Tang Prize Rule of Law laureate urges greater transparency, accountability

Taipei, Sept. 28 (CNA) Fostering greater transparency and accountability of government and multinational corporate leaders is fundamental to ensuring rule of law principles, former Irish President Mary Robinson said Saturday, a day after receiving the 2024 Tang Prize in Rule of Law.

"We now face a moment in which the legitimacy of the rules-based international order, that has been so carefully built up over more than 75 years, could be on the verge of a complete unraveling," Robinson said in her lecture as Rule of Law laureate in Taipei.

Governments and private actors should be held accountable under laws that are clear, publicized, stable and applied evenly, she said in her talk, in which she highlighted the "severe erosion" of the rule of law and human rights around the world in recent years.

Over 6 billion people live in a country where the rule of law has weakened over the previous year, she said, citing the 2023 index issued by the World Justice Project, an international non-profit headquartered in Washington, D.C.

The same index also concluded that during less than a decade, key human rights indicators, including civic participation, freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, have declined at an alarming rate, she said.

Robinson viewed the United States government's decisions following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 as the onset of the "disturbing global trend."

She was referring to Washington's withdrawal from any legal obligation to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court in 2002 and the launch of a war in Iraq in 2003 with its allies without the authorization of the United Nations' Security Council.

"In the years since, the lack of any real accountability for those decisions has severely undermined faith in the international rule-based order," she said.

She went on to say that Russia's "unwarranted" and "brutal" invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and "the disproportionate response by the Israeli government in Gaza to the unspeakable Hamas terrorist attack" last October indicated the situation was now "even more precarious."

Robinson also denounced Western governments' reactions to the recent regional conflicts as a "double-standard," saying they had been "even more damaging" to the world's order, which required "the fair and consistent implementation of international law."

Born in 1944 in the north of Ireland, Robison had been a barrister, educator and member of parliament before being elected president in 1990, a ceremonial post she held for seven years.

She served as the U.N. high commissioner for human rights from 1997 and 2002 and the U.N. special envoy on climate and other initiatives from 2014 to 2016.

Speaking at a press event after the lecture, Robinson, a long-time advocate for human rights, appeared more reserved when discussing human rights conditions in China.

"When I served as U.N. high commissioner for human rights, I was very interested in working to promote human rights in China, but do it in a way that showed that I was really concerned about human rights for the people of China, not politics."

"That is why I gave credit for the work that China did in taking the people out of poverty and supporting economic and social rights," Robinson said, noting that she was also "a strong voice" on civil and political abuses, such as arbitrary detentions, in China.