REFORM 2005 PLATFORM
| "That is why we have started Appeal for Amnesty, 1961. The campaign, which opens to-day, is the result of an initiative by a group of lawyers, writers and publishers in London, who share the underlying conviction expressed by Voltaire: "I detest your views, but am prepared to die for your right to express them." We have set up an office in London to collect information about the names, numbers, and conditions of what we have decided to call "Prisoners of Conscience;" and we define them thus: "Any person who is physically restrained (by imprisonment or otherwise) from expressing (in any form of words or symbols) any opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence." We also exclude those people who have conspired with a foreign government to overthrow their own." Peter Benenson, London Observer, May 1961. <http://www.hrweb.org/ai/observer.html> |
FOCUS ON THE INDIVIDUAL VICTIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND MAINTAIN AI'S STRENGTHS AND REPUTATION FOR IMPARTIALITY
- The Board should ensure that AI continues its priority on individual
prisoners of conscience (POCs), "disappearances," and on
abolition of torture and the death penalty. We see helping individual
victims (such as freeing POCs and saving torture victims) as an end
to itself and not merely as a means to systemic change. In particular,
we believe that the International Secretariat's (IS) approach to our
work has diminished AI's historic commitment to such individual victims.
Moreover, we are concerned that the IS's decision to focus on the
19 countries for which it has created Country Action Programs may
signal to other human rights abusers (such as Belarus, Cuba, Guatemala,
Haiti, Myanmar, Pakistan, Peru, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Uzbekistan,
and Vietnam) a reduced Amnesty International focus on violations there,
which would possibly endanger human rights activists and others there.
To address these issues:
1. The Board should instruct the International Council Meeting (ICM) delegation to work to (a) change the international Global Impact Goal (GIG) on human rights defenders to include POCs, utilizing the tools of committed long-term casework; (b) ensure that the annual report will include an entry on every country, and (c) maintain the capacity to do work on POCs, torture, and disappearances on all countries.
2. The Board should press the IS to report every three months on the IS's and sections' efforts on traditional AI work (POCs, fair trials, torture, and disappearances/extra-judicial executions).
3. The Board should press the International Executive Committee to create a temporary process to allow AI groups to appeal IS decisions to close action files.
4. The Board should ensure that all campaigns and pilot work on economic, social, and cultural rights include work on behalf of individual victims.
- We support AI's current mission, adopted in 2001, which is to prevent and end grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights. Accordingly, as AI absorbs this current mission:
5. The Board should instruct the ICM delegation to work to ensure that the 2007 ICM considers adopting a definition of "grave abuses," which currently is undefined.
6. The Board should instruct the ICM delegation to vote to postpone any further change in mission, at least until 2007.[ref: Amnesty Unbound or Undone by Gay Gardner and Thesil Morlan, 2001]
- We believe AI's credibility and reputation for independence and impartiality are among its most valuable assets. To ensure that work on domestic abuses does not inadvertently cloud AIUSA's credibility:
7. The Board should monitor the balance between AIUSA's work on domestic (USA) human rights abuses and work on international abuses and study the impact on AI's reputation of USA work and, until completion of the study, maintain the current balance between USA and international work.
8. The Board should issue guidelines for staff and activists on AIUSA (a) public statements with regard to political issues and (b) coalitions with other non-governmental organizations that may raise impartiality questions.
SUPPORT AIUSA AS A GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION THAT SHARES LEADERSHIP BETWEEN STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS
- To strengthen multiculturalism in AIUSA's membership:
9. The Board should support international youth activism (including an International Youth Assembly at the 2005 International Council Meeting)and ensure implementation of the 2003 AGM decision 5 that called on steering committees and other leadership bodies to "take concrete, affirmative steps to recruit youth" members.
10. The Board should support creation and implementation of a strategic plan to reach out to Latinos and Latinas, in accordance with 2004 AGM decision P-4.
11. The Board should work to improve the accessibility of the AIUSA Annual General Meeting and regional conferences to members by reviewing travel subsidies and by using new technology.
- To strengthen AIUSA's tradition of sharing leadership between its staff and activists:
12. The Board should ensure that new staff and volunteer leaders receive training and information about AI's and AIUSA's history, traditions, and methods of operating.
13. The Board should facilitate shared decision-making between staff and volunteer leadership by requiring training of volunteer leaders and staff on the role of volunteer leadership and conflict resolution.
14. The Board should ensure that AIUSA's next Executive Director and his/her senior program staff (a) have experience working with grassroots organizations and (b) support AIUSA as a grassroots organization with shared decision-making between staff and volunteers.
- To ensure that AIUSA works in a unified way to maximize our human rights victories:
15. The Board should request the Executive Director to develop and implement a plan to encourage staff and volunteer leaders from different programs to integrate their work.
PROMOTE OPEN AND ACCOUNTABLE DECISION-MAKING
- To increase membership participation in AIUSA decision-making:
16. The Board should ensure that the deadline for becoming an AIUSA voting member to vote at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) should be the same as the AGM pre-registration deadline. (The same should be true for any voting requirement for regional conferences.)
17. The Board should set conference/AGM fees for non-members to be equal to the fee for members plus the annual membership fee, and encourage non-members both to join AIUSA and register for the regional conferences or AGM at the same time.
- To strengthen AIUSA's culture of accountability:
18. The Board should ensure implementation of the 2002-2006 AIUSA strategic plan and report to the membership on the implementation.
19. The Board should implement its commitment to a five-year cycle of reviewing AGM resolutions and report to the membership each year. The Board will ensure that the AGM Decisions database is updated frequently with respect to implementation.