), Mehmet Okyayuz (a professor of political science at Middle East Technical University, Turkey), António Duarte (a professor of psychology at the University of Lisbon, Portugal), Associate Professor Li Juan (a researcher of CSU Human Rights Center), Joe Finnerty (a social policy analyst, School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, Republic of Ireland) and Ewa Spasowski (a human rights expert and former UN human rights officer in Uganda and Switzerland) participated in the discussion, and they shared, reported and supplemented some corresponding views. This seminar centered on Eco-environmental protection and animal rights.
Based on his expertise and research background in ecology, Prof. Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz presented the mechanisms by which elephants, the world’s largest terrestrial animal, interact with ecosystems, and their population conflicts with humans. In his view, if human-elephant conflict cannot be reduced, there is no future for elephants and any other species that may have potential conflicts with humans. On the one hand, people make efforts to increase the elephant population to avoid its endangerment; On the other hand, more elephants mean more humans at risk of being attacked and killed. In the context of human rights, conservation of biodiversity is a complex and difficult subject, so we should think how to protect species without burdening local communities. He mentioned that in the past few years, there have been some not-so-fair incidents of people from indigenous communities being forced to leave their homes. Some radical non-governmental organizations (especially in Africa and India) attempt to make a big deal out of opposing policies to conserve species.
People wish to provide the best path for the conservation of humans and other creatures, but the reality is that the conservation of both requires compromises. In addition, there are some very unique animals that are intelligent and sentient — do gorillas and elephants have “human rights”? A river in New Zealand (the Whanganui River) has also been given “human rights”.
With regard to the northward movement of Yunnan elephants and human’s responses mentioned by Associate Professor Lijuan, Prof. Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz noticed that due to drought and lack of food, the elephants may move into densely populated areas during their migration. It is commendable that the Chinese government has taken timely and effective measures to respond on the migration of the Yunnan elephants, and that the community has been concerned about the safety of the herds. Fifty years ago, anywhere in the world, humans tended to kill elephants to avoid economic costs. In the current China, we have seen thousands of vehicles, drones and staff arranged by the Chinese government to guide the herds and avoid human-elephant conflicts while successfully guiding the migration. He emphasized goodwill alone is not enough and that good conservation policies are required to avoid the complex task of placing animals in unsuitable environments and causing great damage.
Prof. António Duarte raised the issue of animal rights in the context of the human-elephant bond. Prof. Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz argued that elephants play a very distinctive role in Asian cultures. People are highly tolerant of their activities, avoid conflicts with them but at the same time don’t want to have them in their community. However, as natural habitats overlap more with human gatherings and legal protections become improved, the likelihood that elephants will move freely into human communities increases, people’s willingness to avoid conflict with elephants erodes. So many people believe that the authorities are more concerned about the elephants than the inhabitants. People support environmental and ecological conservation — protecting tigers, elephants and rainforests – because there is no price to pay.
In response to Professor Mehmet Okyayuz’s question on “whether there is a theoretical field and a platform for scholars to discuss this topic in the context of human rights”, Professor Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz introduced a specialized platform belonging to the United Nations system — The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which has a dedicated “Human-Wildlife Conflict &Coexistence Specialist Group”. He mentioned that human rights issues are not being raised very explicitly at the moment, and that main issues dealt with are how to protect elephants and protect people from elephants. The questions of how to coexist and how to draw the boundaries of human tolerance are very pressing, while human rights are not discussed much. In the past period, some commissions have been horrified by allegations of human rights violations due to the protection of elephants or rhinoceroses, and this may be a better entry point.
Prof. Peter Herrmann commented on the relationship between humans and wildlife as a multi-stage, multi-layered process in which the once coexisting model had been completely destroyed, a view shared by Prof. Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz. He pointed out that hundreds of years ago, human lifestyles prevented conflicts with wildlife such as elephants and tigers, and that this interaction has been completely changed with the development of human society. The question is how consensus should be reached in the future. In response to Prof. Peter Herrmann’s further observation that “people have to balance the system against their own interests”, Prof. Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz argued that in some sparsely populated islands, maintaining an average per capita consumption of resources doesn’t seem to cause a big problem. Compromises are needed in order to create a balance between human’s good life and the ecosystem. Human rights are a red line that will play a role in a series of negotiations and compromises. Human’s existence will be short, and we will eventually be gone as we came.
On the forms of realization of animal rights, Professor Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz proposed that rivers, trees or elephants can’t participate in this discussion as “representatives”, and that it is necessary for human beings to participate from the standpoint of legitimate rights. In the face of many hypothetical discussions about “humans not having the final say”, he asserted that humans do have many rights, and that there is no need to change this; what needs to be thought about is how to exercise those rights. For humans, the future will be better than the past, and our lives and the world will be improved. Prof. António Duarte believed that children’s rights face the same problem, namely, that children, like animals, are in a situation where they can’t participate in negotiations. On the other hand, it should be taken into account that non-human biological rights are also human rights, which means that humans have the right to protect the rights of other organisms in our ecosystems. And the idea of “compassionate protection” (organisms have the right to be protected from suffering due to human intervention) once existed for a while. But he preferred to emphasize the population perspective rather than the individual perspective of “compassionate conservation”, that is, the right to ensure their survival ( the population is sustainable, capable of reproducing and surviving in the long term) as the most important right. New Zealand has debated at length how to grant rights to natural ecosystems, and insists that rivers have “human rights”. Regardless of the complexity and implementation of the law, at least the cleanliness of rivers and normal water circulation should be guaranteed, and to maintain things in good condition is the most basic requirement.
