November 12, 1999

CLEVELAND—Globalization has negatively affected the cause of human rights throughout the world, but there are signs that the world community is becoming increasingly alert to its dangers, two noted scholars said here Thursday in delivering a joint O. Frederick Nolde Memorial Lecture on Human Rights.

Speaking at a forum as part of an ongoing National Council of Churches (NCC) effort entitled "Pillars of Peace for the 21st Century," Dr. Janice Love and Dr. Charles Amjad-Ali warned of globalization’s threat to establishing a more equitable world.

The term "globalization" has multiple meanings but in the realm of economics refers to the lifting of government barriers on international trade and finance in an internationally based economic system. One effect of economic globalization, said Dr. Love, a professor of government and international studies at the University of South Carolina, has been the creation of what amounts to a "global sweatshop" in which millions "toil without receiving a living wage."

But another consequence is globalization’s effect on policy debates and theological discussions—stifling debate and discouraging a rethinking of ethical or moral values, particularly about economics.

"Anyone who (recently) has asserted the premise that democracy within the political realm requires some degree of democracy within the economic realm (has been) dismissed, ignored, or like Rasputin, deemed to have been asleep or even on another planet for a long time," Dr. Love said. "No longer could we even discuss publicly what economic foundations human community might need."

In the face of what Dr. Love called globalization’s "ideological overload," progressive thinkers "who hold dear the values of social, economic and ecological justice (have) seemed to be at something of a loss to imagine alternatives. We could critique but we could not constructively offer viable options."

But that environment is changing, Dr. Love said, partly as a result of threats to the global economic system, as witnessed by recent financial crises in Asia, Russia and Brazil. She said the Jubilee 2000 campaign—in which the NCC and other faith and non-governmental organizations have been urging a forgiveness of debt by large international lending organizations—has helped shift debate and demonstrated "the power of moral authority."

Indeed, the process of political and cultural globalization—in which groups have found common cause across national and cultural barriers—have helped reassert a vision of "the indivisibility of human rights" around the globe, Dr. Love said.

While addressing the issue of globalization, Dr. Amjad-Ali, who is the Martin Luther King Jr., Professor of Justice and Christian Community at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., spent much of his lecture examining the long history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"It must be recognized that universal claims made in the name of all are often, in practice, claims on behalf of deprived groups," Dr. Amjad-Ali said, noting the document’s continued relevance to the contemporary world.

Calling the Universal Declaration something of a sacred text to what writer Elie Wiesel has called "a world-wide secular religion," Dr. Amjad-Ali reminded his audience that the declaration was in large part the result of the international reaction to the Holocaust.

"The Holocaust laid bare what the world actually looked like when natural law was abrogated, when pure tyranny could accomplish its unbridled will," he said. "And because of the Holocaust, there could be no unconditional faith in the declaration, either."

The "Pillars of Peace for the 21st Century" program is an effort by the NCC’s International Justice and Human Rights Office to renew support by U.S. churches for the United Nations, as well as to build effective institutions for global governance in the 21st century.

The Nolde Lecture was named after Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, a long-time ecumenist and dean at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Dr. Nolde was among those who worked with Eleanor Roosevelt and others to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Lutheran Theological Seminary sponsored Thursday’s Nolde Lecture.