2024年5月6日，HRUG定期研讨会之“法律与非正式法律语境下共同体的重要性”主题会议顺利召开。本次会议由中国科学院东南亚生物多样性研究中心Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授主讲，中南大学人权研究中心研究员Peter Herrmann教授、土耳其中东科技大学政治学Mehmet Okyayuz教授、葡萄牙里斯本大学心理学António Duarte教授、中南大学人权研究中心研究员黎娟副教授、爱尔兰国立科克大学应用社会研究学院政策分析家Joe Finnerty以及前联合国系统驻乌干达与瑞士人权干事、人权专家Ewa Spasowski参加会议并进行相应观点的分享、汇报和补充。本次讨论主要围绕生态环境保护与动物权利展开。
Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授从其生态学的专业知识与研究背景出发，介绍了大象——世界上最大的陆生动物与生态系统的互动机制，和其与人类的种群冲突。在他看来，如果不能减少人象冲突，大象以及其他任何与人类有潜在冲突可能性的物种都没有未来。一方面，人们努力增加大象的数量以避免其濒危，另一方面，更多的大象意味着更多人类有可能被袭击致死。在人权的背景下，保护生物多样性是一个复杂而困难的课题，应当思考如何在不给当地社区带来负担的情况下保护生物。他提到，过去几年发生了一些使土著社区的人离开家园以保护生物的不太公平的事件，也有一些激进的非政府组织（尤其是非洲和印度的）试图大做文章，反对保护生物的政策。人们都希望为人类与其他生物的保护提供最好路径，但现实是保护两者需要妥协。此外，存在一些非常独特的动物，它们聪明、有知觉，大猩猩和大象是否具有“人权”？正如新西兰的一条河流（旺格努伊河）也被赋予“人权”一样。
就黎娟副教授提到的云南象群北移事件与人类社区应对问题，Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授提到，由于干旱和缺少食物，象群在迁徙过程中可能会进入人口密度较大的区域。值得称赞的是，在云南象群的迁徙过程中，中国政府采取了及时有效的应对措施，社会民众也在一直关注象群的迁徙安全。在五十年前，无论在世界上任何地方，人类倾向于杀死大象避免付出经济成本。而在当下中国，我们看到，中国政府相关部门为疏导象群而派出了数以千计的车辆、无人机和工作人员，在成功引导象群迁徙的同时避免了人象冲突。他强调，只有善意是不足够的，需要良好的保护政策，以避免把动物放在不合适的环境中并造成巨大破坏，这是一项复杂的任务。
António Duarte教授从人与大象的联系出发提出动物权利的问题。Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授认为，大象在亚洲文化中扮演者非常独特的角色，人们对大象的活动高度宽容，避免与它们发生冲突，但同时并不希望它们出现在自己周边。然而，当自然栖息地与人类聚集地有更多重合，且法律保护愈加完善时，大象自由进入人类社区的可能性增加，人们避免与大象发生冲突的意愿被侵蚀，许多人认为当局更关心大象而不是居民。人们支持环境与生态保护——保护老虎、大象和热带雨林——因为不必为此付出代价。
关于Mehmet Okyayuz教授所提“是否已有在人权框架下讨论该话题的理论领域和学者平台”的问题，Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授介绍了隶属于联合国系统的专业平台——世界自然保护联盟（The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN），该组织下设有专门的“人类野生动物冲突与共存专家小组”。他提到，目前人权问题并没有被非常明确地提出，大部分时间被处理的问题是保护大象以及保护人类免受大象侵害。如何共存，如何划定人类的容忍边界的问题十分紧迫，而人权没有被讨论太多。在过去一段时间里，一些委员会因保护大象或犀牛而侵犯人权的指控感到恐惧，这可能是一个比较好的切入点。
Peter Herrmann教授评价人与野生动物的关系是多阶段、多层次的过程，曾经的共存模式已经完全被摧毁，Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授同意该观点。他指出，几百年前，人类的生活方式可以防止与大象、老虎等野生动物发生冲突，这一互动关系随着人类社会的发展被彻底改变，问题在于未来应当如何达成共识。就Peter Herrmann教授进一步提出“人们不得不违背自己的利益去平衡整个系统”的观点，Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授回应道，在某些地广人稀的岛屿，似乎如果维持一般的人均资源消耗，似乎不会产生很大的问题。为了在人类的美好生活和生态系统中形成平衡需要作出妥协，而人权是一条红线，它将在一系列谈判和妥协过程中发挥作用。人类的存在将是短暂的，我们终将如我们到来时那样离去。
对于动物权利的实现形式问题，Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授认为河流、树木或大象当然不能作为“代表”参与这一讨论，需要人类站在合理权利立场上来参与。面对很多假设性的“人类没有最终决定权”的讨论，他认为，人类确实拥有更多的权利，这一点没有必要改变，需要思考的是如何行使权利。对于人类来说，未来会比过去更好，我们的生活和世界将得到改善。António Duarte教授认为，儿童权利也面临同样的问题，即儿童也与动物一样处于无法参与谈判的境地。另一方面，应该考虑到非人类的生物权利也是人权，即人类有权保护我们生态系统中其他生物的权利。Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz教授提出，“同情保护”的观点曾存在过一段时间，即生物有权不因为人类的干预而遭受痛苦。但他更加希望强调种群视角，而非“同情保护”的个体视角，即确保其生存权——种群是可持续的、能够繁衍、长期生存的——这一最重要的权利。新西兰曾就如何赋予自然生态系统权利进行了长时间的辩论，并认为河流具有“人权”，刨除法律的复杂性与实施问题，至少应当保障河流的清洁和正常的水循环，保持事物的良好状态是最基本的要求。
(Transcription: Shenfei Zhou, Tiantian Yu; Translation: Yaxing Bai)